Catching up with . . . Jane Snow

Jane Snow and her husband with his family

When I saw the story in the Beacon Journal about former Akron Beacon Journal food writer Jane Snow crafting the menu for the Sept. 11 Sapphire Ball benefit for Summa Health System's Women's Health Services, I emailed Jane for more details.

Here's her reply:

Hi, John.

Great to hear from you. I haven't been to New Orleans in so long I can't advise you, but I did find an interesting site that lists locals' favorites:

New Orleans

I hope you and Paula have a great time.

As for the rest of your questions, I'd be delighted to respond:

I helped design the menu and provided some recipes for the Sapphire Ball. Officially I was chairman of the food committee, although the committee consisted of just me and ball chairwoman Mary Ann Jackson. She asked, and I couldn't think fast enough to say no.

I'm keeping busy with book signings and my weekly Internet newsletter, See Jane Cook. The latter is the successor to Second Helpings, which the Beacon Journal dropped abruptly (i.e., no advance notice) a year after I left the newspaper in 2006.

Former BJ advertising VP Mitch Allen picked up the newsletter and has been publishing it ever since. He sells the ads and his staff does the technical stuff. Mitch owns the cool little shopper, Mimi Vanderhaven's Fabulous Buys. I freelance for him occasionally. The signup for my newsletter is free. (Click on headline to go to Jane's newsletter web site.)

My cookbook, Jane Snow Cooks, is in its fifth printing. Published last October by the University of Akron Press, it is a compilation of the best recipes from my 24 years as the Beacon Journal's food editor (I was there 28 years altogether).

It's available in local bookstores, from Amazon and directly from the University of Akron press 

I have endured and mostly enjoyed the hectic speaking and book-signing schedule the AU Press lined up for me. And it continues, with seven more this month and next (Sept. and Oct. 2010). I figure at some point everyone will have a copy of the book and I can just stay home.

I'm trying to make time to start a second book, with little success so far. As you know, I married a sushi chef/restaurateur just after leaving the newspaper, and last year we got permanent custody of Tony's 16-year-old son.

I became a first-time mom at age 60, for crying out loud. We have teen-aged boys in and out of the house constantly, and I feel like I'm cooking for a battalion. It's kind of fun...most of the time.

Occasionally I help out at Tony's restaurant, Sushi Katsu in the Merriman Valley. He likes to keep me in the back, doing dishes.

Tony is a sushi master from Japan. His parents, whom I adore, visited us for three months this summer. I haven't visited Japan yet.

That will have to wait until Tony retires, because he's the only chef at his restaurant and works six days a week with no real vacations.

We're having a ball, though, on our two acres in Copley.

Here's a photo we took of the whole family on Tony's cherished 1955 Allis-Chalmers tractor.

This is long, so edit at will. That's the first time you've ever heard me say that, eh?

-- Jane Snow

Click on the headline to go to Jane's cooking web site.