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As a writer, it’s my job to use description well so my readers can see the world I’m creating and feel as if they actually know the characters as people next door, from work, or co-riders on the subway. There are millions of words for describing the taste, smell, feel, look and sound of everything and it really shouldn’t be a problem. Right?
Last week, I asked my niece for her mom’s chicken tetrazzini recipe. I love it and wanted to make it for my family. One of the ingredients is cooking sherry and it’s not something I keep on hand. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a recipe. So off to the store I go. After wandering the aisles looking in what I thought were the obvious places, I stopped a clerk.
“Can you tell me where the cooking sherry is?”
He frowned, then said, “Describe it.”
Huh? “It’s sherry…that you cook with.”
He had no idea but suggested I go to the front of the store to customer service.
Again I asked, “Can you tell me where the cooking sherry is?” Now mind you, this is a major grocery store chain; not a small back woods convenience store.
The man behind the counter checked his computer then said… “Describe it.”
You would think the name was description enough, but doing better this time, I said, “It’s liquid and comes in a bottle.” Thinking that could be probably 30% of the store contents, I added, “It’s sherry you use for cooking. You could probably drink it but it doesn’t have alcohol in it.” (Misconception on my part, as it’s 17% alcohol by content yet it’s not in the liquor department.)
He said it might be in aisle 3 so we headed that way. As he was perusing the shelves, I pulled out my phone and texted my niece, asking her where the cooking sherry was located. (I’m in Kansas and she’s across the country in New York, but I figured … well, I’m not sure but the odds were she knew as much as my store clerks as she had used it before.) Just as she answered the clerk came from the aisle next to where I was standing with a bottle of cooking sherry.
I’m not sure there’s a morale to this story unless it’s to have someone else do your grocery shopping because in the time I spent wandering the aisles, I picked up several food items that looked good but I didn’t really need. All this for 4 tablespoons of cooking sherry.
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Describing characters in my novel “An Interlude” was easier because Peter and CJ were so real to me. Stuffy, uptight New York businessman Peter didn’t like his need for southern bred, New Orleans contractor CJ, but she was in charge of the restoration of his great-aunt’s house and he would put up with her. Except that meant being around her on a daily basis and he soon began to feel the pull of what could only be bayou magic.
Grab a copy of “An Interlude”, as ebook or in print at my favorite publisher, Books We Love. http://bookswelove.net/authors/baldwin-barbara-romance/
Visit my website for more great reading with contemporary, historical and time travel romantic stories. http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin
Thanks for reading,
Barb
Funny but I believe it. Try looking for canned chestnuts in a major grocery store in Arizona around the holidays. Clerks have no clue what it is... and even at AJ's or World Market, it's never in the expected aisle, but in an obscure corner somewhere out of the way. Go figure. :-)
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't know where to find it in my grocery store either. Though I would like to believe that asking a clerk for cooking sherry would be self-explanatory, the said clerk would probably look at me like I lost a marble or two... Clean up in aisle two!
ReplyDeleteI think cooking sherry is usually somewhere along the vinegar and balsamic vinegar shelves. Not all stores stock it, but it does add a little pzazz to a recipe.
ReplyDeleteVictoria is right! Although I'm sure I looked in that aisle. :)
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