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Waxing and Waning

June 11th, 2006 Caroline

Cooking energy and writing energy never used to go hand in hand for me. When I was working on my dissertation, I would fuel my writing with periods of Snapple iced tea and Hershey’s kisses (my very-vanilla stimulants of choice), not stopping to cook a proper meal for a while. Then when the writing was going badly, I would cook and cook and cook: breads, cookies, elaborate, multi-course dinners. It was always one or the other.

Lately, though, cooking and writing energy seem to be coming together. Recently I was in a lull with both, though I didn’t realize it until one day when I got annoyed with Tony for cooking the boys scrambled eggs for lunch, the dinner-of-last-resort I’d been counting on making them. Thinking back, I realized we’d pretty much been alternating pasta and eggs for several days.
As for my writing, I’d heard an interview with Kenji Yoshino and decided that his new book, Covering, would give me the perfect structuring metaphor for my essay in Mama, Ph.D. Except I hadn’t read the book, nor could I find it in the local bookstore, and I kept forgetting to order it on Amazon (yes, I can give you the link but I still haven’t purchased it). It was all quite elaborate procrastination, of course, an excuse to avoid writing.

Thankfully, the lull seems to be fading. We went away for the weekend with good friends, and the prospect of a weekend at the beach got me digging out magazine recipes I’d been meaning to try. For our two nights away, we packed one small duffle bag of clothing and five bags of groceries. I made this baked egg dish (delicious), grilled zucchini pizza and mushroom pizza (pizza on the barbecue! a first for me, and a hit with the kids) and also these maple sugar breakfast rolls (which I’ll make again, because they’re easy, tasty, and I only used about a quarter of the maple sugar the recipe called for, so I have plenty left over). Finally, I made these nice almond shortcakes, which are so much like wheatmeal biscuits or hobnobs, I may never have to buy them again (delicious with raspberries and cream, or just get out the Nutella jar).
As for the writing, well, I’ll still go look for Covering. But in the meantime, my first column’s up, my second is suddenly drafted, and I’ve got some other ideas percolating. So in fact, I should stop with this and get to that!

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