Culinary Baggage

I was out to breakfast (again - I LOVE breakfast) with Dave last weekend, and as we each ordered, the following scene plays out:

Me: I'll take the Farmhouse Hash please and coffee.

Server: How would you like your eggs?

Me: Scrambled, please - but you you ask the cook to make them really well done?

Server: Got it. Scrambled, hard.

Me: Ask them to cook it until they feel bad about themselves as a person and then just a little longer. Thanks.

Dave: *dies of embarrassment before ordering eggs "over easy like a normal person"

This has played out with a few variations, but is essentially the same. "Until it's nearly a tragedy" or "until nothing remotely gelatinous remains" or "there must be nothing oozing or I can't eat it." And I can't. I used to be able to eat over medium eggs, though I was never into sunny side up or over easy. And then Paris happened.

When I was going to turn forty, a friend was assigned to a 6 month project in Paris. His company set him up in a small flat just off the Champs-Elysee. He sent out a call for visitors to come over the pond and see the sights, offering up the couch. I jumped at the chance and booked my week to overlap my birthday. Paris would be a wonderful place to turn 40, I thought. It was - it really really was. Mostly.

Like anyone would when planning a trip to Paris, I made a list of sights and a list of foods. I was relentless in the quest for both. In no particular order:

escargot
eiffel tower
Versaille
Montmartre
souffle
crepes
Musee D'Orsay
Notre Dame
fondue
entrecote au poivre
pain au chocolat

You get the idea. My friend made reservations for us at a restaurant inside the Eiffel Tower for lunch on my birthday, followed by a short architecture cruise of the Seine. We sipped kir royale and I ordered prawns and gazed out upon the City of Lights. It should be noted that prawns in France come with the heads on. They stare at their diner with their long dangly legs hanging off the plate. It's off-putting. I must have had a bad one, because I was almost immediately sick which made the river cruise less enjoyable and the following Metro ride unbearable. I skipped Montmartre and went back to the flat where I spent the next 24 hours ridding myself of all traces of the vengeful prawns.

When I emerged the following evening, it was the night we'd penciled in souffle. We went to a very fancy restaurant, but I could not get through my cheese souffle. The texture was more than I could take. Since then - only well-cooked eggs.

For the record - I did eat all the things. ALL THE THINGS AND MORE. And Paris is wonderful. Skip the crustaceans.

I have similar backstories for my distaste for peaches, pimentos, and others, but I'm not terribly restricted with my food options. I dislike oysters, peas, capers, and olives. I don't like salad bars or buffets. Sometimes I put all my foods on one bowl (eggs, grits, cheese, bacon - or turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy) and I don't mind that they touch and mingle. I like fruit, except for the aforementioned peaches. I like cheese and yogurt, but not cottage cheese. Ice cream is my favorite food group, right before pizza, cheeseburgers, and warm cinnamon rolls.

I have a friend I've known forever who inexplicably discovered many, many food allergies in her twenties. Like to everything. Lettuce, all dairy, all squash, peppers, almonds, etc. We've traveled together frequently over the years and the dietary restrictions are tough. She has reintroduced a few things, but most are still an issue. No butter, cheese, or ice cream - three of my favorites. She gets her pizza without cheese, just sauce and meats and the occasional wildcard like pineapple. Her choices are driven mostly by necessary dietary restrictions.

My other friend, though, has even fewer options, thought they are of her own choosing. She won't eat cheese. Cheese is one of the most delicious things about living on this planet, so I find this one hard to imagine. She's not vegan, she just finds the idea gross. She only likes chicken that has no residual moisture left. Dry as the Sahara. I can see how this may have started from a desire to make sure it's completely done, but it even applies to dishes which would normally have sauces on cooked chicken. It's a no from her. She eats a lot of salad. So many, that she buys them two at a time so her next meal is covered as well.

We all have our food baggage I guess. When Dave and I watch Food Network and the Chopped chef tops the random dish with a partially fried egg, he waggles his eyebrows at me, like "See? That's how it's done," while he scoops the remainder of whatever our dinner was out of his dish with his bare fingers. I don't feel so bad about my lengthy breakfast instructions.

On a side note, Food Network is a wonderful source to discover new food items to try. Broadening one's culinary horizons is just as healthy as traveling and cheaper, so go forth and conquer! Though I doubt that I will ever love beets, I have discovered many new things that I do love. Bon apetit.

And So it Begins...

I have begun the novel.

With actual words. Nay, pages.


Okay, not a lot of pages so far. I am currently stuck on character names. Not the main ones - all the ancillary characters necessary to weave this thing together. I am baking without all the ingredients. Just kidding - I'm baking for real because it's nearly Thanksgiving and that's one of so very many distractions from the grind of creating pages. It was the pies on Monday and today it will be tarte tatin.  In my mind, this long holiday weekend will be crammed with opportunity to build the early chapters and continue my incomplete roadmap for the later chapters.

In truth, I will Netflix and snack. I will nap. I will lose a half day researching deer stands or North Carolina history or vacation rental properties. I'll feel guilty about it. And yet, I will also be excited, my brain sending me little nudges. Add a dog. Let's learn more about the fisherman. This is a great way to introduce a little background since she spent time here as a child. I should emphasize the contrasts here. That internal well of the subconscious is flowing ideas, hoping to nourish the fallow rows of my too-sparse outline.

So, the laundry will pile up along with clutter from half-completed sort-for-donation efforts in nearly every room. I'm not one of those writers who has all their shit together, the clean house, the stocked fridge, and the completed pages. I'll get one of those, not all three. I'm choosing pages.

As much as it sounds like I'm a complete mess and my project is doomed for failure, I actually feel pretty good about it. I've learned a lot since the last one. The short stories and the essays and the readings have all built skills and provided ideas about my options as I choose how to tell this story. Reading has become inspiring and exciting again and not a reason to feel insecure about my own work. Teaching reminds me to do the work and embrace revision. Providing encouragement to my students helps me to remember to give myself a break when I worry that this house of cards will all fall down and I'll have no plan.

So, if we are friends and you see that I'm in my writing cave, cheer me on silently, knowing that I'm chipping away at a huge block of stone as I try and shape it into something thrilling and funny and real. Forgive my mess. Understand that I will forgo real clothes for my jammies or sweats or whatever because I had to get the words down before that shower. Are you working on something too? Plan to meet me at the coffee shop or the library so we can work on our stuff.

Please don't ask me to explain the story to you. It really does deflate the sails. I have to hold it in for now, keeping my options to change course as open as the journey permits.

For all you fellow writers out there, may the coffee be plentiful and your own internal well overflow with possibility.

I'll be in my writing cave.