Tag / writing

Photo by Todd Quackenbush via Unsplash.com
by Dave

Come On in My Kitchen

“Here’s a little taste of something new the chef is working on – let us know what you think.”

That’s one of my favorite things to hear when I’m dining out because it instantly tells me at least two important things about the people behind the food I’m eating: that they like to delight and surprise their customers, and they are still challenging themselves to create new flavors and improve the food they serve each day. Those are both key to a great restaurant experience, and vital to being a great chef.

Which is why any good chef has a test kitchen; some kind of designated area or block of time where they can play around with new ingredients, explore their latest inspiration, or just refine and improve and rethink the dishes they’ve been cooking for years. It’s a chance to riff off of other members of their team, to improvise and experiment, and practice new techniques in an environment where failure is okay.

In fact, failure is sometimes the goal of a test kitchen. Even a home cook learns that the best way to really get to understand an ingredient or technique is to fail with it repeatedly, usually in different ways and different reasons, and with each failure we discover a new limitation that, in turn, helps us more clearly see where the sweet spot of success lies, and a new dish emerges.

This is essentially the Goldilocks principle at work; with every variation we learn what leads to a result that is undercooked or bland, when a dish is burnt or overseasoned, and only with those extremes do we know understand for sure where our perfectly cooked, balanced flavors will come through best.

A good chef will go through dozens if not hundreds of variations of these variations for everything they make, learning how to dial in the best proportions of seasoning, of heat, of time, and how do adjust those to meet the variations of their ingredients every time they cook. The same goes for brewers making new beer, or winemakers with fresh grapes; for farmers looking for the best yield and the best flavors; for painters and photographers looking for the right mix of color and light; musicians looking for the perfect delivery and tone.

And of course, it applies to writing, where the real work is the iteration. Refining and reworking a page sentence by sentence to make sure the idea holds, that it’s not undercooked or overseasoned. The best way to know when you have good writing is to spend time on the writing that is less good, push the boundaries of voice and tone and plot and—

So I like to think of this space, my blog, as my test kitchen, and my goal is to put out at least one new dish every week. Each post is like a little something to snack on—sometimes salty and crunchy, othertimes rich and heavy, often just airy and simple and familiar—and I leave out on the bar to see who tries it. Often it just kind of sits there. Other times people reach for it and pass it around and I try to figure out why.

But as time goes on, and I continue to refine my work and learn to express myself better, I am also gaining experience that will make me more confident and better at putting the ingredients of a story together. I’ll know how much seasoning is needed to express a mood, how far to stretch a metaphor, or when I’m in danger of serving an idea that is overbaked.

And you’re welcome to come on into my test kitchen anytime and have a taste. Sometimes you’ll get a remnant of scraps I wanted to use up, or maybe you’ll get an early sample of something bigger I’m working on. No matter what you think, this chef appreciates your feedback, and hopes you’ll be back for another meal soon.

by Dave

Dotting the I

I’ve been writing slower lately. Not that I’ve ever been a fast writer to begin with, but I suppose what I mean is I’m writing slower now with purpose.

I usually start every morning with an hour or two of reading and writing time. I’m up around 5:00 a.m. most days, and once I’ve got my coffee I’m sitting at the kitchen table ready to absorb ideas. Often those are the ideas of others from whatever book I’m reading, which I absorb by taking notes or annotating the text itself. Other times, often in that same morning block, I absorb my own thoughts and ideas by writing them down. The act of finding the words to express an idea—a thought or image or feeling—and then pulling those words into sentences is how I absorbing those ideas, moving them into my conscious mind.

Lately I’ve realized I absorb ideas best by writing them in longhand in my notebook rather than typing on a screen. Something about the physical motions of embedding my thoughts into the blank page with marks of dark ink feels like a rite, like something sacred. I like to use a fine-tip pen that flows cleanly and crisply, allowing me to write small and fit a lot on a page.

And here’s the thing about a good fine-tipped pen: it is precise. Which makes shaping letters and words feel almost delicate, and sloppy handwriting somehow more sloppy. Move too fast with a precise pen and the line may be too fine to read; write too small and the letters may be too close together to be legible.

So lately I’ve made a point of overcoming my worst handwriting habit by making sure I take the time to dot every lowercase letter that needs it—my “i” and my “j”—as I form the letter. Typically I would write out the entire word, then my hand went back to add the dot(s) over those letter forms as needed, or even more often, I would leave them undotted altogether. Overall the effect was messy and uneven. Now the results are neater and easier to read when I go back to it.

Just this one small change in how I physically write has made the act of writing more meaningful, and more effective for me. Now I am absorbing the letter and the word and the sentence more fully than before, and therefore absorbing the thoughts and ideas I’m writing more completely.

Taking the extra millisecond to add the final dot over a line feels slower than before, but it’s not actually all that slower. What moves slower is my brain, and that’s the real point of this. By being more mindful about the process and movement and actions of writing ideas, I am more focused on the ideas. I am more open to their message, more productive in their implementation.

When we talk about being sure to “dot our i’s and cross our t’s” we typically mean being sure that we have reviewed every detail of something important after it is nearly complete. But there is something we can gain by going slower in the first place, writing by hand, carefully and mindfully dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s in the moment we make them, forming every letter and every word with a greater sense of purpose.

I am dotting my i’s to honor my i’s, and the meaning behind them. And by writing with awareness, I know I will absorb what I am writing much deeper than ever before.