Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Books 'n' Veggies



Today, inspired by the blog of one of my dearest and oldest friends The Lazy Gardener, I bought a copy of Leanne Kitchen's The Produce Bible. No, I'm not planning on taking up gardening, but I am close to several farmers' markets, and have always wanted to be the kind of person who could base meals around what was fresh and in season. This book is very cool: it has a four- to eight-page section on about a zillion fruits, veggies, and nuts, each introducing the item in question, the season it's best in, how to select one, and then a few simple recipes featuring each. Oh -- and the photographs of both raw materials and finished dishes are gorgeous. I can't wait to take it for a spin.

But never let it be thought that there was no work accomplished. Au contraire! No, no actual words yet. But I did take an important set of steps:

1. I outlined, more or less, what I need to do in the last third of the chapter I am working on.

2. I went through my document files, and picked out the documents that corresponded to each sub-section of the outline.

3. I decided on which two subsections I was going to work on first (LESSON ALERT: break chapters down into manageable three-page chunks; these are easier to envision yourself actually writing than trying to think of the whole chapter, or even major section of a chapter).

4. I ordered up the books and articles that I will need to work on those particular sections.

Which left me at 9:15 with plenty of time for fun: blogging, and now a movie rental, with soda and popcorn.

A Very Good Day, I think.

1 comment:

hilary said...

That looks like a fantastic book! Just the kind of geeky produce stuff I'm into.
Thanks for the shout out!