Limbo

It is the limbo time between Christmas and New Years and I am in between two major parties.  Having just recovered from a 6 course birthday/Christmas dinner, I am prepping for my big New Year's party.  It is in the moments between planning, cleaning, shining silver, estimating numbers, that I wonder why I do this?

I love it.  And I hate it.  Maybe I'm back at the writer/cook question.  I love and hate writing.  It scares the shit out of me most of the time.  Still, I come back and have to keep doing it.  It's the same with cooking.  Failure is staring at me straight in the face.  It taunts me.  I think I like it.  The dare.  And since I have no intention to climb Everest, join the Mile High Club or sing in public, this is my chosen method of torture/pleasure.

I suppose writing and cooking can be seen as slightly masochistic from a certain point of view.  When the pain is good, it's spectacular.  When it's bad, it's monumental.  And usually it's witnessed publicly.  If the food is bad everyone knows it.  If the writing is bad you know it and so do those who matter in the writing world.  Knowing something is bad, and knowing others have seen and judged it as so, is painful.  The waiting is painful.  That first bite.....do the eyes close in ecstasy or so you see panic of how to spit it out?  I have gagged on my own writing from time to time.  We all have.  But to have that rejection letter spit back out at you.....torture.  I want more.

Obsessions- Part 1

It is no secret that I seem to have an obsession with really good cooking equipment.  My father even threatens to get me one of those Pod storage things to put out in front of my house just so I can store all my kitchen stuff in it, as I am currently running out of room to store things.  Open up pretty much any closet in my house, with the exception of the bedroom closet (which houses our puppy's crates) and you'll find cooking stuff. 

We've converted our coat closet into a makeshift pantry, in my office closet can be found anything from a food mill to an angel food cake pan, the guest bedroom has a bag filled with the rest of my 4th set of dishes, the linen closet has linens, yes, but also a pizza stone and peel and my green apple colored Kitchen Aide stand mixer. 

However, probably the most difficult to house and one of the main focal points of my obession is my love affair with Le Creuset enameled cast iron.  I am currently up to 7.  It doesn't help that I have a outlet store for Le Creuset roughly 10 miles from where I live.  Dangerous.

What is it with this obsession with enameled cast iron you ask?  Why not shoes? Or cashmere?  Oh I have those too.  But today it's all about the cookware.  When you lift a beautifully hand crafted piece of Le Creuset onto your stove there is a sense of expectation of what is to come.  You know that what goes into that pot will infuse together, surrounded by the radiating heat of the cast iron and come out amazing.  There is purpose to cooking in something like that.  Just like in anything, when something is made with excellence you work harder to make sure you live up to those expectatons.  It's mental.  You up your game.  Just like you would if you purchased the best golf clubs money could buy.  You make sure you have better ingredients and sharper knives to properly prepare them.  These pots become part of your kitchen.  They're a great partner.  They'll do their job perfectly if you do.  They inspire the quest for the brilliant meal. 

The Brilliant Meal

We were going to Santa Fe.  It was January and my to-be husband and I were giddy at taking our first trip together.  I had found a quaint little hotel and each room had a fireplace to snuggle up in front of when it got cold.  I was going to show him all my favorite haunts, including the historic town square, the Jackelope, the mesas, all of it.  In the end we would go to Santa Fe, just not that day.

The snow started the night before and by the time the next morning came the highways were being closed.  Honestly, the storm wasn't that bad.  It was the wind.  It blew and drifted snow just enough so our way south was closed.  I refused to believe our getaway was not going to happen.  Within several hours I had repacked my bags and we had two last minute tickets to Las Vegas.

Once we got to the airport, having made our way though a snowy Denver rush hour, we took our first deep breath.  Of course, it wasn't until after we checked in that I tripped and fell over a pair of skis onto the beautiful marble of Denver International Airport's floor.  Or when we were selected for extra security because of our last minute booking and I stood in the particle air blower thingy without my shoes, sweater or belt, wondering if we had made the right decision.  It was also the first time my husband experienced all the fun that is air travel with me.  Not being a fan of flying and not quite understanding or really wanting to understand the physics of drag and lift, I can honestly say I only hyperventilated 3 or 4 times during that flight to Vegas.

The meal?  It was spectacular.  It was the only restaurant still open when we got to our room in the Luxor at ten thirty at night.  The Steakhouse.  A completely unimpressive name.  It looked overpriced, but what choice did we have?  It was dark and smelled of leather and the faint odor of cigars from the bar in the front.  The tables were stark white and the waiters were dressed in tuxedos.  After the first glass of wine my knee and wrist didn't hurt quite so much and when our food arrived we were primed.  Sinatra played in the background and my steak quite literally melted in my mouth.  Chewing it was strictly optional.  My husband's prawns were neatly lined up on his plate, fat and succulant.  And the mushrooms we shared were the essence of that restaurant.  Earthy, buttery, exquisite.  We closed the restaurant that night.  Sharing that meal, in that place, with each other, having survived that day, the magic of a brilliant meal was ours.

Calling all Writers Great and Small!

I am going to kick start my blog by asking anyone who is a writer or is just someone who writes from time to time to send me your experience of your most brilliant meal.  We all have a meal that will go down in history for us.  They are elusive and rarely repeated.  What was it about the meal that made it brilliant?  I think it's usually a combination of amazing food, the company with which it's shared and something else....something magical about that day, that time, that place.  Believe me, I tried to recreate my most brilliant meal.  It failed famously.  Famously, mostly because my husband's family was there to witness it.  My next blog will be my own telling of my most brilliant meal.  After that, periodical guest blogs relaying the scribblings of those of you who send me your writing.  Write the food! 

You didn't have to cook it.  You didn't even have to pay for it (in case someone else did).  You only had to enjoy it so much that it haunts you.  So, what is the story of your most brilliant meal?  And they all have a story...

"Sweetness Always"

This is a blog dedicated to the writing of food.  Not necessarily "food writing." The kind that you read in magazines or online about a restaurant or chef.  But more an exploration of how writers write food.  It's no secret that writers love to eat and drink.  The latter having a more obvious connotation with writers, the first remains more of a mystery.  Why are so many writers also foodies?  It's a connection to the senses sure, but is there more? 

I am a poet/writer and cook.  I have always been drawn to both writing and cooking.  Even when I was young, I remember getting the recipe for amazing pancakes from a friend so I could try them out on a Saturday morning.  In college, I focused on Latina literature mainly because they knew how to write food.  Not coming from a culinary background or from a heritage known for its cuisine, I am left wondering what my two passions have in common.  Creative?  Easy answer.  Strong women?  My dad did most of the cooking growing up.  I have no answer right now.  Maybe this endeavor will yield some answers.  Maybe not.  It'll be fun regardless.  Let's get dirty.

The title of my first post is my favorite poem by my favorite poet.  I want to share it with everyone. 
"Sweetness Always" by Pablo Neruda

"Why such harsh machinery?
Why, to write down the stuff
and people of every day,
must poems be dressed up in gold,
in old and fearful stone?

I want verses of felt or feather
which scarcely weigh, mild verses
with the intimacy of beds
where people have loved and dreamed.
I want poems stained
by hands and everydayness.

Verses of pastry which melt
into milk and sugar in the mouth,
air and water to drink,
the bites and kisses of love.
I long for eatable sonnets,
poems of honey and flour.

Vanity keeps prodding us
to lift ourselves skyward
or to make deep and useless
tunnels underground.
So we forget the joyous
love-needs of our bodies.
We forget about pastries.
We are not feeding the world.

In Madras a long time since,
I saw a sugary pyramid,
a tower of confectionery -
one level after another,
and in the construction, rubies,
and other blushing delights,
medieval and yellow.

Someone dirtied his hands
to cook up so much sweetness.

Brother poets from here
and there, from earth and sky,
from Medellin, from Veracruz,
Abyssinia, Antofagasta,
do you know the recipe for honeycombs?

Let's forget about all that stone.

Let your poetry fill up
the equinoctial pastry shop
our mouths long to devour -
all the children's mouths
and the poor adults' also.
Don't go on without seeing,
relishing, understanding
all these hearts of sugar.

Don't be afraid of sweetness.

With or without us,
sweetness will go on living
and is infinitely alive,
forever being revived,
for it's in a man's mouth,
whether he's eating or singing,
that sweetness has its place."