Jenna Helwig, author of 'The Foreign Correspondent's Wife' - Cookbook writer discusses turning to mysteries, being focused with research, and the recipe for a perfect thriller

Jenna Helwig is a food editor, a cookbook evangelist, and now novel writer. She's a culinary school graduate, and in 2025 launched, the Cookbookery Collective, a very successful Substack for cookbook lovers. Jenna has published 5 cookbooks herself focusing on everything from feeding a baby, to cooking on a budget.

Her debut novel, 'The Foreign Correspondent's Wife' tells the story of reporter Kat Kelly, and her husband, a foreign correspondent. She lives in Paris in 1949, just a few years after the end of the war, at a time when the city is starting to find its joy again. When Kat finds the body of an old American classmate, she must race to solve the case, and save her marriage, before it's too late.

We talk about what inspired her switch to novel writing, and how difficult she found diving into the story after so long focusing on food. You can hear about her incredibly focused research, and how she got into the mind of a half-French, half-American journalist living in Paris 70 years ago.

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