So I’m writing a book. In theory, at least. In actual fact what I’m doing is anything and everything but sit down and write.
In the last few weeks I’ve been a blur of motion, which — sadly — has not included the motion of my fingers on the keyboard. My house has never been so clean. My toenails are freshly painted. My summer deck pots are planted. My files are organized. My dogs are brushed. And I haven’t turned down a single social invitation in two months.
A movie? Let’s go. Trivia at Tizley’s? Sign me up. An ice show in Seattle? What ferry are we catching? I swear it’s gotten so bad I’m ready to accept invitations from random strangers. If you want someone to come sit on your couch and watch “The Bachelorette” with you, just let me know.
The frenzy started in March when I was approached to work on a book about growing things in the home garden for making beverages, alcoholic and otherwise. Considering my life experience, this is good and bad. Gardening, heck yes. Drinking, sure. Brewing, distilling, and fermenting: no clue. This means a lot of research. Research puts me to sleep.
Fortunately, I’m not alone. My co-author is my friend and fellow Kingstonite, Debbie Teashon. Debbie is a talented gardener, writer, and photographer (she will be providing photos for the book), and the web-mistress of the most excellent Northwest gardening website, Rainy Side Gardener.
Debbie feels my pain. Part of the reason for our slow progress is that we both have real jobs: Debbie works at Valley Nursery, and I spend my days at Wolfle Elementary School. You could say we both make a living helping little things grow. The difference is, Debbie never gets called “pickle head” by her charges.
The topic of our book, although challenging, does have certain advantages — mainly the “fact-finding” visits to breweries and wineries. “Oh no,” I say. “I need first-hand knowledge about hard cider (or beer, or wine, or …). That sidebar on lupulin will just have to wait.” And once again, I’m not writing.
Can you blame me? Have you ever tried sussing out the fine points of the alpha acids in hops, or attempt to get to the bottom of the two- vs. six-row barley controversy (yes … the brewing world has strong feelings about barley). When our editor asked for a section on diastatic power, I did the only sane thing; I passed it off to Debbie. (Love you, Debbie!)
On the other hand, I’ve learned some interesting tidbits. For instance, did you know that hops are closely related to marijuana? Or that apples have such vast genetic diversity that, according to Michael Pollan in “The Botany of Desire,” only one in every 80,000 seed-grown trees produces apples worth eating? I’m hoping some of this random information might come in handy at those aforementioned trivia nights.
In conclusion, I hope you appreciate the irony of this column. Yes, it’s another procrastination. But now it’s done and I’m going to get back to work researching apple cultivars … just as soon as I make some zucchini bread.
— Contact Wendy at wendy@wendytweten.com. Please note: no invitations to sit on strangers’ couches. That was a joke.
