A story (and a recipe) is like a changing body

I've spent the week listening to Sabrina Orah Mark and David Naimon on Between the Covers. The occasion of the talk was Orah Mark's new book Happily (which is on my shelf and I hope to read soon.) It's worth a listen if you're interested in fairy tales, the bleeding of life into fiction and fiction into life, and strangeness. I've limited myself to sharing one quote here, but you can listen or read the transcript.

"But the beautiful thing about the story is that it is like a changing, growing body, there is something always very alive inside of it and we know this because each time we go back to the same story, the story has changed somehow, so you can feel it weathered, unweathering, or there’s a piece that had been forgotten." -- Sabrina Orah Mark

There's so much conversation about originality in writing. As if a story is created in a vacuum and presented to the world, without being touched by whoever is reading it. Why don't we talk more about this circularity of stories, how they're never the same when you go back and read them again?

Reading - Direct Sunlight by Christine Sneed (out June 15), Living Rooms by Sam Johnson-Schlee (excerpt in Granta), des_________: papeles, palabras, & poems from the desert by Oscar Mancinas, and Voices of Navajo Mothers and Daughters by Kathy Eckles Hooker.

Writing - Short (short) stories by hand, notes, spelling quizzes for my 8yo, ingredient lists.

Cooking - Tofu! If, like me, you've felt very blah about the results of cooking tofu at home, please do yourself a favor and read Alicia Kennedy's newsletter post From the Kitchen: Notes on Tofu. It is a paid post, and I say it's worth every penny. I am looking to increase the amount of meat-less meals I cook, and tofu has always been an item that, in the past, I've been less than thrilled with how I've prepared it. What I especially like about Alicia's writing about tofu (not limited to this one link) is that she outlines a system for preparing tofu and a few recipes/methods to return to, which feels doable -- and tastes delicious. (Alicia also has a book coming out in August called No Meat Required!)