Food and Fiction

One of the happiest days of every month is the day my Real Simple arrives. It's truly joyous. What I love most are the recipes. Every month, for days I pour through the magazine and pick out delicious things to make for dinner. Nothing is ever too complicated, but in the end, it's always yummy.


For the last three days, I've been making dinner from recipes found on RealSimple.com The first day was a variation on a couple of recipes, basil and garlic beef with heirloom tomatoes and an arugula and parmigiano with a lemon, olive oil dressing. Yesterday, I made the Paprika spiced pork chops with spinach (minus the raisins). Tonight, chicken wrapped with prosciutto, with arugula salad and broccoli.  As you can see, I've been eating rather well. And eating well, makes me feel, well, good.

But I haven't written in two weeks and that is making me feel not so good. Part of this is due to the fact that I worked the entirety of spring break, and it was exhausting. The other part is what I like to call, story exhaustion. I'm just tired of looking at it. At all of it.

I think the main problem is that I need to learn how to look at it in a different way, and I also need to address the insecurity that surrounds my writing. I always think my work is too simple. That it's not compelling enough to get an agent or literary magazine editor's attention. And so, I go through long periods of time where I don't want to write, where I get tired of the words on the page. I find myself in a place where my characters annoy me and their troubles are trivial. (Never mind the fact that I created those troubles and their personalities etc.) Because they're so simple, I get bored.

But, today, while I was making lunch, I realized something about the kind of food that I like to cook: It's simple, but it's full of flavor

The truth it, storytelling is a fairly simple thing. Everyone does it, but some people just do it better. What makes a story "good" is the same thing that makes a piece of chicken taste "good". When it comes down to it in the kitchen, it's all in the seasoning, the method of cooking, and the freshness of the ingredients. On the page, it's the flair of the language, the narrative structure, the freshness of the material. And both can be clearly complex, with a variety of ingredients or multiple story lines. In fact, I think we often think of complex as being a good thing, as being better that which is simple. But you know what? Give me plain old salt and pepper any day. Aren't those the foundations of any good recipe? The basics. And I need to get used to the fact that I like the basics.

Of course, I also like good olive oil and coffee.

UPDATE: Went out for dinner after the Adam Haslett reading (He was great! I picked up his first book and can't wait to read it.) and had an awful bowl of chicken chilli at a restaurant in town. Sent it back. First time I have ever sent something back for being gross.