#22: Cooking

By then, I’d come to realize that no one was ever going to put my recipes into a book, so I’d have to do it myself…. A food writer who wrote about the book carped that the recipes were not particularly original, but it seemed to me she missed the point. The point wasn’t about the recipes. The point (I was starting to realize) was about putting it together. The point was about making people feel at home, about finding your own style, whatever it was, and committing to it. The point was about giving up neurosis where food was concerned. The point was about finding a way that food fit into your life. (28-29) I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron

I have been thinking about how work can fluctuate between drudgery and delight or stress and satisfaction or mindlessness and meaningful engagement. I don't know of a single job that doesn't come with demands we don't like. I believe the goal is to find the core of the work to be satisfying and rewarding. Often, we also have to struggle through some rough spots to get to a better place and focus on the core. Or, we need to work our way up the ladder to gain the experience and expertise to allow us to do the work we desire. If I can't get to a better place or see a better place in the future, I know that I am doing the wrong kind of work. I need to make a change, if possible now, or plan for a change with a long-term goal in mind.

I find this to be equally true in work on the home front as in professional work. Lately, my writing has brought me unbelievable satisfaction. Actually, I would have to say joy. Successfully, pulling together a post where I say what is truest to myself that day in the most articulate words I can muster within the structural parameters of an essay makes me incredibly happy. I can honestly say that my ability to do so comes from years of practice that taught me how to find my voice, develop the skill and artistry, and build confidence in myself. Now, instead of trying to control my writing, I try to control the context and give myself space, knowing the words will come. Some days are much harder than others and some posts are far better than others. Yet, I have learned to set ideals of perfection aside, put my head down in good faith, and write on.

I find the same is true for me in cooking. Sometimes, I simply can't think of anything I want to cook and need a break from preparing meals for a week or two. Then, food at my house tends toward the most basic like simple grilled cheese sandwiches. Or, we eat plenty of takeout. Or, I find myself scavenging through the prepared and frozen food aisles of the grocery store, looking for something, anything that might fit the bill and not kill us. However, I have cooked enough, just as I have written enough, to know that if I maintain a well-stocked larder, I can pull together a healthy meal from scratch and enjoy cooking, too. I have learned that the more chopping involved, the more vegetables and fruits I prep, the more likely the product is healthy and flavorful. I am in the camp with Nora Ephron: I have found my food style and am committed to it.

Still, cooking is hard work as memories from my childhood remind me. My Midwestern roots are German, and my family tree includes numerous cooks and gardeners (and even earlier, farmers). These are women, who often cooked three meals a day from scratch and fed a house full of hungry mouths, because families were often larger than today. Whoever showed up at mealtime was offered a seat at the table. Your designation as extended family member, old friend, or new acquaintance mattered little. However, a good appetite was of the utmost importance. Food was served in abundance, and eating ample portions of just about everything was expected. I hold this principle of hosting a welcoming table full of good food as a mantra dear to my heart.

I can remember my aunts making cheese, baking bread, preparing sausage, decorating tortes, and preserving everything from sauerkraut to dill pickles to gooseberry jam, usually without a recipe. I remember how they planted asparagus crowns in their gardens and harvested the vegetable two years later to make the most delicious cream of asparagus soup. And, given their immigrant roots, nothing was ever wasted. Food was not to be taken for granted. It was to be fully enjoyed but respected. These women practiced culinary skills which were practical from the most simple of foods to the most sublime of flavors. These women worked hard and certainly could not have enjoyed it much of the time. Yet, these women inspired me and nurtured an appreciation for the well-cooked meal that took me time to understand, years to master, and experimentation to personally define.

As in writing, I try to set the neuroses aside. I try hard not to be a control freak (and my daughters will likely note that I have a long way to go on that front!) or aim for perfection and simply cook with health, flavor and variety in mind. I am a cook, a hard working cook in my own home like the women before me, not a chef or Martha Stewart wannabe. As a result, I continue to enjoy cooking, finding the work satisfying and the experimentation rewarding. I am also putting my most trusted recipes together to give voice to those who came before me, to express my food culture, and to compile a food narrative for my daughters, who may or may not enjoy the work of cooking but may appreciate the memories that lie strewn among the recipes. 

To read more about how cooking empowers me, see my food blog Gatherings and The Culpable Cook at www.theculpablecook.com, or how cooking empowers others see this perspective. 

Cook

Jane Hirshfield

Each night you come home with five continents on your hands:
garlic, olive oil, saffron, anise, coriander, tea,
your fingernails blackened with a marjoram and thyme.
Sometimes the zucchini's flesh seems like a fish-steak,
cut into neat filets, or the salt-rubbed eggplant
yields not bitter water, but dark mystery.
You cut everything into bits.
No core, no kernel, no seed is scared: you cut
onions for hours and do not cry,
cut them to thin transparencies, the red ones
spreading before you like fallen flowers;
you cut scallions from white to green, you cut
radishes, apples, broccoli, you cut oranges, watercress,
romaine, you cut your fingers, you cut and cut
beyond the heart of things, where
nothing remains, and you cut that too, scoring coup
on the butcherblock, leaving your mark,
when you go
your feet are as pounded as brioche dough. 

#17: Prose

The 21st century public psyche seems to be fickle. On the one hand, discourse revolves around the future, fueled in part by technological changes and an entrepreneurial spirit. Think driverless cars or a mechanized workforce or virtual reality. The coming revolution rests both on an optimistic outlook in our ability as humans to solve problems as well as push beyond the limits of our imagination.

On the other hand, social media spreads advances as fast as lightning. This alone ignites anxiety in us to get on board (and fast!) or risk obsolescence. Even worse, each advancement ignites fear. The speed of change provides little time for reflection on the inherent complexities or preparation to brace for impact or discussion of associated social ills. Think drones or genetic modification or cell phone addiction.

The other day I came across Welcome to the Post-Text Future in the New York Times. The piece explores a phenomenon: the reading of text on a screen is out of fashion, being replaced by audio and video. The words of our online world in blogs such as this are being replaced by sound and image. Think YouTube or Instagram or Netflix. Clearly, communication is changing with both positive and negative outcomes. I found the following quote particularly thought-provoking and disconcerting:

Then there’s the more basic question of how pictures and sounds alter how we think. An information system dominated by pictures and sounds prizes emotion over rationality. It’s a world where slogans and memes have more sticking power than arguments. (Remind you of anyone?) And will someone please think of the children: Do you know how much power YouTube has over your kids? Are you afraid to find out?

Emotion over rationality equals easy manipulation, no? Further, so much of what underlies the discussion of technological advancement is laced with grief for all that is being lost from handwriting to blogs to newspapers. Will our human communication be enriched with an increasing diversity of means of expression? Or will prose be lost along with the rational discipline it demands, relegated to the graveyard by memes and slogans? I wonder whether we ought to embrace a doomsday scenario.

In many ways, I do worry about the future. Yet, I believe in the insatiable desire of humans to express themselves, fundamentally by speaking and writing. Communication is essential to the survival of living things; by extension, language and creativity are essential to human expression. As such, we may be in for a bumpy ride as we add new forms of pictures and sounds to our daily lives, but my own yearning to write is a testament to the power of language and our desire to interpret experience through prose.

Friday night, I photographed a February sunset. The lantern beckoned from the drive. The sky spoke in streaks of color like the ribbons flowing from my daughter's hair as a child. Fuchsia screamed. Indigo bled. Violet relented. Light stretched through the darkening trees that towered overhead. Nature had me in its grip. I couldn't move despite the tugs on the leash from the dog who had had enough and finds nighttime unsettling. I persisted long enough to snap a photo and pen these very words in my mind. For the photo endures as do the words. Technology will change our lives. Yet, I wrote, I write now, I will write tomorrow. Prose abides.

I will write until the day I die, or until I am robbed of my capacity to reason. Even if my fingers were to clench and wither, even if I were to grow deaf or blind, even if I were unable to move a muscle in my body save for the blink of one eye, I would still write. Writing saved my life. Writing has been my window—flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence—my way of interpreting everything within my grasp. Writing has extended that grasp by pushing me beyond comfort, beyond safety, past my self-perceived limits. It has softened my heart and hardened my intellect. It has been a privilege. It has whipped my ass. It has burned into me a valuable clarity. It has made me think about suffering, randomness, good will, luck, memory, responsibility, and kindness, on a daily basis—whether I feel like it or not. It has insisted that I grow up. That I evolve. It has pushed me to get better, to be better. It is my disease and my cure. It has allowed me not only to withstand the losses in my life but to alter those losses—to chip away at my own bewilderment until I find the pattern in it. Once in a great while, I look up at the sky and think that, if my father were alive, maybe he would be proud of me. That if my mother were alive, I might have come up with the words to make her understand. That I am changing what I can. I am reaching a hand out to the dead and to the living and the not yet born. So yes. Yes. Still writing. (227) 

Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life by Dani Shapiro

#14: Baffled

"Form serves us best when it works as an obstruction to baffle us and deflect our intended course. It may be that when we no longer know what to do we have come to our real work and that when we no longer know which way to go we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings." Poetry and Marriage by Wendell Berry

I know that my mind is truly baffled when I cannot even decide what to prepare for dinner. Although I do need a break periodically, I love to make food, to try new recipes and prepare old favorites, and to introduce new flavors to my family's palette. Most of the time, my family plays along happily. I also have a tendency to set food goals like Meatless Monday or a lettuce salad to accompany every dinner or the inclusion of more beans and legumes in our weekly menu. So, when I can't find any inspiration or direction when it comes to dinner preparation much less writing, I know the problem largely points to my personal well being.

At least once a week, I seem to find myself distracted and lacking focus as if I am carrying all the cares of the world on my shoulders and cannot be bothered with the day's work. I could blame this on social media or my hormones or the weather or a poor night's sleep. Trust me when I say that the list of culprits could go on and on. However, I know that I really have no one to blame but myself. I work at home and write at my desk in my office, a solitary endeavor the majority of the time. Silence, not solitude, is the real issue. I am learning to consciously cultivate external silence which in turn gives voice to my internal thoughts and desires. Soon, the words I string together are authentic. I feel centered and ready to tackle any task, including dinner.

I try to cultivate silence each day at home by following these guidelines:

1. See the family off to work and school;
2. Complete a small list of daily chores;
3. Turn the TV and radio off;
4. Quiet the dog and cat;
5. Check email -- be ruthless in unsubscribing and deleting invasive messages and responding solely to mail that builds relationships or increases productivity;
6. Uninstall any application, software, or social media platform that is not essential or in line with #7;
7. Engage in bits of reading that inspire the imagination and challenge thought;
8. Make a concerted effort to each out to one person each day by telephone, email, or snail mail, particularly friends and family spread far and wide, to maintain healthy and supportive long-term relationships;
9. Walk the dog on our daily neighborhood loop no matter the weather and breathe; and
10. When scheduling, be sure to leave a three hour block open in the morning or afternoon.

I build my daily routine around these ten steps. Although I can't say these guidelines help me do my best work, I believe they help me do steady, productive work. My goal is to turn writing into a practice rather than a periodic endeavor. And, I hope to be able to better direct my baffled mind and sing with clarity as I cobble together words on the page as best I am able, impeded yet unencumbered. And, also always ready to share a meal.

#11: Hate

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

I am astounded that fellow citizens don't seem to be bothered by the words our elected officials use in public discourse these days. Similarly, I am repeatedly shocked by the freedom social media appears to afford users to say things one would never say face to face to another person. Do words matter? Of course they do!

Given the nature of this blog, I am sure you know that I value words and never underestimate their power. I usually contemplate a single word at length, striving to get beyond its definition to uncover its deeper meaning for me personally. Impractical? Yes. Still, I believe that human expression through language is unique and complex, deserving of both restraint and respect.

As children, my siblings and I easily threw about the word hate. "I hate broccoli!" "I hate math!" "I hate going to Sunday school!" Sometimes, other children were recipients of our hateful sentiments, too. In response, I remember clearly how my father, who grew up in WWII Germany, taught us not to use the word hate and throw it around so casually. He reminded us that we didn't really understand hate as he had experienced it, and we should use it sparingly. It was a stinging reprimand.

As a high school teacher, I often discussed the use of profanity with my students. Most teenagers (if they haven't done so at a younger age) go through a phase of pushing boundaries through the use of profanity. Swear words are used to shock, to gain peer acceptance and build status, and to express often overwhelming emotions. Profanity has its place, but teenagers often use profanity superficially as a means of expression that never gets to the heart of the issue at hand. 

I would argue that in a language as rich as English with an estimated one million words, my students could express themselves otherwise in a more productive and thorough manner. Getting beyond swear words to build effective communication skills would serve them far better in the long run. I wanted my students to be heard. So, I taught them to choose words wisely, setting the groundwork to be respected by respecting others through their speech. Often, it was a hard sell.

As a parent, I have tried to teach my daughters to think before they speak. I remind them that their words should be positive: they should build up others or work to improve a situation. This doesn't mean that you don't have to say difficult things sometimes or that others will always be happy to hear what you have to say. Rather, the goal is to speak thoughtfully and not simply lash out impertinently. We all struggle to restrain ourselves at times, but in my experience children are as capable as adults of understanding the difference between words meant to hurt and those meant to help.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a master of communication. He knew how to choose words exceptionally well such that nonviolent protest became an overwhelmingly powerful tool for social change. As a result, King left a lasting verbal legacy. His words continue to live well beyond the man, to remain applicable to changing times, and to offer inspiration and insight when we become weary with the world. How profoundly this contrasts with Tweets sent impulsively at 3:00 a.m. of "words that make my stomach plummet" like a petulant child who was never been taught better! Let's live up to King's example and begin to demand more in speech (as in action) of others as well, especially those elected to represent us and our nation's ideals.

Words That Make My Stomach Plummet

Mira McEwan

Committee Meeting. Burden of Proof.
The Simple Truth. Trying To Be Nice.
Honestly. I Could Have Died. I Almost Cried.
It’s Only a Cold Sore.
It’s My Night. Trust Me. Dead Serious.
I Have Everything All Under Control.
I’m Famous For My Honesty.
I’m Simply Beside Myself. We’re On The Same Page.
Let’s Not Reinvent The Wheel.
For The Time Being. There Is That.
I’m Not Just Saying That.
I Just Couldn’t Help Myself. I Mean It.

Automagically

William Shakespeare added thousands of words and phrases to the English language such as "too much of a good thing" from As You Like It. I think we can all relate to that phrase after coming off of the food frenzy of the holidays.

I appreciate that language is a living thing that evolves over time in response to its changing context and the humans that shape it for better or worse. And, I can't think of a greater human legacy than adding to our English lexicon with phrases as poetic as to "wear one's heart on one's sleeve" from Othello.

The ESPN sportscaster Stuart Scott died on Sunday at 49 after three bouts with cancer. I have come to appreciate the barriers he broke with his work of exceptional quality not only as a black man but also as a contributor to our expanding lexicon. "Booyah!" was his signature expression. I may not use the exclamation, but I do appreciate his poetic turn of phrase, including "Cool as the other side of the pillow." You know exactly what he means literally and figuratively, don't you?

Scott reached the viewer with words that provoked a visual image in common vernacular which seems to me to be the most worthy of achievements. Every day, we string together letters to make words, and string words together to make phrases, and string our thoughts together to move others toward some greater or deeper understanding.

I certainly attempt to do this very thing here with every post on A Measured Word. And, I try to pay close attention to words as I read and go about my daily life. I may notice a word new to me that completely hits the nail on the head in a given situation or words that speak truth and beauty to me or a turn of phrase that touches the heart and stays in the mind. Each returns to me repeatedly afterward even as I move on with my day.

Three words I have come to love recently and have added to my personal lexicon are automagically, confuzzlement, and parkma. Perhaps, I will one day add a word or phrase to our native tongue, too. Until then, I can keep playing with the nuts and bolts of language right here, word by measured word, and just appreciate where language leads in these most fleeting and precious days.

"We open our mouths and out flow words whose ancestries we do not even know. We are walking lexicons. In a single sentence of idle chatter we preserve Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Norse: we carry a museum inside our heads, each day we commemorate peoples of whom we have never heard." ~ Penelope Lively in Moon Tiger

Slog

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. Albert Camus

An article in the New York Times has caused a stir in the blogosphere. The issue is one that has been brewing for some time. It revolves around the fact that some bloggers are paring down their posts or giving up blogging altogether due to the unrelenting nature of the beast which has left some feeling spent and uninspired.

Of course, the bloggers discussed are trying to make a living off of the medium with little help and minimal overhead. How many times can someone redecorate a house or come up with an original DIY project with enough glitz and gloss to satisfy the current social media frenzy and compete with traditional print magazines in the same genre without selling one's soul to the advertising options available in order to make a dime?
'
Seems like a real slog that I am grateful to avoid, and I must say that the result seems to be a lack of authenticity. I have stopped subscribing to numerous blogs over the years that either simply fail to inspire and interest me any longer or lose their appeal as real and fresh. The bloggers fail to connect and inspire the reader with depth and honesty. Rather, the blogs read more like a mainstream, popular magazine you would buy in desperation at the airport bookstore as you search for something to lull you to sleep on the red eye to California.

Let me speak for myself here: just as the fashion industry needs to expand its understanding of beauty, I believe the blogosphere needs to mature by nurturing a bit more grit and reality rather than polish and glamour. The readers live lives that are complex and certainly would appreciate bloggers who strive for authenticity as they struggle through the day-to-day personally and professionally, creatively and reflectively. I know I am looking for this authenticity when I vett blogs. Thankfully, I still stumble across blogs that motivate me to subscribe.

So, I hope we continue to say yes to blogging and support our fellow bloggers who give us something that resonates with our lives and the struggles and triumphs we experience as well. In this vein, I assure you that I strive to blog authentically as I share with you, dear reader, my own comings and goings. I won't apologize anymore for my absences, because my life is real, too, and I struggle to juggle the demands. I never share thoughts that don't come from the heart. I take my own photos and share my own words, recipes, activities, and life happenings.

I share a sliver of my own reality and hope you enjoy. However, if A Measured Word does begin to get stale for you, do not hesitate to move on. This blog should never be a slog for me nor should it bog you down either. I hope you continue to enjoy this partnership and look forward to what might come in the next post as much as I do. And, don't hesitate to comment either. I do so enjoy the conversation.

Pencils

Among writers, a fondness for pencils runs deep. For example, John Steinbeck began every day with 24 freshly-sharpened pencils. Henry David Thoreau and his father manufactured the hardest, blackest pencils of the day. And, Jack London said,

"Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory."

Although I post here with keyboard beneath my fingertips, I keep a stash of sharpened pencils close at hand for the sake of nostalgia and superstition if no longer for practicality. Of course, as far as I can tell, love of person, place, or thing has a tendency to be deeply personal rather than imminently practical in my book.

Rudimentary Mechanics for Elementary Minds

In grade school, we arrived early to sharpen our pencils before the bell and opening pledge lest a dull utensil impede flowing script on manila paper, broadly lined and center dotted.

Erasing thoroughly with tip or cap or block easily tore through the rough fibers

and left pink rubber shavings in abundance on the page which we blew to the floor with a great flourish of frustration.

Sloppy work would require a rewrite as lead darkened fingers and easily smudged across the page, cutting into recess and one’s allotted time with hula-hoop or four square.

During the day, the teacher reluctantly gave us permission to sharpen a pencil

and one can only presume she found the sound of the hand crank Sanford distracting.

Secured to the wall near the classroom door with a dial of incremental holes for insertion, not too tight not too loose, metal met wood and caught shavings in the belly of the tool.

No job was more coveted than emptying the catch which overflowed with curled shavings and graphite dust, requiring a wastebasket be situated underneath at the janitor’s behest.

As you turned the crank, you turned your pencil counter to insure an evenly sharpened tip, but not too sharp or it would break off immediately and provoke a reprimand for wastefulness.

Dixon Ticonderogas were never thrown away but collected in the metal lip of the pencil holder beneath the lid of each desk, a prized collection of yellow nubbins to be counted at the end of the school year.

Evidence of great exertion, this first exercise in quantity over quality led to

great angst as we switched from pencil to pen along with buildings in junior high,

leaving such rudimentary mechanics for elementary minds behind.

*****

Other sharpeners I have loved....

Dormant

Welcome, dear reader!

College towns lie dormant in January. Students are on break, reducing the population as well as the hustle and bustle significantly. In nature, things appear frozen at the surface in winter but activity does continue several feet down where animals hibernate and insects survive below the frost line. Likewise on campus, things are happening just not at their usual pace or as evident to the casual visitor.

I also have been absent with little activity evident on my blog posts. However, I have been working behind the scenes with bold plans for 2014 which are being unveiled here. I am moving from Typepad to Blogger, for starters. I will be able to consolidate some things as well as simplify blogging.

I also wanted to give A Measured Word a bit of an update both in format and content to provide more flexibility as I write and create. I do believe the "academic" focus is authentically me and original in the blogosphere as well. I know many of you agree that college towns and university communities are wonderful places to live. I would love your feedback as I streamline what I am doing over the next few weeks.

Finally, winter has slowed life down considerably after the holidays here. Snowstorms and wind chills and school closings mean movies and hot chocolate and family time but little computer time. Here is what it has looked like right outside the kitchen doors of NOLD:

I sure was glad I filled the bird feeders last week as the winds and snow battered our area. Dangerous wind chills arrive tonight; school is closed again tomorrow. Sigh. I am sure this will call for some work in the kitchen. More to come soon....

Note: Many of the does in our neighborhood wear deer tags in their ears as part of a sterilization study being conducted in our village by the university. This is the latest attempt to control an ever burgeoning deer population many communities now face.