My Living Cook Book
It is entitled "Slices of Life: Stories, Recipes, Kitchens, Lists, and Tidbits." Dedicated to my hubby and all of our delicious adventures.
I used the plain white plastic binder my teacher, Lisa Garrigues, gave us for our handouts. Next, I flipped through Santa Cruz Waves magazine to created collages for the front and back, sprinkling in tiny dragonfly stickers and gold stars. Then, I found an unopened pack of kitschy floral tab dividers and rustled up the handy dandy labeler.
I dictate my notebook because it's faster than typing. However, then the editor set in, as much as I wanted to be on a raw diet and reveal the bare bones of my process, I stewed, I chewed, I eschewed.
I chose Courier as my font because it looks the most like a typewriter. I combed through my file cabinet and unearthed ancient college-ruled paper from my daughter's high school; three column accounting paper; pale green graph paper that once was a favorite journal, empty pages torn out, the rest burned. I mixy-matched with my supply of "pretty paper" I keep on hand for printing out various holistic hand-outs. I also took a few photos of journal pages and simply printed them out.
It is divided into five sections - Her Story, Recipes, Kitchens, Lists, and Tidbits. The meat of the book is the stories, my "Thoughts on" meme. There were several hefty pieces that took me days to write, most notably the insemination story. The tarot reading and a "History of Eating" also took quite a chunk of time.
Accompanied by Kitchens with a side of Recipes, these are tasty morsels, some saucy, some juicy, some just plain bitter. Always good to stir it up.
The Lists act as a menu of writing prompts: Foods, Restaurants, Words, each one is its own appetizer and desert.
Garnishing the cookbook is The Tidbits section, a few haikus and ramblings, a spring of fresh parsley to cleanse the palate.
Enjoy!
