Writing is easy... right?

I'm envious of my colleague Miss C who, when she gets in extra early, can just sit down and begin writing with quick taps of her long, made-for-the-keyboard fingers.  But writing must be easy you scoff, after all if it weren't, how could we have so many books in the world?

Well I'll tell you how... 
See, those with the touch of genius can just do it like it's the most natural thing in the world.  They are fountains from which thoughts and feelings flow like rivers of truth wrapped in pretty stories.  For those of us who are less touched by genius, (hacks and others filled with their own hubris), well we tend to see the writing maxim more like this:  There's nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

I've got ideas you see.  Lots of them.  Pretty colorized be-ribboned ideas about characters and plots and settings and stuff.  A good writer will have things pop into their heads and make connections between ideas, characters, plots and places.  For me, notsomuch.  It's a bit more like a box you'd find left over from a jumble sale.  You open it and there's all this stuff that bulges and falls out in a mis-matched tangle.  And when a hack reaches for a character and matches it to a setting they think will work, you find these ingredients will decide they don't want to fit together.  And then everything starts fighting against you and your ideas.  So now it's a bloody boxing match between you, your character, your notions of where they belong, etceterra.  This goes on until all unite just to bitch-slap the sorry writer (me) who unfortunately thinks they know what they're doing when obviously they don’t!

I get how writing works.  I’ve read every book on writing a book that’s been published!  I know about plotting and pacing and outlining and tension and dialogue and hooks and stuff.  But alas there is one other thing that I lack, the missing ingredient.  Which is the necessary genius to bring these things together into a story that flows and sparkles and makes people beg to peer into more worlds from my imagination.

But someday… someday, I tell myself,  I’m gonna crack that nut!

So ever the optimist, let’s just keep going and see what happens.  And Karen – daisy girl, if you’re listening - please come back from your heavenly cloud and help me get your world, Silverhawk, into ours?

xx

Dodging bullets

You go through life with lots of moments that change the course of things... You know what I mean, you dawdle a little too long at the mirror and miss the train that breaks down or you make the extra effort to be on time, and the car breaks down.

Despite my gluttony of sweets and unashamed love of baking and creating new confections I've always managed to stay on the good side of things, health wise.  Yeah, there's extra pounds, but you can never trust a skinny cook I always say.

So it was more than just a little overdue perhaps when reviewing recent blood results to have the good Doctor ask,  "Oh dear.  Are you diabetic?  Your readings are nearly three times normal!"  

But there is hope behind this reading.  The test results also indicated that my blood had clotted at the time of the taking, so that may also have skewed things, therefore was up bright and early to visit my favorite vampire this morning to take repeats... 

Feeling (not unjustifiably) a little like a paper target and the whistle of the bullet is closing in... will let you know in a couple days!

PBS changed my life

I know how fortunate I've been through life.  I've learned through bitter lesson why not to take anything in life for granted.  And this sense of gratitude fills all the chambers of my heart.  Even the place where my dream kitchen lives.

I learned to cook watching PBS.  It's the american Public Broadcast System where independant ideas are brought without agenda or corporate influence - the poorer cousin to the BBC if you will as there isn't a compulsatory fee for having PBS, but there are many, MANY telethons and appeals on a yearly basis to beg, wheddle, guilt you into giving and provide ongoing financial support in exchange for the pleasure of their programming, broadcast without any commercials.  It's the refuge of classics such as Masterpiece Theatre, Colin Firth's Pride and Prejudice, Sesame Street, This Old House (anyone else remember Bob Vila?), Justin Wilson - the frankly scary backwoods cook who could reel yarns bigger than the trout he was "cooking cajun".  Nova, a science program which was much more accessable and enjoyable than what most science teachers could offer.


But for me, there were few like the incomparable Julia Child.  Through her I learned it was part of the process that you could make mistakes and still have a lovely meal.  Her sense of fun and the unashamed way she loved food inspired me to be adventurous and let myself learn how to do things by trial and error.


My husband Tony thrilled me by finding Julia's The French Chef on DVD and giving them to me as a present.  It's fun to re-live the golden days of when her programmes came into my Saturday afternoons when I would spend the day in the temple of my mother's kitchen.  I was glued to those b&w images, watching Julia's hands flying over a chopping board.  The suppleness of her wrists folding meringues through batter.  The power in her shoulders as she hoisted platters laden with a bounty of creations you just knew smelled the way you could imagine all of Paris smelled in the early mornings... butter and sugar and cinnamon and love.

So here I am, still devoted and with the help of modern technology, still watching and learning from Julia on my saturday afternoons a lot of miles removed and many years later. I've found there are still things I'd either missed or wasn't ready to take in on her shows.  But this could also be because as the years go by, and the tasting dishes from around the world pile up, I realize there is so much more I do not know about food and the world than what I have already achieved - and my how exciting it is to look forward to meeting the challenge in getting to know them all!

Bring on the lemongrass and galangal root, look out Thailand - here I come!

Do you remember?

Eating green peas in an avocado kitchen..


It's like a silent film reel, looping only a few seconds but I know it's my first real memory.  I'm sitting on a chair pulled up to the kitchen table, my chin just about level.  There's an over sized cartoon-like child's spoon in my right hand.  And I am watching intensely the wobbly peas heading towards my mouth.  To the left, at the head of the table is my foster father.  He's stripped off what was probably a blue collar shirt and is enjoying the meal in work trousers and a clean white vest.   Just a little blip and his head is thrown back with a silent whoop of laughter.  His teeth strong and straight and as white as his undershirt.


I don't know who he was or anyone else around the table.  I know there were others, it was a table for six.  What made him laugh, what made this memory stay with me over any others one can never be sure.  I just know it's me, my first self-aware moment, eating peas. In an avocado coloured kitchen.

I was born in one place, grew up in the "New World" and ironically now love in the "Old World", several time zones removed from where I started.  And at each place the memories I have seem to always come back to food.  What takes me to my birth place?  Coffee Crisp candy bars and little raisin butter tarts from Tim Hortons. 

My growing years?  Fresh made sweet italian sausages, unctuous mile-high slices of fresh made cream pie from any real diner, meatloaf with ketchup and mashed potatoes, fudgesicles, Bryer's ice cream (any flavour!), waiting in line out to the parking lot during lent for a fish fry from Davidson's - where it comes to you hanging off both ends of the platter. 

In the here and now?  Thai Chili Chicken in peanut sauce, roast joints of beast with amazing yorkshire puddings the size of a fist, brilliantly spiced and layered flavours of a true Indian Byrani, the passion of Antonio Carluccio and his love of Italian flavours found in every plate of his food, the buttery sugary crunch of a warm Welsh cake in the kitchen of my beloved in-laws in Merthyr Tydfil.  And there are hundreds more for all stages of my life I could tell you about.  In depth.  With step by step instructions.  And photo's probably...

I don't know if everyone has this strong of an ability to experience taste-memories out of nowhere.  I get the tickle of a flavour or an aroma and I'm instantly transported to a place or time from nowhere.   Not just the flavours get me, but I can be anywhere and suddenly I'm cooking something.  It's time to whip up a creamy cheese souffle or the perfect mushroom risotto - AND SUDDENLY, I'M DOING IT.  Step by step.  In my head. 

It isn't right really, is it?

But there you go, and so, if you need a tip or a recipe or a flavour profile, I'm your gal.  Not only can I answer questions, give menu suggestions and walk you through step by step, but I can introduce you to any number of cuisines to open your horizons and widen your repertoire and relationship with the wonderful world of food!