Culinary Ravings Could Free You From A Middling Secretarial Career
"I liked both sections, but I'm a three year old...I don't want my food to touch."
"There's something about a warm green bean." Mom's made romanos for dinner, taking string bean's linebacker brother and coaxing him into a tender, buttery thing. She's timed it so that my errand's spoils are replaced with a hungry, steaming bowl, the onions left to sputter across the counter. Yeah, there's something about them, and soon I'm territorial with want. Cujo sick. I resign myself to a laze-y boy lounger, limbs akimbo. I always feel a little buzzed after a boiled summer vegetable.
Ghostwriting
The problem with writing is that I rarely feel like I'm at the wheel. Instead, a sort of possession takes place, and there's a half-baked Tom Robbins or David Sedaris hunched over Rosalie's keyboard, writing things she doesn't know a whit about (New York, 90s celebrity, all that crap). I've been reading *Julie and Julia*, so Ms. Powell's in charge. She'll have me waxing poetic about sultry calf liver or coq au vin if I'm not careful. Julie's a cynic and a genius writer, so this arrangement is better than most (thank you, David, for an introduction to the concept of male ejaculate) but there's nothing earnest in a ghostwriter.
The bitter thing about the online environ is that you can stumble upon old news- bad news, in this instance- at any old time. A passing review of her favored vodka gimlet (bedded down in a chilled cocktail glass) linked to a reddit obit entitled "Julie Powell, Author Behind ‘Julie & Julia,’ Dead at 49." And here I was, making little puns about ghostwriting, blithely unaware of the fact that one of the most Genius and Brilliant authors of the blogging-era had died.
Amanda Hesser of The New York Times wrote:
"I’d never read anyone like her. Her writing was so fresh, spirited — sometimes crude! — and so gloriously unmoored to any tradition.”
@Professor_JT of r/books echoed the sentiment.
"She inspired me to start my podcast, a similar pursuit, only instead of recipes, I'm reading the Great Works of Western Civilization."
Reddit is rife with misanthropic Web MDers, and Julie's thread proved no exception. @Gemmabeta settled the debate.
"Lots of armchair cardiologists up in this thread accusing this lady of eating herself to death because she had some duck confit in her late-20s."
So this possession business had taken a literal turn, if not one in bad taste. So what. l love a woman who writes what is honest, even as a lick of masochism runs through it. This extends beyond the the stacks, the brat pack prose; an entry on trial through "biftek" will do just fine. Tomorrow I'll set about mixing a dry vodka gimlet, chilled, and arrange it so that there's a body (an Andrew) to receive the toast.
// re : Vodka Gimlet. For those who haven’t read or watched or otherwise consumed Julie’s work, the story closes with her minor pilgrimage to The Smithsonian’s Julia Child exhibit. There, she leaves a stick of butter in tribute. I’m doing just that, but with an item of equivalent devotion.
Cattle Dream of Loam
Rangey log cabin. Former one-room schoolhouse, present summer shack for a divided family of ranching lineage. By this time the livestock and land have been sold, and no one has really ridden a horse for about three generations, and matriarchal relations are frosty. None of this matters in modern practice, because nothing unites a bloodline like the prospect of a lakeside timeshare.
The Cabin is a proving ground for city knees. Olivia recounts her scrapes: fallen spillway lifts in the style of Jennifer Grey, creek recon casualties, calves meeting mean cement slabs. Pine tar and barbed wire frequent the county. Green sage grows in abundance, gangly like a puppy and about as eager to teeth, incisors scraping your mother's shins. There's a lot to be said for a thicket by way of expletives. But this is ranching land, and cattle dream of loam. They travel over soil accommodating and plush. They eat well of grass shoots and don mud slippers when it rains. The brush gives way to cow country, and my steps become careless. Scrub puppies aren't bound to hospitality, but long-lashed Bessies are.
As a kid I entertained fantasies about transporting Anne of Green Gables' into 21st century America, myself attentive and empathetic as I played cultural ambassador for ipads and ginger beer. I always chose to hold the initial period of acclimation at The Cabin, where I hoped the fens and physical isolation would lessen the blow of time travel.