Chow down, dude

Chris Onstad, author of the popular Web comic Achewood, talks about writing for guys who own one pan, dreaded foodies, and why he's a member of the Bacon-of-the-Month Club.

By James Norton

Read more: Comics, Life, Eat and Drink, Food and Travel

April 10, 2007 | Web cartoonist Chris Onstad describes the genesis of his comic culinary work, "The Achewood Cookbook," as follows: "I was sitting there looking at that massive "French Laundry Cookbook," which is essentially useless to any home cook, and I thought: Well, fuck this. I think it would be fun, and it would be a great challenge, to take on a project for guys who are just out of college and have one pan and one electric burner."

Praised by Time magazine for its novelistic depth and now clocking around 10,000,000 page views a month, Onstad's Achewood is a rare bird: a Web comic with a massive following. It's also one of the only strips in any medium to tackle the nuances of the culinary world, riffing off of molecular gastronomy and eggless Sardinian pasta the way most strips work with put-upon wives and clumsy oversize dogs.

The epicurean tendencies of Achewood emerge organically from its author's commanding -- and borderline obsessive -- interest in cookbooks, and his almost militarily perfectionist brand of home cooking. But it's not the cooking that holds his audience's attention. It's his well-developed cast of characters, many of whom just happen to be seriously into good food.

"There's such a variety of characters in the strips that I always have something for some of them to say. Or one of them always reflects the way that I feel about something, in their mentality, or their approach to life. I guess you could say that I'm dodeca-schizophrenic," Onstad explains.

Salon reached Onstad by phone at his home south of San Francisco and spoke with him about his awkward online interchange with culinary author Julie Powell, why he despises the word "foodie," and his increasingly passionate Bacon-of-the-Month blog.

Obviously, you're a smart guy, and your comics have been praised for their novelistic style. So what drew you to Web comics, as opposed to actually writing novels, or doing screenwriting or literary journalism?

It's easier. [Laughs] I can bang out a little funny idea and put it up, and I can get a little feedback from people. I think feedback is a really important thing. You can work on a novel in the dark by yourself for 10 years, and it's a lonely, hard thing if you're doing it right. But with Achewood, knowing it was making people happy and entertained along the way kept me going.

Cooking and eating have become pervasive themes in the strip. Do you worry that some percentage of your readership just has no interest in what you're talking about when you get into vegan substitutions or molecular gastronomy?

I do not and cannot care. I have to write about what interests me the most. If I don't write about what interests me, it's not going to interest anyone else. And you know, it's the same thing -- oftentimes I'll sit here, and I'll be writing a strip, and I'll make a reference to a uniquely American thing and I'll go, Oh, well, I've got a lot of readers in the United Kingdom and Australia, and they're not going to get it. But then I think: But you know what? I watch and adore British comedies and oftentimes I don't get the references, but I can appreciate the completeness and the honesty of it. So I try not to dumb it down, and I try not to think for other people.

How did you personally get into cooking?

My whole life I did nothing but enjoy eating, but when I met my wife she was a bit more of a cook than I was. She spent time in Italy in college. And since she's mostly vegetarian and I'm mostly omnivorous, we have to do a lot of homework finding stuff that fits both of us. And I'm competitive, and I really want to do a good job with these things and impress people. Also, my wife worked for Williams-Sonoma, so we got just tremendous deals on high-end cookware that we wouldn't normally have been able to afford.

Do you have a favorite cookbook?

The one that I turn to most often is probably "Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques." It's basically like a cooking school between two covers. Everything from how to butterfly a chicken to trussing to stocks and all that sort of thing. It's a go-to book. And lately, I've really been getting a lot of use out of the new Mario Batali "Molto Italiano" book. It's sort of his masterpiece. But also a lot of Patricia Wells stuff, a lot of Julia Child, a lot of Chez Panisse -- you know, we're here in California, it can't be avoided.

And how about food television? Are there any personalities you follow?

I watch it all. But I find the best stuff right now is on public television on Sundays. You can catch Jacques Pepin, you can catch Rick Bayless -- those are shows I've been getting into a lot.

Do you like Christopher Kimball from "America's Test Kitchen"?

I love anything that's well done. The people at "America's Test Kitchen" put a lot of effort into it and it's sincere. I think it's enormously useful. And Kimball's just this goofy, 8-foot-tall nerd. It's fantastic. I describe him as a Yankee Wookie.

How did "The Achewood Cookbook" come to be?

Basically, I was sitting around looking at that massive "French Laundry Cookbook," which is essentially useless to any home cook, and I thought: Well, fuck this. I think it would be fun, and it would be a great challenge, to take on a project for guys who are just out of college and have one pan and one electric burner. And because of where I was with Achewood at the time, I thought: This is a thing for young guys. It'll connect well with my young readership. So I went to some chain grocery store like Albertsons and bought ground beef and some eggs and mustard and worked up about 50 recipes for various things ranging from cocktails to Scotch eggs.

Next page: A "creepy" exchange with Julie Powell