The food: simple sandwiches
The story:
I’ve been battling writer’s block lately, though in my case, a more descriptive term for the condition might be writer’s lethargy, coupled with an extreme case of writer’s distractability, which reminds me – there’s something I need to look up online right now.
Baking (I like to have a supply of home-made cheese straws in the freezer at all or most times) is a frequent excuse to step away from the computer, and so are the time-sucking activities – grocery shopping, food prep, cooking, and cleaning up – that comprise the making of dinner, especially now that my sons are home for the summer.
Lunches chez moi, however, I try to keep simple, in order to minimize time away from my desk. And most days, all I need for a satisfying midday meal is some baby arugula, watercress or fresh radish slices, sprinkled with fleur de sel and maybe some fresh ground pepper, sandwiched between a few pieces of fresh artisanal bread spread with cultured butter (I’d use European butter if I could buy it in Canada). Time required to make these lunches: 5 minutes. Time required to eat them: 10 minutes.
When I get restless after lunch, which usually happens about 10 minutes after I’ve sat back down in front of my monitor, there’s a mid-afternoon sherbet-limonata float to look forward to, easily assembled with raspberry and orange sherbet, some sparkling lemonade and a few fresh berries, and delightfully refreshing on a hot summer day.
The Toronto writer Emily Schultz told me that during a period when she needed incentives to keep writing, she gave her husband some of her own money, and had him dole it out to her in instalments whenever she’d produced a set amount of words in a day. As my own incentive, I suppose I could only allow myself a limonata float when I’ve produced, say, 500 words. Better still, I could have my writer’s lethargy and eat/drink floats too.
The Hungry Novelist 