RS: I feel dumb that I don't know more about the publishing process. What type of work do you do as an editor at Quercus Books?
AH: I work as an editor for a book publishing company that's best known for its trade fiction and particularly its Scandinavian thrillers. My job is a mix of reading manuscripts to assess commercial viability, overseeing book design and packaging, and being a real asshole about the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition rules for possessive nouns.
You share awesome photos of great-looking food you've created on your Instagram account and through your work with Food52. What's a great recipe people should try out during the holidays?
Thank you! In addition to a few kinds of Christmas cookies, I always make a big batch of orangettes around the holidays. Orangettes are thin strips of candied orange peel, dipped in chocolate. To be honest, I don't like them at all, but my grandma and my nephews do, so I make them every year. Plus, they are pretty and fancy.
What's your favorite holiday song?
My favorite Christmas music is A Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten. Benjamin Britten was one of the most famous 20th century composers in England, but popular culture mostly only knows about him from Moonrise Kingdom. Britten's A Ceremony of Carols is a 12-movement composition written for treble voices in three parts and a harp, set to Middle English poetry. You might recognize the harp solo from the movie A Christmas Story. Not many people know this about me, but I sang professionally for 8 years as a kid, so I used to miss school once every December to perform a concert of A Ceremony of Carols that was broadcast on the local classical music station.
