Song Lyrics That Apply To My Writing

As I roamed around YouTube recently looking for songs to practice up for karaoke on my next cruise, I discovered some lyrics that reflect my life as a writer.  “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow,” as Fleetwood Mac advises, reminds me that writing is about moving forward, being available in all the right places, and doggedly persisting in the hard work required to have a successful career.  A support group of empathetic writer friends, especially my Sisters of the Quill, have been the “Wind Beneath my Wings” as Bette Midler called it.   

There are times when even my diligence and best laid plans are thwarted by a lack of time.  Jim Croce’s “If I Could Save Time in a Bottle” reminds me that finding time is unlikely but sacrificing sleep is possible.  I’ve been nurtured by seasoned writers, mentored.  And I believe in giving back.  As often as time permits, I help out, advising those who need it, and say to them “You've Got a Friend in Me” as did Randy Newman.  Donna Summers’ song, “She works hard for the money,” is self explanatory.  The Beatles remind me to “Let it be, let it be,” when it comes to receiving critique.  Instead of defending my words to agents or beta readers, I take notes and decide after digesting them what I want to do with those suggestions.  Though I can feel raw at times when hearing what I’m not prepared to hear, questioning input while receiving it is likely to shut doors in the faces of those who might otherwise help me in the future.  I listen and learn.

There’s one song that particularly applies to my journey; Smokey Robinson’s “I’ll Try Something New.” When one genre didn’t pan out, I tried another and another and another.  This train of “tries” freed me up for different successes.  I started with a mainstream novel.  My agent at the time took that novel to auction.  It failed to sell (which is another story).  I’ve written in numerous genres since, some now in a drawer.  Others met with more success: short stories, poetry, nonfiction articles, screenplays, and a cookbook.  It turned out I had nothing to lose in branching out and trying other genres.  It gave me experience in a wide variety of work leading to a part time editing job, publication in glossies, a produced screenplay, teaching opportunities at conferences, retreats, and on cruises, and ghostwriting gigs (including a life-lesson celebrity experience).  Exposure over time led to offers of representation by five literary agents, a Hollywood agent, and most recently an invitation to write a column for Barnes & Noble partner BTSemagazine—apropos, the column capitalizes on my many writing detours.  Additional forays have led to guest blogging invitations and other social networking opportunities that will help when a novel comes out, a screenplay hits the theaters, or a cook in England tries one of my recipes.  

That brings me to Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” reminding me that I am and will continue to be rewarded for all my efforts.  And you will, too. 

What songs speak to your writing life?   -  Inkpot

COOKBOOK TALK TWO: TAKING TURNS

One of my favorite food related adventures was the Tuesday food exchange with my Columbian friend, Zahydee.


Every first and third Tuesday of the month, I tapped into my cache of memorized recipes and doubled up on a coordinated meal. I called Zahydee. She bounced down the sidewalk, sniffed her way through my door, down the hall, and into my kitchen. We sat down to one of my well-rehearsed spreads: Greek or Persian, sometimes Italian or Hungarian. All the time I’d spent experimenting paid off in her smile.

On the second and fourth Tuesdays, I was treated with an exotic array: Columbian empanadas, cucumber salad, and a no-holds-barred version of tripe soup quite different than the menudo I’d enjoyed in good Mexican restaurants.


Zahydee's tamales

 My favorite, by far, were the Columbian tamales. By now I’d wrapped a variety of husk-filled little logs representative of several Mexican regions. But her green bundles were new to me, each an enfolded bit of paradise.

Replacing the more familiar cornhusk with emerald green banana leaves, the steamed result delighted with uniquely flavored masa, onions, and chicken. Upon digging deeper, I found unexpected carrots and green olives.

  Though jobs inevitably took Zahydee and me to different states, ending our Tuesday swap, she gave me a parting gift I’ll be forever grateful for. She taught me how to make Columbian tamales. I couldn’t bear the thought of depriving myself of the occasional banana leaf wrapped wonder. Thank you Zahydee for teaching me one more recipe I could add to my cookbook!
-Good Cooking!  - Inkpot (AKA Karen Albright Lin)

Columbian Tamales

COOKBOOK TALK: Why I Cook in Leaves

My infatuation over the Galloping Gourmet ended abruptly once I discovered three-dimensional real-time boys.

     Latino hunk, Manuel, swept me off my middle school, size five feet.  It was on his tie-dyed bedding, surrounded by black velvet rock art and the required black lights, that I had my first…

tamales

     …tamale.

     The doctored masa with a choice of fillings steamed in cornhusk qualifies in my book as food cooked in leaves.  What’s a husk if not a glorified leaf with static cling?  I must have known I’d someday write this cookbook.  You could say I used Manuel for my tamale education.  But, he got even ten-fold using me for my social studies test answers.  Our mutual opportunism ended after a mouthwatering two weeks.

     I honed my taste for the exotic with Freshmen crush, Eric.  His Behemian father gave me smuggling tips for getting betal leaves into the US.  They are stimulants and anti flatulents (the latter, I joked, was the reason commercial importations are banned). 

betal leaves

The mildly addictive cousin of cocaine is commonly sold on the streets throughout Asia where people wrap betel nuts, lime and spices in them. 

Pate in Cabbage Leaves

A Hungarian defector helped me refine my stuffed cabbage galumpkies. At left is a later rendition, an entire cabbage stuffed with pate and served cold as an appetizer.  Later a twine-thin African American broke every food stereotype by eating only endives (sans the filling I offer up in the cookbook). 

Stuffed Endives

His anorexia made him much less appealing around meal times.  Then there was the Jewish intellect.  He liked kosher stuffed cabbages but not his mother’s corn flakes-coated gefilte fish.  He confused me with one set of dishes for dairy and one for meat, a yearly clearing of the yeast, and his inability to de-bone fish on the Sabbath. 

#

Then came first generation Christophoros, AKA Greek God.  I loved him as only a food-crazed high school girl can love.  Everything about him tantalized my senses. 

I could smell his house from a block away, like approaching the Greek Orthodox gate into heaven: garlic, onions and green peppers browning in extra-virgin olive oil, tomato and lemon juice simmering with bulgar, goat feta and something briny that turned out to be preserved grape leaves, which developed into an obsession that lasted beyond the six years we dated. 

Chris’s mother, Helena Papos, was an olive-chubby Cypriot who stood only as tall as my shoulders.  But she was a giant if measured by her pastichio and baklava.

She taught me what I needed to know to marry her son.  The path to his eternal devotion, she assured me, led right to his stomach.

No one could more skillfully incorporate kasseri cheese into bread, fold spanikopita into perfect triangles, or better teach the fine art of filling and rolling vine leaves into dolmathes.  

Dolmas

“Every girl should make dolmas,” Helena said with pinched Os and not-quite D’s. 

She instructed, “Pull the clump of leaves from the jar.  Rinse.  Flatten one out on the counter, veins up. Now add filling like this.”

I emulated.

“No, no, not enough.  You’ll starve my Christophoros to death with that pea-sized filling.”

I scooped more onto the leaf.

“Roll like this.  Like a cigar.”

I was suppose to know how cigars were rolled?

“Side near you up.  Two sides in.”

I copied her motions.

Over the next half hour, we rolled and wrapped and packed the Dolmas until we had enough to satiate all the circle dancing members of a typical Greek wedding reception.  We’d sealed the stuffed leaves, we’d sealed our friendship.

Thanks to Helena, I was hooked on cooking in Leaves.

Inky - AKA Karen Albright Lin