respect the dough!
croissant class + failure ++ the pleasure of the first draft
Hi Hi!
I took a baking class!
When in France….one must accept the challenge. And so, with a dozen others, I embarked upon a croissant baking session. The take away? Labor intensive. Many fancy folds and rolling out of la pâte. A croissant has 27 layers of butter within. And let me tell you, butter is temperamental! It’s as if le beurre is going through menopause and has to rest in the freezer every so often to pull itself together again. (I get it! Been there.) With one baking sheet from our class, the butter was too lazy, in the oven it leaked from the dough and the poor little croissants seemed to be sautéing.
“Une urgence avec le beurre!” the chef cried. Oh, la! A butter emergency! So many opportunities for failure.
The take aways?
Patience is a necessity.
Time. (hours and hours!)
Eat before you arrive at Baking School… at one point I was ready to secretly nibble yeast, dough, anything!
Respecter la pâte!
We learned that croissants are so labor intensive les boulangeries make zero money on them, however they are obligatoire in the bakery case. And oh, the smell!
…
What cooking class have you taken in your travels?
read:
I’m still on my HEART THE LOVER high. Without spoiling, I’ve really pinned to the top of my brain the way in which the main character, Jordan/Casey, knows in her bones that two other characters, children, are fine/are going to be fine. She just knows it. And when the narrative relates her simple confidence, we know it too. I admire that centered calm, which to be frank, is not in my wheelhouse. Without turning you into my therapist (😉) I simply don’t have that deeply ingrained sense of well being. It makes me think of the “I’ll have what she’s having” scene in WHEN HARRY MET SALLY. Yes please, give me a double of Casey’s surety!
I listened to the audiobook for HEART THE LOVER, and this is one of those books that I would also like to hold in my hand.
…
And for you, a poem to read right now:
I am a fan of Alison Luterman, and so when a friend/student sent her poem my way, I jumped right in! (I don’t know the rules, so I’m sharing only the first half, please follow the link to read the poem in full.)
Because Even the Word Obstacle is an Obstacle
Try to love everything that gets in your way:
The Chinese women in flowered bathing caps
murmuring together in Mandarin doing leg exercises in your lane
while you execute thirty-six furious laps,
one for every item on your to-do list.
The heavy-bellied man who goes thrashing through the water
like a horse with a harpoon stuck in its side and
whose breathless tsunamis rock you from your course.
Teachers all. Learn to be small
and swim past obstacles like a minnow,
without grudges or memory. Dart
toward your goal, sperm to egg. Thinking, Obstacle,
is another obstacle. Try to love the teenage girl
lounging against the ladder, showing off her new tattoo:
Cette vie est la mienne, This life is mine,
in thick blue-black letters on her ivory instep.
So beautiful!
…
Please remember Heather Aimee O’Neill will be in the house for our November book group! We will be reading her wonderful novel, THE IRISH GOODBYE, and Heather, a Jenna’s book group pick(!), will be joining us! Now is the time to hop on!
In case you missed it, Heather drove the newsletter a few weeks ago and she had some not to be missed book recommendations, as well as writing tips, and a warming, autumnal cocktail!
In November, we discuss Heather Aimee O’Neill’s novel, THE IRISH GOODBYE! And lucky us, Heather will be joining!! We meet on 16 November @ 9:00a PDT
The book group is a perk for paid subscribers and let me tell you we are a lively bunch!
Go ahead, upgrade to paid and claim your spot. I hope to get to know you better!
I've made a read.write.eat. Bookshop where you will find many of the books I've recommended. Buying books from my shop is another way you can support my newsletter.
write:
Don’t allow your perfectionism to deny you the pleasure of a first draft. Remember, to do something well we have to be willing to suck at it first!
When I write I often get tangled up in revising sentences even before I’ve left the paragraph. Yes, I do get pleasure from choosing the right word, from eliminating duplicate words, and from cutting unnecessary words, but I also prevent spontaneity by censoring the flow. A paragraph written this way doesn’t get to be born… it’s more assembled from IKEA instructions, lacking originality and passion and our own weird.
How does it happen that we lose our sense of play on the page? How does it happen that we get caught in a loop of details? Stuck in the minutiae of what we are writing and losing sense of the whole. This makes me think of that line from a Billy Collins poem, “Introduction to Poetry” in which a poem is tied to a chair and meaning is beaten out of it with a hose.
It’s in the freedom of letting words pour out, or of dropping a mouse into the paragraph (😉)… that’s where magic happens, and yes, the failure happens too! Pas grave!
In writing this for you I found IKEA fails! Let me tell you, they’re far more interesting than getting it right!
Up top I asked how this perfectionism happens… a parent, a teacher, a lover, a sibling, a friend, someone said something… an off-handed remark, or maybe an intentional dig, which made us believe our attempts weren’t good enough. Or, mayhaps the gap between what we have in our mind and what comes out on the page is too huge… damn, I know this one!
Allow yourself to be satisfied… allow yourself to notice the glimmer. Give yourself time! I’ve hung this picture over my desk at home:
As Julia Cameron says in her book, THE ARTISTS’ WAY, treating your work-in-progress like a precious object will make it stronger. Treating your first draft as something valuable will make it stronger.
Bon Courage!
eat:
I’m just going to say it… cooking is neither a strength nor a joy of my mother’s. When I was a girl I loved the occasional Swanson TV dinners. Often we had a casserole of lima beans and ham, made on Sunday and meant to last the week. And then there was my mother’s personal favorite, the zhuzhed up can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew. What can I say… even now my mother speaks of it with great fondness! Me, not so much.
…
Which brings me to France. French school is kicking my butt. Lack of time plus the bizarre collection of kitchen tools in our Airbnb has not put me on my best cooking game. (Though I did make a delicious poisson!)
Then I discovered these packets and a dinner party was born! Esprit Sous-Bois is swift to prepare and very flexible.
Not exactly a can of stew, but a package of risotto base, to which you add… je ne sais quoi… leeks, carrot, butternut squash, chicken stock, parsley, fennel, chanterelle. So far we’ve made it twice and I’m planning on giving up a bit of suitcase real estate to bring some home.
Meanwhile, if you need a recipe for a great mushroom risotto from scratch, this one does not fail!
I’ve also got a PDF of a terrific and very easy Farro and Mushroom Risotto in the after party 🎉!
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Do you have a favorite mix or packaged food item that brings dinner quickly to the table? LMK!
after-party🎉:
If you’re already a paid subscriber, Giant THANKS! And please, skip ahead.
Below the paywall you’ll find:
A PDF of the risotto mentioned above
And of course, Stanley!
And, if you’re not ready to hop on, please do give the ♥️ a tap, or leave a comment 💬, or share ↻ with a friend. It matters in the substack universe and in my heart!