The Furious Spinner

Endicott Redux has another late night post perfect for me and maybe for you. All about food in relationship to story. It inspires me to continue my research for two novels of mine in the embryonic stages where cooks are the main characters. (Although I don't want to get too far afield since I want to continue working on The Riverbend Refugee.)

I suppose that last sentence was meant just for me. Self-talk. Kim, settle down and write the book you've started. I do that all the time. I become like someone newly in love who finally gets the boy/girl she's been pining for, only to wonder if maybe someone else would be easier. Or better. Or more of a soul mate. Etc. I think, "Hmmmm, I love this book, but wouldn't it be more fun to tell that story instead..." And doesn't that story look great in that little black cocktail dress...Purty.

But I digress.

It's the middle of the night. I'm supposed to be asleep. I've now had three of my health professionals tell me I've got to get my sleep under control. Or rather, I need to get some...Sleep, that is. Hmmmm. Any ideas? I've got to get up early tomorrow because I want to harvest some rosemary, sage, and lavender.

I'll try to catch some zzzzzs now. Maybe exes and whys too.

Have fun with the food links at Endicott Redux. By the way, I read the Chitrita Banerji piece that Terri linked to. It was lovely. At the beginning of the excerpt, Banerji writes, "During my years as a food writer, I have championed the cause of regional cuisine as the only authentic culinary identity." As I read this, I thought, well that's easy to say if you're from India or China or someplace where the food is interesting. If you're from the Midwest of the United States, as I was, there ain't any regional cuisine. Is there? Am I wrong? Perhaps we just forgot what our regional cuisine was. Or maybe I just thought our food was boring. Meat, potatoes, vegetables. Ostensibly edible but...bleck. (Yes, I'm such an expressive and articulate writer, ain't I?) My mother made amazing soups, but were those part of our regional cuisine? My French ancestors in Michigan caught, cooked, and ate muskrat. But I don't really want to contemplate that right now, thank you. (We watched Fast Food Nation tonight and there was a scene where they were slaughtering cattle and I got dizzy and almost puked, so I really don't want to envision any meat dishes right now. By the way, I am once again so glad I don't eat cows.)

I've been thinking a lot about local food, as you know. I believe in getting as much of our food locally as possible. I want food that is sustainably grown and harvested, local, organic, and in season. I want to have a teeny-tiny carbon footprint. However, the people on these lands, the lands of the West where I live, have traded with each other for thousands of years. Archaeologists have found evidence that Southwest Native peoples and Mexican Native peoples traded parrot feathers, bells, maize, beans, squash, and cotton. Northwest tribes traded with the Inuits in Alaska and Siberia. Siberia! Trade happens and has happened over long distances forever. What we've got to figure out now is how to trade sustainably.

Okay, I'm really going to try to sleep now.

Sleepy hugs.

P.S. I told you about the Spring issue of Journal of Mythic Arts, right? Wonderful. If I may say so meself: I've got two pieces in it.

Labels: Endicott, food, Riverbend Refugee, sleep, writing

0 comments

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Then and Now