Yes, it is time to pre-order my next book.
In Food is a Feeling, while struggling to find a word for procrastination that doesn’t have a negative air about it, I came up with a cooking-adjacent analogy: inactive time. To all the ruminators out there, the people who get great ideas on walks or in the shower, and for those of us who wait to start a project until we can see where we’re going: I see you.
It’s not writer’s block, it’s the passive time required before the flurry of writing commences. It’s not avoidance, it’s sitting with feeling neither here nor there until the third place presents itself. It’s the intention around setting up our work station, getting three beverages ready, picking the playlist, replacing the batteries in the mouse, and walking the dog before realizing that what we really need is a 25-minute nap.
This is the time the lamb shoulder needs in the 250-degree oven before its fibers surrender and the collagen gives up on being a semi-solid and succumbs to it’s fluid state. It’s what happens to the braised cabbage, which is rigid and unflappable as it hits the cooking liquid, and sweet tangled silk when it comes out. Think of the simple dried bean, gravel of the plant world, that can be whipped into a mousse-like texture after it’s been simmered into submission.
No one would accuse the bean of “wasting time” while it was on its magical transformation, and so I will attempt to not apologize for the lack of new recipes published of late on this platform. I think I know myself well enough at this point (17 years into my editorial career, three cookbooks down, hundreds of recipes published, tens of thousands of words written) to know that feeling “stuck” is almost always accompanied by a breakthrough, a revelation, or some other, seemingly unrelated truth.
It has happened to me many times during recipe development, so much so that I consider it to be the infamous third stage of the creative process, the crisis at the top of the narrative arc. I went through it when I was working on the apple fritters, for example. The feeling of paralysis was linked to doubt and confusion, frustrations that gave way to the final, triumphant attempt.
After developing all the recipes in Where Cooking Begins and That Sounds So Good, I had a similar slump in creative energy, and this current phase is coming on the heels of finishing Food is a Feeling. I’ve pushed through it before, and I know that inactive time is neither good nor bad; it’s inconvenient maybe, but wholly necessary.
I say that now, but when I got stuck developing the last three recipes I’d attempted for Food Processing—a cabbage-and-mustard grilled cheese I was excited about, a chicken salad with a sesame slaw, lamb chops with “beans that are green”—I didn’t get that precipice-edge feeling. There was no clarity on what I needed to change to make improvements for the next attempt. Not only did the dishes not seem good enough, they didn’t seem worth my time. I’ve been sitting with that state of blah, trying not to force it, yet feeling down about projects I’ve started and abandoned.
If we’re being honest, something else is going on. Not only am I not excited by my ideas, the thought of doing recipe development makes me want to fling the messy tray off my high chair like a defiant little baby.
Well, we can’t have that. And it’s not like I’ve been doing nothing. I’ve been hustling. I’m producing a 10-city tour on a $5000 budget from my publisher, with one or two events in every city, none of which is a traditional bookstore Q&A. I’ve been stressing and obsessing about the marketing strategy for FIAF, pitching a new podcast, reporting and writing a long-form article about cookbook covers, legally changing my name, designing an apron on my own dime, and recording episodes of Sweets Unwrapped.
Somewhere in there my dad died. While I don’t know for sure whether grieving impacts ones professional productivity, obviously it does who are we even kidding don’t be dumb.
This is where I am. I’m the beef roast that is taking way longer than usual to hit temperature, I’m the grilled cheese where the cheese in the middle is cold even though the edges are melting over, I’m the still-uncooked batter that sticks to the cake tester, I’m the gigante bean that’s been simmering for hours and is still disappointingly chalky in the center. I’m in inactive time.
Inactive time is important; it’s of a part, not an outside actor. Things are happening, even when we can’t see them. I promise you that, even though I’m not 100% sure of what I’ll have ready for you in the end.
Until then! What I’m moaning (in pleasure) about:
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