boorish or discerning?

+ if you ❤️🧄 today is your BINGO day! ++ bralessness & emphatic nipples

I love it when you:

dear ones,

My husband pretends to be Mr. Easy-to-Please. Everything is great unless you mess with his (artisanal) cheese, his bike must meet exacting specifications, natural fibers only need apply to be his beanie, his beer must be dark, and his bedclothes require high thread count. But no! He will tell you he is not at all picky! Just your average Joe(l).

My mother used to embarrass me as a kid when she delivered her egg monologue. She wanted them basted, with butter, so the whites were absolutely firm, the yolks runny but not-too-runny. Her dissertation involved lots of hand gestures which had me sinking on my side of the booth. She too considers herself easy-to-please though many eggs were returned to Denny’s kitchen.

And, yes, Dear Reader there is me. I abhor drinking from a wet glass. I dislike with vigor coffee cups that are narrow at the bottom and flare at the top. Firm pillows are an insult. Baseball? Tight jeans? Go to bed!

Remember SNL’s Bowen Yang & Aidy Bryant predicting trends?(Check 3:30 minutes into the clip.) “Seems like you guys hate shiny shoes!” When do our discerning preferences spillover to unflattering boorishness?

A friend laughed when I described myself as flexible! Oh geez, we humans don’t even know our blind spots. I’ve got more about this down below in the WRITE section, along with a funny anecdote. Meanwhile, I invite you to consider your blind spots (oh yes, you have them!) and then let me know. I also invite you to donate your contradictions to your characters, and if you don’t write, donate them to your writer friends so they can make hay!

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read:

I’m sharing my step count as an excuse for not having a new book to talk about here. I was traipsing all over Brooklyn for our extended stay!

I do however have a TBR I’m excited about:

I’ll be in conversation with Sarah Braunstein, discussing her new novel, BAD ANIMALS, at Powell’s on 3 May at 7p. If you are in Portland, do come! Meanwhile we can all dig into her book which got a terrific review in the NYTs.

Newly empty-nested, middle-aged Maeve is in a rut. She withholds important details of her life from her life coach, dreams her vagina has fallen out, loses her job at a library in a small Maine town, and becomes obsessed with a stranger! I’m in!

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ICYMI: Hard to write. Hard to get right. Rejected by dozens. THE ACCURATE TERM is my essay about how my son helped me to reckon with something in my past, which ultimately led to a many layered healing. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

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Check my read.write.eat. Bookshop Store, where you will find many of the books I've recommended in the newsletter. Buying books from my shop is a way you can be a friend to the newsletter. 

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write:

Years ago, at a party a posh and elegant friend groused to me about another guest who always (emphasis his) traipsed through the world without a brassiere. Her nipples were an affront! I found the conversation silly and funny. The problem was his. She was having a fine time with her margarita and emphatic nipples. A little later at the party the posh friend described his love of cashmere against bare skin. (I know of exactly one person who doesn’t love cashmere against bare skin. So, not a big revelation.) The thing is, he would easily deny the braless woman soft wool against her most tender skin should she don a bra as he’d prefer. And he failed to see the contradiction. Oh so human! Oh so juicy!

Why am I telling you this? Because this type of blind entitlement and contradiction is delightful in a character, no? And, this man, naked beneath his cashmere sweater, will need to get in his own way if/when he becomes a character in my short story.

Let’s pretend, shall we? What if this man, this party, was the opening scene in a story in which the posh friend has been ‘redistributing’ pieces of jewelry from his mother’s collection to prevent his ‘hick’ sister from inheriting? After all the sister does not have his elegant taste! She breeds Labradors and wears barn coats! What if then he gifts the jewels to his mistress, whom he met on Tinder, because the jewels adorn and enhance her superior beauty. What if the mistress posts on FB, (who could resist after all?), with the unique brooches pinned to her bra, bejeweled pasties! What if she makes a meme of herself in the bras, à la Madonna, or Cyndi Lauper? What if she makes an Etsy store? What if women start buying her bedazzled bras (w/rhinestones designs based upon his mother’s family crest jewelry) and wear them w/o shirts in the world? (Remember Sue Ellen from Seinfeld, who wore her bras as shirts?) Worse than being discovered for theft, he now has to recognize his judgment about his mistress was faulty! Who was this crass woman who did not behave to his exacting specifications? Why won’t she give him back the jewelry? Mother, sister, wife, and mistress all abandon him. He is alone and naked beneath his cashmere sweater.

Okay, I know, not the best… but a quick example. His character, his core being (entitled, self-adoring) gets in his way and takes him down. This is what we must do with our characters. Discover their core beliefs about themselves and let those run havoc in their lives! This is how we develop character and plot. Action stems from the character’s beliefs and yearnings.

…

A podcast you may enjoy: My friend and former student

Sarah Thibault

invited me on THE SIDE WOO to talk about writing deep characters, what makes a good ending, life, breast cancer, and how we met! You should know Sarah is an amazing visual artist and a curious/creative person. Check her TOC to see all she has to offer!

…

Finally, I have an upcoming workshop/conversation you may be interested in: READING AS A WRITER. It’s a one shot class over zoom and I’d love to see you.

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prompt:

Examine your story or novel or memoir in progress. What do your characters believe about themselves? What blinders do they have? How can you make their deepest beliefs/misbeliefs be the driving force of all their troubles? In memoir this requires taking a drone’s eye view of your former self. For my character above, he believes his taste is more refined and thus more deserving than everyone else’s. Hence he is taken down by his own vanity. How can you make life hand your characters their own ass in just the same way our lives hand us our asses? Have fun!

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I am a supporter of World Central Kitchen and Chef José Andrés. The death of seven aid workers in Gaza is another atrocity in a region filled with suffering. For all who upgrade to paid this month (just $5 a month, the cost of one cappuccino!) I will donate and match the subscription fee to WCK’s mission to bring food to people who are suffering. Thus far eight people have taken up the challenge. Food is a human right. please join in.

It is not a sign of weakness to feed strangers; it is a sign of strength.

~Chef José Andrés

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eat:

Green garlic is making its short lived appearance! You should absolutely take advantage. Add it to scrambled eggs. Roast it with asparagus and lemon zest. Add it to vinaigrette. When it’s gone, here are two (regular) garlic-heavy recipes that have been in rotation in our family for years!

Photo by Joe Green on Unsplash

Not your standard 🧄🧄🧄Chicken w/46 Cloves of Garlic! (Vegetarians, there is a tofu option!)

• 46 unpeeled garlic cloves

• 1t kosher salt

• 1/3c olive oil

• 1½c fresh herbs, coarse chop (I use parsley, oregano, marjoram, thyme. I’m on the fence about dill… I don’t know about the pairing with garlic, thoughts?)

• fresh pepper

• 1 3½-4lb chicken, cut in pieces (If you’re vegetarian or just prefer…use 2 blocks of tofu cut in slabs and only marinate for a couple of hours. Roast for just 30 minutes.Cherry tomatoes make a nice addition to add some moisture to the pan.)

• a baguette

Peel 6 cloves of garlic and sliver with a sharp knife. Sprinkle with salt, then mash with the flat side of the knife. Scrape into a large bowl. Add the herbs, pepper and olive oil. Add chicken pieces one at a time and turn to coat. Marinate for several hours or over night, along with 40 whole garlic cloves.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange chicken in a roasting pan. It should be a ‘just right’ fit. Snug the whole, unpeeled garlic cloves around the chicken and roast for 30 min. Baste the chicken and return to oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until juices run clear.

Serve with baguette. The roasted garlic should squeeze from its skin and spread beautifully on the baguette. Spoon juices over everything.

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In case you are in need of one more fabulous garlic heavy recipe:

🧄🧄🧄Garlic Salad (or better known in our home as Colon Blow… 🤷🏻‍♀️)

• 1 med head romaine lettuce - washed, dried, and torn to your liking

• 3-4 stalks celery, chopped

• ½c roasted and salted sunflower seeds

• ½c chopped parsley

• 1 tart green apple, chopped and spritzed with lemon to prevent browning

• ½c gruyere cheese, shredded

• ½c olive oil

• ¼c red wine vinegar

• 6 garlic cloves, minced

• ½t dijon mustard

• squeeze of lemon to taste

Add first 6 ingredients to a large salad bowl. In a jar with a lid, add the rest of the ingredients (except the lemon), shake vigorously. Sample and then add lemon to taste. Pour dressing on the salad, to your specifications. I love a great vinaigrette, and I hate an overly dressed salad. (I’m not picky though! I’m flexible!)

If you eat both on the same night, be prepared to be odorous the next day! Maybe don’t go on a first date or interview for a new job. You’ve been warned.

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Your moment of Stanley.

Stanley contemplates life from the rooftop.

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Tell your people you love them, and take good care of your skin. 

xN