What (or Who) Makes Good Writing?

Last Thursday night, my friend Kathleen and I attended a City Arts and Lectures program at Herbst Theatre in San Francisco. It was a great evening for foodies: former editor of Bon Appetite Barbara Fairchild interviewed the venerable and very down to earth Jacques Pepin in conversation with Daniel Patterson, a Bay Area wunderkind chef. What a delight, especially listening to Pepin talk about his days cooking with Julia Child for the renowned PBS series. 


During filming both chefs worked in front of the camera without recipes, just cooking fresh ingredients without measuring or weighing anything. They didn't plan what they would cook or who would do what. 
After the episodes were filmed, PBS found viewers wanted recipes for every dish, something neither Pepin nor Child had any interest in determining. So PBS had to hire someone to watch each episode and decide the weights and measures of each dish, to make order and structure out of the great drama and spectacular chaos Pepin and Child had created. 


Sitting on the vast stage of the Beaux Arts designed building, wine glass at hand, Pepin explained what it takes to cook free-style, "It's a myth that you can learn to cook easily! It's not true. My cooking is idiosyncratic and not replicable outside my kitchen." He claimed the "bedrock quality" of a good cook is a solid foundation in technique--and years working as an apprentice, a job he started at age thirteen in his mother's restaurant. And, not surprisingly, he pointed out "the love" a cook needs to add to every dish. It has nothing to do with recipes. It's the Carnegie Hall method every time.


There is a parallel in writing. Sometimes writers want formulas, or "corrections," or they want to know the shortcuts to good writing. There are formulas and techniques and accuracies of grammar to learn. But these do not produce good writing any more than knowing how to measure dry versus wet ingredients produces tender and light creme anglaise. 


Here's an showing anecdote from the South African photographer Sam Haskins about the source of quality work: "A photographer went to a socialite party in New York. As he entered the front door, the host said, 'I love your pictures--they're wonderful. You must have a fantastic camera.' He said nothing until dinner was finished, then: 'That was a wonderful dinner. You must have a terrific stove."


It's not the Moleskine notebook, it's not the latest model Mac, not the pen nor the antique writing desk. It comes from inside the writer, honed with years of practice, practice, practice--spiced up with lots of failure. Those disasters--dropping the wet chicken or writing nonsense-- teach us how to measure success.