Andrea Oskis: 'Writing about food is fun – I love finding new and interesting ways to describe it'
BY Maya Fernandes
3rd Feb 2025
Andrea Oskis was a student on our six-month Writing Your Novel course in 2022. We caught up to discuss her debut book, The Kitchen Shrink – out now from Bloomsbury.
We spoke to Andrea about the development of her book, her background as a psychotherapist and her passion for writing about food.
Andrea, you were a student on our six-month Writing Your Novel course in 2022. How did studying with us shape the way you approach your writing now?
Where do I start?! There are so many ways. Although it might seem a little odd that I joined a novel-writing course and ended up publishing a non-fiction book, I learned so much about technique that was invaluable, from how to craft an opening to how to write effective dialogue. I also learned a lot about the writing process and myself as a writer, namely that I’m a planner and not a pantser! The six-month long course allowed the time and space for my ideas to evolve, and to craft them according to the feedback I received. That was one of the main ways that studying with CBC shaped the way I approach my writing now; I don’t hesitate to seek feedback from trusted others. I’ve learned that sometimes others can see things you can’t in your writing, or they can help you get nearer to an idea.
A lot of our students end up finding their writing community on our courses – are you still in touch with any of your course mates?
Yes, my course mates are a brilliant bunch of people, and we are still in touch. I am so grateful for their feedback on my writing, which has all found its way into The Kitchen Shrink. We have a very active WhatsApp group, and along the way there have been some lovely get-togethers (all involving food of course).
The Kitchen Shrink mixes food writing with personal reflection, as well as your background as a psychotherapist. How did you approach this balance?
It was a real balancing act. I always knew that I wanted food to be the star of each short story, and to be the way into the deeper conversations about love, loss and mental health. As was once said, “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are,” so first and foremost, I let the food ‘talk.’ But I also knew that I needed to balance my patients’ voices with my own; I needed to talk too, because as a psychotherapist, all I have is myself when I’m working with a patient. Years ago, someone said I should write a therapy book like The Secret Barrister, and that really stayed with me. I think the reader is often curious to know more about the writer, so I took the opportunity with my personal reflections to show that psychotherapists are human beings, just like the rest of us.
You’re represented by the Geller office, can you tell us a bit about how you worked with your agent and editor to bring The Kitchen Shrink to life? Were there any key moments where their feedback really shifted things for the better?
I do feel like I have the dream team of agents: Jonny, Viola and Ciara each bring something so unique to the table, and it’s been this way since the start. Initially, we worked editorially on my proposal to get it into the best shape to send out to publishers. I was lucky that they loved so much of the writing, but they had some suggestions about changing the order of the chapters, for example placing the memoir chapters later on in the book, so that the reader got to know the professional me before the personal me. So, we did some rejigging! My editor Katy also wanted more of me in the book, so we added more personal reflection. I’m really happy with the result – the book mirrors an emotional journey, a bit like the one you go on in therapy.
Food has always played such a strong role in storytelling. What is it about food that you find so fascinating to write about?
I think because food is something we cannot survive without; it’s part of our lives from the moment we are born, where it turns up with the person who takes care of us. Food comes with a relationship, whether we like it or not. So, it’s completely relational, which means it’s a placeholder for significant feelings. No one has summed this up better or more beautifully than the American food writer MFK Fisher. She said, “It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others,” which is just so true. But aside from that, writing about food is fun – I love finding new and interesting ways to describe it.
How do you hope readers will feel after finishing The Kitchen Shrink? Is there a particular takeaway or message you’re hoping to leave them with?
The most important message is that our relationships matter for who we are, how we love and for our mental health and wellbeing, and actually a lot of our formative relationship experiences involve food. I hope that readers will never look at their plates in the same way again.
Were there any authors or books that influenced your writing style or the way you approached this book?
For the food side, Nora Ephron’s Heartburn and Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking had a huge influence on the structure and tone of the book; I knew I wanted recipes woven into the narrative and as a narrator I wanted to be warm and welcoming, with a sprinkling of humour too. I felt at home with that writing style because it reflected who I was as a therapist; I wanted to show readers that not all psychotherapists wear suits, smoke cigars and act like blank slates! Getting away from that caricature and showing readers what the conversations in therapy were really like was important to me. For the therapy side, Stephen Grosz’s The Examined Life, and also Irvin Yalom’s Love’s Executioner, influenced the structure of the book and the use of short stories. When people ask me to describe The Kitchen Shrink, I’ve often said ‘imagine Nora Ephron having dinner with Stephen Grosz!’
What’s next for you? Can readers expect more books in the same vein as The Kitchen Shrink, or are you heading in a different direction for your next project?
I have a lot more food stories to tell, so I would love to write The Kitchen Shrink: Second Helpings. Then again, it might be time to return to the novel that brought me to CBC in the first place...
Get your hands on a copy of The Kitchen Shrink.
The books linked in this blog can be found on our Bookshop.org shop front. Curtis Brown Creative receive 10% whenever someone buys from our bookshop.org page.