trying to be a real writer
today i was working my last shift at gladfelter, cutting broccoli florets for the salad bar and thinking about a billion things - what's my new job going to be like? do i have the discipline to continue writing without someone giving me assignments? do i want to stick with poetry forever? do i want to go to culinary school? do i even want a career? so here's the deal - i just got a job working as a housekeeper and cook at a bed and breakfast in montford. as it turns out, they will only need me for 30-35 hours a week. i took that as a sign that i need to use that extra 5-10 hours a week to work on my writing - an exciting prospect. but lately i've been thinking a lot about shifting gears for awhile and trying my hand at some creative non-fiction. yes, i'm far too young and inexperienced to be writing a memoir, but a collection of short essays seems plausible - i do have a lot of stories to tell: about living in india, growing up with southern baptist missionary parents and somehow ending up an atheist whiskey-sipping radical queer!
unfortunately, in my years of writing classes, i somehow managed to avoid the creative non-fiction course. i had always wanted to take it, but was on a sort of one track mindset with poetry, and the non-fiction course wasn't available or able to work with my schedule or something. anyway, catherine reid is teaching the course this fall, so i emailed her and asked her if she might consider letting me sit in on the class. i'm sort of terrified that now that i've graduated, i'll never be able to crack down and make myself write, and myself as a writer will recede into a distant memory rather than a present reality. maybe i'm just paranoid, but i really don't want to let that happen.
the prospect of writing a book seems a little less daunting when i think of it broken up into a lot of short essays. i mean, i could probably sit down and write a story in an hour or so, then spend the next week editing and getting feedback from...someone? maybe there is a writing workshop blog community i can find?
on a totally different note, i just have to blow my own horn and rave about the dinner i made last night. i've been thinking about how i wanted to make my shrimp and grits for the past month or so. constantly thinking about mayfel's shrimp and grits, which is amazingly rich and creamy and complex and spicy and perfect. the prep cooks made the sauce, and i never asked for the recipe, so i had to just figure it out. i thought about the smoky spiciness and realized, of course! chipotles! i knew that there was gorgonzola and scallions in it, and i figured that the cream sauce would need something other than cream to make it thicker and give it a little tang - cream cheese. so here is an approximate recipe that serves 3 people for an entree:
peel a pound and a half or so of shrimp. devein them if you like (i never do). put the shells in a small sauce pan, add a handful of mirepoix (diced carrot, celery, onion) cover with water, bring to a boil, simmer with the lid slightly ajar for half an hour, pour through fine mesh strainer. cook the grits in the shrimp stock instead of plain water for more flavor. 1 cup of grits to 4 cups of stock, simmer on low 20-25 minutes, stirring frequently.
mince a medium yellow onion and 4-5 cloves of garlic. sautee onions with a tablespoon of butter until transparent. add garlic, sautee a minute or so. turn up the heat so the onions and garlic start to brown a little, then deglaze the pan with a splash of wine (i used red because the white wine i had was cheap and too sweet, but i'll bet a nice dry white would be much better than the red). let the wine evaporate, then, with the heat on low, stir in about 3/4 a cup of heavy cream. mmm. creamy. stir in 2 tablespoons of cream cheese until it's melted and the sauce is smooth. chop up three chipotle peppers (the kind canned in adobo sauce), stir them into the sauce. immersion blend until relatively smooth, but don't go overboard or it will lose texture and become too frothy. if you don't have an immersion blender, you could use a tabletop blender, but to me that's too much trouble, you could just skip the whole step. at the end, gently fold in 1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese. salt it to taste, add a little cayenne or hotsauce if you like it REALLY spicy, and voila! chipotle gorgonzola cream sauce!
sautee the shrimp in a couple tablespoons of butter until they are opaque, about a minute on each side. don't overcook them, please! they will be rubbery.
serve the grits in shallow bowls, place 6-8 shrimp in the center of the grits, pour a generous amount of sauce on top, then garnish with crumbled gorgonzola and thinly sliced scallions.
yum yum yum yum yum!
unfortunately, in my years of writing classes, i somehow managed to avoid the creative non-fiction course. i had always wanted to take it, but was on a sort of one track mindset with poetry, and the non-fiction course wasn't available or able to work with my schedule or something. anyway, catherine reid is teaching the course this fall, so i emailed her and asked her if she might consider letting me sit in on the class. i'm sort of terrified that now that i've graduated, i'll never be able to crack down and make myself write, and myself as a writer will recede into a distant memory rather than a present reality. maybe i'm just paranoid, but i really don't want to let that happen.
the prospect of writing a book seems a little less daunting when i think of it broken up into a lot of short essays. i mean, i could probably sit down and write a story in an hour or so, then spend the next week editing and getting feedback from...someone? maybe there is a writing workshop blog community i can find?
on a totally different note, i just have to blow my own horn and rave about the dinner i made last night. i've been thinking about how i wanted to make my shrimp and grits for the past month or so. constantly thinking about mayfel's shrimp and grits, which is amazingly rich and creamy and complex and spicy and perfect. the prep cooks made the sauce, and i never asked for the recipe, so i had to just figure it out. i thought about the smoky spiciness and realized, of course! chipotles! i knew that there was gorgonzola and scallions in it, and i figured that the cream sauce would need something other than cream to make it thicker and give it a little tang - cream cheese. so here is an approximate recipe that serves 3 people for an entree:
peel a pound and a half or so of shrimp. devein them if you like (i never do). put the shells in a small sauce pan, add a handful of mirepoix (diced carrot, celery, onion) cover with water, bring to a boil, simmer with the lid slightly ajar for half an hour, pour through fine mesh strainer. cook the grits in the shrimp stock instead of plain water for more flavor. 1 cup of grits to 4 cups of stock, simmer on low 20-25 minutes, stirring frequently.
mince a medium yellow onion and 4-5 cloves of garlic. sautee onions with a tablespoon of butter until transparent. add garlic, sautee a minute or so. turn up the heat so the onions and garlic start to brown a little, then deglaze the pan with a splash of wine (i used red because the white wine i had was cheap and too sweet, but i'll bet a nice dry white would be much better than the red). let the wine evaporate, then, with the heat on low, stir in about 3/4 a cup of heavy cream. mmm. creamy. stir in 2 tablespoons of cream cheese until it's melted and the sauce is smooth. chop up three chipotle peppers (the kind canned in adobo sauce), stir them into the sauce. immersion blend until relatively smooth, but don't go overboard or it will lose texture and become too frothy. if you don't have an immersion blender, you could use a tabletop blender, but to me that's too much trouble, you could just skip the whole step. at the end, gently fold in 1/2 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese. salt it to taste, add a little cayenne or hotsauce if you like it REALLY spicy, and voila! chipotle gorgonzola cream sauce!
sautee the shrimp in a couple tablespoons of butter until they are opaque, about a minute on each side. don't overcook them, please! they will be rubbery.
serve the grits in shallow bowls, place 6-8 shrimp in the center of the grits, pour a generous amount of sauce on top, then garnish with crumbled gorgonzola and thinly sliced scallions.
yum yum yum yum yum!