Have you tried vichyssoise? It's a delightful cream soup, leeks and potatoes, butter and heavy cream, pureed, served hot or cold. Occasionally I add a few oysters, poach them briefly, and it is spectacular.
The other day fresh oysters in the jar were on special. Why not try another recipe?
How bad could you get?
Well, accidentally boiled the cream which was wrong, wrong, wrong! It separated into its water and milk fat components. Charming, really, if you like eating cottage cheese soup.
Sigh. It made for a rather mournful supper.
This got me thinking about failure, this one small terrible batch of soup. Which got me thinking about rejection, that polysyllabic word that writers particularly despise. Our inability at times to not help but take it personally. And at the same time, the implausibility of setting our writing aside for good. Because, how will we know, whether the soup is any good, or the magazine will publish our work, unless we try it? Then tweak it and try it again? Kiddos, whether it's baseball bats, ladles or laptops, let's go out swinging.
Where did I once read, long ago, "If at first you don't succeed, fry, fry a hen"?
ReplyDeleteI save myself a whole lot of rejection by hardly ever submitting.
ReplyDeleteWanna hear how I made a $15 flap steak taste like liver?
I know what you mean. The difficult/painful part is putting your work out there for review. The easy, inspiring part is creating your work. The exhilirating part is when others like it too.
ReplyDeleteAh, cottage cheese soup. What could be better than that and a bowl full of rejection.
ReplyDeleteAlso, "fit." The talk is all of finding the right fit nowadays. Rejection=wrong fit. Tight fit? (that would require the eating of the vichyssoise...)
ReplyDeleteAmen! I love that last line. Much more appealing than the visual of the separated cream :)
ReplyDeleteSounds like we've all shared this meal!
ReplyDeleteWhat Petrea said!
ReplyDeleteI don't sea KB submitting easily to anything.
ReplyDeleteAnd RC, did you mean ladles - or ladies - going out swinging?!!