Souper Jenny stirs the pot at MJCCA book festival

Nov. 1-18. Prices and event times vary. Most tickets $10-$50. MJCCA, 5342 Tilly Mill Road, Dunwoody. 678-812-4005, www.atlantajcc.org/bookfestival.

Festival highlights

Andrew McCarthy, the actor from "St. Elmo's Fire" and "Pretty in Pink," reflects on his soul-searching travels in "The Longest Way Home." 8:15 p.m., Nov. 3. $18-$50

Jonathan Tropper reads from "One Last Thing Before I Go," about a scrambled family that is trying to valiantly and hilariously to right itself. 2 p.m., Nov. 4. $10-$15

Life After Terror: 9/11 Stories. Sept. 11, 2001, still reverberates and three books reflect on the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, particularly their impact on families. "Where You Left Me," by Jennifer Gardner Trulson, "An Unbroken Bond," by Edie Lutnick and "Miracles & Fate on 78," by Ari Schonbrun. 7:30 p.m., Nov. 5. $14-$18

Emily Giffin reads from her new novel "Where We Belong." 8:15 p.m., Nov. 11. $18-$50

Lisa Lillien, aka "Hungry Girl" cookbook author and columnist, promotes her new book, "Hungry Girl to the Max." Noon, Nov. 14. $30-$35

Tony Danza talks about his humbling stint as an inner-city teacher, at age 59, which he recounts in "I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High." 8 p.m., Nov. 17. $18-$50

Michael Feinstein plays the Gershwin songbook, which he celebrates in his latest book, "The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs." 7:30 p.m., Nov. 18. $18-$50

Rack. Rack. Rack.

Maybe the blade could have been a hair sharper.

Rack. Rack. Rack.

Because if the knife in her hand had been less blunt it would have sheared through the onion with more of a hush. The resulting pile would have been an elegant dice, like a tiny hill of opaque confetti.

But it wasn’t refinement Jennifer Levison was looking for. She was looking to get done.

“I’m not a fancy, tiny dice cook, I’m a peasant cook,” Levison said.

Then she chucked the white clumps off her cutting board and into a thick, bubbling vegetable stew in a big enamel pot on her stove. It was a lovely, homely mix that smelled as redolent as we imagine a fall day should.

The other morning, this was the scene in the Buckhead kitchen of Levison, known to a legion of Atlanta diners as “Souper Jenny,” owner of the eponymous Souper Jenny restaurant and Café Jonah and the Magical Attic. Levison will be one of the featured authors at the upcoming Book Festival of the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, which kicks off on Thursday. For years Levison has turned down offers to franchise her soup and salad dominion, both hubs for the ladies-who-lunch-with-strollers crowd. But now she’s looking to expand — into television, reality television, if possible.

After depositing the onion into the stew, she ripped apart a rotisserie chicken – store bought — in preparation for a an appearance scheduled for the next day at a local television station. She was also scheduled to audition for a spot on an upcoming season of the “Next Food Network Star,” where little known chefs battle to become the next big thing, or so they hope.

Perhaps peasant cooking is that next big thing.

Over the last 14 years Levison has built a reputation and a following by doing one main pairing very well: soups and salads built from fresh ingredients (the store-bought chicken for the TV appearance notwithstanding). But about two years ago, this self-taught cook left her commercial kitchens fulltime, in part to raise her 8-year-old son, but also to stake a claim in the rapidly branding world of celebrity cooks and chefs. So far she has wrangled six appearances on the “Today Show” (roasting up a veggie salad and a bell pepper soup with Kathie Lee Gifford), the same rarified morning spot occupied from time to time by celebrity chef Bobby Flay. There is a lifestyle blog, and this summer she published her second cookbook, with the direct, if not prosaic title, “Souper Jenny Does Salads.” Ground work has been laid; now she’s waiting for a little magic to happen.

“I believe in the law of attraction; what you put out there you’re definitely going to get back.” said Levison, 47.

But just because you want to be the next lifestyle star doesn’t mean you’re going to be. And trying hard doesn’t always bring reward, as the Atlanta native learned years ago when, fresh with a theater degree from Carnegie Mellon, she tried to break out on Broadway. Didn’t happen. She tried soap operas. Got bit roles on “One Life to Live” and “All My Children.” More times than she could count she was told that she was simply delightful, but if she’d lose 20 pounds or grow her hair a little longer the big role might be hers.

She moved to Los Angeles to try her luck there and heard much of the same thing. Local theater supplied her with plenty of roles, but it was restaurant work that sustained her. An actress on “Three’s A Crowd,” (the spin-off of “Three’s Company”) had a cafe and hired Levison to work front of house. That’s when the power of food began to overtake the lights of the stage.

“I’d trained, gone to school but it didn’t happen and it wouldn’t happen, so I had a six month pity party, left LA and came back here,” Levison said, as she picked up the knife again and began shredding red cabbage for a slaw. “But I’ve never been someone who felt lost.”

She came back, got a job in another restaurant, married a chef, but didn’t become one herself. Instead she and her then-husband took their savings and cooked their way around the world for almost two years. Whether in New Zealand, Portugal, Switzerland, Israel or wherever, Levison talked her way into cooking jobs with her husband. At every opportunity, though, she’d write down recipes for soups and stews from locals, mostly family recipes that were delicious because of their imprecision and improvisation. A handful of this, sprinkle of that, served up in a bowl. Food that doesn’t take formal training to make taste good. Peasant food.

The marriage didn’t last, but her affair with food did.

Her Buckhead “Souper Jenny” location has grown since it opened in 1998, from a couple of tables to a much expanded store front. Café Jonah, named for her adopted son, has a steady crowd. Her soups are a staple at the Peachtree Road Farmer’s Market. But the lure of the screen still bobs on the surface.

Mitchell Anderson, stage and television actor known for his roles on “Doogie Howser, M.D.” and “Party of Five,” left acting years ago and moved to Atlanta to be with his partner. Like Levison, he looked down the road and didn’t want to still be auditioning for roles at 50. That served as something of a bond between the two, when Levison brought him in, at the suggestion of a friend, to apprentice under her. “It was more like improv class than a formal training, because with soups and salads there are almost no rules,” Anderson said.

Anderson opened his own restaurant, Metro Fresh, after his stint with Levison, who remains a friend. The two had starring roles together earlier this year in the Actor’s Express production of “Next Fall.”

That his former mentor wants to return, in a manner of speaking, to her performance roots, is a complicated path, he said.

“Acting and the restaurant business, each has equal potholes,” he said. “Whenever you put yourself out there you’re going to hear from someone the thinks you’re not right or who thinks they can do it better than you. So you have to have a core sense of self and confidence, which Jenny certainly does.”

The world of high-profile cooking certainly has barbs. For a self-taught cook like Levison, or, for instance, Rachael Ray, there’s always someone trained out there like, say, Anthony Bourdain, who thinks you have no right to pick up a spoon. Yes, those shows are about entertainment, even Bourdain’s. But isn’t the goal also to encourage people, average people, with average stoves and average knife sets to get in the kitchen and cook?

“There are a lot of people who put the ‘chef’ title in front of their names, but it doesn’t make them great,” said Tom Murphy, owner of Murphy’s restaurant in Virginia Highland. “You have to be able to cook, first. And you have to able to control costs and run a kitchen. Some chefs can’t do all three. From what I’ve seen, she can.”

Levison is ready to show all that she can do to a broader audience. To her mind she is building a brand not based on food, but one based on a can-do, go-for-it spirit. And if she has to tough it out on a reality show to get there, then so be it.

“I don’t think I can be as mean as some of those people, but I’d try,” she said. “Bring it on.”

She laughed, then once again, stirred the simmering pot.