food memories

Kana and Yuta, my housecats, form a ball of snuggle on the sofa. (E.M. Duskova)

It’s been a good week for me. We’ve had unseasonably sunny days, lots of visits from kitties and plenty of snuggles from the domesticated pets. And there was NaNo, which brought me a good story and some nice story seeds this week.

Before I talk about National Novel Writing Month, I do want to say a word or two about Thanksgiving dinner. It’s almost always on a workday in Japan, so I often do my best with some roast chicken and wait for the community Thanksgiving that we do in a huge kitchen with loads of people. (Loads being about 60 or 70 people eating, in our case.)

I miss seeing those people, but it was relaxing not to have to get up early and drive 45 minutes each way for a day of cooking and cleaning (and the very, very nice meal). And since I’m not working for anyone but myself these days, I decided to make a modified Thanksgiving feast. Roasted chicken thighs with sage. My mom’s dressing, cut in half, and mutated with my mom’s scalloped chicken recipe. It’s onions and celery in way too much

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I listened to an interesting podcast this week on National Public Radio about Dinah Fried, an artist who takes pictures of literary scenes. Radio is not very conducive to photography reviews, but through the magic of the internet, the Monkey See blog with eight pictures from Fried’s new book, Fictitious Dishes: An Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals, was only a click away.

“There was a deep little hollow where you could build a sort of tiny oven with stones and roast potatoes and eggs in it . . . . You could buy both potatoes and eggs and eat as many as you liked without feeling as if you were taking food out of the mouths of fourteen people.” –The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett (Thanks, Dinah, for allowing us to use this image from your book!)

So much to learn here . . . .

The slideshow features eight photos from the book, with the paragraphs she’s built the images from. I love seeing how these masters managed to convey such rich detail in a few words, as well as the gorgeous pictures that Fried has created.

(-: And now I want to build a tiny oven from stones, and see about roasting some eggs and potatoes, just like in The Secret Garden.

So, this week, let’s be readers. What are your favorite food memories from literature? Have you ever re-created them in real life? How did they add to your enjoyment of the book?