Listening to Hard to Explain, The Strokes

This week I’ve been exploring old and new recipes for a book I’m revising. It dawned on me that what was needed was a deeper dive into the foods that ground my character in this world and connect her to a culture that she is in many ways ashamed of.

Food is often the thing that triggers, the feels, those warm and fuzzy memories from our childhoods of when we were nurtured and loved through our palettes. It doesn’t take much to bring everything rushing back, a fragrance, a particular sound, that first bite of cake you purchased at a deli that tastes almost exactly like one a long gone relative used to make for you. That alone can be enough to stop us in our tracks and open up the flood gates.

I found a pie crust recipe that a friend had mailed to me when she was alive. I had complimented her on her delicious pie and how flaky her crust was. I admitted to her that I had never been able to master pie crust, that it was an elusive beast and that I was cursed to failure. Her recipe was still inside the envelope, hand written, with a sweet encouraging note. She’d called her recipe, No Fail Pie Crust. I wept when I pulled it out. I had never even tried to make it. So, I did. And she was right. It was perfect. Thank you, Laura.

Cooking is therapy for me. Maybe this is because when I am in the kitchen, gently folding egg whites into a batter or straining bits of peppers from a sauce I’ve been simmering for hours, I am linked to all those family cooks who came before me through the chain of DNA that connects us. I am linked to all of the teachers that took the time to share a secret recipe with me. It’s that simple and that beautiful.  

What are you cooking today?