We checked in with Sue Frause and Peter Miller about their Unscripted Center Conversation Series event on November 24. Here is what they had to say:

Sue, you're no stranger to the WICA stage and will be sitting down with fellow storyteller Peter Miller. What are you looking forward to discussing?

Sue Frause: Peter Miller appeared several times on WICA's popular Kitsch 'n Bitch series, two dozen shows I hosted from 2011-2019 featuring local and celebrity cooks and chefs, food demonstrations, signature cocktails and live music. And now, with four books to his credit in the past decade, Peter has many more tales to tell from his kitchen. And that's what Peter excels at—being both a wonderful writer and equally engaging storyteller. Oh, and a damn fine cook! As far as the categories of his books, he describes them as manuals about cooking, food and eating together. A trio of topics that are near and dear to so many people, especially during these turbulent times. I'm so looking forward to being in conversation again with Peter here on WICA's Main Stage. As Julia Child would say during her famous TV signoff, Bon Appetit! 

Peter, your most recent book, Shopkeeping, is now available to purchase. Why did you choose to pursue this subject for the book?

Peter Miller: From one perspective, a shopkeeper is a particular part to a community. They have chosen to open a shop. Most people do not open a shop. They visit them, they go into them, they experience them, as a new presentation. Oh, let us go in here, or I need boots, or mustard, or Proust or new glasses, to drink or to wear. And you go to a shop. It may be new or you may have long ago adopted it to your repertoire of what you do or what you need. You visit. To write about a shop, I realized, was to tell the stories of it. You plot the start of a shop—the name, the product, the colors—but that is only the start. Much of what it represents and becomes is an unfolding, a relationship to its location and to needs and to people.

Can you tell us about the book?

Peter Miller: Shopkeeping is a small book, from a fine design publisher, who loved the premise. The drawings are by Colleen Miller, who has a teaching studio for drawing just up the street from Grey Horse. The only way through the book is to read it, word for word, tale for tale. If you can come to the lecture, you will hear some of the tales, and some that are not written out.  Shopkeeping is as much about reading and storytelling as it is about shops 

What do you hope viewers will take away from the book?

Peter Miller: It is hoped that if an audience can hear and listen and read the story, and backstory, of a shop, then their sense of it is at least partly more intricate. It is not unlike learning the details of growing a fine tomato, or perfect varieties of lettuce, or choosing the precise flour for your dough—each gives you a better sense of what is involved. You give the tomato and the grower some attention.

For more information about the Unscripted Center Conversation Series, visit wicaonline.org/events-calendar-view/frausemiller.