The characters in my novel, Fish-Eye Lens, do a lot of drinking, but there's only one scene of the group sharing a meal. They talk and think about booze quite a bit, but I never show them talking and thinking about food.
This now seems very odd to me, because in real life I think about food almost all the time. What meals am I making this week? When do I need to take the chicken out of the freezer? What vegetables do I have on hand for a side dish? What do I need at the store/at the farmers' market? How can I use that leftover (fill in the blank)? What restaurant shall we go to? Do we need reservations?
The other day, Tom, on his way to work, looked at the slice of leftover quiche I had heated for my breakfast. "Oh, I forgot we had that," he said. I just looked at him and blinked. How can he NOT know exactly what is in our refrigerator at any given time, I wondered. I know, right down to the preserved lemons still there from last Thanksgiving.
I'm not going to stereotype and say that forgetting the quiche was a "guy thing." (Even though he can't seem to find things in the fridge if he has to move a jar or check a low shelf.) No, I think it has something to do with whoever is the meal planner or primary cook in a household.
Thinking about food is one of my major responsibilities chez Rathgeb, so I don't believe my obsession is just an obsession. What I'd like to do, however, is keep the food thoughts from infringing on the writing thoughts.
Having the food and the writing mingle wasn't so much of a problem back when a chunk of my income came from doing restaurant reviews. Writing about bruschetta would remind me that we were low on basil, or I could cut open a lemon to help me describe a citrusy dessert I'd eaten. It was mutually beneficial.
Now, though, I must keep the thoughts separate. I need another verse in Ecclesiastes 3: A time to plot lunch, a time to lunch on plots.
Either that, or I need to start a novel in which people are cooking and eating all the time.
This now seems very odd to me, because in real life I think about food almost all the time. What meals am I making this week? When do I need to take the chicken out of the freezer? What vegetables do I have on hand for a side dish? What do I need at the store/at the farmers' market? How can I use that leftover (fill in the blank)? What restaurant shall we go to? Do we need reservations?
The other day, Tom, on his way to work, looked at the slice of leftover quiche I had heated for my breakfast. "Oh, I forgot we had that," he said. I just looked at him and blinked. How can he NOT know exactly what is in our refrigerator at any given time, I wondered. I know, right down to the preserved lemons still there from last Thanksgiving.
I'm not going to stereotype and say that forgetting the quiche was a "guy thing." (Even though he can't seem to find things in the fridge if he has to move a jar or check a low shelf.) No, I think it has something to do with whoever is the meal planner or primary cook in a household.
Thinking about food is one of my major responsibilities chez Rathgeb, so I don't believe my obsession is just an obsession. What I'd like to do, however, is keep the food thoughts from infringing on the writing thoughts.
Having the food and the writing mingle wasn't so much of a problem back when a chunk of my income came from doing restaurant reviews. Writing about bruschetta would remind me that we were low on basil, or I could cut open a lemon to help me describe a citrusy dessert I'd eaten. It was mutually beneficial.
Now, though, I must keep the thoughts separate. I need another verse in Ecclesiastes 3: A time to plot lunch, a time to lunch on plots.
Either that, or I need to start a novel in which people are cooking and eating all the time.