Anything Is Possible...Even Me Overcoming My Fear of Cooking in Cast Iron

I loved this book! 

Let's talk for a bit about the genius that is Elizabeth Strout, shall we? I spent this whole weekend finishing her latest, Anything Is Possible.

I discovered Elizabeth Strout at Olive Kitteridge. The incomparable Frances McDormand brilliantly embodied her for the HBO adaptation. And yes, there's a Bill Murray connection here too—his all-too-human portrayal of the flawed, probably Republican, but somehow still lovable, Jack Kennison in that same HBO series was such a gift. 

My one wish is that a film of Amy and Isabelle could have been made when Jennifer Lawrence was still a teenager. She would have done such justice to the complicated, confused, and yet so familiar, Amy. 

Strout writes about the quotidien, the everyday. She writes about the kind of people that there are many more of in the world than any other—"regular" folks. The kind of people you run into in the grocery, the post office...the kind of people who we all are—living, breathing, complicated, feeling, experiencing people. These people don't have lives like the ones we see on Instagram. This is not the highlight reel. 

She writes about topics that most people tend to avoid in "polite conversation"—her description of the aftereffects of hysterectomy in Amy and Isabelle is vivid, visceral, and something that no one ever, ever talks about. And it's just tucked in there, inside a character's thoughts. You'd almost miss it; except that it hits you like the proverbial ton of bricks. 

That's what the thoughts and feelings of the characters in the interwoven stories in Anything Is Possible do. I imagine Strout as a superb observer of human nature. The people we meet in her stories are always so familiar, yet so startling. Kind of like us, when we pay attention. 

Ultimately, every time I have finished one of her books, I feel better about us humans than I did before. Even with our darkness. How does she do it? I'm not sure, I'm just grateful that she does. 

Strout's books are the kind that I want to stay up all night devouring, but that I also want to take slowly, and savor, so that I don't miss any details. If you read one, you will surely recognize feelings you have felt, fears you have sat with, in rooms alone and with others. 

Speaking of fears—I have a few. As I mentioned last week in this blog, cooking is the only thing I care about as much as books, and one of the very few things that calms me down. I am pretty adventurous when it comes to cooking; much more so than anywhere else in my life. I will allow myself a failure here or there in cooking that I would never, ever allow myself in my work or my personal life. I'm not sure why. But recently I've been trying to take that fearlessness from the kitchen to the rest of things. 

One thing I still haven't quite gotten past is cooking in cast iron. I've gotten the "wisdom" from somewhere that cast iron is something that you can totally ruin by cooking the wrong things in, or cleaning the wrong way. And so whenever I see a new recipe I want to try where cast iron is recommended, I tend to avoid it. But not today! 

Today I attempted this gorgeous recipe: Skillet Phyllo Pie with Butternut Squash, Kale, and Goat Cheese. It's full of things that are intimidating to me as a cook: phyllo dough (not just for desserts, apparently); kale (you can't even fit a whole head of this in a regular produce bag, much less a crisper drawer); butternut squash (I mean seriously, have you ever tried cutting up a butternut squash? It's like trying to chop down a tree with a butterknife! It definitely qualifies as strength training.); and of course, the cast iron skillet it's cooked in. [My boyfriend, when he moved in, brought about two boxes of stuff and his cast iron pots and pans (he's a minimalist). So not only am I afraid of ruining something, it's one of the few things that's his.]

BUT I took a deep breath and dove into this recipe anyway. And here are the results: 

See that? I think it's edible.
It looks way easier and much less terrifying than it was, trust me. 

So it looks like anything may be possible... here's to the idea that it is. That no matter what life throws at us ordinary folks, we can overcome, we can transcend...or at least cook a decent meal. This is where life really happens...these quotidien things. Making Sunday dinner. Weeding your garden. Taking the walk your doctor told you you had to. This is the world. Let's live in it.