Simple Things

Great writing can be in a list.

For Sale.
Baby shoes.
Never worn.
—Earnest Hemingway

Great writing — that is, well-worded writing — comes in many forms. Sometimes it comes in deceptively simple lanuage. I would argue that oftentimes it does, as with novels by Anne Tyler, Barbara Kingsolver, Margaret Verble, Geraldine Brooks, Brandon Hobsen, Jane Smiley, Ann Patchett, Louise Erdrich, Maggie O’Farrell, and Emma Donoghue.

And in, of course, the most famous of that ilk, at least from this country: Ernest Hemingway. (See the sad short story above.)

And then there’s regular folks. My delightful pal Gary Gardenhire saw the writing on this country’s wall decades ago and ex-patted himself over to Italy, where he makes art and spends a great deal of time preparing, consuming, and talking about fine cuisine. (Luckily that “talking” includes emails to me about nothing and everything.)

Here is a recent communique, reprinted unedited with Gary’s permission.

Apparently a list. More? What does it evoke for you?

interesting word cutlery’. a description of what it does- to cut.
translates as ‘argenterie’ in french. what the material is. or what is hopes to be- silver.
in italian it’s 'posati'- how it lays in repose.
rainy saturday morning, tim and i were (finally) organising our two large kitchen drawers.

on arrival we simply piled all (what americans call) silverware haphazardly into wherever cranny they fit. we had drawerfuls of the stuff- good, bad and indifferent.

sets of 12, sets of 8, collections of steak knives, bundles of fish knives. soup spoons, consumé spoons, demitasse spoons…

salad forks, dinner forks, dessert forks, cocktail forks.

odd and endless array of serving tools no longer used; pierced cucumber servers, snail grips for snails, serrated grapefruit, spoons for mustard, tongs for asparagus..

frolicking dolphins, lion heads, ivy and roses crawling over the carved silver, bone and wooden handles.

bygone days.

bygone meals.

plastic was thrown out first.easy.

what remains is bone, bakelite, stainless steel, silver plate, sterling silver and a couple of knives made from horseshoes.

i’d acquired american sterling paul revere from grandma , silver plated stuff by betty crocker from when my folks got married, the good heavy chistolfe stuff from jean's family in switzerland, the beautiful french items from jean’s mom when she was in algeria (which i suspect is not all silver but are alloy copies).

and tim had his stuff; from his family and our marriage list when we got hitched.

you can imagine the diverse horde.

it’s pretty we’ll organised now. maybe diminished by half. only a couple of arguments. a few tears.

we’ll sell at the fair/ give away/ throw out what we can’t use. a bit of a shame but what can you do with 27 pickle forks?

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Lagniappe: “Where’s your manuscript?” “The dog ate it.” No, really: The first draft of Of Mice and Men? John Steinbeck’s dog ate it.