There's No Last Way to Tell a Story

Recipes are a huge part of my life right now. I just said goodbye to a house full of company for whom I had to cook many meals over the course of the Thanksgiving holiday. The entire week before cookbooks covered the kitchen island: a 1965 Treasury of Great Recipes put together by Mary and Vincent Price, my trusty thirty-four year old binder into which I've taped and scribbled recipes most of my adult life, Barefoot Contessa's Back to Basics. I have a 1951 Whole Grain Cookery book with a preface by Pearl Buck, and The Fallingwater Cookbook, a collection of recipes that Elsie Henderson cooked for the Kaufmann family at their famous Fallingwater residence. Vegetarian cookbooks, pressure cooker recipes, a Polish Cooking cookbook, Martha Stewart, Rocco Dispirito and yada, yada, yada.

On night three of my obsessive search for a menu with just the right balance of easy (isn't it more about the company than the food?) and complex (well, it was my stage, after all) my husband wandered over and asked, "What are you looking for, now?"

"Cranberry salad," I said.

He picked up my notepad. "Isn't this a list of cranberry salad recipes? It looks like one, two, three, four, five, six different ways you can make cranberry salad.
Just pick one."

"I want someone to say, "Wow, love the cranberries.""

"How many ways can you make cranberries?"

That's funny, I thought, even though there's a finite choice of ingredients on the earth, they are the subject matter of every one of these books and thousands upon thousands more.

"I guess it's infinite. Or nearly so." It's the way the ingredients are combined, and stirred, and cooked that distinguishes them and allows for, literally, millions of recipes to emerge. There is no last recipe using cranberries and there never will be. 

It's the same with storytelling. Love. War. Winning. Losing. Hope.  The ingredients don't change. It's the writers recipe that makes it different. It's your secret ingredients that make it special. There's no last way to tell a story.The permutations are limitless.

                Whoops. How did this picture of my beautiful new grandson get in here?

Symbiosis of Inspiration

As I drove down our winding country road this weekend, I happened to look over at one of my favorite scenes.  Our farmer neighbor, Sam, plants his corn in alternating arcs of corn and grass that follow the concave sweep of the hillside. Filling in the acres next to the field is a stand of hardwoods, carefully managed by another neighbor. It takes my breath away at various times of the year; the color, the curve, a seemingly perfect symbiosis of nature and man’s attendant touch.  As I drove past and glanced at the swaths of cornstalk remnants, I saw the hand of nature once again working in harmony with man’s pursuit. A flock of Canada geese, two hundred, maybe more, had stopped for a respite and a meal. They would clean the field of fallen kernels before continuing their flight south. On another day, when my thoughts were on doing, rather than creating, I might have seen the geese, smiled and looked at the clock on my dash. Instead, I stopped the car, got out, and sat in the field to watch, knowing that the scene will be repeated in my writing, somewhere, sometime ( maybe this is it). As I listened to the soft honks warning of my presence among them, it occurred to me how often I am inspired to write by what I see, but, also, how I am inspired to see because I write. And how, when the cycle engages itself, it is incredibly satisfying .

The idea for a new novel bloomed suddenly in my mind last week. I’m excited and grateful. It has awakened me. For months I’ve been laboring over, and worrying about, a new ending for an old novel. When I finally completed it, the relief was tremendous. I can now move on. Not only is it exciting contemplating the journey of a new story, it’s also exciting because I know that I will be seeing, hearing, feeling more intently. The whole creative process will awaken me, connect me to my world, and make me more cognizant.

Today is rainy grey, the perfect inspiration for a new first paragraph. I’m going for a walk in the woods, but not before I light the logs in the fireplace and slip a tray of slivered acorn squash into the oven. When I return, I’ll settle in front of the fire with my computer and a plate of the salty-sweet squash, and begin to create the world of a young boy named Ansel . Hopefully, I will bring to life a world as lush with color, aroma, and texture as my own world is now.  
   

Roasted  Slivered Acorn Squash

Use any type of squash. My favorite is acorn, however butternut also works well.

Wash the squash well, as you will eat the skin. Cut the squash in half (this is the hardest part) and scoop out the seeds.  

Lay the cut side down against a cutting surface and slice into ¾ inch pieces.

Put slices in a large bowl and toss with olive oil. Then lay them side by side on a cookie sheet.

Sprinkle each piece with a little sea salt, a little brown sugar, and, if you like, a green herb such as thyme or rosemary (my favorite).

Roast at 425 for 30 to 40 minutes, until they look slightly caramelized. Slip off tray with a spatula and eat. Yum.