SL_JenniferWeiner_Department_Dept 5 / 14 / 19 1 : 39 PM Page 1 story Getting Personal WITH THE RELEASE OF HER LATEST BOOK MRS . EVERYTHING DUE OUT IN JUNE , BESTSELLING AUTHOR AND FORMER PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER WRITER JENNIFER WEINER TELLS US ABOUT OWNING ONLY ONE TELEVISION , FINDING INSPIRATION it out , until I realized that she was trying to AT PRINCETON AND HER PREFERRED DAILY READING MATERIAL . say “ Overture . ” loves everyone 7 . I love to cook , but I’m not a great i 1 . I always wanted to be a writer . I n the family , but I’m her baker : too much precision . However , I always loved reading , and as soon as I person . She’s within five feet of me at almost have found that Joan Natha figured out that there were actual , living all times . She naps at my feet while I’m n’s challah is al - people who made up writing and sleeps tuc up under my most impossible to screw up , and I’ve been ked stories , I knew that knees at night . making it every Friday afternoon to serve to was the job for me . my family for Shabbat dinner on Friday night . 2 . We only have one television set on our house . Growing up , I wasn’t allowed 8 . The best cookbook I’ve discovered to watch non - PBS TV . While my peers grew is Samin Nosrat’s Salt , Fat , Acid , Heat . up on The Brady Bunch and Happy Days I love cookbooks that explain the science of and Dukes of Hazzard , I got books . And c now I have serious gaps in my pop - culture ooking in ways a non - scientist can under - knowledge , but I became a life - long reader , stand , while also telling the stories behind a habit I’m hoping to instill in my daughters . the dishes . This book does both , and it’s also set up in a way that each recipe has 3 . I graduated from Princeton in 1991 . endless variations . Lately , my husband and I While have been playing around with her pork I was there , I studied creative writing shoulder with chilis , substituting pomegranate with Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison , molasses for some of the heat . and non - fiction with John McPhee . I gradu - ated in 1991 , and John McPhee was the one 9 . My all - time favorite beach book is who encouraged me to get a job writing for 5 . My new favorite daily routine is get - Susan Isaac’s Shining Through . It’s a small , local newspaper , where I’d see a ting a poem emailed to me each day about new part of the count from Poets.org , the Academy of American a smart , funny secretary in New York ry , and write every Poets website . Last month , Tracy K . Smith , City , at the start of World War II , who’s day . I worked for a small paper in central the United States Poet Laureate , curated the hopelessly in love with her married boss , Pennsylvania , a larger paper in Lexington , selections , which highlighted the work and who ends up Kentucky , and I moved to Philadelphia to f saving the world . It’s o work for the Inquirer in 1994 . younger and emerging poets . I love sitting funny and gripping , with an unforgettable down to my own writing with those rhythms heroine and the happiest of happy endings . 4 . The two dogs I’ve owned as an adult and images in my head . have both been rescue rat terriers . My 10 . I try to exercise four or five days a ni first little guy , We 6 . My older daughter , Lucy , ndell , was adopted — my is a soph - week , not to lose weight , but for the ipriaphysical roommate and I found him listed in the omore in high school and a theater and mental health benefits . I do barre C a classified ads of the newspaper where we geek . She’s stage - managed just about every classes , yoga , outdoor boot camps ndrewhen worked . “ One dog , small , spotted , show her middle school and high school he weather’s nice , and I’m a very slow t free to a A f has put on runner . Once , my hus - band and I did a good home . ” Wendell lived to be 17 and , and wants to work in otheater sy race on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City — he saw me all through my 20s , and into marriage when she’s done with school . Which urteis did a 10K , and I and mother - hood . It took me over a year fitting . When she was little , I’d play her did a 5K , and when it was co o bef Broadway musical sound - tracks in the car . over , we went to the Borgata and sat in the ore I was ready for another dog . I hotwanted One day , she was in her car seat , and she hot tub and got massages at the spa . That one because I wanted my girls to have a p op n kept yelling , “ Ocher ! Ocher ! ” I couldn’t figure was a good day . pet , and so we got Moochie in 2011 . She T SUBURBANLIFEMAGAZINE.COM MAY 2019 | 45