you are, there will be days when you end up staring at a blank page or screen in utter despair. Even if you take every bit of advice in this book, we can’t promise automatic bestselling success, or even 100 percent productive writing sessions. We’d like to offer a few comfort strategies for those Mama said there’d be days like this moments.
Take a comfort food break: It can really help soothe jangled nerves to eat something you love. (If someone you love prepares your treat from scratch, using a tried-and-true family recipe, all the better.) Here’s one of Kathi’s secret weapons: Grandma Clara’s famous matzo ball soup. It’s warm, soothing, and tasty—and turning off your brain for the time it takes to chop all those vegetables might even rejuvenate your creative juices. If you’re not a matzo-ball lover then mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, or a quart of triple-fudge ice cream might work just as well. You’ll have to come up with your own recipes for those.
The Soup
Serves eight with leftovers
One whole chicken
Enough water to cover chicken (see below)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 onions, chopped
1 pinch of sugar
6 carrots, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
1 to 2 leeks, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
6 stalks celery
A generous handful of parsley
1 tablespoon dill
1. Cover the chicken with water. Add salt, pepper, onions, and sugar.
2. Add carrots, parsnip, leeks, garlic, celery, and parsley to the mix.
3. Bring to a boil and simmer one and a half hours.
4. When chicken is falling off the bone, remove from the stove and strain the liquid into another pot. Add as much of the boiled chicken and other ingredients as you’d like; the rest of the veggie mush can go into the compost with the chicken bones.
Keep warm on the stove until your matzo balls are ready.
The Matzo Balls
This recipe makes approximately 16 matzo balls
4 teaspoons vegetable oil (if you don’t keep kosher, use melted butter—you won’t be sorry!)
4 large eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup matzo meal
3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt to taste
4 tablespoons of the soup
1. Mix together vegetable oil (or melted butter), eggs, matzo meal, a parsley, garlic, and salt.
2. Add the soup. Stir until loosely blended.
3. Cover the mixture and refrigerate for at least fifteen minutes— longer is fine.
4. Bring a large pot of water to a brisk boil.
5. While you are waiting for water to boil, roll matzo mix into balls approximately 1 inch in diameter.
6. Reduce flame and drop balls into the water.
7. Cover the pot and cook forty minutes.
8. Scoop matzo balls out and add them to the soup. Enjoy!
OTHER TRICKS FOR KEEPING IT FRESH
Take a musical break: Walk away from your writing for a few minutes to play, sing, or listen to a little music. Do you own a guitar, a violin, a clarinet, a zither, or a kazoo? Whatever your instrument, take it out of the case, buy an inexpensive stand (perhaps you can design your own kazoo stand), and keep it near your writing space. Play it once in a while. You can also indulge in one-minute “harmonica moments” and it just so happens that we know of a book to use to help you learn how to do this: How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons by Sam Barry. We would love this book even if one of us wasn’t the author.
Take a movie break: There are so many wonderful, entertaining, and inspiring movies out there! The best thing about a movie break is that you can watch while playing the harmonica or eating soup. We don’t recommend both at once. Dropping your harmonica into the soup is only one of the potential pitfalls. Here is a list of some favorites that are about—or feature scenes about—books, bookstores, and/or authors:
• Stranger than Fiction (both the author-care and IRS stuff are far-fetched—in real life, your publisher doesn’t send Queen Latifah to help you finish your manuscript—but the story is fun)
• Crossing Delancey (the Amy Irving character
Take a comfort food break: It can really help soothe jangled nerves to eat something you love. (If someone you love prepares your treat from scratch, using a tried-and-true family recipe, all the better.) Here’s one of Kathi’s secret weapons: Grandma Clara’s famous matzo ball soup. It’s warm, soothing, and tasty—and turning off your brain for the time it takes to chop all those vegetables might even rejuvenate your creative juices. If you’re not a matzo-ball lover then mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, or a quart of triple-fudge ice cream might work just as well. You’ll have to come up with your own recipes for those.
The Soup
Serves eight with leftovers
One whole chicken
Enough water to cover chicken (see below)
Salt and pepper to taste
2 onions, chopped
1 pinch of sugar
6 carrots, chopped
1 parsnip, chopped
1 to 2 leeks, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
6 stalks celery
A generous handful of parsley
1 tablespoon dill
1. Cover the chicken with water. Add salt, pepper, onions, and sugar.
2. Add carrots, parsnip, leeks, garlic, celery, and parsley to the mix.
3. Bring to a boil and simmer one and a half hours.
4. When chicken is falling off the bone, remove from the stove and strain the liquid into another pot. Add as much of the boiled chicken and other ingredients as you’d like; the rest of the veggie mush can go into the compost with the chicken bones.
Keep warm on the stove until your matzo balls are ready.
The Matzo Balls
This recipe makes approximately 16 matzo balls
4 teaspoons vegetable oil (if you don’t keep kosher, use melted butter—you won’t be sorry!)
4 large eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup matzo meal
3 tablespoons parsley, chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Salt to taste
4 tablespoons of the soup
1. Mix together vegetable oil (or melted butter), eggs, matzo meal, a parsley, garlic, and salt.
2. Add the soup. Stir until loosely blended.
3. Cover the mixture and refrigerate for at least fifteen minutes— longer is fine.
4. Bring a large pot of water to a brisk boil.
5. While you are waiting for water to boil, roll matzo mix into balls approximately 1 inch in diameter.
6. Reduce flame and drop balls into the water.
7. Cover the pot and cook forty minutes.
8. Scoop matzo balls out and add them to the soup. Enjoy!
OTHER TRICKS FOR KEEPING IT FRESH
Take a musical break: Walk away from your writing for a few minutes to play, sing, or listen to a little music. Do you own a guitar, a violin, a clarinet, a zither, or a kazoo? Whatever your instrument, take it out of the case, buy an inexpensive stand (perhaps you can design your own kazoo stand), and keep it near your writing space. Play it once in a while. You can also indulge in one-minute “harmonica moments” and it just so happens that we know of a book to use to help you learn how to do this: How to Play the Harmonica: and Other Life Lessons by Sam Barry. We would love this book even if one of us wasn’t the author.
Take a movie break: There are so many wonderful, entertaining, and inspiring movies out there! The best thing about a movie break is that you can watch while playing the harmonica or eating soup. We don’t recommend both at once. Dropping your harmonica into the soup is only one of the potential pitfalls. Here is a list of some favorites that are about—or feature scenes about—books, bookstores, and/or authors:
• Stranger than Fiction (both the author-care and IRS stuff are far-fetched—in real life, your publisher doesn’t send Queen Latifah to help you finish your manuscript—but the story is fun)
• Crossing Delancey (the Amy Irving character
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