What Do You Eat When You Write?

This article over at Catapult Community interviews their program instructors about their favorite writing snack. As a writer who loves snack food, it's cracking me up.

Read more here.

I also laugh because I have a weird quirk when it comes to food and writing. Whenever I set a scene in detail and describe my characters' meals, ten times out of ten that item of food is the one thing I end up craving for days afterward. This is why people find me baking cheese danishes at 10pm or running to the grocery store for butterscotch pudding after I've already been to the store twice in a week.

What kinds of things do you guys snack on when you write? My go-to is always tea and a couple of cookies or a handful of chips.

"After 75 Years, The Cheese Stands Alone"

This beautiful article about an heirloom wheel of cheese - frozen and kept fresh by a New York family since the 1940s! - reminds me of the tiny morsel of fruitcake my mother still keeps in her fridge; has kept safe in her fridge for over twenty years.

Read more here.

That little sliver, which gets smaller and smaller every year, is taken from one of the last fruitcakes my grandmother used to make and serve at Christmas. Spiced with blackberry rum (a special, holiday-only treat) and filled with candied fruits and other spices, she would prepare it around Thanksgiving, and then leave the cake to "season," wrapped safely in cheesecloth, until Christmas.

Describing the little intricacies of meals or food is such a visceral part of my writing. It's one of my favorite ways to get into characters' heads. I hope you have the same kind of luck with your stories. Imagine the kind of food or drink that would spark a new experience for them, and for your work as a whole.

Happy Monday,

CL

Image Credit: The New York Times