Fuckery and Food Truckery!

Confession: I love a bit of food porn.  Truly.  No, I'm not talking 57 Shades of Heinz bedroom games, but rather food can be really sexy.

There's ritual in the preparation, (the foreplay) and the consumption (consummation).  It's just so god damn sensual!  The hunger: the thought of it, the sight, the smell, the taste, the feel of it on the tongue, the roll around the mouth, the... mastication.  (Yes, that's a word.)  And I love a good book that involves, nay celebrates the love of food: from Lily Prior's La Cucina and her romps with Ragu; Adriana Trigiani's Big Stone Gap Series, in which I learned a sandwich could be so much more; Joanne Harris's Chocolat, I will forever suck and savour my quality truffles, because shit, a lot of work goes into those things; Promises to Keep, by Jane Green--it even has recipes, and they are good (!) and anything by Jennifer Weiner, because her heroines hunger for something more in life.  Amen and pass the salt!

Gem.  She's lovely and hi-LA-rious!

So, when I learned my friend and fabulous Britty in the Big City, Gemma Burgess, had tippy-tappy typed a new adult novel, about a headstrong twenty-something living in my old hood, fucking and food trucking, I knew I HAD to read it!

Now, now, Boys!   When I say 'fucking' don't get the wrong idea, this is not some erotic blow-by-blow (pardon), but it's... real.  The gaggle of Brooklyn Girls living in a house on Union St are living life and making mistakes, a lot of mistakes.  This punchy opener sets the tone beautifully:
"Never screw your roommate's brother.  A simple rule, but a good one.  And I broke it last night.  Twice.  Oopsh."

Ta dah!  And the heroine, Pia, and I bonded immediately!  (Not that I have ever done that, Mum.  Dad.  But simply, I love a good, ol' flawed heroine with a lust for life.)  Pia can party her socks off!  Well, her bra off anyway, and that's unfortunately the photo that ends up on Facebook and gets her fired from her PR job.  "Oopsh!" indeed.  Pia is cut-off by her parents and forced to survive (pay rent and afford tequila) on her wits and ingenuity!  She buys a food truck using--perhaps not the best choice--ten grand from a loan shark.  Thus her food truck business, Skinny Wheels, and financial debt, begins!

The whole, "getting cut of from her parents" thing you might find reminiscent of Lena Dunham's Girls.  Funnily enough, Gemma Burgess had written this first novel of the series before the award-winning HBO show aired.  I hope this novel is as successful for Burgess as the show is for Dunham, because it has all the ingredients to be so.

So let's cut to the meat and potatoes, shall we?  Why did I enjoy this book?  Pia Keller is a truly likable protagonist with a Masters in Self Destruction: she is clearly an Arseaholic (addicted to Arseholes); and, she suffers from anxiety and rage.  (This is not familiar at all.  No Siree!  Not me!)  Pia is riddled with flaws, but is so likable.  She'd do anything, ANYTHING, to help her girlfriends; she is passionate about bringing the public fresh, organic food; she drives a pink truck; she's often treated as an alien due to her Swiss/Indian parentage; oh, and she is pretty and fashionable.  I like her!

Pia is a bona fide foodie!  I'm going to put this out there: a girl's gotta eat!  Writers who don't let their characters eat are, quite frankly, cruel.  Is your character an anorexic?  A  camel?  EnduroMan?  Jesus in the desert?  No?  Then fucking feed her/him!  Pia et les femmes eat.  They eat a lot, and in Brooklyn, they are certainly in a good neighbourhood for that.  Whether drunken feasting on eggplant rollatini, baked ziti, and spinach and ricotta pizza at Bartolo's; or simply scarfing down Coco's homemade cookies; or creating the nutritious and delicious salads of Skinny Wheels; food is the uniting factor that brings these girls together, that comforts, that sobers, that gives Pia a place to help others.  

120 miles north of New York City, my now home town of Scranton is ga-ga-hoopla-Kelly-and-not-Regis-mental about food truckery!  It's fresh, it's new, it's mobile!  What the Fork is there not to like?  I've been reading the ravings about the grain-fed beef sliders with bacon jam, the pork tacos with sriracha slaw, the amazing fries.  I've gorged on their left-field breakfast items: the sweet corn waffles with sauteed banana and blueberries and chili maple syrup--wackadoodle, but unbelievably tasty.  It's innovative.  I cannot wait to see our local What The Fork Truck on Kelly and Michael on Thursday 25th July, the business owners truly deserve a forking good review.  After reading of Pia's hard prep work, the licensing, the calorie counting, the assembly, the marketing, the clean up,  the shopping, sleep and repeat, makes me appreciate our local food truck even more.  Go local business, GO!

So, if you are looking for a fun read that will make you laugh and whet your appetite, Brooklyn Girls is it.  It's new adult, but I don't think it's limited to a young readership.  Whether 22, or 34, or 66, life can be a daring adventure--crikey, I still haven't figured it out--but I hope that, like Pia, if you don't settle, if you dream big, and work hard, and never give up when you are passionate about something or someone, even if all the odds are stacked against you and there are baseball-batted loan sharks at your door, everything will work out in the end.
Patron, anyone?

On Love. A Decent Proposal.

“LOVE.”  I suppose I have been thinking about the meaning of this oddly bandied-about word, lately.  Well, it has just been February AND a Leap Year at that, so I feel justified in giving it a bit of consideration.  Just a smidgen.  Don’t tell anyone, or say I’ve gone all moony.

Oh feck, who am I kidding?  I’m a hopeless romantic, and, to me, the concept of a specific day (Feb 29^th) on which women can propose is like walking into the movies to see the closing credits, or absorbing calories without tasting the cheesecake.  What is the point?

Okay, so the point is that you are then engaged, betrothed, promised… ta dah!   I get it.  Mazel tov.  But... but... it just seems so wrong, so unromantic, so emasculating!

I’m an equal opportunities gal.  (In Eleanor World, the Spice Girls were my homies.  Girl Power!  Karate kicks!  Short skirts!  "We're not sluts!"  "We're empowered!"  High five!)  But really?  Really?  What woman wants to tell their friends, family, old school compadres who-you-didn’t-really-like-but-now-have-to-keep-up-with-on-Facebook that,

“Oh, it was so romantic, we were out to dinner and …”  and what?  Men don’t wear engagement rings, so what do you whip out of your little heart-shaped box?  “ …I hid a Home Depot gift certificate under his oysters and said, ‘Sweetie-Prune-Face, will you do me the honour of living with me forever and fixing my shit?’”

Nay, nay and thrice nay.  This is not how the story should go.  Rewrite. 

Now, before you get the impression—as I believe some of the male variety have—that all women are out to get a ring, FEAR not!  Back off there, Champ!  Step away from the Tiffany counter!  Some women are quite happy to march their own merry way, independently slicing through the crowd to the click clack of their heels on the marble, and the sound of their favourite Beyonce track echoing through their cerebellum.  "I don't think you're ready for this jelly."  I know many fine females able to change a light bulb, order direct TV, who own homes, and tools, like drills with attachments, who take out their own rubbish; finding someone you can do some of these with is just an added bonus, not a necessity.

So what am I saying?  If you do erm… *cough* “love” someone, does it matter who or how one proposes?  Does one even need to propose?  Can’t there be togetherness and marital sportsmanship without the whole Pride and Goon bit?  I suppose it makes a nicer story to tell folks.  It certainly must feel good to know that of all the girls in the world, you are special to someone other than your parents and the stray cat you randomly feed.  And Lordy, if he has thoughtfully planned some surprise to take your breath away and says something heartfelt that makes one jelly-kneed, well doesn’t that make one feel valued as a person, adored as a lover, treasured as a Goddess?  Yes.

A good friend of mine was swept away for the weekend by her now fiancé and, as they walked back to their hotel on a spectacularly star-filled night, he turned to her and said “How would you like to be buried with my people?”  It wasn’t the gesture of the weekend away, or the celestial backdrop, it was his words.  He wanted to be with her for the rest of his life and thereafter; their bones crumbling to dust together.  Kind of macabre, yes, but very earthy and celtic and fitting.  My heart melt into my stomach to hear it.

Another friend, actually, my oldest, bestest friend from Blighty, has quite the sigh-worthy proposal story.  Her betrothed, a HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy aficionado, took her to a lavish dinner to celebrate his forty second birthday.  Following an indulgent repast, he noticed a loose thread from his jacket, and he asked her to pull it.  She pulled, and to the thread a ticker tape and then a ring were attached; the tape read, “The meaning of life, the universe, everything is not 42… it’s you.”

Romance!  It appeals, because I suppose a good proposal, or Valentine’s Day surprise, or heck, a surprise any day of the year, means that someone thinks enough of you to make an effort.  Effort.  Change the ‘e’ to the end, lose a 'f', and you have the French “forte,” strong.  A strong effort: not a lame college try; or the Valentine’s day Interflora package deal that comes up first on Google search; but an effort that takes thought and action.
 

Of course, it’s all very well making this grandiose gesture or proclamation of undying love, but a proposal is supposed to be an indication of intent.  If there is a superhuman display and no follow up, one could say that the “buyer” was mis-sold.  And aren’t proposals getting more and more extravagant nowadays?  The simple betrothal from days of yore, the down-on-one-knee bit, looks kinda shabby in comparsion to the sky-written proposal, or the Youtube ode, or the live TV recording.

Who is it for anyway?  Are proposals for the delectation of the viewing Public and bragging rights to ones Facebook friends and Twitter followers?  Or should they be private moments, in which you lay your heart on a plate for someone else to stab, or hold?

Marriage isn’t the be-all, end all, women strive for in 2012 anyway.  We can take out our own trash.  We just want to be happy.  For me, finding that someone who does not “complete me,” but complements me, who makes me want to be even better as a person, even though he loves me “just as I am,” would be a lovely thing.  A ring seems rather irrelevant.

 As the fabulous best-selling author Jane Green writes, “Love is a verb.”  A verb is a “doing” word.  Sometimes the odds seem insurmountable: the geography, or the age-difference, or the family opposition,  or the history involved—just to throw a few little hurdles in there—but if you really care, these things shouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.  If I were in love, I’d pole-vault over all of them.  Or at least try, and crash *splat* into them.

I was trying to give a friend a definition—she was grilling me about love and bemoaning her internet dating experience (that’s for another blog)—I quoted Jane Green, and she replied,

“So love is about doing things for people?”  She looked rather non-plused.

“Well, yes, because you love them.  You do things for them to show it.”

Her frown did not smooth itself.

“Well, I do things for my boss, but I certainly don’t love him.”

“Granted.  He pays you.  There are exceptions.”

“I do volunteering, but it’s not because I’m in love with the …”

“Okay!  Okay.  So, let me define it!  It’s not what you can do for him, or what he can do for you, but it is about wanting to do things for him, of your own free will.  Not because anyone is paying you, or for a profound sense of gratification, or for your reward in Heaven or wherever, but because you want to make his life easier, better.  It's finding someone you want to be a team with; to do things, to share things and enjoy experiences together; someone who makes your ovaries can-can with one look, or one breath of his scent.  And he'll smell so good to you.  It's someone you can curl up beside and not want to be anywhere else, with anyone else.  The person whose gaze feels like the sun on your skin, and in whose eyes you feel even more beautiful and lighter and more interesting.  And the thought of never basking in the heat from his eyes again makes your heart wither with sadness.   And,”  I steam-rollered on, “when you love someone you don’t necessarily need this person to reciprocate and do things for you; you don't need a ring and the whole elaborate public "I do"; you just feel compelled, down deep, like rooted in your stomach-deep, right there, that this is the person you would do anything for, not because of anything he said or did, but just the way he made you feel.  And life will go on without him, if we don't find him, if we lose him, or if he loses himself, but crikey, doesn't everything seem lovelier when you have someone that makes you just...sing?"

She bit meditatively on the flake of skin on her bottom lip,

“Interesting.  So it’s a gut thing.”

“I’ve always thought so.  You know you have more nerve endings in your stomach than your spine?  That’s why you feel that stomach implosion when he so much as looks at you.”

“That’s just nerves.  Or a bowel movement.  That goes away.”

“That’s why love is a verb!  It’s an effort, but a strong effort can be easy, and you will want to make it.  Don’t you want to be 70 and feel full with contentment when he smiles at you, or takes your hand and walks you to your stair-lift?  Don't you want to still feel butterflies?”

“I think maybe, En, you just need some Rolaids.  And a puppy.”

Redefining Chick lit the Jennifer Weiner Way

Last month, bestselling author, screenwriter for ABC Family’s new hit show State of Georgia and influential tweeter, Jennifer Weiner, celebrated the 10 year anniversary since her break through novel Good In Bed. 

It was the first Weiner I read and it left a marked impression on me.  Mainly, that a so-called "chick lit" novel could have a darker side.  No, am not getting all Vader on you, Cannie did not unleash her light sabre and castrate the bastardly ex-boyfriend for writing about her in his newspaper article "Loving a Larger Woman."  Instead, she lets his opinion define her happiness and is plunged into a spiral of sadness and self-doubt.  And you thought chick lit was all about Christian Louboutin’s, calories and credit card bills.  Oh you! 

Chick lit,--ahem—I mean, "contemporary women’s fiction" *insert winning Colgate smile here* can be substantial.  It can be meaty.  The literary lamb shank over a risotto Milanese, that is so rich and satisfying you can’t eat anything else for a week.  The genre, or menu if you will, is so wide, it can also be light and pappy.  There’s a place for both, I guess, but I have a hearty appetite.

 Jennifer Weiner, Jane Green and Emily Giffin are three of the top selling writers in this genre and, believe me, none of them focus on fluffy light fare.  They write stories that are all meat: satisfying, juicy, tender; sometimes, they give me heartburn and chronic indigestion, but I’m there with their endearing heroines, enduring infidelity, infamy, cancer, chronic depression, etc... 

Sounds a laugh a minute, I know, but really, these characters react to these shit-uations in a way that leaves you cheering for more.   I have just finished reading Giffin's Heart of the Matter and it creased me, CREASED ME, that I could empathize with both the wife and the mistress; that both couldn't 'win.'  It's a testament to Giffin's writing that she took a black and white--ehem--affair like cheating and made it so grey, so human, so compelling, so ... relatable.

That's me with Emily in the photograph.  Uh huh, yeah.  She's the beautiful blonde.   I'm the one looking expensively cheap.

Jennifer Weiner’s new novel, Then Came You—which I am itching to read— was inspired by an article she had read in the New York Times, about an affluent woman paying an educated, yet less wealthy, woman to be her surrogate.  Jen wrote in a recent email to her readers, “I wanted to look at how larger questions of financial inequities inform the process of having a baby by surrogate – how it’s always women of means hiring less-well-off women to perform a physical task; how it is, at its core, a transactional relationship that sometimes morphs into a friendly or even familial one. I’m interested in questions of how people treat each other, and how money, and guilt over having it, or resentment over not having more, comes into play.”  Meaty!  Nom nom.

So why am I telling you all this?  Stick with me!  Well, to mark the occasion of Good In Bed’s anniversary Jen launched a competition. The challenge:  in more than 125 words, but no more than 175, write about the most memorable thing that has occurred to you in the last ten years. 

Ten years is about eight photo albums for me, ACTUAL albums, like scrapbooks, not digitally stored, but albums with photo corners and page protectors—I know, ain’t it wild?; then there are the photos stored on my computer and the random ones available for the Facebook Nation.  Am not boasting that I am some photo hog or sad scrapbooking fiend, merely that there are a darn rootin’ tootin’ megatonne of memories.  Think about it, TEN YEARS, TEN FRIGGIN’ YEARS!   Roll photo montage and Beatles accompaniment: “There are places I remember…”

So I thought long and hard about what, through the cabernet clouded fog, I remembered most.  “Rhett!  Rhett!  But what’ll I say?  What’ll I do?  What’s to become of me?”  Agh.  No. Hang about, here we go: my memories, not Scarlett’s.  What did I remember most?  Was it my happiest memory? 

No.  But the microfiche that was notable, crammed with infinitesimal detail, is the memory when time slowed; when every second, of every minute, of every hour burned my consciousness.  There were no idle thoughts.  No internal discussion about what I might cobble together from the refrigerator for the evening’s repast, no casual flick through the memorized TV schedule to plan my night’s viewing.  It was hours of unadulterated awareness; waiting for the cocked trigger to fire, terrified that I might have ruined it all and I’d shot Self in the foot, or face, or heart.

This was my most memorable moment:

I was ushered into the Embassy-approved Physician, leeched of blood and was left, hanging.  This was the day I had prepared for with the focus of an Olympian and the anticipation of a newly-lingeried third date; the last cause and impediment that would separate me from the burly American who had confessed—rather inconveniently, since I was ravenously disposing of a molten chocolate bomb and happened to be spoon-licking at the time—“I don’t want to wake up another morning without you here.”

I waited.  For hours.  Would-be Emigrants came, bled and went, yet I was... 'quarantined?'   I flicked through the mental roladex of sexual indiscretion.  Of course!  The night England had actually won a sporting event and I celebrated drunkenly with some touring rugby player between my thighs! 

The Embassy would banish me. 

Oh God! 

I’d never be with the man who accepted me without medical, signed affidavit or detailed exposition of why I loved him.

I thought my heart would burst through my chest. 

“Miss Gwyn-Jones?  You’re all clear.”

Confusion, relief, joy, Visa.

Keeping to 175 words was harder than you’d think.  I hope, in spite of the brevity, the subject matter was not too gristly for you.  If so, tough.  It’s my meat. 

What’s your most memorable …er…memory from the last ten years?   Go on, I've aired my laundry--and it was found to be impeccable clean--so I'd love to read about yours.  Or, if you have any flavoursome chick-lit to recommend, please do!