What the Love Goddess' Cooking School is Really About by Melissa Senate

WHAT THE LOVE GODDESS’ COOKING SCHOOL IS REALLY ABOUT

by Melissa Senate

The summer I was getting divorced, a close friend flew from New York City to Maine to stay with me for the weekend in my new apartment. She glanced around my quaint small town of 8,000 with its lovely young families and historic homes, then looked at me and my (then) four year old son, and said, “You have to move to Portland. You won’t be happy in this town. As a single mother and living in an apartment, you won’t see yourself reflected here. You won’t feel like you belong. In New York (from where I’d moved two years earlier), anything goes. Here, perfect—however surface level—goes.”

Sledgehammer. I hadn’t even thought of that one. You won’t feel like you belong. You won’t see yourself reflected here. Perfect goes. That was four years ago, and as it turned out, she was both right and wrong (there turned out to be quite a few single mothers). That first year, though, I did struggle to feel like I belonged. But there was no moving: my town has one of the best public school systems in the state, which was my main priority. And it’s one of the few towns with great schools that also has a walkable downtown, albeit a little one—a necessity for me (including a sweet little indie bookstore). I was staying, despite the blinking  neon D on my forehead. 

Because my dear friend was also very right, I stayed home a lot more than I usually would. And I started to cook for the first time. I had the legendary Julia Child and Marcella Hazan and Mark Bittman by my side. And my dear little son, Max, asking if he could work the stove (no, but you can beat the eggs. And you can dip the chicken cutlets in the egg and flour and breadcrumbs). As my son and I spent hours in the kitchen, making pancakes from scratch, baking cakes and cookies, layering lasagna, talking, laughing, being together, I slowly began to feel that I belonged in my own house, my own life . . . and when you feel that way, you leave your house with your head held high. The neon D faded for me until I completely stopped thinking of myself as divorced or a single mother or different at all. I started thinking of myself as just me. A new me, but me.

And with a little perspective, I started to write about a thirty-year-old woman named Holly Maguire who feels adrift in her own life and stuck in one she doesn’t feel is her own. She inherits her legendary grandmother’s cooking class and now has four students who also feel adrift, who need to feel that they belong. And as they cook together, they talk. They share, they hope, they dream, they wish (the recipes call for adding wishes or memories into every pot and pan) into the chicken alla Milanese and saffron risotto and three cheese gnocchi. And their hopes and dreams begin to come true, not from the wishing, but because of the wishing, the asking for what they wanted. The daring to deserve, perhaps.

In THE LOVE GODDESS’ COOKING SCHOOL, heartbroken Holly hopes to rediscover her love of cooking, taken from her by a long ago mistake. A twelve-year-old girl abandoned by her mother signs on as Holly’s apprentice so she can learn to cook her dad’s favorite Italian food and stop him from marrying his phony lasagna-queen girlfriend. Holly’s childhood friend twists her wedding band, barely bear to be in the kitchen as she hides a painful secret. A serial dater pressured to get married by her overbearing family can’t admit she longs for love. And a separated father hopes to cook his way back into his young daughter’s heart.  In the end, they’ll all discover what belonging truly means.

All that cooking and home-bodying worked out quite well for me. It gave me a book. And today, I’m giving one away! Leave a comment for a chance to win a signed copy of THE LOVE GODDESS’ COOKING SCHOOL, published just a few weeks ago by Simon & Schuster.  You can comment on my post, cooking, writing, the weather—anything will do!  P.S. Many thanks to Rebecca for sharing her blog with me!

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The Streak, Mr. Duck, and a Vision by Christi Craig

Note: This post originally appeared on Beth Hoffman's amazing website -- I read it and loved it so much, I asked Christi to share. Thank you ladies!

The Streak, Mr. Duck, and a Vision

By Christi Craig (you can find her here)

A few months ago, my husband completed a year-long running streak. For 365 days straight - no matter the weather or a late night of work or a killer cold – he put on his running shoes and hit the pavement.

Three miles.

Six miles.

Ten miles.

He was dedicated, committed, and some days a little obsessive. Once he hit the year mark, he turned to me and said that running every day was no longer a streak.

“It’s a way of life.”

I nodded in complete understanding. Running, I thought, is a lot like writing.

I write every day.

A paragraph.

A few hundred words.

One whole page.

I am dedicated, committed, and some days a little obsessive. Though that wasn’t always the case.

I was in the fifth grade when I first caught the writing bug.


“A How-To book,” our teacher, Mrs. Young, told our class. “That’s your assignment. You are the author, the illustrator, and the expert.”


I focused on the word “expert,” and tried to think of something I could do well. I could play the piano, sort of. I knew the rules of Softball, but I had barely worn in my glove. Never mind my batting average. 


I was pretty good at irritating my older sisters, but that wasn’t a skill I could break down into five simple steps.


I had nothing.


Then, at school one day, the catch phrase of the year echoed down the hallway outside of the classroom.


 “Gag me with a spoon!” I heard.


The words reverberated in my mind and an image formed. Once I got home, I scoured the house for pencils, crayons, and Manila paper. Manic and determined, I worked all afternoon, writing and drawing. 


I re-worded the catch phrase to make the story unique and wrote my very first book:

How to Gag Yourself with a Spatula, Starring Mr. Duck.

(I would not realize the art of naming characters until much later.)
When I turned in the assignment, Mr. Duck wore a red bowtie, and I wore a broad smile.


Mrs. Young hosted the How-To book release party in the intimate setting of our homeroom. When I stood up to read, I planted myself in front of the chalkboard. I ignored the heat rising up my neck and read Mr. Duck’s five steps to a successful gag with an everyday kitchen utensil. Afterward, I received rave reviews, and I was hooked.


Hooked on writing.


Hooked on taking the spark of an idea and turning it into a story that would capture and captivate an audience.

It took years and another writing assignment – this time from a published author teaching an online course - for the seed of writing that was planted in the fifth grade to take root.

“Write your own beautiful vision,” our instructor directed, “of where you want to be in five years.”

I struggled to dream big. But really, I knew what I wanted.

I have just finished reading the final proof of my novel. Tomorrow, I call my agent, who calls the publisher, who calls the printer. I fan the pages of my manuscript and see my words come alive as the story unfolds - the story of a character I've been getting to know for several years now.

Let the story go, I tell myself, and let it land where it may.

My son and daughter are in school for only a few more weeks, so my afternoons are still mine, and quiet. I step outside and walk to the garden. With bare hands and tools, I turn the soil, wake up the earthworms. I prepare the ground for herbs, tomatoes, and wildflowers. The wind raises goose bumps on my arms, but the sun warms my back.

Today, the dream of holding my novel in my hands seems much more possible. Not because I have an agent or a publisher. Not even because I get paid to write. But, because the moment I wrote that vision, I called myself a Writer.

I write every day – no matter my mood, or the status of my muse, or the absence of time.

One paragraph.

One page.

One whole story.

Writing is no longer a dream; it’s no longer a hobby. It’s a way of life.

~

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." ~Anais Nin

Show up. Sit down. Do the Work. By Erica Jamieson

Erica Jamieson writes short fiction and creative non-fiction. She is working on finishing her first novel among other projects. Her work has appeared in Self Magazine, Oneforthetable.com, and in small press literary magazines. She is a contributor to the monthly Isaian Magazine and oversees a blog for her monthly writing group, tlswriters.wordpress.com.  She also sporadically updates her own blog about weight and food at waistless.blogspot.com.  But above all else she is a reader. Erica moderates book groups with the goal of experiencing the intention of the author rather than focusing on what is good, what is bad. Her favorite is her daughter’s seventh grade book group that meets monthly out of school.  There are new avid generations of readers abounding in this wildly webbed world and it is wonderful.


Show up. Sit Down. Do the work.
By Erica Jameison

I have this recurring day dream.  In an eclectic coffee shop, I am hunched over my Macbook, espresso cooling on the table, toe tapping in rhythm to fingers typing at warp speed.  Suddenly, there is a person, could be man, could be woman, it matters little.  We talk about my work.  By the end of the next cup of coffee I have a patron, champion for my craft.  A heroic angel who facilitates my every artistic need. I am given a key to a wooded hideaway where I can work uninterrupted. The fridge is always stocked full with sparkling water and plates of sliced cucumbers.  Somewhere in this day dream (recurring mostly at about three p.m. weekdays) my carpooling and lunch making responsibilities wane.  I no longer have to grocery shop.  And then, my work, like well fertilized rosemary, blossoms and grows wildly.

It is so much easier to imagine the work already done than to sit down and actually do the work.  I know.  I am queen of resistance.  I can sit down at my desk only to remember that dirty fork in the sink, and well, I certainly can’t work with a messy house.

Part of my resistance comes from bad planning, lack of keeping to a schedule, allowing the world at large to take precedence over my work.  Hence the need for a patron, someone other than me who believes I am a writer. Left to my own devices, I have my doubts.

Because the other piece of my resistance is the answer to the question what do you do?  It took me twenty years to say I write.  And yet, I still qualify that by saying I am an emerging writer. Emerging?  What does that mean? To materialize.  Develop.  Arrive.  Oh, to arrive as fully developed writer, now wouldn’t that be truly something?

But does a writer ever really arrive?  I have files of story ideas, conception ideas, novel starts and stops.  Is it simply because I am still awaiting some sort of gilded credential to the professional writer’s club that keeps me from finishing?

Zoe Klein, who had her first novel, Drawing in the Dust, published last summer always wanted to be a writer but it was her father who helped her define the term.  He is a sculptor and a teacher.  Some students beguile themselves with an image of being an artiste, he might tell his daughter, while others show up everyday to work at their craft.  Zoe Klein understood this disparity and despite, or because of, her insane schedule, (head rabbi of a reform temple in Los Angeles, mother of three), she showed up everyday to do the work, to write.

In The War on Art by Steven Pressfield the ideal professional writer is described not by the ability to support oneself from writing but by showing up each day, taking oneself serious, doing the work regularly. Like your neighborly insurance agent, or the man who bags your groceries or the bank teller.  They don’t wake to a dirty fork in the sink, or feel the rain in their bones, or get dissuaded by compromised confidence.  Instead they leave the fork, grab an umbrella and head to the office.  It’s the only way the work gets done.  Pressfield says a professional writer must do the same thing.  Show up, sit down, do the work.

For me that was an enlightening message.  To digest the fact that there is no spatial moment of arriving.  There is only the work.

In the midst of my cleaning frenzy, I finally paused long enough to ask if a writer writes than what was I doing standing at the doorway to my office staring at an empty desk holding a basketful full of folded whites.

Instead of more excuses, I showed up at the four corners of my computer screen.  I allowed my lack of confidence, my emerging sensibilities to dictate rewrite after rewrite.  I coerced myself to stay and write.  To do the work.  Slowly this essay came into being.  I guess you could say it emerged from simply showing up.

And then a thought began to take root.  I am my own angelic champion, patron of my writing because I am not an emerging writer.  I am simply emerging.