Thursday, April 26, 2012

The Eleventh Muse


I like to eat, but I love to cook. Cooking is as much a form of creative expression as shaping words into a poem or lyrical essay; painting a landscape or portrait with colorful pigments; sculpting an image from stone or wood; inventing a machine; or, discovering a new drug.

The kitchen is a cook's studio or laboratory. The media are fresh vegetables and fruits, meat, herbs, spices,  and oils, bread, cheese, fine wine and beer. The implements are pots and pans, knives, chopping blocks, mandolins, blenders and stoves. Boiling, simmering, roasting, frying, basting, baking, steaming, grilling, and browning are the techniques. A delicious, carefully and lovingly crafted meal is the art piece. The plate is the canvas. A finely set table is the gallery where the work is displayed. And, while distinctive tastes and aromas are elements of a a meal, we also eat with our eyes.

The ancient Greeks believed that there were ten Muses, the goddesses of inspiration of literature science and the arts. Perhaps there is an eleventh Muse, the Muse of Cooking, and when she speaks, I go to the kitchen.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Changing Directions

The following excerpt is from an article titled Reading & the Art of 'Rerouting' by contributing editor Robert Gray in the most recent newsletter from the Shelf Awareness website:

"We've mentioned the incomparable pleasures of rereading here before, but lately I've been intrigued by another book habit you'll probably recognize and understand. Let's call it the art of "rerouting," which happens when you are fully engaged with a great book and then discover—after, during or, in one recent case for me, before—reading it that you have been sent in unanticipated new directions."

This has happened to me many times. It is another reason why reading is such a captivating and enriching experience. I have been "rerouted" time and again from fiction to fact, music, poetry, art and film. And yes, I have often been prompted to travel the Internet.

Isn't this what happens in our lives? As if in a "Skinner Box," we scurry about in a maze of opportunities, seeking rewards. At each turn, we choose which way to go. Sometimes we enter empty cul-de-sacs. Occasionally we come to intersections we have crossed before. At other times, we follow paths which lead us to pleasant, unexpected and rewarding discoveries.

Writer Paul Theroux has reminded us that it is the journey, not the destination that counts.

Monday, April 23, 2012

The Best Things

I am beginning to understand that the best things (I'm sure that I will discover more) about blogging are that I can write at my leisure, when the muse is speaking, and that there are no publisher's deadlines.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Drug

Blogging is a drug and I may be addicted to it. There are no 12-step programs or rehab facilities that I can enroll in, but I probably wouldn't anyway. The keyboard is the best treatment and, since I'm retired, I have plenty of time to use it. Nevertheless, if I'm away from my computer or smart phone very long, I begin to suffer withdrawal symptoms. My other blogs (Naturefaker's Notes, The Fernfeeler Files and Reefs of Lilliput) give me some relief. They allow me to share thoughts about nature and national parks acquired during a 30 year career. Still, freed from the work culture, my mind now dwells on other things too . Like a mortar and pestle releasing essential oils and new flavors from herbs, new thoughts are added and blended, producing different perceptions of things. Maybe it's a good drug.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Welcome

Mortar and Pestle is a mixture of occasional postings about nothing in particular and everything in general.