Pro chef Marisa Churchill has a delicious new read for us! Her debut novel, Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate, hit shelves in December, and we’re excited to have an inside look at how she brought her culinary expertise into the world of YA fantasy.
Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate is a magical YA culinary drama that follows 14-year-old Sylvie Jones. Sylvie is balancing powerful spells with spellbinding recipes in an attempt to attend Brindille School of Culinary Arts and Magic and redeem her family name. Sylvie’s best bet at achieving her dreams is winning the prestigious magical cooking competition, The Golden Whisk, but she’s going to need to be more than a good cook. Sylvie will need to win, uncover secrets to clear her mother’s name, and find allies in a cutthroat environment where spells are flying.
If there’s one thing Marisa knows, it’s food. With a degree in baking & pastry from the California Culinary Academy and training from the Culinary Institute of America at Greystone, Marisa has carried generations of passion for food (on both sides of her family!) to incredible places, Top Chef, Food Network, Greece’s Alpha network, and Hallmark’s Home & Family cooking segments. With all of these accomplishments, it’s hard to believe Marisa needed anything else, but she wanted a creative challenge. She says Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate was “a new way to express [herself] and challenge [her] mind creatively.”
This project was different than publishing a cookbook. (Marisa has two.) “When I think about writing a cookbook, it’s like planting a tree and watching it grow. It isn’t easy, but it’s not a superhuman feat,” Marisa shared. “But writing a novel is different. It’s like birthing a baby. It involves a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. At the end of it all, you’ve cut out a piece of your heart and given it its own new place in the world.”
Her new baby is “partly inspired by the real world of culinary arts, including [her] experiences on Top Chef and Food Network Challenge.” Marisa shared that cooking competitions are a “very stressful and emotional experience” that she wanted to share with readers. These experiences are paired with inspiration from Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie (The World Pastry Cup), a bit of real-world magic she thinks the whole world needs to keep up with. “The chocolate and sugar show pieces that are created at that competition are absolutely mind-blowing. The Coupe du Monde is huge in Europe and Asia, but in the US, a lot of people have never even heard of it. Hopefully, now that will change. If you are not familiar with it, I encourage you to Google it and watch a video. Even without spells, chocolate and sugar are magical.”
A professional fascination with food was the perfect side dish to the magical spells Marisa’s characters cast as they battle for The Golden Whisk. An added perk was getting to share some expert knowledge with her readers, like the downfalls of chocolate chips. “The reason chocolate chips hold their shape is because most of the cocoa butter has been removed and replaced with wax or oil. It’s the Velveeta cheese of the chocolate world.” She saw another magical cooking fantasy that used chocolate chips in a recipe, and knew she needed to show readers the full extent of food magic, including strange ingredients like snake gourds, butterfly peas, and glowing mushrooms!
Marisa made it a priority to infuse one important aspect of cooking in the plot of Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate. “There’s a line in the book ‘Sylvie’s mom once told her that every recipe told a story. A moment in time, a person, a place, woven together with a series of ingredients.’ For me, that’s where the magic of cooking really exists. Both of my grandmothers heavily influenced me. Sadly, they’ve both passed away. But when I make certain recipes, perfectly, so that they taste exactly the way they tasted when my grandmothers made them, it’s like I’m traveling back in time. Once again, they’re sitting right next to me.”
Alongside Marisa’s grandmothers, other real-life influences in the book include the CCA and the CIA at Greystone which inspired Brindille. “Also, some of the characters in the book were inspired by chefs I know,” she shared. “I met Big Shawn in culinary school. Madame Godard the headmistress was inspired by Dominique Crenn, the only female chef in the US to attain three Michelin stars. . . Guy Fabre is also a character that was inspired by a real chef, Hubert Keller. There is one character in the book that is 100% real, that’s Maggie Leung. She was a very good friend of mine and an extremely talented pastry chef. Sadly, she lost her battle with cancer at age 39. I’d like to think she’s smiling down, loving that I turned her into a YA fantasy character.”
Secrets, Spells, and Chocolate is out now, so you can follow Sylvie and her competitors, Georgia and Flora, as they cast delicious spells. Marisa shared she hopes that Sylvie’s story is a reminder to “Never give up and always fight for your dreams.”
