Soft Boiled Eggs, a Remembrance

food memory

It is morning in Los Angeles. Not yet 9 am, and I have claimed a corner high-top table at Republique, my new favorite restaurant by my friend, Walter Manske. I turn on the computer and prepare myself for a morning of writing. I have notes, a pot of coffee, and soon, the breakfast I ordered.

Moments later, a runner places a wood board before me. On it is a freshly baked baguette with a trio of white porcelain dishes: one holds soft butter; a pot of handmade strawberry jam; and another, two soft-boiled eggs.

The yolks are orange as sunset and hide behind translucent whites cooked so slowly they appear to be made of custard. I pull a coin-sized bite from the baguette. I marvel as the crust explodes into tawny shards.

I dip the soft interior of the bread into the egg yolk and take a bite. Suddenly, sensory memories flood my consciousness. I am transported to an early morning in Angers, France several decades ago. Continue reading “Soft Boiled Eggs, a Remembrance”

Bittersweet Memories and Cranberry Sauce

I always thought of myself as a mature kid. Markers of my full grown abilities were imagination, a faculty for prolonged unsupervised play, and a talent for cooking.  If I could cook–it seemed–I was old enough to take care of myself.

I learned the basics young. In nursery school my teachers showed me how to mix chopped cranberries, orange zest, and sugar in a bowl to make a simple cranberry sauce. By second grade I could put together a bowl of cereal without help, spread butter on toast, and decorate apples with cloves for Christmas ornaments. In third grade, I mastered cinnamon sugar toast and began learning how the numbers on the toaster could turn frozen food into something warm and satisfying. By the time I reached the fourth grade, I could make snacks for my brother and sister when we got home from school and oversee my siblings in their raucous play.

Being able to cook made me employable. I was a babysitter by age 10.

Maybe its because I was the first born. Perhaps, it was because I was self reliant. It may be the fact that I was an independent child capable of feeding herself and her siblings. I could re-heat chicken nuggets and fish sticks without anyone standing over me. I made pizzas out of pita bread, Ragu tomato sauces, and chunks of the random cheeses my mother bought at the grocery store. I was creative with my cooking. I found recipes in cookbooks and began dreaming of the meals I would cook.

Dreams become reality

The summer after I turned ten, my mother packed an extra big suitcase for a trip across the country. I held my breath as Mom filled the olive green suitcase with big sweaters, cotton pants, and prayer beads. She stuffed a canvas bag with my sister’s baby clothes and toys.

“Are we going on a trip?” I asked. Continue reading “Bittersweet Memories and Cranberry Sauce”

The Space Between


It starts with just a brick. One after another, the bricks are stacked along a single line that’s been drawn in the gritty dirt. From your window you can see the empty lot, the hole in the ground, and the yellow plastic ribbon that stretches from one stake in the ground to others.  There are men in dusty hard hats drinking coffee from paper cups and pointing at clip boards. Then comes the cement truck and men who like to yell orders to each other as they spoon a warm bed of cement over another row of bricks.

How long it takes for the wall to come up to the first set of windows seems like months. The building process is dusty, loud, and inconvenient.  Then seemingly all of a sudden, light begins to change. A wall–a new wall of red brick– reaches past the first floor window frame of your building and threatens to block out all the windows.

Weeks pass and all that you took for granted–the view from the second floor to the intersection and its cross-hatch of thick black wires on telephone poles–is threatened. Bit by bit, your open sky is edged out by a beast of building.

When construction stops and the last of the electricians and ladder crews leave, the neighborhood rushes to investigate the new building. There are office spaces for rent and a Coffee Bean on the first floor. For weeks there are traffic jams and squealing horns. It’s as if people have never seen a cup of coffee before.

Three floors of sunlight and sunset pinks are gone and you stop by the coffee shop in hopes that they’ll give you free cups of coffee for a year because they stole your sunshine and your view without every really asking–but they never do. There is no free pass for neighbors. The teenage workers nod their baseball-capped heads and shrug their rounded shoulders when you complain about the banging of their industrial trash bin against their new wall of new brick.

A year goes by.

One day the promise to never buy a cup of coffee from the neighbors is forgotten. You run out of organic beans from your friend the coffee roaster, and buy a latte. The next week, you feel reckless and fill a paper cup with milk from the coffee station and take it home for the pot of coffee you brewed yourself. They owe me this, you tell yourself as you spoon the whole milk into your cup.

Another years passes. The view that you once held so dear slides into the memory file. You buy lamps and hang cheery pictures and find ways to bring light the spaces where it used to come to you without effort.

Then one morning, you remember how things used to be. You step outside to take a good look at where your view once was and where a new brick building now stands.

There’s a cushion of space between the two buildings. A pocket of air cushions painted white brick from its dusty new neighbor. There isn’t much distance between the two buildings–maybe just enough for a small woman’s pinky or a thin rope to be pulled from one side to another–but just barely.

It’s odd how a building could bring all sorts of change to your life and yet it never did touch a thing. Big walls go up, new structures are built, but not a thing changed to the outside of your home. All the change happened within.

That gets you to thinking about all the things that have changed in your life. In two years time you’ve taken the steps to live life in a whole new way. You’ve transformed yourself through action and better thinking.    It’s an inside job, you’ve heard people say, and it’s true. Dramatic change can happen just like that–slowly and steadily. Incremental and gradual.

And just like that, the space expands. You see that you haven’t lost a view, you’ve gained a new perspective.

For the first time in years, you’re happy that big red brick building went up just outside your window. You’re grateful.

Thank you, Ray Bradbury

An-essay-on-Ray-Bradbury-from-Foodwoolf.com

Ray Bradbury, a man of science, imagination, and other worldly creativity, departed this dimension on June 6th, 2012. Little more than a week since his death, many have written words of thanks and appreciation to applaud Bradbury for the limitlessness of his imagination and the power of his words.

Ray Bradbury was a teacher on the page as well as a mentor in life. Threading back through my memories, I can pin point a priceless interaction I had with the writer while I was attending film school. The year was 1999 and I was a hungry screenwriting student at a small Los Angeles film school. My screenwriting mentor introduced me to Mr. Bradbury at an on-campus event. I recall focusing on Bradbury’s hair–it was thick like a horse’s and colorless white–as he offered me surprisingly kind words of encouragement on the writing process. I was overwhelmed to be in the presence of such a famous writer, but his words gave me courage.

The brief encounter and his book “Zen in the Art of Writing” gave me the bravery to ask the man if I could take a stab at writing an adaptation of one of his short stories for a video assignment for my school. So blinded by optimism and hope, I didn’t even attempt any kind of promise of financial enticement. But then how could I? I was without any income and was living off a school loan that barely covered my rent, let alone a meager food allowance. I looked past my own lack of experience, crossed my fingers, and took the huge leap of faith.

Miraculously, Bradbury agreed to read my pages and think over my request.  I wrote a draft.  The director sent the pages along with the obligatory contract my film school required for usage of any original work.

In the interim, I chewed my nail-beds clean. I paced. I may have even drank a bottle of cheap wine to take the edge off.

Soon after, Mr. Bradbury’s responded. Continue reading “Thank you, Ray Bradbury”