My Not-so-Guilty Secret, by Jane Lynch
Have you ever indulged in a bit of aspirational recipe-clipping while eating your porridge? I have, and I’ve got two folders stuffed full of scraps of paper to prove it, some of which go back a few decades.
What behaviours do you indulge in that go nowhere but give you a warm, fuzzy feeling? During the pandemic, I started a few writing habits. One was adapting AA Milne’s poetry with a lockdown slant. I was rather proud of one of them, and a family member shared it in her U3A writing group.
I also started writing 1,000 random words a couple of times a week with the intention of getting my thoughts on the page and garnering ideas for articles. I write with a potential reader in mind, and sometimes use this material as the basis for an article or blog post, such as this one.
What do we do with the wealth of information we hold in the form of clippings, cuttings and random notes on our computers? How can we collate them, or do we sometimes have to let them go?
I’ve been decluttering my kitchen recently. I’ve got two shelves for recipe books, which I’ve started culling. We’re now in a different era from when I first got married and set up house a third of a century ago. These days, I’m more likely to consult BBC Good Food on my iPad than to leaf through a recipe folder or book. But the vestiges of that old way of doing things remain.
My mother and mother-in-law are sadly no longer with us, but some of their recipes are preserved on scraps of paper, which get shared around the family when someone wants to recreate a favourite. Somehow, having this physical record in their handwriting imparts some of their life experience and invokes their memory.
We might be surprised at the writing material we already have, scribblings and observations that we wrote down years ago, ideas that we never developed. I dare you to take a look at some of your old material. You might be surprised at the wisdom contained in it!
"If you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God". (Proverbs 2: 4-5)
Jane lives on the south coast and loves to write when she is not busy working on the committee as ACW treasurer. She started blogging on the ‘Medium’ platform during the pandemic and has a backlog of material there. She is working on her first historical novel based on a family story.
Great post! I went through my pile of notebooks not long ago and did an 'audit' of what was in them, making a mini-index at the front. Too often, I was thinking, 'Where's that draft piece I wrote in that poetry workshop by so-and-so?' or 'Where are the notes I made at that Zoom meeting?' and couldn't face the task of searching for them. I need to do this regularly, though - things are already fraying ...
ReplyDeleteHaha, thanks Fran! You are way ahead of me in the writing game, so don't need my advice. But I stopped using paper and pen years ago. It's a bit of a pity (in the sense that I can't enjoy a lovely notebook any more), but it works for me. I have one writing software (https://ulysses.app/) I pay a modest annual subscription for. Everything goes in there. Ideas I get while out and about - I just open it on my phone & write it in there. I still have the ancient notebooks though. I too need to go through them, as I need to go through my never-used recipe collection!
ReplyDeleteWhat a coincidence! I have put away my phone in the spare room, check it three times a day, otherwise it's out of my sight. What has resulted? More reading, longer sustained reading. And curiosity in my cook books! I'm finding favourite recipes and making them again. My phone had me chained, like a slave; it made me miserable and anxious. Now I am making cakes again and enjoying novels!
ReplyDeleteThat's me above! I forgot to sign in before posting!
ReplyDeleteHi Michelle, how lovely to hear from you! You have uncannily predicted my next blog post (which you will have to wait another month to read 🤣). But seriously, I too have been getting really annoyed with my phone recently. The trouble is, I need it to log into various websites and authenticate this and that. It's a conundrum. I would love to put it away somewhere. I guess I could do that anyway and then just go and use it when I need to. There is something about using actual recipes. I will keep some of mine, and try to use some of my cookbooks too!
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