Growing up, Roselle Lim was a huge fan of the Japanese TV show Iron Chef. In fact, the cutthroat cooking competition served as inspiration for Lim’s new YA fantasy novel,Celestial Banquet (Sweet July/Zando, June 3). “I wanted something even more intense [than Iron Chef], Lim says. “What would happen if you took the same concept but added in some deadly elements?” The book, set in a vivid pan-Asian world, follows Cai, a young, ambitious, food-obsessed noodle chef who dreams of becoming a contestant in the Celestial Banquet competition. The prize is priceless—a peach of immortality—but the cost of participation is high, and many contestants don’t survive. Kirkus’ review calls it “delicious and dangerous, with a side helping of romance.” We spoke with Lim over Zoom from her home in Ontario, Canada. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

You’ve established yourself as a writer of adult fiction; what made you decide to turn to YA for this one? 

Loving Iron Chef as I did as a teen, I basically wrote a book I would have liked to have read at that age. Just something really fun, something exciting. That was around the same time that The Mummy movie [1999] came out, and I really loved that sort of lighthearted, flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants adventure. 

Interestingly, I’ve found that YA pacing is a lot more torrid. The pacing of my other novels tends to be more like a nice stroll in the park; this is more like being on a roller coaster. 

How did food come to take on such a prominent role in your life and in your books? 

I’ve always been a discerning eater; even as a kid I was obsessed with food, and I was attached to my grandma, who loves to cook. I’d watch her, but she’d also let me help if I could—chicken adobo, kare-kare, leche flan. I find that participating in the ritual of making food shapes you. You have a better appreciation for all the effort that someone goes through to present you with food you love.

When I write about food, I think about the aroma, the texture, the taste. The way I describe it in my books is how I experience it. All my books feature food in some way. But Celestial Banquet and my debut [Natalie Tan’s Book of Luck & Fortune, 2019] are the most food-centered. In my debut, the protagonist is also a cook, and the book even includes my father’s recipes. 

I see elements from many different Asian cultures in the worldbuilding for Celestial Banquet; even the names of the characters reflect considerable diversity. How did you come up with this fascinatingly pan-Asian world? 

I went to school for humanities and history and specialized in East Asian studies. Nowadays, people will say, “Oh, you have a liberal arts degree? What are you going to do with that?” This is one of those ways to use it, because thanks to all that study, you get to know the nuances and history behind major events, what causes conflict and so forth. So it was really about using my university degree in a helpful way. I’ve taken all these courses—I might as well make use of that experience!

Readers have said that my books are cinematic. They can picture everything in their heads when they’re reading them, which is how I want it to be, because when I write something, I always picture it with set design in mind. Everything has a place and a purpose. 

I read in an interview that you keep a bullet journal when writing a book. Could you elaborate on how you find it helpful? 

For one, I’ll use my journal to track words. Every 1,000 or 2,000 words, I’ll draw a picture, and I also draw charts. And then I find that it really helps if you have a picture of the characters, so I will have a page dedicated to each of them. That way, you always have a reference shot. It’s sort of like a bio sheet, which writers do create, but this way they’re all together [in one notebook]. 

I’ll also have another section where I ask myself, What are the themes in the book? Some themes might be: the politics of food, food swamps, food deserts, the ethics of meat, classes, classism, food insecurity, and poverty. 

But the main reason why I like bullet journaling when working on a book is that you have a scrapbook at the end, when your book is done, that you can look through and think, Yeah, I did all this.

So you went to college and majored in East Asian studies. Was it after that that you decided to become a writer? Or was it something you’d wanted to pursue since you were young?

I grew up with my grandma reading me comics or telling me Filipino folktales, so there was a love of story from a young age. I actually used to write fan fiction, too. But my third grade teacher told me that my grammar was so bad that I would never end up being a writer. However, I am my father’s daughter, meaning there’s a pettiness that runs in the family. Whenever my teacher criticized my writing, I’d think, I’ll prove you wrong.

I didn’t, though, really pursue writing until I had a kid. That’s when I thought, OK, I’ve got to sit down and really be serious about this. I’ve got to dedicate time, find really good critique partners. I just knew it was time to get serious with writing.

You went to art school for a year. You drew the beautiful map inside Celestial Banquet, and I love the glimpse of the bullet journal you’ve shown me. It must be so fulfilling to think of ways to combine your love of art and writing. 

I view writing as painting with words, and I view art as articulating ideas on paper, through shapes and forms. They’re very interchangeable for me.

Any favorite responses to your books? 

I really like when readers tell me, “You made me feel seen.” That’s so touching because I know that when I was growing up, I could only look towards Amy Tan, basically feeling, OK, this is the one mirror that I can find. Now we live in a day and age where there are more writers of color bringing different types of lenses that you can look through and experience. 

Would you say there’s a common theme or signature message that runs through your work? 

There’s always family—that sense of family, whether it’s found family or the one that you’re born with. And food has always been present even if it’s not the main element. I want to include as much as I can of my own culture, and I get it in there by way of extension to food. Because to me, food is like language. It tells you so much—about geography, history, economics, government, anything you can think of. You can break all of that down by writing about just one meal. 

Christine Gross-Loh is the author of Parenting Without Borders and The Path.