Chow down, dude

You had an awkward online exchange with the food blogger Julie Powell recently. Can you walk me through what happened?

Oh, yeah. I got her book, "Julie and Julia," for my wife for Valentine's Day, and I read it and thought: That's fantastic! And in Achewood, I write about stuff that I read and do in life. So when I wrote about her, I didn't intend to start up an exchange. But then somebody sent me a link to Powell's blog, where she talked about seeing the comic and basically summed it up in one word: "creepy."

I thought ... Oh my gosh. If you don't know Achewood, and you're well established, you might see it and go: "Oh, there's this creepy little badly drawn comic strip making a weird adult reference to my work? I don't like that" -- I absolutely understand her perspective. I'm not going to do anything weird and send her a signed copy or anything.

That's probably shrewd.

I loved her project, though. I'm actually doing something a little bit like it now with the Bacon-of-the-Month Club my wife signed me up for. I'm trying to document my year's worth of bacon experiments.

So the Julie Powell "Julie and Julia" thing was the seed of that project?

More or less. You can't look at in any other way, actually. I read a book about documenting a yearlong project ... and then I start my yearlong project.

Have you had Nueske's bacon from Wisconsin?

I've only had one of these so far, so I'm a total amateur. But if it's a renowned artisanal bacon, I'm sure it'll be showing up at some point during the year.

OK, well, if Nueske's isn't on there, you should let me know. We can get it around here in Minnesota. It's fantastic; R.W. Apple called it "the Rolls Royce of rashers."

Nice. Yeah, the more I learn about bacon, and the more I hear from the British readers, "American bacon is crispy little strips of paper. It's nasty stuff. We want thick stuff. We want stuff that's more akin to a pork chop in our bacon." So we'll see.

Speaking personally as a blogger who once invoked the word "foodie" when writing about your strip, I'm now painfully aware that this is not a term you care for. What's your distaste for the word "foodie"?

The first time I ever heard a friend say it, the hair on the back of my neck stood up, my gut twisted, and I felt angry for some reason. Why do we need this fake new word? There are so many words that already describe the concept of people who like food, or enjoy cooking, or enjoy knowing about cooking. "Foodie": It's like the infantile diminutive -- you put a "y" on the end of everything to make it childlike. We don't need it. It's embarrassing. "I'm a foodie." Oh my God.

As a fan of good food -- as an epicurean, or gourmand, or however you want to frame it -- what's your take on molecular gastronomy?

If people want to do something that's creative and they're having fun, go for it. That's great. Push the envelope -- it's not like we know everything there is to do yet. You know, I watch these shows about Ferran Adrià and Grant Achatz and that [Homaro] Cantu who was just on "Iron Chef," and I see them, and I see the way the judges and customers are reacting to their food and it's exciting. I wouldn't make fun of it if I didn't like it.

Tell me a little bit about one of your creations, "The Dude and Catastrophe."

"The Dude and Catastrophe" is the fictitious pub started by Cornelius Bear who is sort of my older Anglophile man-of-the-world-type character. It's like a Cheers-type place.

Is it sort of a fantasy project for down the line -- could it become a real place?

If I get rich and retire, yeah.

Do you have a sense of when your next cookbook will come out and what the theme will be?

I've been writing it since I did the last one, and over time the project has morphed into something that's naturally about the next level of cooking. It's a higher-end cookbook. It's not going to be anything with a two-page spread of Jamie Oliver in a hipster T-shirt or anything, but it is going to be something that assumes a bigger pantry, and a greater set of tools, and a little bit of cooking knowledge.

I've been doing so much growing as a home cook over the last few years, and as a scholar of ... uh ... did I just say that? A cookbook scholar. My own approach to food has changed so much since I did that last cookbook that I'd like to -- oh, God -- I'd like to say it will be done this summer, but we've got so many projects in the works right now.

How has your own approach to cooking changed and evolved?

I'm familiar with more tastes, I've got more distinct opinions on how things should be served. You know, when I make a pasta dinner for the family, I want everyone to be sitting because every second that you wait, it gets colder. I want steam to be rising off of everything when I set it down. I'm more sensitive to moisture. Just the basic things that you don't have a touch for when you haven't done it before. I'm more comfortable with butter. I could go on and on.

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