A Delicacy of Eggs

Eggs are like writing.
No, seriously.
Look, I know, everything is like writing, but eggs are really like writing.
It's about the attitude.
I mean, it's only eggs, right?
Anyone can cook an egg.
That's how people feel about eggs, and it's true as far as that goes. There are certain things with eggs anyone ought to be able to do proficiently enough so that they're edible. Minimally. Hard boiled. Scrambled. Egg over hard. (Look, I didn't know what it was called; I had to look it up. Dumb name, and I never make them that way, because, basically, that's an unskilled way to make a fried egg.)
And people seem to think that "everyone has a story in them," which may or may not be true, but people say it all the time.
There's this attitude that anyone can write if only they sat down to do it.
Like anyone can make eggs.

But not everyone can make good eggs. If anyone and everyone could do it, diner eggs wouldn't need salt or hot sauce or ketchup. They would just be good and you could eat them without a bunch of augmentation. But when was the last time you had eggs at a diner that didn't taste like paper?
When's the last time you made eggs that didn't taste like paper?

The problem with eggs is that they actually take a lot of attention. That is, if you want them to be good, they do. They're only "easy" to make when you don't care what you're getting as the end product.

Let me give you an example:
I make what we in my house call fancy eggs. They're "fancy" because they're all creamy and stuff. In fact, they have cream in them.
And here's the problem with eggs:
A recipe won't get you where you want to go, not with eggs. There's no "cook for four minutes" that will get you good eggs every time you make them. Or, probably, any time you make them.
So fancy eggs start out as mostly conventional scrambled eggs. [No, I'm not giving out any of my cooking secrets! They were hard won, and you can go figure out your own secrets!] Then, when they're almost done, almost but not quite, you turn the heat off, add in the cream, and mix it in in the still hot skillet.

This did come from a recipe book, but the book is... well, it's not anymore clear than I just was about when and how to add in the cream. Why? Because you have to be standing there watching the eggs to know when. In fact, you have to work these eggs the entire time they're cooking if you want them to turn out right. There's none of this pouring the eggs into the skillet and doing something else for a few moments while the eggs cook on their own, then stirring them up a bit and going back to the other thing, repeat until eggs are done. [I know that's how you do it, because, when you make plain old scrambled eggs, that works just fine. Fine enough, at any rate.] But for these eggs, you have to work them the whole time and you have to pay attention to just how cooked they are so that you know when to add the cream.
Too soon and you have runny, soupy eggs that no one is going to want to eat.
Too late and the eggs are cooked through and the cream won't mix in so you have scrambled eggs sitting in a puddle of cream.
How do you know when you're at the correct moment to add the cream? Experience.

No two eggs are alike. It's similar to why I hate recipes that call for two cloves of garlic. What does that even mean? Garlic cloves can vary in size from the size of your pinky nail to the size of your thumb (or thereabouts, it's close enough, okay!). You have to be more specific. And who only wants just two cloves of garlic anyway? Wimps, that's who!
Look, what I'm saying is that you don't get the same volume of egg goop from six eggs from one time to the next, so the cooking time required is going to be different every single time. Sure, the difference is a matter of seconds, but when your eggs go from not-done-enough for cream to too-done for cream within about 10 or 12 seconds, you don't have any time to play around with. You have to be working the eggs and have the cream ready to go in. Also, the amount of cream has to vary somewhat, and you can only tell how much to put in by paying attention to the eggs.

It's expertise.

I know I started all of this by comparing this whole egg thing to writing, and it's a good metaphor. Most books are diner eggs, and that's probably all I need to say about that.
However, I think this is also a good metaphor for democracy. ["Oh, god, does everything have to be politics?" Well, yes, I think maybe it does. Right now, at any rate.] I think we in the United States took our democracy for granted, had that whole "it's only voting" mindset. We quit paying attention to it and let it get too done. Maybe burned. Maybe ruined. I don't know. I suppose we'll find out in 2020. If Trump (#fakepresident) wins again, legitimately or not, we'll know that democracy is over in the USA. The Republicans will be too firmly entrenched and civil rights will really begin to become a thing of the past. They're working hard at making that so right now.
Sorry, women, take your shoes off and get your asses back in the kitchen.
Sorry, black men... Yeah... Just, I'm sorry. I have nothing quippy to say to that.

If Trump (#fakepresident) loses... Well, it may also already be too late if he loses. I suppose we'll have to wait and see how that plays out. One thing is certain, he's not going to pass over the reins of power peacefully. At the very least, he's going to start screaming that the election was rigged, which is where things will get dicey. It's all going to depend on how his followers, both in and out of the government, respond to his throwing a tantrum. It may mean that it's time to throw that skillet of eggs in the trash and start again.
But I hope not.
Because it will mean that blood is being spilled.
And blood is already being spilled.
Or put in cages.
People being allowed to die, at any rate.

What all of this comes down to is that if you want to be good at something, at anything, you have to pay attention to it. You have to practice it. You have to do it. You can't leave your eggs to cook themselves, and you can't allow other people to take care of the vote you ought to be casting.
And putting words on a page in sentence format doesn't mean you're going to have a book worth reading.

Abandoned Places: Bodiam Castle (and IWSG)

Bodiam Castle was built during the middle of the Hundred Years' War by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge (say that three times fast; actually, just say that one time) to, theoretically, keep out the French. However, the castle didn't see any "action" until the War of the Roses, that is if you can call being surrendered to avoid a seige "action." By that time, the castle had passed to the Lewknors, who owned the castle through the 1500s but, by the time of the English Civil War in 1641, it was owned by John Tufton. Tufton was forced to sell the castle to pay fines against him for, basically, being on the wrong side of the war. Bodiam was dismantled and left in ruins for 200 years. Restoration began on Bodiam during the 1800s, and it is now considered one of the most "romantic" castles in England.

Cooking for Your Audience (an IWSG post)

I am the cook in my house. Not the baker, the cook. I get up every morning and cook breakfast for my wife and, usually, my oldest son, sometimes my daughter, and rarely my younger son. I also cook dinner every night. That one's for everyone (except for my oldest son who is rarely home because of his ultra busy schedule). I'm just gonna say it: I am a good cook.

Of course, my mom is a cook, but it's not like she ever taught me to cook anything. My earliest forays into cooking were because I was home alone (or, maybe, with my brother) and needed to eat. I started with mac 'n' cheese and tuna fish. Not that you need to cook tuna fish. Well, unless it's in the mac 'n' cheese. Oh, and deviled eggs. That was actually the first thing I ever made on my own. I think they showed how to make them on an episode of The Electric Company (or something), and I decided I wanted to do it. That was my thing for a while. I was probably around seven but certainly not more than eight, because my brother was still a toddler. He loved the deviled eggs and would shove them whole into his mouth getting egg goo all over his face.

The fact that I am good cook does not, however, mean anything to my kids, especially my daughter. She likes a more processed type of food, and we just don't do that in our house. It can make meal times challenging, to say the least. It is a rare occurrence when all three kids like the same meal and on regular nights they will sub in various vegetables so as not to have to eat whatever I cooked. For my daughter, that's generally carrots; I keep a large bag of them in the fridge for her, basically, at all times. My younger son has taken a liking to yams, which I often cook for my wife and me. And you can never tell with the oldest one. Sometimes, he'll eat whatever we stick in front of him as if he's never seen food before; others, it's "I'm not hungry," which translates into "I don't want to that crap."

For a long time, a couple or three years, probably, after we dropped all the processed stuff from our diets (something like six years ago, now?), I took it, well, kind of personally when my kids didn't like what I cooked. It was distressing to me. In my head, I knew it wasn't about me, but that's not how it felt. Eventually, possibly because of having to deal with it so much, I did come to a place where it quit being an insult to me when the kids didn't like something I cooked. It was about the food, not me. They still loved me no matter what I cooked. We could go from "I don't care if you like it! Just eat the food!" to cuddling on the couch and watching a movie within moments.

And, after years, I have managed to find a few things that they all like and would rather have me make than go out for, like hamburgers. Thought that one's still kind of iffy, because my daughter loves to go to Super Burger, but that's more because of the shakes (they have something like two dozen flavors) than the hamburgers. That's why I am King of Hamburgers!

Writing is rather the same way, which is why it's important to remember that when someone doesn't like something you've written, it has nothing to do with you or whether that person likes you or not. So you didn't write something that person liked or, maybe, even most people, but it still doesn't have anything to do with you.

The sad thing is that I have seen negative reviews of books cause rifts in friendships or, even, destroy friendships.

Here's the thing, if you cook something and you like what you cooked -- you taste it and say, "I like this!" -- it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it or not. If you do like it (and aren't just telling yourself that because you're the one that made it), chances are there are other people that will like it, too. You just have to find those people. People who don't like it can find something else to eat. But it's really not fair to hold it against someone (especially a friend or loved one) if they don't like what you cooked. That would be like me getting upset with my younger son for night liking the fish dinner I cooked (when I know he doesn't like fish).

There's a decision you have to make as a cook (or a writer): do I think this food is good enough to let other people taste? If you think "yes," then you have to decide to not take it as a personal insult if other people don't like the food. If you really want to share your food with other people, that means you go back to your recipe, figure out what people didn't like about it, and try again. Writing is really that same way. Getting upset about it would  be like me getting upset that so many people eat at McDonald's when my hamburgers are so much better.

So, remember, it's about the food, not about you. Or, um, it's about the book. And it's really unfair for you to expect people to grin and say "I love it!" while they're spitting it out behind their napkins. Or, maybe, they will love it, but it needs to be up to them to decide apart from any expectations on your part.

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I talk about "Jack" (not the Jack that is my cat).

Make sure to check out Issue One while you're there. It's only $0.99!

Process Or Chop?

Last week, I was making meatloaf. Look, you can just shut it. I hear you all out there about the meatloaf, but I make great meatloaf. There's a secret to it. A secret which I'm not going to tell you, because then I would have to share the "King of Meatloaf" title (which goes with my "King of Hamburgers" and "King of Fish" titles (there are probably more titles (like "King of Mashed Potatoes," according to my son but, really, how hard are mashed potatoes?), but those are the ones that come to mind right off hand (oh, and "King of Eggs," probably, too))), and I'm just not willing to do that.
Anyway...

So I was working from this recipe that my wife wanted me to look at (don't worry; I modified that recipe and made it my own), and it called for a "food processor." No, not in the meatloaf! What are you, crazy? It called for me to use a food processor with which to cut things up. Like the bread. Why in the world would I need a food processor to make little pieces of bread? That is kind of crazy.

See, I used to have a food processor. I kind of hated it. Okay, I did hate it, which is why I don't have it anymore. Unless you're making salsa or, like, a smoothie, the things are basically worthless. Recipes don't usually call for vegetable juice, and that's about the only good they're for. I used to use mine for meat (and that's about the closest you're getting to my cooking secrets), and it was great for that until it was time to clean the thing, and that was... well, to put it mildly, cleaning meat out of a food processor is a bitch. Sorry, I have no other way of putting that.

At any rate, eventually, I got rid of the food processor. I'm not much for making my own salsa.

It annoys me when recipes call for a food processor. I mean, what does it matter how I go about cutting up whatever it is I'm going to put into whatever I'm making. What if I don't want vegetable paste but actual discernible pieces of vegetables? I mean, we don't all have a phobia against plant matter like Briane Pagel and my younger son (except my son's bias is mostly against green things, and he fully supports potatoes (see "King of Mashed Potatoes")). And what if, you know, I don't own a food processor. Especially if that's not by choice. And, then, let's just pretend I don't have a lot of cooking experience, yet, and I see that the recipe calls for the food processor, and I don't actually know that I can just cut the stuff up myself. Instead, I see that in the recipe and I think, "Well, crap, I can't actually make this."

It's even worse when that is something that's actually true. Which does not happen with cooking, but it does happen with my kids' school assignments upon occasion. So many of my kids' assignments center around the computer, and it bothers me to no end when teachers give computer-centric assignments because not everyone owns a computer. In fact, there is still a significant percentage of American households that don't have computers. And I'm not just talking about the need to get something typed up and printed out (although we don't own a printer, so that always bugs me, and we have to go out of our way to get things printed for the kids when they need something printed).

The other day when I was making the meatloaf, my daughter was also working on an assignment for school, an assignment for her English class. In theory, the assignment should have been to write a report but, instead, the teacher had assigned them to make a slide show. This was disturbing to me on so many levels. For one, the assignment specifically required a computer (not just the ability to print something out (although I would guess that at least some of the students who do work on the computers at school do not have access to that work when they are at home; what are they supposed to do?)). For another, it required her to do things I know nothing about.

There should not be any kind of assignment from an English class that I know nothing about. Of course, I knew nothing about it because it was not really an English assignment. There was virtually no research involved as she only needed captions to go with the pictures. There was virtually no writing involved as she only needed to write the captions to go with the pictures. The actual work was finding the pictures she needed for her topic and putting them into the slide show thing. That's not the kind of thing that goes in an English class.

But, see, the thing that nailed it for me is that while I was chopping stuff up for the meatloaf (and I have to say that the clean up from chopping things is so much easier than cleaning up a food processor), she couldn't get something to work with her slide show, and I was completely unable to help her with that. Which is when I began wondering how the assignment was helping her to develop and kind of English skills.

All of that to say:
It's not always important to listen to the "how" of doing things. People will continually want to tell you the "how" of it, whatever the "it" is. Here is "how" to write a novel. Here is "how" to be an author. Here is "how" you should write. Here is "how" to pick your nose. What's more important, though, is to look at the result you want and figure out your own "how" on how to get there.

Which, I suppose, is where I have the issue with my daughter's assignment. I don't know what it is they were supposed to learn. It was classified as a "research project," but the "how" of presenting said (almost non-existent) research seemed to be the actual goal of the whole thing. Then, I have to ask: Why was that the goal of an English assignment? But I digress. Again.

So, anyway, if you need to have vegetables be in small pieces, what's the best way for you to do that? If you want to write a book, what's the best way for you to do that? You don't need to go out and buy a food processor just because a recipe says you should use one (especially if you don't like them to begin with (I mean, heck, some people still write on actual paper instead of using a keyboard)), and you don't need to have an office and office hours to write a book. Sure, there are some things where you need to follow a specific "how," like putting pictures into whatever slideshow thingy my daughter was using, but, sometimes, we come up with new ways to do things because someone doesn't know the "how" of it comes up with something new. Personally, I'd rather be that guy.