Amy C Collins

sick day: please excuse our absence

 

to the feast

It's not a secret, to those who know me, that I get very excited about eating. I love food. It may be, along with the promise of easy, cash money, the reason I went into the restaurant business in the first place, waiting tables through college instead of, say, working at the school library or in a dress shop or selling my art on the street corner. Actually, my first foray into the restaurant biz was a hostess position the summer before I left for college. The smell of food wafting throughout the restaurant for an entire shift was intoxicating; it infested the gut with an insatiable, constant craving. Of course, when my mother gave birth to me I actually gained weight in the hospital. I was born hungry.

I have had the good fortune of eating many, many amazing meals, which I try not to think about too much, given my present homestead floating in a sea of chain restaurants, BBQ joints and fried, fried, fried garbage. Eating has to be about more than the food. Still, there is too much danger of slipping (Alabama is the second fattest state in the Union, after all - but as Alabamian's say, there's always Mississippi) So I try to create my own decadent, healhfulish feasts at home.

I am uncustomarily writing this post the Sunday night before publishing and, given the topic, sipping a glass of Jean-Paul Brun's Beaujolais 'L'Ancien' 2008, a perfect cuvee for any meal, selected and imported by the late, vinous genius, Joe Dressner. He was never one to mince words or hold his tongue. He had a great palate and tremendous integrity when it came to representing producers. Thank you, Joe.

Thanksgiving

My strongest memories are feasts at Grandmother's house for which we drove, occasionally kicking (each other) and screaming (for truce or Mom) 4 hours into middle Georgia. Turkey, ham, the best cornbread dressing you ever tasted in your life, with giblet gravy, turnips and mustards with the turnips, melt-in-your-mouth field peas, cornbread, angel biscuits (just like heaven), cranberry sauce slopped from the can, sliced, covered the dining room table. We kids sat in the kitchen, or at a card table in the living room. I have a faint memory there was real cranberry relish as well, but of course I wouldn't go near it, nor the pickle plate of bread & butters, and later, Aunt Marsha's cinamon pickles made sweet and red with Red Hots candy. It's still very hard for me to accept sweet folded into my savories, making it a lifelong challenge to "eat right" in the South. Baby carrots balanced the pickle plate while stuffed celery got it's own dish. My God, I could live off stuffed celery - clean, crisp stalks filled with a cream cheese/shredded cheddar/grated garlic/salt & pepper spread. We drank water or sweet tea and after a brief spell, sampled peacan pie, pumpkin pie, chocolate cake, red velvet cake, chocolate pie or an assortment of cookies - chocolate chip, chocolate chocolate chip, peacan sandies, peanutbutter chocolate - everything made by Grandmother, for us.

After dinner I'd run around with my cousins. We'd walk down to visit the horses or tromp, against the rules, through the woods, and lie bald-faced about it later. Or we'd shoot hoops at the basket over the garage, bouncing the ball off the packed, red Georgia dirt that made up the driveway. After a couple hours we'd go back for more food, usually stuffed celery, dressing and peas, for me. A meal for champions.

Because the holiday is so ingrained in each of us as poignently special, the original menu can never be improved upon. It is an unbreakable tradition, a permanent memory. I've eaten Thanksgiving dinner in some of the finest restaurants in New York City. They never come close. Turkey interpretations can not match Grandmother's. And how wonderful is turkey anyway? It's not. I eat turkey sandwiches for lunch about three times a week. I have cooked a couple turkeys though. Two years ago I bought a fat one, organic, special ordered through the local health food store and covered the breast in thick sliced bacon when it went into the oven. That bad boy came out moist and perfect. I even brined it for something like 36 hours. Still, it's just turkey. And it's a pain in the ass to prepare. I'm no Grandmother. And I'm not cooking turkey this year.

The Menu

I recently visited Charlie Thompson out in Lexington. Charlie farmed the Joe Salatin way (for those of you who've read Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma) before Charlie ever heard of Joe Salatin. He's got 1,000 chickens, selling the eggs to Wholefoods and off his front porch, plus lamb, goats and rabbits. He also makes delicious honey. So what am I cooking for T-Day? Rabbit! And smoked venison. Call it a nod to the old school pilgrims, half foraged, half humanely raised. I'll forage the rest of my ingredients as locally as possible, including a kale salad straight from my own garden. 

I'm planning for a leek, potato gratin and a stone ground grits souffle for my starches. There will be roasted cauliflower with golden raisins and a roasted pumpkin with sage or baked sweet potatoes & butter - I totally reserve the right to omit any dish at any time. It's my kitchen after all, more or less. I'm stewing the rabbit with carrots, citrus and a touch of sherry. Dessert will be a pumpkin pie baked by the amazing Richard McGraw, and an assortment of fancy chocolates from John & Kira in Philadelphia. Mostly I'm looking forward to spending a day in the kitchen, creating some new dishes, maybe a clasic, and filling the house with guests and laughter and good eaters. And to drink? L'Ancien Beaujolais, but of course.

Here's to The Feast and here's to your Thanksgiving. I hope it's a memorable one. 

 

~amy      

I want my MTV

Last week I ran across an article about the new tell-all, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, and I had to have it.

The timing is perfect. Not only have I been slogging through a work of fiction I don't want to finish, but I've been listening to a lot more music these days. When I write, only classical will do. But when I'm drawing or playing around on the computer or developing Mable (I know, it's taking forEVER) I can listen to anything I want. ANYTHING! That alone has brought me so much joy, dipping into old favorites and discovering new loves (Spotify rocks, by the way). Thus, new & exciting gossipy non-fiction + memories of growing up on music videos = SAVED! (again)

My mind immediately slipped into the past when I saw this article, the illustrating photo of the original VJs evoking flashes of videos: "Wrapped Around Your Finger" (remember Sting running through the candles? I hated that song & video), "We're Not Gonna Take It" (Dee Snyder in full, offensive drag), "Thriller" (of course!), "Patience" (GNR's soft side), "November Rain" (Axl on the piano!) Madonna's satin floor length dress in "Material Girl", that Sade video with the tarantula, Digital Underground's "The Humpty Dance" with that crazy nose, Public Enemy with Flava Flav's giant clock necklaces, and of course, Young MC with "Bust A Move" and Flea on bass in the famous stuffed animal pants.

I could go on all day.

By the time I reached fourth grade, 1984-85, MTV was well on it's way and everyone I knew had cable and most of my friends had at least two televisions, which meant all of us had at least some idea of who these artists were. As we watched we had to feel, on some level, as if we actually knew the artists personally. No question the videos sold records because viewers felt close to the bands. Not to mention, simple exposure. 

And wasn't Music Television a pioneering entity in technology? Like Facebook, MTV brought worlds together. The cross-culture videos aired, from English New Wave to Heavy Metal to Rap, had to have opened our minds and mitigated racial and sexual phobias, at least on some small, subconscious level. Or it set us back. It would seem from the very earliest videos that scantily clad girls were synomymous with performance. What have those visuals done for the progress of female sexuality; given us bravado to shake our thing or further oppressed us by underscoring the girl-as-object male mantra that pervades society? Maybe a little of both? My generation experienced an easy education on a lot of things outside our daily parameters, thanks to MTV.  

I was certainly not an MTV fanatic. I'm not even sure I was allowed to watch and by seventh grade I was involved in after school sports year round, cutting significant MTV viewing opportunities. After the first couple of seasons of "The Real World" it wasn't worth watching anyway; all reality shows and no videos. But if season one of the Real World - that's The Real World: New York - didn't ignite in me some desire to one day live there, Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" must have, years before. She was New York, the outrageousness of the city, the artistic freedom, and her accent - all Queens. She's So Unusual was one of my first albums. Maybe I'm reaching a little to say I knew I wanted to live in NYC  at age 7 after seeing Cyndi Lauper dance down Wall Street. But the image of her caught my interest then and holds it still. And there certainly wasn't anyone in my life who pushed boundaries like she did, at least not in a way that intrigued me.

Actually, every video on MTV pushed boundaries. According to interviews by executives, directors, managers and band members, I Want My MTV explains that was largely the goal. PUSH, and sell records. Amazingly, record companies gave the videos to MTV to play for free, but it was sheer commerce, all the way. 

By late junior high most of my musical attention was turned underground, thanks to my friend Randa and her brother Chris, who took us to school every morning. Chris turned us both on to bands not seen on MTV. They were the antithesis to commercial music. They were the real deal. Fugazi, Hoodoo Gurus, The Replacements, The The, The Clash, The Pixies - I still reach for those bands and that kind of music first and most often. 

MTV has undoubtedly embedded itself in my memory and played a role in my formative years, so in tribute, I put together a little youtube playlist of about 20 videos. These are just randoms that I remember and a few before my time. Many of them I have clear memories of, and the first few are iconic American culture. I recommend going full screen with this, for better viewing.

Enjoy. And Rock On.

 

wonderful (the way I feel)

Remember that Seinfeld episode when Jerry, George, Elaine and Cramer have a no-masturbation contest? They wager bets and whoever holds out the longest wins the pot. Only a few hours after they begin Cramer busts into Jerry's apartment, in typical Cramer fashion, slams his money down on the counter and throws his arms in the air. "I"m out!" he says. 

Well, that's me with the novel. Yup. One week and I'm Out. 

Ok, here's my excuses:

1. I got a job!

2. I'm finding it extremely difficult to switch from writing a novel in the morning to developing Mable and her re-launch in the afternoon, each demanding all my free-thinking attention.

3. I was, perhaps, in retrospect, a little impetuous in diving into such a project with basically no storyline. 

4. I got a job!

 

This is not a failure and I am not quiting. I'm just postponing the novel for a while. Even though I've been looking for a job for a few months the actual offer I got was completely unexpected, something like kismet or karma or, to quote myself from a 1993 Clay Today newspaper article my mother found in the attic this weekend, on the goal I scored to win the HS Districts Soccer Championship, "I was just in the right place at the right time."  

My decision to opt-out of NaNoWriMo, especially after asking my good readers to make contributions to this awesome non-profit, was not an easy one. I asked Pride to step aside and let Sanity have the stage (always good practice). It's no good for anyone if I start a new job overly stressed. Still, there's a soul searching involved, a question of what it means to walk away from this writing project. Is my identity shaken? Is my sense of purpose on the line?

Of course I have to ask these questions. It's not possible to simply shrug my shoulders and say, well, all my time just got eaten up, unexpectedly, and I wasn't really prepared for this endeavor after all.

But I'll spare you the thread of self-absorbed contemplation pawing at my sense of reality. It's gorgeous outside, the proverbial Fall day, epitome of perfect weather. My neighbors have the blowers and the mowers cranking, the mail arrived on schedule, the dogs wait patiently for their noon walk and the earth continues to rotate slowly, slowly on it's axis. It's a day like any other good day.

I leave you with this song...

 

 

 

 

 

 

first day of NaNoWriMo a success...

Well folks, I hit the mark and kept on writing this a.m.

2,663 words on day one. Yippee!

 

I don't have a title, but I've got two characters named Judy and Celia and a basic plot line. Here's the synopsis:

 

Two girlhood friends go separate ways as they grow up. Big deal, cliche. But our narrator, Judy, sees herself as the one on the straight and narrow path, the accomplished one, the successful one, while Celia is a wayward soul, floundering in the waves, uncommitted at best. And yet, it's Celia that just might be the happy one of the two, despite her unconventional trail through life. And so Judy's idea of success fades as her own life grows shaky. 

 

OK, that's enough about me. I promise not to berate you all with requests for money all month, but seriously check out this video. The NaNoWriMo organization does a lot of great things for schools and libraries across the country. I'm trying to raise $250, so if you can give anything to this cause, I would be very appreciative. Just think of it as a Walk-A-Thon, only it's a Write-A-Thon.

Video:

 

 

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Let's Help Some Kids Fall in Love with Writing!  (and avoid the sad ending of this short story in the photo on my Donations Page.)