Consuming Passions

Friday, July 23, 2010

I am headed to the mountains of Chattanooga today for a weekend of stitching, cooking and playing with high school girlfriends. Maggie has her bags packed with loads of books for the trip and I have my sewing kit and a book ready for a girls (and kids) sewing weekend with wine, food, reading and relaxing. Sigh. The thick smell of trees and mountain air…

A book arrived on my desk not too long ago and, unfortunately, I don’t know who sent it. In a moment of needing a break from new collections, writing the new book, working on a website update, being a mom, and keeping the garden, I landed on my couch the other night with Consuming Passions by Michael Lee West.

(Can the lovely person who sent this book please let me know as I would like to send a thank you? And apologies that I have not already, or the fact that I can’t remember if I already did!)

I am only about half-way through but Consuming Passions is a gem of a memoir and a cookbook to boot; her tales of family and the kitchen table have made me laugh until my sides hurt. Published in 2000, the lovely characters from her book could be the girlfriends that I am headed to see today (with a few of my family members thrown in for good measure).

Michael’s stories feel like a world I know and love – if only I could capture my world with such sweet and savory prose.

Working on a new book can take the wind out of my body… it feels foreign, scary and, above all, hesitant. Something that I have always abhorred – give me difficult, give me strange but hesitant?

There are so many great passages in the book about men, money and good food but I had to laugh at this quote about homemade cakes and writers block:

“While scratch cakes are not always moister; they please me in a way I can’t explain. Baking gives me time to mull over problems. Repetitive gestures sent to loosen up the right brain; Mama suggested that polishing silver teaspoons might be a marvelous antidote for writer’s block. I do my best thinking when I am peeling carrots, grating zucchini, or rolling out biscuit dough.” -- page 12

Writers block? I have spent the last few days cleaning up the garden…

I will be laughing all the way to Chattanooga and looking forward to falling into the arms of girlfriends, the smell of the mountain… and maybe baking a cake.

Consuming Passions by Michael Lee West

See you Monday… have a great weekend!

Trackback URL for this post:

http://alabamachanin.com/trackback/3061

Posted at 12:06 pm

Add comment

Labels:

The Kitchen & Other Pleasures

Comments

on second thought...

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 08/24/2010 - 21:22.

darn it. was just culling my (far too large) book collection last week, and this particular title got short shrifted into the "go" bag. hadn't read it in years, and didn't want to pause to re-consider. now that you mention it, it's all coming back to me, the intimacy, truth, individualism, gut-busting humor. back it comes. (and lucky me that they're not yet gone!)

writing

Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 07/23/2010 - 15:29.

ms chanin, just write the way you did the love the thread video. don't hold back on the Southern roots and let all that wonderful real South, you don't see this everyday, come through. there are plenty of mushy, edited, been there, seen that, books out there. too many, actually. go to the West forty (acres) and write! maybe somebody at the girls group can video another sewing lesson, happy summer