Pure Chocolate by Fran Bigelow

Tell people, in casual conversation, that 'sweets' are your downfall. 90% of the time you will get either of two responses - 'oh, yes, me too!' or 'not me, cheese is my weakness'. Cheese? What does that mean? You would rather eat cheese than chocolate? I don't think we can be friends. I like cheese too but - over chocolate?

I am telling you about books that have enlightened me, delighted me, encouraged me and led me to choose new paths in life that have not set out to do so - mostly craft and cookbooks. One of my favourite cookbooks of all time is Pure Chocolate by Fran Bigelow.

Maybe 20 years ago Fran Bigelow started making cakes in a small affluent suburb in Seattle. She was an instant success with her homemade chocolate goodies - including fine hand-dipped chocolates. Whenever I would go to Seattle to visit family and friends I would insist on a trip to Frans to buy up big for my home stay. I have always been a chocoholic (and it shows!) even from a young age. I did not have a discerning palate until I discovered Fran's Chocolates. I have to say, now, the thought of a Cadbury's Chocolate Bar doesn't raise my heartbeat. But say 'couveture' and my saliva glands start to work overtime. Fran's chocolates took my tastebuds and desires to a higher level. A few years ago a trip to Fran's chocolate shop proved to be my chocolate baking beginning. Fran wrote a cookbook.

Pure Chocolate is full of tips, recipes, instructions and the most luscious photographs that can almost fulfil my deepest longings. I've made white-chocolate chunk brownies, white-chocolate coconut cream bars, chocolate cabernet tortes and blanc et noirs (you have to taste it to believe it!). Fran taught me to make truffles and ganaches. And the pièce de résistance is the chocolate-stuffed figs - honestly to die for.

I love this book beyond belief. I have a couple more chocolate cookbooks - David Lebovitz and Donna Hay, but Fran's is my go-to.

I just purchased a very exciting new chocolate book - chocolates and confections: formula, theory, and technique for the artisan confectioner by Peter P Greweling, CMB (Certified Master Baker - oooo!), and I am reading my way through it. But it isn't yet spattered with melted chocolate from the mixer or smeared with unsalted butter. There are no crumbs embedded in the folds between the pages. The inside is clean and pristine and the cover isn't torn like my copy of Pure Chocolate. Those cooks who have beloved cookbooks will know that until a cookbook looks like it has been handled by a two year old who has just eaten dinner with his hands, it hasn't been loved. Or cooked from.

More Than a Cookbook - Judith Jones

I love to read fiction. I have said why in several of my posts. Fiction teaches me and lets me escape at the same time. It makes me think in more creative ways. There are a lot of very good reasons for reading someone else's imaginations.

I love a few non-fiction books more. Especially a couple of my cookbooks.

There are a few cookbooks that sit next to my bed most of the time – they comfort me. I know there are plenty of people out there who consider cookbooks among their treasures. They are well thumbed through and fondled daily. I know there are blogs that have concentrated on cooking their way through certain cookbooks – Nigella and, of course, Julia Child. I have friends, including myself, who have replaced old cookbooks with a new copy when the one they have had been loved to death.

But, I'm talking about cookbooks that have fundamentally changed my life. Cookbooks that have rearranged my thinking about my whole world. And, why not? We all know that cooking is a very personal experience that we either share with others to show our love or secretly devour to ultimately pleasure ourselves.

Judith Jones wrote a cookbook called The Pleasures of Cooking for One in 2009. Jones has been in the Cookbook publishing world her long working career at Knopf. She was involved in publishing Julia Child and James Beard. She knows food and cookbooks. She wrote a beautiful book - The Tenth Muse: My Life in Food about her life in publishing. Fifteen years ago her husband died and, with the children all grown up, she had to start cooking just for herself. This book is alive because of her experiences with her own personal situation.

The Pleasures of Cooking for One is a well ordered book. There are chapters on soups, eggs, cheese, rice, veggies and some sweets just for one. Jones gives us recipes for cooking small and cooking larger and creatively using the leftovers. It has all been done before, you say? Sure, but for me, this book has been life changing. (That sounds so dramatic but even the smallest things can alter one's life if they happen at just the right time.)

Judith Jones has taught me that I am worth, not only cooking for myself, but doing it with dignity. I am worth taking the extra step to make myself something to eat that is not only delicious but highest quality and fit for a queen. She asked me to stop buying frozen or fast food meals because she could show me how to make a minced turkey on toast meal that is so sumptuous it could be served in a high class restaurant.

Jones has shown me that taking the time to prepare an elegant meal for myself every night is important to believing that I am worth more than that one beautiful meal. I can go for Life with dignity and style as well. I can set my table with gorgeous linens and I can get a university degree – I'm worth it. I can buy the best Murray River salt and I can sleep under a beautiful hand made quilt by myself – I'm worth it. I can have a cream sauce in the freezer waiting to enhance the leftover ham for tomorrow night's dinner and I can book a ticket for one to a music concert – I'm worth it. I am worth the good things in life and I have to be the one to give them to myself.

I still think the best moments in life are shared with the ones I love, but why should all the in-between hours and days be left to chance. Not for this girl thanks to Judith Jones. I am living those times like I am a Princess and I love myself enough to give myself my own time. You'll understand once you read The Pleasures of Cooking for One.

MM and Michael Scott

My parents moved into a house in Seattle when I was just a few months old and my mother still lives there today. That's 57 years that a little grey house (well, its tan now but because my father put aluminium siding on it a few years ago but it was always grey when I lived there) on a hill has been the family home. My little brother was born in that house and my father died in that house. I don't feel especially attached to the house. I don't feel especially attached to Seattle as a city, and the longer I live outside of it, the less I long for it. I do, however, feel very attached to several people who live there. My son and his family, my brother, my mother and two very special girlfriends that I have had the privileged of knowing and loving for over 40 years. I see them every year or so when I visit Seattle and we exchange emails and skype calls occasionally. As soon as I see them it is like no time has passed between cups of coffee and visits to the New Orleans Bar to hear excellent jazz. I love their children and they love mine. I love their partners, one of whom I have known just as long because they were high school sweethearts. I love their pets and they always ask about mine. I love their homes and I am always welcome in them.

One of these girls – MM – is a very smart professional executive vice president in a financial business. I don't pretend to understand what she does but I know you have to be highly intelligent to do it. She is very interested in politics and knows all the players in the US government. I watched the last State of the Union speech at her house and she knew all the faces and had something to say about each one. Her hobby is keeping an eye on the way the country is run.

She is a great mom and is incredibly generous. She tutored a young girl for years and went miles out her way for her. She looks after her mother-in-law who is not well and shares her life with her family completely. She is very funny and laughs a lot. I bet you want me to introduce you to her now, don't you. She is genuinely everything I have just described.

One of the ways I connect to people is through books and reading. Whenever I talk to a friend I haven't seen for a while I always ask what they are reading. My mom and I often end a conversation with what she has been reading. When I meet someone new and the conversation lags I can always ask if they have read anything interesting lately.

When I visit MM I ask what she has been reading and usually she bring out some books for me to pack in my suitcase to bring home. I like to read the books she reads as it feels like it keeps me in touch with her even though we live far apart. This smart professional VP reads books that I wouldn't pick up on my own in a million years. Well, that may be exaggerating a little. I might pick them up but I would probably just as quickly put them down again.

A few years ago she gave me all of Diana Gabaldon's books. These are big fat historical romances. I have read one – the first one – Outlander and part of the second one – Dragon Fly in Amber but that is as far as I have gotten. I don't hate them at all, I just always find something else a little more interesting to read. I don't like the physical book as it is hard to hold in bed. The cover is soft and the book is big so it flops around a lot. It is a better sitting-up read. MM loves them.

The next year it was all Harry Potter. The year after that she was into the Twilight Series (really!) This past visit she gave me the first three Michael Scott books – The Alchemyst, The Magician and The Soceress. Michael Scott is an Irish Fantasy writer who is into mythology and folk lore in a big and amusing way.

The books are centred around Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel who are immortal. The Flamel characters are based on real life people who lived in the 17th century. They find twins who they think can save humanity (the series all takes place in one week in modern day). There are other immortals that we have all heard of – Joan of Arc, Shakespeare and Billy the Kid. And there are mythological characters such as Prometheus and Gilgamesh. Oh, wait, maybe Gilgamesh was a real person too – I'll have to google him. They all go on some rollicking adventures and get into a lot of trouble with Elders, Shadowlands, monsters and such. These a books written for children, I think. But I know a few adults who have read them and loved them.

I just finished The Necromancer. It's more of the same and if you like these books you'll like this one too. I have been sucked into the story. I have to find out how it all ends. There is at least one more book after this – The Warlock – and I will read that one too.

These aren't books that I would normally read. But these are the type of books MM reads and if she suggests them or gives them to me then I will read them. I love the fact that I have read the same books as her. It makes me feel closer and we are so very far away from each other, geographically anyway. I just realised that I never suggest books for her to read. MM wants books that entertain her but don't tax her. She wants books that are easy to read, easy to put down, easy to pick back up again, and easy to fall asleep to. She wants books that let her forget that she is smart and has an incredible brain. She wants books that take her to another world. She wants a book that will totally carry her off and let her block out everything happening around her at the time. She wants to not think – just to escape for a little while.

You won't learn anything by reading Michael Scott. It won't enrich your life or make you think deep thoughts. He writing won't beguile you and his plot lines won't mystify. (He does know how to leave a plot dangling though.) But you will escape for a while if you read his books and have a little fun doing it.

The Approach

I think that the approach to anything in life is important and worth taking a few minutes to think about before commencing. The approach to a person, task, place, animal or object sets the tone for the entire exchange. It is worth consideration.

Sure, when you approach routine tasks there is little thinking involved. I do always say 'good morning' to my kettle when I turn it on in the morning for my first cup of tea. I always give my doggies a little pat and ask if they slept well. I get on my bike the same way every morning and walk up the same stairs to my office. The approach is not so important.

The approach to certain rituals in life is very important. Holy water blessing and the sign of the cross on the approach to the alter in the Catholic church or the removal of shoes in a Temple. A handshake with a stranger. The national anthem at the start of a baseball game. A glass of wine with friends before dinner. All of these set an atmosphere that hopefully continues throughout the experienc. When there is more than one person involved in the situation we don't often have as much control over the proceedings but we can set the tone by our approach. Am I going to enter the meeting room with a smile, a serious look, talking on my phone, or will I drop my papers to see who helps me or who sneers at me? It is mostly calculated and I think it is a good idea.

I have ritual approaches in my everyday life that are a little more involved than the ones I previously wrote of. I always fix myself a cup of tea, compose my thoughts and say a little, well - prayer - I guess you can call it, before I sit down to write. Before I put on a movie I make sure I have a hot water bottle at my back, a drink, a snack, my knitting and anything else I might need during the movie so I don't have to stop and start again. I approach a new knitting project by reading the pattern slowly from start to finish and picture it all in my mind, then I cast on. I'm not a total control freak. I can wait for things. I am happy to be interrupted. I don't mind leaving one thing to do something else. But I am certain that my theory on The Approach is correct. Take a minute, close your eyes, what do you want to achieve and in your experience what is the best way to start? Do that!

My approach to a book is as important to me as my approach to anything else. There are a couple of ways that books enter my house. I purchase them or I check them out from the public library. Occasionally, a friend will lend me a book as well. If I come home and find a parcel on the front door I bring it inside. I take off my helmet and riding clothes, get into something comfy, make sure the chores are done and dinner is on the stove, make myself a cup of tea, get my hot water bottle (yes, I am addicted to it) and then I open the package. (Sometimes it will be wool that I have ordered and the approach to the package is very similar.) I want to have at least a half an hour to look at my book if it is non-fiction. I look at the cover. I never ever read the inside cover or the back of the book - I do not want someone else's opinion of this book to influence me. I read the dedication - I get a little shiver when someone says they love their mother so much that they had to write a book to thank her - and I read the introduction. I scan thru the first pages and decide if I have time to start to read right then or if I need to wait for bedtime. Honestly, this is one of the nicest parts of my day if my evening begins with an approach to a new book.

If the book is a novel I have several courses of action. Mostly it goes in my to-read pile and, depending on my excitement about receiving it, the book goes on the top of the pile or in its appropriate place in line. When I approach a new novel to read I do the same things I do with a non-fiction but as soon as the dedication is read I usually dive right in with no further preamble.

If I bring books home from the library I take the same approach but because I usually have several books. I wait to look at them properly until I am sure I have time to give each the time they deserve.

Different types of books deserve different types of approaches. Fiction is quick. Non-fiction is a little slower but not much. Coffee table type books deserve a very languid approach. Knitting books - I wait till I am in bed and I always go to bed at least half an hour earlier than normal. Cooking books - I approach them with food - they make me hungry - and I have to put them down to fix something to eat - I don't like that.

The way I approach a book can determine whether I give the book any importance or not. If I am hasty I often don't get back to the book for quite a while. If I haven't made good preparations for my approach and I get a spark of interest which means I want to spend more time looking at it right then, I have to put it down and compose myself all over again - what a waste of time. If I don't give a cooking or pattern book enough time at the very beginning, I often am left with a hasty opinion that may take quite a while to change (although we all know the fun of re-discovering something we've had for ages and suddenly find we like it much better now).

The opposite may happen too. I may approach a book with respect and open mindedness and find that it lets me down badly. Oh, well. That's why we have book fairs, second hand book stores and friends (hey, just because I don't like something doesn't mean you won't adore it - I like that about people).

Whatever you are approaching - an assignment, your boss, middle age, retirement, the bench, a movie or, especially, a book, do it with forethought and consideration. Start something in the way you would like it to end. We seldom have control over the ending but we can establish the mood for the entire experience if we take two minutes to think things through. Approach a book as if it is going to bring you hours of pleasure and teach you something valuable. Approach it from the beginning as you would an admired teacher and you won't regret those two minutes of deliberation and reflection.

Letter to David Vann

David Vann – I’m a bit mad at you. You sucked me in. You fed me a few chapters of innocently good writing. You told me the worst thing that was going to happen in your novel Legend of a Suicide in the first few pages. You fooled me. You lured me into your story without preparing me. Most authors give clues to what is going to happen if it is big and essential to the story. You waited till I was complacently admiring your writing style to set an incredibly tense scene of a hopeless, useless, self-obsessed man who takes his 13 year old son to live on a primitive remote Alaskan Island alone for a year. I started that central novella, Sukkwan Island, at 10pm at night after eating too much cheesecake. My stomach was already upset. I had to sit up in bed for an hour or so, thinking I would be reading a well written story of a man who commits suicide.

Now, I don’t usually read books like yours. I don’t shy away from tough subjects in my reading material but suicide is a hard one, especially when I know that this story comes from personal experience. I thought it might be a bit raw for me, a bit too real. I saw you on The First Tuesday Book Club on the ABC and I liked your take on Blood Meridian. I love Cormac McCarthy and his honest portrayal of flaws and accountability. I love his acts of, almost, personal responsibility for telling us these stories. I should have deduced that you would have that same attachment to proclaiming the truth whether we want to hear it or not. ‘Cowboy up, reader, this is real life’ I can hear you say.

And you looked so nice on the TV show. So clean cut and all American. I dismissed those niggling suspicions as I listened to you talk about the terrible conflict which was a test to determine who we are, as humans, in Blood Meridian. I didn’t pay attention to your delight in McCarthy’s dark and grim view of mankind. I loved your eloquence and your descriptive insights. I wanted to fix you a cup of tea and discuss The Road and No Country for Old Men. I wanted to see a whole episode dedicated to you.

I ordered Legend of a Suicide. It is my custom to read, at least, the book just prior to the one getting all the reviews, by an author who is of interest to me. I don’t want to get through the first part of a new book and find out that I missed something vital in the previous book. I started Legend of a Suicide the night before last.

Last night you broke my heart and my good sleeping pattern. You didn’t let me lay down and gently read myself off to sleep (I almost think you promised you would in the first few pages of this book). You kept me sitting up, tossing and turning and finally getting up to make a cup of herbal tea to soothe myself. There was tense screeching violin music playing in the background, there were ‘almost’ disasters and there were times I wanted to yell (I think I might have) out loud to one your characters to take a different path, not to give in. Then the ‘thing’ happened and I was shocked. I didn’t see it coming. Then, the chance for redemption, the making of the man, the fail, the loss. David, I was with you every step of the way.

I think that you may be up there with Cormac McCarthy. I will wait until I read your next book to rank your status in my own little literary world. You write with power and clout. You demand attention – there is no fucking around in your book. There is pressure and release. There is measure without guess work. There is value and ferocious honesty. Damn, David Vann, you have made me love you and you have not asked leave to do so. I will be reading Caribou Island and anything else you write, but only during the day just in case.