When Food Becomes Story by Daria Lavelle

 

LUCY BURDETTE: I don't know Daria, but when I heard about her new book, I wanted to! I asked our past guest Laura Hankin to connect us. I hope you'll enjoy her post and her book as much as I did. Welcome Daria!

DARIA LAVELLE: There’s an old adage in storytelling—show, don’t tell. In other words, let the reader experience a narrative through its visual cues (set the scene; describe the action; create the characters). Most stories are written this way, with descriptions that enable a reader to picture exactly what’s going on, and of course that’s critical to a compelling story. But just showing neglects the other senses.

When sound, touch, smell, or taste—for me, especially taste—enter the chat, it heightens a story, making it not just something I can picture in my mind, but something I can experience in my body. A good food description can (and often does) make me physically drool (or recoil, or gag, or smack my lips). Food is such a powerful avenue for storytelling, but it’s often underused in fiction, leveraged just to highlight a character cultural background or their typical eating habits. 

But it can be so much more. 

Recently, on the UK leg of my book tour for Aftertaste, a novel which is, unsurprisingly, obsessed with food, I had the extraordinary experience of dining at a restaurant called The Fat Duck. It’s been on my bucket list for ages, and not only because it boasts 3 Michelin stars. I’ve been aching to eat there because the Chef Heston Blumenthal treats each meal as an immersive experience, one that uses every sense to tell a story about each dish, and also about the meal at large. Some examples? Okie dokie. 

One course, which was an appetizer, was made to look exactly like a child's breakfast. You were presented with a bowl of “milk” and a miniature cereal box—each of these different and custom printed to include fun quips and puns about the restaurant and the food world, as well as a cereal box game you could play with the pencil that came in the box. Inside, was a pouch of “cereal” which you opened and poured into your "milk." Only, when you ate it, it was clear this was not cereal. It was magic. A savory, jelly-rich, pudding with these perfectly crisped flakes for crunch. It was delicious, but more than that, it was nostalgic. It transported you to the delight of eating cereal on a Sunday morning, and doing the puzzles with your kid brother. 

Another course, which was meant to bring back the fun and whimsy of being at the seaside as a kid, started with miniature ice cream cones—crab bisque ice cream—and continued with a pair of headphones, which you donned to hear recordings from the beach (surf, sand, gulls, kids laughing and splashing) while you ate a dish made to look (I kid you not) exactly like the edge of sand meeting seafoam, where every component—the sand, the foam, the miniature “jelly fish” and “seaweed” and “shells” that had washed up on the shore—was edible. Eating that dish felt more like being at the beach than having my toes in actual sand. It captured the feel of those moments, their exact texture. It unlocked memories. 

I won’t go on—I could, at length—but it was the most magical meal partly because I had no idea what to expect, and I would hate to ruin it for others. But the point I’m making is that food can be so much more than ornamentation or accessory; it can be the story. To eat is to storytell. To cook, even more so. Food is memory, and memory makes character.

 When I approached writing food in Aftertaste, where a chef can taste the most significant meals of ghosts from the spirit world, and recreate the dishes to bring them back for a last meal with their loved ones, every ingredient in every dish did the double duty of carrying the emotional weight of memory. When a particular character ate the potatoes in a particular kind of soup, for instance, their rough skin didn’t remind her of an itchy sweater or a fraying picnic bench; they reminded her of a particular kind of clothing worn at her convent, because that clothing brought her to the person she longed to see again. Try it in your own storytelling, and see what happens, and how it energizes your text. Steep your characters’ foods in emotional meaning, and watch the flavors it gives your scene, or your chapter, or your whole book. 

Taste, in other words. Don’t just tell.  

Daria Lavelle is an American fiction writer. Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, and raised in the New York City area, her work explores themes of identity and belonging through magic and the uncanny. Her short stories have appeared in The Deadlands, Dread Machine, and elsewhere, and she holds degrees in writing from Princeton University and Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, children, and goldendoodle, all of whom love a great meal almost as much as she does. Learn more at darialavelle.com.

Synopsis of Aftertaste:

What if you could have one last meal with someone you loved, someone you lost?

Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around him ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth,a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.

Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes them to eat a dish that he’s prepared. Convinced that his life’s purpose is to offer closure to grieving strangers, he sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him.

Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction.

Considering the Fourth of July

LUCY BURDETTE: I had the choice today of posting a photo of a flag and wishing us all happy birthday. But it felt hard to settle for that after our last two weeks in Ireland and Scotland. For me, a good reason for traveling is to get lifted out of my own small version of the world and see things as others see them. 

The histories of Scotland and Ireland are rife with conflict and loss and rivalry. One small castle in the neck of Scotland witnessed power sawing back and forth over centuries between warring factions with many lives cruelly lost in the process. In Ireland, we heard about the violence of the Troubles, the conflicts between Protestants and Catholics. In both countries we witnessed the pain of countries ripped into pieces. This is a war song written and sung by Colin Urwin of Haste to the Wedding that we heard in the storytelling barn. (Recording of the band's music will be coming soon...)



We also heard news stories about what might happen if Brexit is adopted--many Scots we met believe that if Brexit goes through, Scotland will vote to become independent. Though this might result in a recession and many difficult adjustments in their relationship with the UK, some believe this is the better path. (The American Psychological Association Monitor published a recent article describing how people are suffering from anxiety and depression after the Brexit vote--regardless of which side they voted for.) Change will come hard...

Also while we were away, we read stories about the police shooting in South Bend, Indiana, and watched videos of the angry response from African Americans in South Bend. And heard more terrible stories about the growing border crisis. I've pasted another song below from Colin about the losses that come from segregation...



  Does all change have to come through human suffering? Have we not learned anything from history? I was encouraged by our visit to Liz Weir's barn--she was invited to work with the team attempting to make peace in Ireland--through storytelling. I can't say exactly how that might have worked, though I imagine it involved a lot of listening, and learning from history, and setting smaller egos aside in the service of a greater good. 

In fact she has said: “When we started off the Troubles were at their height, and somebody would get up and tell a story about an Orange Lodge dinner, and somebody else would tell a story about going to Mass. The fact was we were all listening to each other’s stories, and respecting each other’s stories, and I think that’s very important. If you listen to someone’s story, you’re giving the utmost respect.” 



My wish for our country’s birthday—that we listen to each other and find a peaceful way to move past the contentiousness we are mired in these days....how about you?

Diannekc, you are the winner of the Wicked prize package. Please email Barbaraannross at gmail dot com to arrange delivery--congrats!

His Name was Chad by Pat Kennedy

LUCY BURDETTE: Our good friend Pat Kennedy contacted me a few months ago, suggesting she had a good blog topic. She did and I'm going to let her tell the story...  Welcome Pat!

PAT KENNEDY: His name was Chad. A good solid guy name.  He wasn’t especially handsome or tall. His suits often needed a good pressing.  And sometimes I thought he could use a bit of a wash since he seemed to sweat an awful lot. But there was something so engaging about his smile and voice when he told me about his adventurous life as a teenager and very young man.  I’ve always been a sucker for voices.  I fell for him.

Chad was my day-to-day contact on a client project.  We spoke (that voice!) every day and chuckled about the foibles of his boss (mine too – as she was the project leader on the website we were producing). We were, as we used to say back in the 50s when I was a girl, in cahoots. 

Have I mentioned that he was 28 and I was more than twice his age?  No matter, we began to hang out a bit – for coffee or lunch.  It wasn’t a romantic relationship at all.  He loved telling stories and I loved listening.  I was enchanted by his rough Western-ranch upbringing – the days and nights he and his brother spent camping and foraging for themselves when miles from home. (His parents owned a 100,000 acre spread in Wyoming.) No cell phones, no fast food outlets, no comfy beds – just Chad, his brother Ben, their pickup truck, a tent and a couple of bedrolls. 

Rocky Mountain Horse by Rennett Stowe

Chad was also an internationally known – and reigning USA champion – ski-mobile racer.  He held the all-time record for a long distance race. Because he was in such demand to appear at ski-mobile shows across the country, he was often not available for meetings if they were on Monday mornings or Friday afternoons.  I reported on our collaborative work to the larger team, happy to help him out.

On occasion he’d cut out of a group meeting to get to Logan Airport where a private plane was waiting to whisk him off to yet another ski mobile event.

Snowmobile Racing by Joe Ross

His father-in-law was a New York City banker.  The father-in-law owned the private plane and sponsored Chad’s ski-mobile team.

Are you beginning to be suspicious?  I wasn’t.

It wasn’t until almost a year later when he was abruptly fired that I found out that he was actually from Bettendorf, Iowa, had probably never been on a ski mobile or in a private airplane and….. was the father of three children (he told me once that his wife couldn’t have children and that had broken his heart!  Imagine denying your children’s existence!).  There’s more but I’m too embarrassed to tell you how much nonsense that I believed.

I’ve always been fascinated by con artists like Clark Rockefeller or Bernard Madoff– consummate story-tellers who so easily fool the gullible with increasingly complicated and unlikely tales. 

I have a theory that once one of these scoundrels engages your attention, he/she builds your trust bit by bit seeing if you will fall for yet another fanciful story or request.  Like a good suspense novel is developed.  If truly criminal, like Madoff, they use your gullible trust to fleece/rape/maybe-even murder you.  Maybe that’s why Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley is so gripping as a suspense novel.  Tom Ripley is compelling and believable whether he is plain Tom or dashing Dickie.  And then he murders without conscience or regret -- and continues on telling his stories to his next victims.

Characters like Talented Tommy or Charming Chad are out there just waiting to start talking.  They’re fascinating story tellers if you’re willing to listen. And they make great characters in novels.

And so, my Jungle Red friends, will you admit to having been conned?  Did it cost you?  Could you turn your experience into a character in a novel?  Would you dare?

Patricia Kennedy is a marketing consultant for healthcare organizations. She lives in Boston with her husband Joe, and visits Key West during the winter.  For more information on Pat, click here.

Form follows Function, or, How my books come together

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  Here's the thing about how I structure my writing: I don't know the mystery, I have no idea whodunnit or how or why, and I often have a very vague idea about the non-mystery portion of the book. (I believe my entire plan for THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS was "Clare and Russ trapped in an ice storm.") However, before I begin, I must know what the book is about, and how it's going to be structured.

For example, THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS  is about parenthood, and the things parents will do for their children. It's structured in six day-long segments, moving ahead in a very straightforward chronolgy, and each day ends with a section from the missing girl's point-of-view. ONE WAS A SOLDIER was about the difficulties of returning veterans, and is structured with a series of framing sections, consisting of the veterans' support group meetings. The action moves back and forth in time in a way that requires the reader to pay attention (sorry if you got confused!)

HID FROM OUR EYES, my current work-in-progress, is about fathers and sons and those near father-son relationships between teacher and student, or mentor and mentee. 
 

The structure for HID FROM OUR EYES is based on the concept of “four stories.” You've heard this before – there are only two, or four, or five plots in the world, and every story originates in one of them. I'm using the four stories concept: Someone goes on a journey, someone comes to town, someone is born, someone dies. Every building block - I'm not sure yet if these will be chapters or sections or some other-named organization - is comprised of these four elements, at least metaphorically (since I'm not writing about a maternity ward, most of the births are more symbolic than literal.)

See if you can tell which of the four stories is referenced in this excerpt.

     “Chief,” his sergeant said again. “We've got the perp in custody. Some drifter on a motorcycle banged on the MacLarens' door before daybreak asking to use the phone. Claimed he found her here.” The sergeant lowered his voice. “Viet Nam soldier. Probably high. You know what those boys come back like. Stone killers.”

     Jack sighed. “Any other reason to suspect him? Other than the fact he's a soldier?”

“MacLaren held him on the porch with his shotgun while his missus called us. This guy pulled out a knife the size of your arm and threatened to gut MacLaren with it.”

“That may be, but he didn't use it on this girl.” At the expression on his sergeant's face Jack held up a hand. “Okay. I'll talk to him.”

     “Davidson took him down to the station house. We've got the impound truck coming for his bike.”

     Jack considered stopping at his house for a shave on his way to the station, but weighing a scratchy face against getting a cup while the first pot of coffee of the day was still fresh decided him on the latter. He barely managed the cup of joe – Davidson, who had more enthusiasm than brains, practically frogmarched him to the interrogation room. “We got that knife off him, chief.” Davidson handed him a manilla folder with his preliminary notes and the tape recorder. “No track marks on his arm, but he's definitely on something.”

     The something was Old Granddad, by the smell that greeted Jack when he entered the room. The kid was folded over the table, head buried in his arms. He was wearing a wrinkled olive drab army jacket over blue jeans so new they still had fold marks in them. Army boots on his feet. Not just another 'Nam vet, then. This boy looked to be straight off the plane from Saigon, or wherever they flew them from these days.

Jack pulled out the chair on the other side of the table and sat down. “You're in a spot of trouble, son. Why don't you tell me what happened up there in Cossayuharie.”

     The soldier lifted his head. Sandy hair growing out of a military cut, wary blue eyes. A bruise starting to purple up on his temple.

     Holy Mary, Mother of God. It was Margy Van Alstyne's boy. “Russell?”

     “Chief Liddle.” Fatigue, yes, and also anger in the boy's voice, and barely-leashed violence. He smelled of liquor, but whatever he had drunk the night before had burned off him.

     Jack stopped himself from saying the first thing that came to his mind, and the second, and the third. Just because he knew this boy, had known him since birth, didn't mean he wasn't involved in the young woman's death. The fact she had been dumped on Route fifty-seven, the missing panties and stockings – these were all details a copy-cat could have taken from the old newspaper stories. Russell had been a good-natured kid when he left for the army two years ago, but he had also been a hell-raiser, and God knew what two tours of duty over there had done to him.

Yes, Virginia,...

     DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
     Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
     Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
     Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

                               VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
                               115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Have you noticed a lot of people seem to get their noses
out of joint about Santa these days? Maybe it's just on the Internet, where we all feel compelled to give our unvarnished opinion as firmly as possible, but it seems like there's a cloud of disapproval over the jolly old elf. There are folks who don't like Santa elbowing infant Jesus out of the picture. There are folks who dislike Santa's tie-in to the commercial feeding frenzy. But most of the comments I've seen are from virtuous citizens who are shocked and appalled that we are LYING to CHILDREN. Won't someone think of the children?

As someone who makes a living by writing down lies and convincing others to buy them, this doesn't particularly bother me. I'm a great proponent of myths, fables, fairy tales and fiction. I've taught my kids that they should never let the truth interfere with a good story. There are many things that ought to be fixed in our society today, but an excess of fancy is not one of them.


Besides, I believe in good Saint Nick, and I'm, shall we say, considerably older than eight. When I was ten or eleven or so, my mother sat me down and had a serious talk with me. She explained that Santa was the spirit of loving and giving, and as such, could never die. The details of how that love and generosity made their way into the world were not the important part.

So how about you, Reds? What have you taught your kids or grandkids - and what did you believe when you were a little girl? What's your take on Father Christmas and his fellow travelers -  fairies and angels, ghosts and golems?


DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm with you, Julia! I say, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story--or elf!" People who won't let their kids believe in Santa are just big spoilsports, in my opinion. My parents never had the "the talk" with me. They knew by the time I was about seven that I knew they were Santa, but everyone enjoyed the tradition too much to give it up.

We still have Santa at our house--only now my daughter does my stocking. I track Santa on NORAD on Christmas Eve.  Why take a little magic away from children, or grown-ups, when there is so much sadness in the world?


JULIA:   Deb, as an Air Force and Army kid, I used to listen to the hourly updates on Santa's flight on the Armed Forced Radio Service. Now, like you, the kids and I follow along online.


RHYS BOWEN: I'm another who has never stopped believing. We have one daughter who told her kids from day one that there was no Santa, and another daughter whose kids still half believe at ten (she's also the one who has her daughters put out their shoes on the night of the full moon and the moon fairy leaves a treat). The plan is always to keep these two families apart at Christmas time.

I think any ounce of innocence or magic has to encouraged in this commercial world where the media is full of violence and tragedy.



HANK PHILLIPI RYAN: This is the strangest thing. Reading your question, I asked myself--did I ever truly believe in Santa?  A person in a red suit who came down the chimney,etc?   And I don't remember. I don't remember. Oh. Did I just get old?

I DO remember, at some point, thinking "that's pret-ty unlikely." Don't get me wrong. Omens? Yes. ESP? Yes. Alien life on other planets? Possible.


JULIA: And thus, an investigative reporter was born.

HANK: I believe in secret gifts, and secret good deeds, and anonymous charity and outrageous tips for the holiday season.  But, did I ever believe in Santa? Let me think about that.

HALLIE EPHRON: I don't remember ever believing in Santa Claus, either. I remember thinking Santa was like the Wizard of Oz, a character in a story. Which was wonderful enough. I just asked my kids and they don't remember believing in SC either, though my younger remembers being terrified of him (she had a very bad feeling about the Easter Bunny, too.)

For me Christmas wasn't about religion or Santa Claus, it was about gifts and traditions passed down. And of course, food. Christmas morning: buttery scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and Wolferman's jams... growing up, it was the ONLY morning my mother ever cooked and the only breakfast we all sat down to together.


LUCY BURDETTE: Oh yeah, I believed in Santa. But when my sister (who is eleven months older than me) asked my parents how come the poor kids didn't get as much stuff as we did for Christmas, they sat us both down and told us the truth. I was shocked, I tell you, shocked. The curtain yanked away from the wizard at the age of seven.

But after that it was kind of fun to help spin the story for my two younger siblings. We made up a tradition called an "elf tree", which involved elves leaving a big branch decorated with ribbons and little presents on the front porch on Christmas eve. The whole family is still very attached to stuffing stockings with good loot--not too heavy on the tangerines and nuts, thank you very much:). Here's a joke I played on my family the year after someone complained that my stocking seemed to have more in it than theirs...

  (Bobbie is Lucy/Roberta's family nickname)


JULIA:  I'm sure they were very pleased to see what Santa had brought them, Lucy!

I'm going to leave the final word to my favorite author, Lois McMaster Bujold. From her book, MIRROR DANCE:

     “It’s like trying to give a Winterfair gift to Father Frost himself."

     “Yes, I’ve been puzzling over that one.”

     “Sometimes you can’t give back. You just have to give on. Did you, ah … sign those credit chits to the clones?”

     “Sort of. Actually, I signed them ’Father Frost.’ ” Mark cleared his throat. “That’s the purpose of Winterfair, I think. To teach you how to … give on. Being Father Frost is the end-game, isn’t it?"

     "I think so.”

     “I’m getting it figured out,” Mark nodded in determination.

 How about you, dear readers? Will you be leaving milk and cookies out tonight?