Some thoughts on cooking and writing

 

Cooking and writing take up much of my day, and I enjoy both, am grateful to be able to fill my days as I do. But lately I’ve thought of some similarities between the two. If you follow my food blog, “Gourmet on a Hot Plate,” you know that I’m an old-fashioned cook, what is sometimes called a “scratch cook.” I cook on a hot plate and with a toaster oven because zoning regulations and space limitations don’t permit me to have a stovetop or an oven. But beyond those, the only gadgets in my kitchen are an electric can opener, an electric teakettle, and an electric corkscrew—all three invaluable. I do not have an instant pot, an air fryer (actually my toaster oven does, but I don’t use it), even a crockpot.

My neighbor, Mary, likes to tell me she can fix chicken soup in her instant pot in an hour or less, and it tastes as though it’s simmered all day. My reply is that I am home all day and can let a pot of soup simmer while I enjoy the aroma. And the learning curve of an instant pot intimidates me. My cooking is just never in that much of a hurry. I’m not unbearably righteous about this—I bless the Campbell^® Company because their soups make delicious casseroles and, if I baked cakes, I’d probably use a mix (but I don’t bake). Basically, I cook like my mom taught me some seventy years ago.

It occurs to me that I’m an old-fashioned storyteller too. Recently in a discussion of plotting, I read of a theory that suggested you write the first act or part of the mystery and then the fourth or last. Years ago, a friend advised that if I wanted to write mystery, I should write the end first. Both appalled me. I’m a linear storyteller—I begin at the beginning and write until I come to the end. At least once, I got two-thirds through a novel and wasn’t sure who the bad guy was. How could I have written the end?

Most readers know about plotters and pantsers. Plotters make detailed outlines, some as long as twenty pages or more, and then when they write, they fill in the spaces. It’s like having a detailed and accurate road map. Pantsers, however, write by the seat of their pants. I’m a pantser. When I start a new project, I have some idea—and some rough notes—about where it’s going. But I know even those rough notes will change as I go along and my characters surprise me. There’s a lot of intuitive writing in being a pantser. American novelist E. L. Doctorow famously said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights.”

Today, there are all kinds of computer programs to aid writers. One that many swear by is Scrivener which allows you to write scenes out of order and store them. If your imagination conjures up a great scene, you write it, store it, and figure out where it goes later. Or Grammarly which corrects and critiques your writing as you go. Or Plotter which helps you arrange scenes and plots and promises to get you to the end of your manuscript quickly—almost sounds as though you can let these programs write the book for you. And I guess that’s what makes me nervous about them. That, and, as with the instant pot, the intimidating learning curve.

The writer’s bookshelf is often full of how-to books that suggest best-seller status if you follow their theories. One I hear a lot about lately is Save the Cat Writes a Novel, which prescribes fifteen plot points needed in a mystery. Or you could read Jane Cleland’s Mastering Plot Twists, Plot Pefect by Paula Munier, Mastering Suspense, Structure, and Plot by Jane Cleland and Hallie Ephron. The list is endless, and there is no one perfect formula. Seems to me the new writer needs to learn the basics, but it’s too easy to get lost studying the genre and never get around to writing the book.

So, just for me, the old-fashioned way works. Best advice for writers: “Putt your butt in the chair and write.” I try to write a thousand words at a time and, ideally, do that every day. Some days it works, some days it doesn’t.

Cooking and writing, both difficult arts to master, and I don’t put myself forward as having mastered either one. But I bumble along in my old-fashioned, simplistic way, seeing only what the headlights show me. It’s a nice way to spend the day. And now? I need to look at some recipes!

Kitchen Gadgets

There’s been a thread on Facebook lately about an old kitchen grinder, the kind you screwed on to a table and cranked by hand. My mom had one, and maybe she used it for other things, but I particularly remember my dad making cranberry relish at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was hard work, believe it or not. He’d grind and grind—orange, apple, and cranberry. Then Mom would add just the right amount of sugar.

A surprising number of people recognized the grinder—I didn’t post it, as our family grinder has lone gone—but one friend wrote from Virginia that he had grinders from both his grandmothers and always used them to make relish at the holidays.

I do have some old utensils—a small fork from my grandmother that I now call the bacon fork and use for that exclusively. And a small frozen orange juice can from the days when those cans were metal—my mom, and maybe her mom, used it as a biscuit cutter. One son-in-law, who likes funky old stuff, has already spoken for those.

When I downsized and moved to the cottage, the one thing I missed was kitchen utensils. I apparently took what I thought I needed, and my kids divvied up the rest and disposed of what was left. The result was I have only a rubber-coated spatula, and you can’t get a good crisp edge on anything without a metal spatula. I didn’t have tongs, a ladle. My good collection of wooden cooking spoons has mostly disappeared—and I need to distinguish for my family between a cooking spoon and a salad server.

garage sale finds

I could get a few things from a neighbor who opened her garage sale to me a day early, but I have sworn for my birthday I’m going to register at Target for utensils. Sometimes I ask Jordan for this or that, and it amazes me the things she doesn’t think essential to cooking.

I think I’m an old-fashioned cook, out of step with the times.