Oh, hey, yeah...I'm here...

Where have I been? In my head I post here all the time. No seriously, in my head I think, "I should put this on the blog." It's very likely that I've convinced myself that think is the same as doing. Like I think about writing letters of recommendation and then I don't actually write them but I convince myself that I've done and, well, yeah.....So, where have been? Let's see. Mostly Baltimore, but there have been trips to New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, Delaware, Delaware, Delaware.

Back in September, I went to New Orleans for a conference. It had it's ups and downs. Ups: I was in freaking New Orleans! Downs: I was on antibiotics and had a sinus infection. I basically went to my conference and then went to bed. I did some writing but give me a few paragraphs before I get to writing.

After NOLA, we took some kids to visit colleges in Boston. 'Nuff said. Though, it should be noted that we had an amazing dinner, Mexican/Cajun. Who knew?

The Philadelphia/Delaware trips are all connected. My aunt, my mother's youngest sister got married this past Friday. A few things: Please, don't get married on a Friday, or, if you do, don't ask me to be in the wedding(unless you're family/someone who I really, really, really want to be a bridesmaid for--think carefully before answering this question).

And I straightened my hair for it. 

The wedding was lovely. Not to be overly sentimental, but I can't think of anyone who deserved to get married in such a lovely ceremony more.  And on top of that, I remember being a little girl and wanting so desperately to be in my aunt's wedding (at the time she was engaged to her high school sweetheart who died in a car accident when I was in the 8th grade). I got to put her veil on the evening of the wedding--I can't even tell you how emotional it was. I was thinking of her, her sisters, my uncle who passed away back in 2002, and my grandparents who weren't there. 

I feel bad for The Airman. I'm a bit wedding crazy, now. He knows it, is very patient with me about it, indulges me even. He actually watches Bridezillas and Say Yes to the Dress, with me. He's a bit of a saint that way. When I wake up from being supremely tired from all the wedding nonsense, I'll probably get over it. In the mean time....We're approaching the six-month mark, [Applause, please...Fucking clap. I've never been good at this!]  and when I tell him I'm bored, he says, "You could be doing something like, I don't know writing your novel." When he says this I don't want to slap him, so I guess it's love. I want to slap my mother when she says things like that. Truth.

Did I mention the time he showed up at my house with flowers, champagne, and Maker's Mark? Yeah, I'm really, really, lucky.

So, you wanna hear about writing? I've done some writing. This goes back to my time in NOLA. I spent most of the time I was there sick, like nasty sick. So on the last morning when my head was a little clearer, I took myself over to Cafe du Monde shortly after the sun rose. I ordered a cafe au lait and some beignets and let my powdered sugar fingers do some writing. NOLA is a beautiful city. I can see how many people are inspired by the place. It reminded me of many cities that I'd lived in. Cobblestones like Philadelphia; a city that stays awake like New York;  a rich artistic history (music) like Iowa City (literature); and a people that love their city like Baltimore. I don't know if I could live there, but it was so easy to write there. The words flowed. Pages and pages. I wrote until I had to leave for my flight.

I had a second order of beignets.

Seriously, it doesn't take much...

to cheer me up. On my way back east, I stopped to visit my friends Jen and Patrick in Ann Arbor, MI. I love this town for many reasons, but they are the top two!

To help me cope with leaving Iowa (Weird right? I mean I seriously had a hard time leaving Iowa for the east coast. Who knew that would happen?)  They greeted me with this dinner:

Baked salmon with veggies in some yummy anchovy sauce. The beverage of choice? Pink Champagne. 

This meal was love. I arrived in Ann Arbor, tired, emotional and in a wrinkled party dress after having driven for 8 hours.  I also ate anchovies for the first time. Yummy.

The following night we had this deliciousness. From the cookbook Modern Moroccan. Once I start making money, and have a kitchen, I'm buying this book.

Roasted chicken with a saffron, apricot, and poppyseed sauce accompanied by a saffron rosewater risotto.

  

Then it was my turn. I kept it simple with a recipe I really like that combines my love of all things Italian with pork and sage.

Pork and beef sage (plus some other yumminess inside)meatballs over rigatoni.

Then there is a restaurant in Ann Arbor that I love called the Jolly Pumpkin which offers these yummy selections:

Truffle salted french fries.

Strawberry Balsamic Martinis
 

 I will learn to make these (the martini). Mayumi over at May in the Bay is all about making the perfect gin martini. This is one of my goals. After becoming an awesome teacher, guidance counselor, novelist, etc.

Oh yeah, and this was the very delicious Manhattan Patrick made for me during Mad Men.

Mad Manhattan

 Jen said, "What should we do with this fresh melon?" and I said. "Make margaritas?" Patrick got to work.

Fresh melon margarita

Last one, I swear. Somewhere in all this for lunch we had a simple Italian meal, on of my favorites in fact. Perfect summer food. Also another good use of melon.

Proscuitto e melone

That's it. There are no pictures of the Zingerman's sandwiches but rest assured they looked as good as they tasted.
  

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.