Southern Heartbreaker (Charleston Heat 4)

Eva: Of course you can bring Bryce. The more the merrier! I just know you said you were really careful about bringing her around women you’re…you know, “seeing.”

Ford: You’re an author and a master of meat and a business owner. I want Bryce to be around women like you as much as possible. Strong female role models for the win! [Oprah GIF][Ellen GIF][Mulan GIF]

Eva: I’m smiling so big right now.

Eva: Thank you. I take pride in my meat handling skills.

Ford: As you should. They are excellent.

Ford: BTW. Don’t think I didn’t notice how you ignored my comment about how I’m crushing on you. Am I making you uncomfortable?

Eva: No. The opposite, actually. Which maybe scares me even more.

I spend all week either in the kitchen—both the tiny one in my rental and the one at my parents’ house—or at the smokers at dad’s restaurant, experimenting. Trying to bring these two worlds, my two worlds, together. Inspiration has struck, thanks to Mom’s tortillas and Ford’s ideas, praise, and penis, and I am not about to waste it.

At night, I write stories about my favorite memories at my family’s dinner table. Jot down ideas for how I can put my own twist on the recipes I loved as a kid. I want to pay homage to my childhood, to my mom and my grandmother especially, without stealing their thunder. So I add a delicious smoked Boston butt to one of Mom’s rice dishes, and use one of her spice combos as a jumping off point to create a new rub for everything from ribs to beer can chicken.

In a way, I’m starting to think this book is a love letter to the women in my family. The unsung heroes I think we all have in our lives. The people who do the unglamorous work of feeding us breakfast every morning, making sure we have clean clothes to wear to school, who comfort us when we’re sick or hurting or lost.

I think I’m finally able to write this love letter because there’s a lightness to my interactions with Mom that wasn’t there before. Granted, I know it has something to do with the fact that my muse has finally caught fire after an alarming period of dormancy. The relief I feel knowing it hasn’t abandoned me altogether, the excitement over feeling good about what I’m doing, is pretty damn incredible.

But I can’t help but think that lightness, that joy, is there because I am trying my best to enjoy her company without giving in to the impulse to rescue her. To make her happy.

I just focus on my own shit, and what I need to get done. I admit that part of me still feels selfish for putting down the burden of being everyone’s savior. But a larger part feels relieved. I hadn’t realized how damn heavy that weight was until I stopped carrying it.

Amazing how much better you feel when you recognize that loving your family doesn’t mean having to fix their problems.

Case in point: I stop rearranging my whole schedule to accommodate my family. When Mom calls to say Dad “blew her off again” for a movie date and asks me to go instead, I feel bad for her. But I don’t offer to fill in for him. In fact, I tell her politely but firmly that she can’t talk to me about her marital problems anymore, and that while I’m sorry Dad blew her off, I’d be spending the evening typing up my recipe notes.

It’s a small thing. A five minute conversation that, frankly, leaves me feeling more conflicted than I’d like. But I still stick to my guns. Considering the literal lifetime I’ve spent doing the opposite, that is no small thing.

It also means I’ve been able to really focus on getting the first draft of my cookbook started. By Friday, I’ve got eight solid recipes, all of them touching on themes of comfort food, family, and community. It adds up to well over forty pages of text and proposed pictures.

The best part? I am so damn proud of it. The concept is definitely a departure for me, but it’s refreshing to create with ingredients I haven’t touched in years. It’s fun being in the kitchen with Mom, listening to her stories about my abuela and how she’d make this very same arroz con pollo for my Tío Jaime’s birthday every year.

It’s recharging my creative batteries in a way I didn’t know I needed.

I’m so excited—so proud—I can’t help but share some sneak peeks with my readers on my blog. I even go so far as to promise them a finished book “sooner rather than later”, hinting it will release before next summer.

If I can make this deadline, and it’s looking like I will, then I will absolutely be able to come through on that promise.