Freewriting in the Kitchen: Ginger Teriyaki Cauliflower Bits over Basmati Rice and Steamed Vegetables

When does cooking become writing and writing become cooking?

There is something about this pair that makes me think that a metaphor, simile, or analogy is somehow wrong. I’ve always thought about metaphor making as pulling something from the sky and something from the earth and tying them together. Things that seem to not belong, but stretching them (and ourselves) and finding the connection. I know, sky and earth seem to not fit—as figurative, metaphoric language. They match and belong together. Right? Both of nature, both of the natural world. But I chose them for a reason.

Cooking and Writing is sort of like a near rhyme. Just quite a metaphor and just quiet not. They both require creativity mixed with learned technical skill. Some of it is innate, unteachable—a chef’s palate is as special as a poet’s ear. But some of it, how to substitute eggs in vegan baking or how to construct a story, can be taught. And should be taught, widely.

Magic happens when a writer does not follow a recipe. When a chef abandons the traditional food narrative of squash and makes a sweet pie instead of crispy, fried spears for ranch dipping.

And that is my point. We can write better when we writers abandon the recipe of writing. I cook like that sometimes, most recently Wednesday night. Interested in trying cauliflower again I searched Pinterest for recipes and not quite finding what I wanted, flew on my own. I read recipes like one might read clouds in the sky—maybe that could be or should be this or that, this sounds right, that looks right. I played around and stumbled into something that made sense.

Writing is a lot like that, you know. Like cooking from ten Pinterest recipes and guessing what will taste best on the page, in your reader’s mouth. You can’t really know until you put it together, unafraid of what ingredients you may waste, and see what comes.

I have a name for it. Freewriting in the Kitchen. That’s what I’m calling it. This process of cooking and feeling myself to the other side. Through to something that tastes savory or sweet in my mouth. Something worth attention.

Writing, like cooking with heart, is not something you work through with recipes. There is no mise en place in writing. Us writers, we have our tools and our systems of superstitions that get us to pull out words and record them. Me? There must be .5mm mechanical pencils, and black gel ink pens (Pilot G-2). But those are just writing and creative talismans, light constellations around us that point to something that isn’t there, but is. We only see Aquarius and Orion’s Belt once pointed in that direction. Our writing rituals are merely constellations that remind us: Right there, in you, there is a writer capable of magic, if only you will try.

Before this week, I had only one memory of cauliflower. Sitting in my suegra’s eat-in-kitchen, a plate of chilés rellaños or enchiladas with a side of carrots, chayote, squash, and cauliflower boiled, drained, and buttered. Quite honestly, and don’t you dare laugh, I thought the cauliflower tasted like a poot. A puff of gas in your mouth that tasted of nothing, but smelled of unpleasantries. Granma would call it ‘spoiling company’. Not that I ever tasted spoiled company. But, I thought nasty things about cauliflower, until recently learning of all their nutritious benefits. A new vegan, I want to consume nutrients and dense goody, do-good food.

I wish I could give you a recipe, and perhaps someday soon I will—my family face shoveled this cauliflower I freewrote in the kitchen, begging for seconds and thirds, guaranteeing it’ll become a staple. Not knowing where I would end, surely, but having an idea, I wrote a recipe in thin air. They say writing is like driving in the dark, I prefer saying it’s like running in fog, you must trust that the road is in front you and stay the journey no matter how tight your chest feels.

It is true. In all of being creative—whether writing or painting or photographing, etc. you must stay moving forward. But I have something to add to that. Something that I will talk more and more about—you must freewrite. You must not lift your pen or brush or finger from the shutter until it all has poured out. You must cook with hints of recipes floating over your head like poems waiting to be captured when you are still in thought. You must do it again and again and again and again, even when you do not know what else to say, or what else to paint, or what else to shoot or sculpt.

Like you always have to eat, you always have to create. That is how us creatives breathe and blink and walk. And you must never turn it off, think it not worthy, think it too much. Take the picture. Mix the color. Find the words.

Instead of a recipe I have a suggestion.

Gingered Teriyaki Cauliflower Bits: A Recipe in Verse

Gather a crown of cauliflower; wash it well. Take care and cut up the florets in bite sized pieces. Enjoy the bits of cauliflower grains that cover your cutting surface and cling to your wet fingers. They should remind you of broken rice grains.

Mix up some batter. Similar to pancake, but more like a wet dredging often used for fried meats. Don’t over stir it, just like pancake batter, lumps here and there are good. Make sure you season it, but not too much.

Preheat your oven, ideally before you wash the white flower. I got mines burning hot—500 degrees. Take a cookie sheet, one that won’t warp at high temperatures, line it with foil and spray with oil.

Dredge the flower florets in the batter and coat well. Allow them to swim and bathe in the batter. Lay them on the sheet, one by one, not worrying about crowding and such concerns. Once they are all laid out, lightly kiss them with oil, salt and then pepper.

When you put them into the hot oven, turn the temperature down to 450.

While they cook, make teriyaki sauce. Lite Soy, sugar, apple cider vinegar, a dash of water. But most important, grate in some ginger. You must grate in ginger and after you finger the ginger, smell the tips of your hand and fall in love, like I did.

When the white flowers have roasted, tattooed brown by the heat, pull them and cover with sauce. Let it caramelize with pineapples just a while longer in the heat. Promise me you’ll let them roast proper and not worry about burning and such concerns.

When all done, lay the flowers—no longer white, on a bed of rice, preferably basmati of good quality. Add more sauce.

Eat the flowers like they are meaty rose petals, taking breaths to enjoy the perfume of ginger on your lips.

Peace and Love,

Kiandra