In the kitchen

Dear Cartoon Girl,

Every night I ask my darling husband what he'd like for dinner and he sweetly answers, "I don't care." Should I quit asking or stop cooking?

– Fresh Out of Ideas


Dear Fresh,

I like you. You're funny. Pithy like I wish I were. Have you ever thought of starting your own column?

So, you have carte blanche in the kitchen. (Can you tell I'm practicing to go to France?) I'm guessing your husband eats whatever you cook, and is appreciative or at least uncomplaining, and that you're doing the cooking according to some division of labor you've worked out that seems, on the whole, balanced – oui?

This, then, is purely a problem of inspiration, one well-known to writers as well as cooks. How do we work when we aren't inspired?

We turn to our Lists of Favorites.

In the room where I write I have a special shelf of books whose language is so crystalline and compelling I need read only a line or two and, voilà!, my own imagination is fired up. James Salter, Amy Hempel, Angela Davis-Gardner, Wallace Stephens.

In your kitchen, keep a list of your favorite meals, dishes that are fresh and tasty and healthy and quick and easy. You can grab ideas anywhere – restaurants, cookbooks, the newspaper, magazines in the checkout line at the grocery store (I'm a sucker for these), dishes your friends make, your own concoctions.

Use your favorites list to plan meals, keeping in mind what's in season. Take it with you when you shop. (If you don't have a garden or belong to a CSA, be sure your shopping includes a trip to the local farmers market.) Buy enough ingredients for several meals. If you're cooking something that makes good leftovers, cook extra.

Next, and no less important: tunes. Keep a music player in your kitchen, and make a CD or playlist of your favorite songs. Play it while you cook. Play it loud. Sing along. Dance! Have so much fun your darling husband gets jealous and wishes he were the one doing the cooking.

Finally, Fresh, if all else fails, consult the other list you should be making: favorite places to eat out.

Bon appetit!

Love,
Cartoon Girl

P.S.  I burned tonight's dinner while working on this column.

Impetus to write

Dear Cartoon Girl,

What ever made you think you could write?

 – Curious and a Little Rude


Dear Curious,

Reading Raymond Carver.

I know, I know, it's such a common answer I'm almost embarrassed.

I wish I could give Judith Guest's answer. She says she picked up a book of poetry called Fruits and Vegetables by Erica Jong before anyone had heard of Erica Jong and read a poem about cooking an eggplant just after she'd spent the morning chopping eggplant for ratatouille. She says Erica Jong's poem gave her the epiphany that you can write about anything.

Isn't that answer swell? I wonder if Judith Guest made it up.

Anyway, I had the same epiphany, minus the eggplant coincidence, reading Raymond Carver – that  you can make literature out of even the smallest things, the most invisible people. For me, writing is about paying attention to what others might not notice or think worthy.

Love,
Cartoon Girl