Diane Zahler

Baker’s Magic is going to be available as an audiobook! And the company that’s doing the audio version is the wonderful Live Oak Media, run by my dear friends Debra and Arnie Cardillo. Live Oak is an award-winning company; its recordings have won 3 Odyssey Awards, 5 Audie Awards, and 2 Grammys.

Live Oak decided to record Baker’s Magic with a whole cast of voices, and they were kind enough to invite me to be a part of the experience. My job was to read the recipe for Bouts Buns at the end. Hard to screw up reading a recipe, right?

I got to the recording studio while Stephen DeRosa was reading in the sound booth. You may know him from his turn as Eddie Cantor on Boardwalk Empire. I’m a huge fan of the show — I watched every episode, even the ones where I had to cover my eyes to block out the excessive violence. And Stephen DeRosa was amazing, both on the show and as my villain, the evil Master Joris. In fact, he was so convincingly menacing that we were a little unnerved — until he also read the hilariously ancient, doddering Master Nicon and had us snorting with laughter as we tried to be quiet in the studio. Somehow, he performed his own magic to bring my words to life, using his voice to make my characters far scarier, more comical, more melancholy than they are on the page. It was a remarkable performance.

Then it was my turn. The sound booth is an unsettling place — just me, a microphone, and
a window looking into the studio where everyone is listening. The director, knowing she was working with a novice, decided to join me in the booth and encouraged me to imagine that she and I were drinking a Belgian beer together as I read. (I think she’d secretly been coached.)

My first line was, “Hi!”

It didn’t go well.

There were multiple takes. I tried a cheerful “Hi!” A perky “Hi!” A slightly reserved “Hi!” An exceedingly enthusiastic “Hi!” A merely happy “Hi!” At last I nailed it, and we moved on.

A few more lines needed several takes — who knew reading a recipe could require such delicate modulation? But I managed to earn a thumbs up from the director and the Cardillos (I wasn’t allowed to wear the headphones that would have transmitted what they all actually said about my performance, which was surely for the best). It was both exhilarating and oddly exhausting.

So look for the audiobook of Baker’s Magic, coming in October! You can order it here. And if you listen all the way to the end, you’ll get to hear ME reading my recipe.

And saying, “Hi!”