Flying biscuits are not the way to a man’s heart.

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

As part of Food Summit 2010, held in November, FoodBlogSouth and Desert Island Supply Co. hosted a Food Stories storytelling event. Based on the Moth radio program, the event brought storytellers together to share food-oriented tales, told in an open-mic type setting. Since the inaugural FoodBlogSouth was held this weekend, I thought it time to share the tale I told during Birmingham’s first Food Stories event.

Though I don’t fit neatly as part of Gen X (I’m barely too young) or the Millennials (I’m too–well, too lots of things!), I’m comfortable as part of the instant generation. I grew up on instant oatmeal and mashed potatoes. I thought I hated grits until I was in my 20s, when I discovered that they’re excellent when cooked on a stove top instead of being served from a packet. My mom’s a great cook, but when you come home from work and have four kids and a husband to feed, you’ve just got to get food on the table.

And so I began college with little kitchen know-how. That translated into many meals of Pasta Roni, cooked in my dorm room microwave, and the occasional splurge on George Foreman Grill-cooked steak. We didn’t even have a kitchen on our floor, so cooking on a stove top was nearly unheard of.

But I’d heard that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. And so, when my crush and his roommate came to visit, I decided it was a good excuse to venture down to the basement’s kitchen. I rushed to pretty myself up, leaving little time to bake Pillsbury biscuits (which I thought were surely the way to impress an 18-year-old boy. I don’t know what got into me). So I prematurely pulled the biscuits from the oven, then rushed to the dorm’s lobby to meet my friends. “No one will notice if they’re not quite ready,” I thought.

I thought wrong.

Teenage boys aren’t the most gracious people, and the undercooked biscuits became a game instead of a snack. The dorm’s elevator doors opened every time the elevator returned to the first floor, as though a phantom Dorman Hall resident were waiting for a ride to her room. The guys decided to take aim as the doors opened, and my undercooked biscuits became flying biscuits as they sailed into the waiting elevator.

We joked about elevator food for years, but as college progressed my culinary skills improved. My roommates and I hosted many dinner parties where we tested out recipes we found in Southern Living and Better Homes and Gardens, sometimes inviting the same two guys to taste how far our cooking had come. I baked, decorated and hand-delivered Christmas cookies to everyone I knew (leading me to swear off making 300-plus cookies in a single night ever again). I exchanged food for labor every time I moved, and I was still determined that my cooking would eventually snag the attention of whichever boy I was currently interested in. (Because teenage and 20-something boys are just out to date their moms, right?)

When Sex and the City creator Candace Bushnell visited my college campus, a friend was responsible for showing Bushnell around. Talk inevitably turned to relationships, and mine in particular. Bushnell’s advice: Tell her to stop cooking for men. She’s never going to get one that way. I laughed off that advice, but I did become more sensitive about my maternal instincts.

Nearly a decade later, I’m still single and still cooking. My kitchen is no longer filled with jarred pasta sauces and frozen meals, but instead canned tomatoes and loads of vegetables. And though I’m reluctant to cook for a man besides my best guy friend, I’m confident about one thing: Despite Candace Bushnell’s advice, my friends and I surely are eating well.

The sails of memory rip open in silence

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Songbook, Nick Hornby’s collection of essays about music, is one of my favorite books. But I disagree with him on one thing: I don’t think associating favorite songs with a specific memory weakens the song’s power. “Life is Beautiful” takes me to fall 2008 (even though, yes, it came out years earlier) and the months I spent listening to little besides Ryan Adams’ Cold Roses. It still elicits a certain emotional response that’s difficult to describe, or explain, because I think it’s far from Ryan’s best work but it still gets me every time. “Raining at Sunset” reminds me most strongly of the day I decided not to go on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, but it is also a song I turn to when I need to calm down. “The End” now takes me back to seeing Paul McCartney play in Nashville earlier this year, but it’s also my favorite song from my favorite album, and it captures my attention to the point that I can’t accomplish much when it’s playing. It demands my everything.

Maybe age is a factor; Hornby mentions songs that carry you through different stages of life, and he’s experienced more of those than I have. (As I near 30, I think I can look back and reflect on all I’ve learned during my adulthood. But I’m not so naive that I don’t realize there’s so much left to experience.)

For now, at least, songs take me back to the time when I initially heard them, and the events for which they served as soundtrack. Because my work allows me to spend so much time acquiring and listening to new music, each year develops a soundtrack of its own. Check back with me in 10 years and we’ll see if these songs have endured. My guess is that even as these songs become associated with different events, they’ll still bring me back to 2010.

Five from 10: Carla Jean Whitley (from Birmingham Box Set, the Birmingham magazine music blog)

And when I thought about why this should be so, why so few of the songs that are important to me come burdened with associative feelings or sensations, it occurred to me that the answer was obvious: If you love a song, love it enough for it to accompany you throughout the different stages of your life, then any specific memory is rubbed away by use. … One can only presume that the people who say that their very favorite record of all time reminds them of their honeymoon in Corsica, or of their family Chihuahua, don’t actually like music very much. –Nick Hornby, Songbook, “Your Love is the Place Where I Come From”

I closed my eyes, I kept on swimming

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

My reading habits are a reflection of my interior life. An average year sees 80-plus books pass through it. But the past few years have been busier, more exhausting than usual. Where I normally begin reading as soon as I get home, and spend an hour or so with a book before sleep, I’ve found myself returning home later and too often so exhausted that I need someone to tell me a story rather than engaging it myself. (Thank God for This American Life and The Moth.)

And so, recent years have been down years for reading. In 2009, I read 62 books. With seven days to go, I’m only at 50 books for this year.

As we enter the last week of 2010, I’m reflecting on the 12 months that are drawing to an end and dreaming about what I hope to accomplish in the 12 ahead. Invariably, that look back includes a variety of lists: the concerts I attended, the funniest things people said, the books I’ve read, my favorite albums of the year. And though earlier this week I spent two hours on a blog entry about those albums (to be posted Dec. 31 on Birmingham Box Set), I’ve never made a list of the books I most enjoyed.

I read fewer books this year, but I revisited some great ones. Songbook by Nick Hornby, Here is New York by E.B. White, Looking for Alaska by John Green, When Harry Met Sally by Nora Ephron and See You in a Hundred Years by Logan Ward kept me company this fall. (I can’t tell you why–because I don’t know–but I particularly craved the company of familiar pages during the autumn.)

Three of the best books I read for the first time in 2010 came with similarly strong recommendations, at the hands of friends and family. I deliberated over which Billy Collins collection to purchase when he read at Hoover Library’s Southern Voices conference in February. I’d just finished Ballistics and The Trouble with Poetry, both of which I’d borrowed from the library, but felt I needed to own one of his books as a memento of the reading. (If you don’t think a poetry reading can bring you near to tears and make you laugh, you haven’t heard Collins.) My friend and book columnist Susan Swagler recommended Sailing Alone Around the Room. Collins’ carefully worded observations on everyday life kept me company for the better part of the year. Several of my favorite poems filled the final pages, which made this especially satisfying to complete.

The problem with slim books is sometimes they’re finished all too quickly, and that was the case with How Reading Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen. I read this essay collection during the day after my birthday party, where I received it as a gift from the Donlon family. It immediately found a place on the shelf among my favorite, most-trusted books. It will be a book I turn to time and again, and I loved it so much that I gave my mother a copy for Christmas.

My sister gave me a copy of The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose, because she wanted to know what I thought of it. Roose left Brown University for a semester to attend Liberty University, one of America’s most conservative Christian colleges. Though my college experience was in many ways different from what Roose experienced at Liberty–I attended Florida State, after all–some of his encounters reminded me of my own campus ministry experiences. Roose’s conclusions weren’t revolutionary. He learned that Liberty kids struggle with many of the same challenges as his friends back at Brown, and Roose found himself enjoying prayer so much that he continued the ritual when he returned to Brown. But those lessons were revolutionary to him. I’ve often wished I could tell my college-age self to take a more complete view of herself (primarily) and those around her. It seems that’s exactly what Roose’s experiment taught him.

William Zinsser’s account of his writing life was a simple pleasure. But it affected me so strongly that as soon as I completed Writing Places: The Life Journey of a Writer and Teacher, I took out pen and paper and wrote him a thank-you note. (Perhaps because I hope to have so many stories to tell after a long career doing the same?) I was delighted, though not surprised, when a reply arrived in my mailbox weeks later.

I am surprised, however, to realize only one novel found its way to the books I most enjoyed in 2010. An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin is a compelling depiction of New York’s art world, as seen through the experiences of a young art dealer and her art writer friend. Martin writes beautifully of the paintings and art objects that populate the story, and the plot itself was so engrossing that it made me late to work the morning I finished. I only had 20 pages to go, and I just had to complete them. It had been a long time since a book made me tardy.

Although the powers-that-be may prefer that I arrive at the office promptly at 8 a.m., I hope 2011 brings many more books that make me struggle to leave the house. I hope 2011 brings many more books, period. My to-read list grows and grows.

The title of this post is a lyric from “Change of Time” by Josh Ritter.

The weight of words

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Reading material is piled on my bed, and the stack seems to have grown each day this week. It’s that time of month, I suppose, as new magazines account for nearly half of my to-read-nowish list. Esquire arrived yesterday, I picked up New York magazine’s Reasons to Love New York issue earlier this week and the Oxford American’s Southern music issue takes time to digest. I’m also overwhelmed by books: a collection of essays sent by a friend, a chef’s memoir, Flannery O’Connor nonfiction that I have been dipping into at a leisurely pace.

I know how I’ll spend my Christmas vacation.

I spent this morning discussing the value of words with a dear friend. Beginning next month, Cory and I will lead a writing and letterpress printing workshop, which we’ve titled The Weight of Words. The eighth-grade girls in the workshop will write essays of belief, and we’ll end the workshop by letterpressing small posters of their six-word thesis statements.

Cory and I are letterpress aficionados (she’s a printer, I’m a collector of sorts), and we were both drawn to the art form in part because of the literal weight it gives to words. Even if you don’t ink the press’ rollers, this form of relief printing leaves a mark on the paper. The care required to set the type and the impression it makes on the paper are an appropriate homage to the written word.

We left our planning session energized, eager to share our love of art and writing with these young girls. And as I continue to plow through my ever-growing stack of reading material, I’m grateful that others share their words with me.

Pour me a glass of wine, talk deep into the night

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

This is another entry I wrote and saved as a draft, at least a year ago. It seems appropriate to trot it back out now, during a season of particular introversion and reflection.

I’ve been interested in psychology since I knew what it was, or at least since I enrolled in AP Psych during my junior year of high school. I briefly attended grad school in school counseling, and I still think back to my emotional-social disorders and intro to counseling theories. I never could settle on a theory that I most favored, but given my obsession with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, I think I might have tended toward Jungian thought.

I bring this up because I’ve been analyzing people constantly since last fall, when I read Isabel Myers’ Gifts Differing. I took the MBTI years ago, so I’ve classified myself as an INFJ for ages. From what I’d read on the matter, I agreed with the type. But I had no idea how frighteningly accurate it is until I read more about the indicator. Some parts that struck me as particularly interesting:

Introverts characteristically pause before action (true of me!). Extroverts dominate Western civilization, and outnumber introverts three to one.

Introverts are inherently continuous because their being is based on inner stimuli.

In work, introverts are often slow to publish or proclaim it finished, but it gains depth. … less affected by lack of encouragement; value of work not determined by others.

Introverts are closer to eternal truths. Extroverts understand by experiencing.

“The extrovert’s wish for active sociability runs counter to the introvert’s wish for privacy, especially when the introvert’s work is socially demanding. The day’s work may use up all the extraversion available; home represents a chance for the peace and quiet needed to regain balance.”

You only give me your funny paper

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

During a “positive attributes” exercise at a staff retreat this summer, a coworker wrote about me, “Reading, writing and ‘rithmetic–well, two out of three ain’t bad!” And I jokingly took offense, because I always did pretty well in math, thank you very much. Still, there’s some truth to the stereotype that writers aren’t great with numbers–even when those numbers are monetary. Sometimes, a creative challenge can lead a writer to financial focus.

I’ve tested my self discipline before by taking a month off from eating out. I often default to “let’s do lunch!” when I need to get together with a friend or work contact. And I love eating out, but I also value cooking for myself and thoughtfully determining what I’ll consume that day or week. Taking a month away from restaurants saved money, I’m sure, but it also helped me focus on larger issues, like my morning time management or disregarding my advance planning and eating out with colleagues even when I brought lunch to work.

This week, I’ve challenged myself in another way. My roommate and I bought our Christmas tree on Sunday, with me putting it on my debit card and Holly repaying me in cash. The $20 bill she handed me served as inspiration: I decided to see if I could make it through the work week using only that bill.

Mind you, I did allow an exception, as rent was due yesterday. But otherwise, I’ve paid for everything with that $20. When I needed milk Monday, I avoided satisfying other cravings (steak and a bottle of Cabernet) because they weren’t within my week’s budget. I’ve also been mindful of how often I stop at the coffee shop, because I only had so much cash in my wallet.

This was an easy week for an experiment, I’ll admit. Rent was the only bill due, and I had a half-tank of gas to start the week.  But my little game has been useful even as I rationed what I already had, carefully contemplating my route from appointment to appointment and determining if I would have enough gas to make it through Friday.

Now I’m facing down tomorrow with about $7 left. I’ll spend more Saturday before we have friends over for dinner, and I’ll probably need to fill my gas tank. But I’m considering a $20 work week allowance. Even if I get a serious caffeine craving, that’s 10 cups of coffee (before tip) at my local coffee shop!

The week’s totals:

Monday, $1 on pita chips at lunch
$7 on an onion, three potatoes and milk

Tuesday, $0

Wednesday, $2.76 on a small coffee plus a refill

Thursday, $0.93 on a petite scone and $1.93 on a small coffee

He was the author of the faith that could make the mountains move

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

While playing with this site’s settings on Thanksgiving, I came across several unpublished posts. I’m not sure what held me back from hitting “publish” two years ago, but this entry still rings true. It’s also remarkable how much has changed since I wrote it, on Nov. 28, 2008.

After several days filled with family and friends, tonight is this girl’s night in. And it’s time, at last, that I can listen to Christmas music guilt-free.

I waited until I returned home from today’s errands, then began with the newest of my three favorite Christmas albums. Red Mountain Church‘s Silent Night carried me through cooking dinner, and Snow Angels by Over the Rhine accompanied me as I ate, then straightened up my apartment.

Finally, I turned on Andrew Peterson’s Behold the Lamb of God, dragged my Christmas decorations out of the attic and launched into the annual task of evaluating each item. The star ornament I bought last year hangs in my bedroom year-round. The Pottery Barn poinsettias and mistletoe always go out first, followed this year by my tree topper. (Though treeless, I found it a home perched among the books on my to read shelf–located in my kitchen, so it’s positioned for maximum viewability.) I continued lifting boxes of ornaments out of the Rubbermaid tub.

And then I uncovered four packages of Christmas letterhead stationery.

It’s funny how the smallest items send you back in time. I bought this stationery, decorated with Luke 2:11 and John 1:16, in an after-Christmas sale in (I’m guessing) 2001. By the time Christmas returned, I expected to be on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ. This paper would serve as the background for my December prayer letter to my ministry supporters.

Life so rarely turns out how we expect! I interviewed with Crusade that December, was accepted to staff, received a staff account number and the information I needed to raise support for the 2002 summer training. And then, a month before graduation, I decided not to go on staff.

It’s a decision I’ve never regretted. I was to be campus staff, aka a professional extrovert. It wasn’t a good fit, and I am so glad life has turned out as it has.

But it is so different than I imagined when I bought that stationery.

I am in love with something invisible

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

I’m generally a rather organized, precise girl. So when I intended to renew my Oxford American subscription, I was fairly sure that I had followed through. Apparently not; I continued receiving renewal notices, warning me that I was in danger of missing the annual music issue. (Don’t you worry. Not only did I send in my two-year, automatic renewal notice–with the bonus of a gift subscription for my mother–this morning, I also pre-ordered the music issue. This year’s focus is Alabama music. I’ve anticipated it for months.)

Meanwhile, as I began reading the December issue of Esquire, I noticed an interesting notation on my subscription label. April 2013.

I’m glad I got something right–a couple of times over.

It was the air you breathed that fanned the flame

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

“You are daring to imagine that you could have a different life.” –Birdie to Kathleen, You’ve Got Mail

Travel expands your view of the world, sometimes showing you a different way of life, and sometimes showing you that it could be your own. After four days in New York City, shared with people I love, I remember that Birmingham isn’t the only city where life happens. It’s even possible that it’s not the only city for me.

I realize how counter-intuitive that sounds. New York is the stuff of dreams, literature and screens, big and small. Birmingham is typically not. But I’ve found my home and dreams in Alabama, with a career that satisfies me, a small group of friends I love and volunteer work I’m passionate about.

For years, New York has been the thing I don’t want. It’s fast-paced and high pressure–traits I’ve captured just fine on my own, thanks, without a city to reinforce them. But seeing the city with my sisters and my friends Josh and Dan reminded me that so much contentment comes from being around people who care about and challenge you.

I may be a little more susceptible to that right now, because I have had trouble connecting with a lot of people around me lately. That disconnect seems to come and go with different seasons of life. The truth is, I love Birmingham and am committed to it for the foreseeable future.

But there are other possibilities out there. And maybe it’s healthy for me to see that.

Head full of doubt, road full of promise

Posted on by Carla Jean Whitley

Today I had one of those moments when you realize you’re becoming your parents. I usually love those; I’m perfectly content as an almost-perfect hybrid of my homebody mom and dreamer dad. But I’m afraid even my dad would be disappointed by today’s epiphany.

I don’t recall specifically how we got there, but this afternoon my boss, a coworker and I were in my boss’ office, listening to her stories of visiting the Czech Republic and Slovakia. As she rhapsodized about towns frozen in time and picturesque scenery that seemed straight off a set for Cinderella, I suddenly realized: I may never see these things myself. I may never travel outside of my own country. I may have already become my parents.

My dad, in particular, is bothered by his lack of travel experience. I barely remember a family trip to the Birmingham International Airport when I was just a tiny thing. Daddy was off to Michigan for a church mission trip, and I stood at the window, waving goodbye.

For the longest time, that was the most exotic trip I could recall my dad taking. Last year he accepted a new job that required him to spend two weeks in Denver for training. He was nervous about the cold and not particularly excited about the trip. But Mom was thinking of flying out for a long weekend to visit, and I did my best to convince them that this was the best idea they’d had in a long time. I’ve been to and through Colorado several times, and a long weekend in Telluride was one of the most magical experiences of my still-young life. (Plus, that dry cold really is different. Even to this Alabama-born, Florida-raised girl, it wasn’t so bad.) Mom and Dad listened to my advice, and sure enough they had a wonderful weekend.

Earlier this year, he was flying back west for more training. It was a week or so after I spent a day in Washington, D.C., and Dad just happened to have a layover in Dulles International Airport. It didn’t take much to persuade him to leave the airport, take public transit to the National Mall and at least spend a few minutes taking in the nation’s capitol. He agreed that a glimpse of D.C. was worth returning to airport security.

There’s so much my dad still wants to see. He’s never even been to New York City to visit my younger sister. But with a mortgage, bills and a kid still in high school (for seven more months), travel hasn’t been in the cards.

And though I take after my mom’s homebody tendencies–I’ll spend part of my upcoming vacation sitting on my couch with a stack of books–there’s so much world out there that I want to experience. It costs money, though, so much more than I have been able to set aside for such an occasion. My travels have taken me to New York, Seattle, San Diego and Telluride, but save for a few hours in Cozumel, those trips may not take me beyond our nation’s borders.

My mental to-save-for list is too long for my liking. The rainy day fund will never be big enough to make me feel secure. I suppose that’s life for a worrier. But I also hope to save for a car to eventually replace my ’99 sedan. One day I might like to buy a house. Or a couch. I may someday get married, and I don’t expect Mom and Dad to spring for that occasion. I’m not going to begin saving for college funds for unborn children from an unmet husband, but I will say it seems sometimes that the list of reasons to save could stretch out endlessly.

So where does a trip to Europe fit in? How do I make my way to Bali, and the little town my friend Jamie insists would be my southeastern Asia spot? Will I ever visit friends in Africa? Even if I muster the courage to spend weeks in Mexico, trying to understand the conditions that lead people to risk everything to immigrate to the United States, legally or not, would I have the means to do so?

As with anything in life, it’s easier to accept failure than to try and risk success. But if I’m going to tackle any of my dream list, I’ve got to make squirelling money away a higher priority. I’ve taken a month off of eating out, and that may be a start. But there’s so much happening in this city, and so much that’s free or cheap, that I’ve got no excuse for not trying a little harder. I think it would make my mom and daddy proud.