I'm re-reading Dani Shapiro's "Still Writing". It has so many beautiful moments of well-crafted writing, but this snippet jumped out of the page for me recently: "The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail-not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime " (pp. 2-3). Thanks for letting me share!
I've always loved this paragraph from Anthony Bourdain's famous article "Don’t Eat Before Reading This". The whole article - which singlehandedly catapulted him to celebrity chef status - is full of worthy sentences, but this one always stands out!
"Another much maligned food these days is butter. In the world of chefs, however, butter is in everything. Even non-French restaurants—the Northern Italian; the new American, the ones where the chef brags about how he’s “getting away from butter and cream”—throw butter around like crazy. In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, sauces are enriched with mellowing, emulsifying butter. Pastas are tightened with it. Meat and fish are seared with a mixture of butter and oil. Shallots and chicken are caramelized with butter. It’s the first and last thing in almost every pan: the final hit is called “monter au beurre.” In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal."
Great example of the passive voice used to brilliant stylistic effect -- thanks, David! Definitely worthy of a future Spotlight on Style.
I'm re-reading Dani Shapiro's "Still Writing". It has so many beautiful moments of well-crafted writing, but this snippet jumped out of the page for me recently: "The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail-not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime " (pp. 2-3). Thanks for letting me share!
I've always loved this paragraph from Anthony Bourdain's famous article "Don’t Eat Before Reading This". The whole article - which singlehandedly catapulted him to celebrity chef status - is full of worthy sentences, but this one always stands out!
"Another much maligned food these days is butter. In the world of chefs, however, butter is in everything. Even non-French restaurants—the Northern Italian; the new American, the ones where the chef brags about how he’s “getting away from butter and cream”—throw butter around like crazy. In almost every restaurant worth patronizing, sauces are enriched with mellowing, emulsifying butter. Pastas are tightened with it. Meat and fish are seared with a mixture of butter and oil. Shallots and chicken are caramelized with butter. It’s the first and last thing in almost every pan: the final hit is called “monter au beurre.” In a good restaurant, what this all adds up to is that you could be putting away almost a stick of butter with every meal."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this