My mum in Tokyo phoned me this morning. She has to write something, a small essay, in the members' magazine of a group she goes to. She doesn't know what to write and asked if I knew someone or something interesting to write about. To me, everyone and everything is interesting.
I used to find writing a bit daunting, especially if someone asked me to write something. I ask all my clients (of language lessons) who have reached an intermediate level to write something in the language that they are learning. Now, that's difficult. I know. That's why I ask them to do it ;)
But writing something - anything - in your own language shouldn't be that difficult. After all, you talk, you listen, and you read everyday, but you don't really write, bar load of e-mails. It's a shame, isn't it? I'm writing this blog (I have another one in Japanese, if you are interested) almost every other day, and the interesting thing is once you start writing you never stop looking around and thinking. It's like my head is a blank sheet and I have this urge to fill in the space. Writing is all about thinking.
There's an interesting relationship between writing and thinking. When you see things or meet people you, of course, think, but only briefly (in my case, anyway). People apparently 'think' about 60,000 things a day, and you thought about 95% of them yesterday and the day before (and 85% of these thoughts are negative). They don't all need to stay in your head, but there are some seeds you need to keep.
Most thoughts don't lead to any sort of reflection nor retained in your brain on a long term. If you want to make some important thoughts of yours into coherent and meaningful ones, then you have to write them down unless you are a natural thinker. Otherwise they'll just disappear together with lots of other stuff. You write before you think and you certainly have to think before you write.
What's wrong with none of your interesting thoughts retained in your brain? It's because you would become a boring person to talk to...
Brain food today - salmon.
Ingredients (for 1 person):
(salmon)
a piece of salmon fillet, boned and skinned, salt and peppered
a good handful of parsley and basil, finely chopped
a teaspoon of capers, chopped small
1 fillet of anchovy, chopped
some olive oil
(broccoli or sprouting broccoli)
a small bunch of broccoli
1 garlic, chopped small
half of fresh red chilli, chopped small
some olive oil
Pare the hard skin of the broccoli stalk and cut it into several pieces in length. Boil them in salted boiling water for just a few minutes, no more, and leave them to cool.
You need to have two decent sized frying pans and do a bit of juggling here. Heat both pans with little olive oil. Put garlic and chilli into one and the salmon piece into the other with the presentation side first.
When garlic and chilli are sizzling add broccoli. When the salmon is brown on the bottom (about 3 minutes) flip it on to the other side. Toss the broccoli and add salt and pepper to taste. Turn off the heat and scatter them on a plate. When the salmon is cooked take it out on top of the broccoli and turn off the heat. Add a bit more olive oil in the salmon pan (with no heat), add anchovy pieces, and stir around. Then add capers and chopped herbs and swirl around. Pour over the salmon.