Bigfoot and Bread, Part 2

Here in Part 2 of 3...  I'd like to introduce you to my Bigfoot, my inner critic, that I spoke of and find so annoying. Today I'm aiming to shut it down. Why do that here? you ask. Fair question. Well, part of my aim with this here blog was to show, with almost complete transparency, the process of writing a cookbook. What would transparency be without showing the maddening, doubtful parts of it.

So as I said in Part 1, this particular post is the product of a writing exercise I took on in which I projected the voice of that Bigfoot onto paper - to see how it felt, to view its humor and to rob it of its power over the work. Deep down I don't believe these things... I couldn't keep writing, much less get out of bed, if I did. And I hope this transparency inspires a shutting down of your own inner critic, allowing your creative self to open and flourish...

Yes, I do organize cookbooks incessantly. 

You will organize your books for days – 
even the weird ones like “Wok Cookery from 1988” 

You will make lists on silly little overpriced French notepads.

But  you will check off nothing.

You will pin inspirational quotes on walls, pretty pictures in frames.

Turn on the internet, and then alphabetize the cookbooks.

You will look at bank accounts and worry about the weather.

You will call your sister. 
But not write.

So you will take a bath.

You will sit in your bathtub, paralyzed
thinking heat will make words come easy like sweat beads or razor burn.

But you’ll just be sweaty and razor-burned in a bathtub.  

You will feed those birds. Again.

You will want to write a book.
You will want to bake bread... at 7000 feet.

You’ll just watch the thing, the dough, rise and fall like a baby’s belly and then

sit flat, dense and disgusting.

You will sharpen pencils, move rugs, organize the cookbooks again.

You will straighten knives and forks.

Wash your hair. Put earrings on.

Make an omelet

Then read about making an omelet

Then watch a video about making an omelet.

All the while feeling guilty about your failures with omelets.

So you will check your Facebook.

You will never writing anything interesting because you won’t remember how you did it before, 
not that it was good before anyway.

You will ultimately fail because you have no good ideas. 
Boring. Been done. Said before.

You will make the wrong choice.

You will only ever make bad baked beans and big mistakes.

You will never write with humor, only mediocre melancholy.

And you will always believe they are better than you.

Probably because they are. They can all make omelets after all.

The Bigfoot will succeed and grow your fear in his garden. 
You will feast from this garden and not even see the irony in that meal. 
Because all irony will be lost on you.

You’ll regret the exertion till the day you die, (which will actually be sooner than you think.)

Also you will never have children. Even if you do you’ll be hated by them so you’ll die alone anyway.
Surrounded by your organized, alphabetized cookbooks. 

Proof of bread's beauty at 7000 feet, created by Norma. Photo courtesy of Jen Reyneri

Bigfoot and Bread, Part 1

So I have this voice inside my head, and he's really annoying me.  After the recent food writer's retreat I attended with Cook & Scribble, I've taken to calling him Bigfoot. Despite the name, it is not the kind of voice to be concerned about. Not yet anyway. 

Because you probably have this voice too. It's one we all have... some of us just give him odd hairy names. But you'd recognize him anywhere - that assaultive one who stands in the background of your work, letting you know how terrible, boring and ridiculous that work is. Day after day, it gnaws at your creative self and can stop you in our tracks, having convinced you that failure is inevitable. It's beyond annoying really - Bigfoot is potentially paralyzing. 

For me, as a writer and cook, he tends attack my words and my baking. For you, perhaps it punches the gut of your paintings, or your teaching abilities, or the way you do taxes. Anything really. 

photos courtesy of Jen Reyneri

In said food writing retreat, Molly O'neill and Shauna Ahern (two literary powerhouses I would trust any word with) wisely encouraged us to separate Bigfoot's voice from the creative self. The creative is flexible, curious, bold and expressive, and to flourish must be encouraged in spite of Bigfoot. In Natalie Goldberg’s instructive book, Writing Down the Bones, she advises not only separation of the two, but also suggests writing down what exactly Bigfoot whispers in the creative's sensitive ear. Perhaps getting to know him and his voice enables us to better ignore him. “Sit down whenever you need to and write what the editor is saying; give it full voice," Goldberg says.

So I’ve started doing just that - Writing down what that annoying voice in my brain is yelling. The first and most intense time I did so was on an airplane a couple weeks ago. I must have looked like a seriously mad woman as I scrawled, furiously letting it all come streaming out on the page.

What came onto the page was fascinating enough that I thought it worthy of sharing - it started with petty criticisms regarding my avoidance of the task of writing, simple, mundane stuff. But Bigfoot quickly grew louder with ridiculous crap about how I’m surely going to die an early death - childless, bookless, broke and alone. Apparently with the inability to bake bread. (The actual words of the hairy beast I'll post on Wednesday).

With great relief I saw that Bigfoot was actually quite humorous, laughable, and devoid of some its power. After that flight and first writing, I walked through DFW airport, Terminal A, as if a big hairy weight had been lifted. My creator had free reign for the moment, and every passing person seemed to deserve a poem.

So this series of posts deviates from the traditional.
Part 2 - That entry from the plane where Bigfoot assaults my baking ability.
Part 3 - The baking of bread! Something I'd not done at home in Santa Fe... where the altitude changes the game of yeast and flour.

It is not about being Mennonite. It is about being human. And the creative process, the things that stop us from moving forward – in writing, cooking, teaching, or accounting. Perhaps it’ll give you your own realization of the poems every person deserves.

Bread rising in Santa Fe during... not mine. Mine to come.

A Love Letter to Robert

In 2010 Robert Reynolds, my dear teacher and friend, had cancer.
But that year he battled it out and walked it off. He baked cakes for the nurses who shot chemo up his veins and snuck Armagnac into infusion rooms so as to properly celebrate the last shooting up. I'd say he went back to work afterwards, but I don't think he ever really stopped - cooking and writing, teaching and tasting, complimenting and criticizing. The instinct towards movement is wild.

But sometimes these things, these cancers, are only sleeping the next block over, resting awhile to renew their fierceness. So it is for Robert. The disease had its rest and renewal, and this time around, its fierceness formed, has claimed a small spot on his brain. Unpredictable difficulty begins again.

The first sign of the cancer's awakening was a word. His loss of it that is. Somewhere in the middle of his sentence the words dropped off, as though the sentence was some vast field, laden with dark ditches where letters can lose their way. But Robert is a writer - that vast field is his home.

To lose a word - Death to a writer.

Upon hearing the news of his cancer's return, the food world of Portland has apparently turned on their ovens, comforting the best way they know how. Nobody knows what to say and nobody knows what will happen, but everybody knows how to cook. Levi, Robert's committed friend and caretaker, says they've never eaten so well, their kitchens and bellies stuffed with charcuterie and pie. Soup and bread. Love and affection. "I can't know what he's meant to them all - but it's clearly something significant," he tells me.

Something significant indeed. - Amongst the acts of a teacher, lives become inspired and even changed. 

But my oven means nothing to him from Santa Fe. I cannot offer pie or soup during these unpredictable difficulties. I can only offer words - the ones I found in my own vast fields. 

So here they sit, a love letter to Robert.

I wonder how I might cope if I lost my words - even a simple one like button.
I might look at my shirt. There is that round thing, holding my modesty. It does have a name... Doesn't it? Perhaps that lump in my throat, the one that rears its ugly head on dark days, would stampede my esophagus.

There is a vivid intimacy between the language and he. Instructions in the Studio are punctuated by his grace with it...

Pastry is ballet: "A dancer can't be halfway through a leap and stop everything because she's forgotten her tutu."

Mixing bowls with attitude: "Scrape the bowl clean. It's an ungrateful thing."

Liquor is living: "You're guided by the principle that the old lady likes her booze!"

I knew Robert long before I started this project, but only barely. We would see each other at dinner parties, chatting about daily life and chickens. But he has always been my teacher - The first time I met him was a lesson on chopping chives. His thick fingers touched the green things with ease. His mere movements showed me the method. But as he spoke, I saw his other art - the sentence - one that washes over you, calming your anxieties over the onions. 

Robert was the first person to tell me I needed to write this cookbook. In January 2011 he invited me for dinner and served a divine, yet earthy cassoulet nestled in burnt-orange ceramic. Dessert was an orange custard like silk on my young tongue. He smirked at our pleasured expressions from the citrus. Armagnac, musty and of memory, sat like caramel in tiny glasses emblazoned with gold swirls. Between the cassoulet and custard he gave even more, pausing for importance sake, encouraging me to write, cook and come to his class. Life has been different ever since.

Were I in Portland, I'd give back a loaf of pain d'eipce, a cup of tea, a cherry pie.
For today I give my words...

Love love love,

Katie