Saturday, July 4, 2020

Enchiladas and a Strawberry Shake

⇒Have you ever cooked or sought out food, inspired by a book or movie?  Michael recently blogged about making a sardine pizza, inspired by a novel, which got me thinking.

Fiction must have inspired me to eat or cook something! but I can barely call any instances to mind. 
Definitely age---I don't think it's a failure of the working of my memory, but that I have SO MANY MEMORIES to sort through.

I put the question to my brain. After two days, a memory floated to the surface, one I'd entirely forgotten:
When I was twenty, I went out for enchiladas and a strawberry milkshake because a detective in a novel by Joseph Wambaugh (I think) ate that.

It seemed exotic to me. Now I know fruity drinks are common in cuisine south of the border or Tex-Mexd.

I hope more memories will surface.

Speaking of memories, my auntie sent me this photo of her and her littlest brother whose 82nd birthday was yesterday. They're at Lake Michigan, in Milwaukee.

This uncle is one of the three (of ten) surviving siblings of my father. I'm happy I could email him a birthday message.

I feel enormously sad today that so many people from my childhood are gone. I also sense their presence, like the moisture in the air on this very humid morning. 

People in the past are rooting for us, I feel:
Get it right, I hear them say. Be brave. . . . But loosen up! BE HAPPY. This will all slip away, the pains and the joys, soon enough.

5 comments:

Steve Reed said...

It's true, we do have to balance the risks and the rewards. We have to live our lives, after all.

River said...

Every time I watch the movie Practical Magic where they eat brownies for breakfast, I find myself out in the kitchen mixing up a batch of brownies about halfway through the movie.

Frex said...

STEVE: Yes, the perspective of the dead cannot be ours, since we still have to buy toilet paper and the like! :)

RIVER: Oh, thanks for that example! Funny! I don't know that movie. Must look into it.

Sarah said...

Hi Fresca,
Just reading back through lots of your posts in search of the girlettes. It is lovely that you could get in touch with your uncle. He looks like he was having fun on that day long ago. I have got one example of food from a novel. It is 'Light in August' by William Faulkner, which I read at university. I can remember nothing about it, apart from near the beginning where a character eats cheese and sardines on crackers. I love that combination and still have it sometimes!

Fresca said...

SARAH: That's kind of hilarious, isn't it?

Q: "What did you get out of reading Faulkner?"

A: "Cheese and sardines on crackers!"

Best answer ever! Thanks!