words . words . words . on finding your voice
Congratulations - you found it. You have found your voice. Write the way you speak. March with your own voice . Call. Write. Talk to us.
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Cecilia at The Kitchen Garden Travels is home to a Sunday/Monday letter from me to you, then two smaller essays, to accompany the latest chapter in our BedTime Stories, during the week.
I am Cecilia. I love good food. That’s where everything begins. BedTime Stories are not about food but the narrations are my greatest pleasure, (scroll to the bottom of this post for the chapters) - I offer you just a little quiet break for these noisy times. And I am enjoying the reading to you as much as you are enjoying the listening.
I offer a recipe for your frugal kitchen plus gardening and sustainable living tips, I don’t schedule posts or plan too far ahead, I’m far too impulsive for that. Things change way too fast for that. Wherever you’re reading this, I wrote it just yesterday or five minutes ago!
You don’t need to find your voice. You already found it.
I was speaking in a forum at a conference once. I was up on the stage with a panel of writers. (Just for the record I love being on stage - being up there with real writers was the icing on the cake!), we were talking about writing online and then taking your writing and turning it into a book. At question time a woman stood up hesitantly and said to me - “Cecilia. How did you find your voice when you first started writing?”
How did I find my voice? Well. To be fair I never even thought about it - I just started to write. “Firstly”, I said, very kindly. “Stop looking, because you have found your voice already. You use it every day”.
And it is as individual and as personal as you are. Don’t underestimate the sound of your own voice.
“I write exactly how I would speak.” I said. “In fact I say the words out loud in my head as my fingers type. The advantage of writing your spoken words down is that if you find a better word later you can go back and edit - not wake up in the middle of the night with exactly the right re-buttle when the moment has passed”. We all laughed. “Write using your own voice. Our lives and our experiences and our reactions to those experiences are where your voice resides. You are already ready to write'.’
And to write well we have to be true to your ideals. Readers know when we are faking it. We don’t need extreme rage or hysterical laughter to get our message across. You know that waitress/server who comes up to your table and does that fake “How are you guys?” - yes, I know they are trying but when they use this high pitched fake happy voice. Glancing around the room as they speak. All eyelashes and no eyes. It does not make you feel like smiling back. Or that nurse who says How are WE this morning? In such a jolly tone. I have been in both positions and got it wrong as often as right. Towards the end of my career in my second job as a waitress, (one I really loved by the way) if I was serving a small table, (and they looked friendly) I took to crouching down onto my heels or pulling out the chair and sitting at the table to take an order. Not too close. Enough space. Eye to eye. Coming to the same level as a person and using a gentle clear voice, treating them like real humans makes all the difference. And we always had a good laugh. And in New Zealand servers are well enough paid - we don’t work for tips.
Using your own lovely melodious voice to go over the menu with a diner takes their experience to a new level. And though serving is an act of theatre - which is why so many starving actors feel right at home serving in the dining room of the restaurant - it needs to be honest.
Writing needs to be honest. Real. Writing in your own words just the way you would tell it person to person that does the same thing.
There are writers here that I love to read - Like Alexander at The Planet (passionate about the planet) or Wil The Recovering Line Cook (a cook and great writer). Oh so many I cannot write them all - but they combine the personal with sincerely excellent writing. When we read them we can almost hear their voices.
You have your voice. Don’t be afraid of it.
Sometimes I write just for the hell of pounding on the keys. Though writing on the laptop is not nearly as much fun as bashing on typewriter keys. Do you remember typewriters? (rhetorical question) I had one that fit into a little case with no room to spare that opened and shut and a person could carry it around. And look beyond cool! The typewriter case was the palest of blues and it is true that I might have been more attracted to the colour and coolness of taking my typewriter on the bus with me than the actual writing on the go.
Do you remember the noise of the keys on their metal stalks smacking through the ribbon imprinting a letter in ink onto the page. (And the joy when they invented a white-out card for errors) That bash, bash, bash of someone who was taught to type by nuns in the early 70’s. The screen placed in front of the keys so you could not see them, you had to have cack straight and head up watching the paper run up, so you had to learn to touch type. The nuns timing us so we could tell our new bosses our word count per minute. We joyfully smashed away at big Remington typewriters. Do you remember them? (Laugh) Probably made by the same people that made the guns - they were heavy and noisy.
Huh - I looked it up and the same company DID make typewriters and guns.
E. Remington and Sons (1816–1896) was a manufacturer of firearms and typewriters. Founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, on March 1, 1873, it became known for manufacturing the first commercial typewriter. Remington Arms Co.
The two companies parted company some time later. Where is the parallel though. How did they jump from the war with Remington Rolling Block to the The Latest Marvel in Writing Machines and the war of on words.
A few fun facts about the keyboard (thank you Aunty Google).
The original design came from Christopher Latham Sholes, who created the first practical typewriter in the early 1870s. He partnered with E. Remington & Sons (then a gun manufacturer) to build and sell it, and in 1873, they released the Remington No. 1 Type-Writer.
The Remington machine used the QWERTY layout, which is the same basic layout we use now. Sholes arranged the letters that way to reduce mechanical jams by spacing out frequently paired letters.
However:
The Remington No. 1 only typed in uppercase letters. (like someone we know! 😂 ).
My mother was terribly against me learning to type, she believed that a ‘young lady who was going to marry well’ did not need to know how to type. We were to study the classics. It was much more important for me to learn French and how to cook a roast and a good pudding and read Yeats. Than shorthand and typing. So I had to do three years in classics before sneaking in a year of typing and shorthand.
Enough.
Let’s dig ourselves out of that particular rabbit hole. Whether written by hand or written as art or written in the sand or written on a typewriter or a lap top - this is your voice. Your own. Use it well. It is precious.
My most popular note of the week.
Viewed by 232 readers. Not bad for a little note.
If you are a writer on SubStack pop a thought into Notes once in a while then follow the Likes people leave to meet new people. Notes are a great way to find your people avd most importantly find people who LIKE STUFF!
City Garden with the Country Heart.
Unlike voices - gardens take a long time to develop. Years actually. Lifetimes. This is a new garden.
And the best time to start to grow your garden is now.
Yesterday I took a layer of worm compost and dug it in around the vegetables. It is deeply satisfying to fertilize your own garden using compost made with scraps from your kitchen. The compost took about three months to mature so I suggest at least three layers in your worm farm. Chop your vege scraps small before adding them and don’t forget the coffee grinds and cut up cardboard.
My tip for the day. Put flowers in with your vegetables. They attract pollinators - and add colour and height. Some flowers are even edible like pansies. And lavender and nasturtium flowers ( leaves too) and chives. Even roses.
Mark writes about growing flowering herbs Here.
The Elegant Frugal Kitchen.
It is possible that the cost of all of our imported foods may rise in the next few months. Much of the packaging and mechanisms to transport food is imported too so even local foods will take a hike - but we are ahead of the game you and I - we have already been reading about what it takes to get our frugal war time kitchen underway.
This meatloaf is more of a suggestion than a recipe - add more or less meat. Add any vegetables you have in your garden or fridge or freezer. Experiment with the proteins. I have made this with cooked and roughly mashed red beans and though it did not slice terribly well, it was delicious.
You can use all beef if you like. And let me know how it turns out!
🧾 Mama’s Meat Loaf
Ingredients:
1/2 lb (250 grams) ground beef
1/2 lb (250 grams) ground pork
1 small grated onion
1 cup grated butternut squash (or zuchinni, or parsnip or aubergine)
1 cup grated eggplant (or carrot, or sweet potato)
(You can use any veges in your garden though avoid wet vegetables like tomatoes or mushrooms. Aim for over 1/3 vegetables - my latest meat loaves are half vegetables so feel confident in experimenting)
1 cup frozen peas
½ fresh chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped (just a hint)
Fresh herbs:
1 tsp chopped thyme
1 tsp chopped rosemary tips
parsley, or coriander, or oregano
2 eggs
A drizzle of honey
Salt and pepper to taste
Sweet Thai chilli sauce, or chutney or tomato sauce/ketchup (for topping)
Grated or sliced cheddar cheese (for topping)
Instructions:
In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except the eggs. Mix gently with your hands.
If possible, cover and let the mixture rest in the fridge for a couple of hours. (This step deepens the flavour.)
When ready, mix in the eggs.
Press the mixture firmly into four small loaf tins or one regular loaf tin.
Top each loaf with Thai chilli sauce and cheese. (Or tomato paste and mustard if you prefer.)
Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 40 minutes to 1 hour.
Note:
Halfway through baking, carefully pour off some of the fatty meat juices if it’s getting too wet. Then return to oven to finish.
Rest before slicing.
This meatloaf makes a wonderful sandwich.
Adapted from THIS POST from my own farming blog - The Kitchens Garden. The meatloaf recipe was first published in 2011. There was progression - I never make it the same twice. (The images are also from this 2011 post). The cats name was Thing Two.
MeatLoaf is also great sliced and pan fried in butter. Use your leftovers.
Sometimes I take this mixture and bake it in little muffin tins for lunch boxes.
Meatloaf is great served with focaccia! This is a super easy recipe and if you can find local olive oil - all the better.
BedTime Stories
Another chapter of The Blue Castle (three chapters actually) is up and ready for you. If you are behind. which I totally understand because important stuff is happening, all the chapters are here on this page ↓ follow this link. Each reading is about 30 minutes long so you can plan your rest, or walk while you listen.
The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery, read by Cecilia Gunther
I would be grateful if you could ❤️ Like this page so it will be easier for others to find the BedTime Story Series. We all need some down time.
Good news. Maybe?
Let’s keep an eye on our environmental scientists and researchers and make sure they remain funded and their research continues. Because there are many fantastic innovations that only need a financial break to go mainstream.
Up to 450 million metric tons of plastic are wasted each year. Microplastics seep into our bodies, and mountains of bottles pile up in the ocean. Timeplast has patented a water-soluble, time programmable plastic that vanishes without harming the environment.
Is this a fraud or real, just imagine the impact if this got off the ground. The problem with plastic must be attended to. Plastic is produced using oil. So there is big business behind the promotion of plastic we cannot recycle. And plastic is incredibly harmful to the environment. I am always looking for ways to avoid using it. Let’s keep our eye on the research ball in amongst all this other noise.
Do you know of any other worthy research in this arena?
More good news in this post.
Have a gorgeous day/evening/morning.
Love Celi
Some posts you may have missed:
Why have I never thought of frying meat loaf in butter? Honestly, what I've missed out on all these years. And that sandwich will be in my dreams tonight.
I'm so glad you use your voice. Meatloaf sandwiches sound delicious, too. Have a good week.