Greetings, writers—
Appropriate to late fall/early winter, aka the eating season, today’s prompt is inspired by Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days by James Salter and Kay Salter.
James Salter (1925–2015; né James Arnold Horowitz) was the author of numerous novels, short stories, and screenplays; he wrote, in highly polished, elegant prose, about love affairs and fighter pilots; soldiers and expats; food and sex1. “If there were a Mount Rushmore for writers, he’d be there already,” noted the NYT’s review of his final book, All That Is.
Life is Meals, which he wrote with his second wife, Kay, a journalist and playwright, is a more playful book—a compendium of recipes, cooking tips, food-related trivia, and notes on hosting dinner parties for famous friends. It’s light and intermittently silly and “a throwback to a better time,” said Maria Semple, author of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, who threw a big party for the Salters using the book as inspiration and recipe source. Basically, Life is Meals is a book by and for fancy people.
Anyhoo, here’s a January entry.2
As I recall (the book went back to the library), Salter makes no critique of the waste; it wouldn’t fit in a book this dripping in privilege. But let’s set that matter aside for now.
Today, write a scene in which one of your characters plans, and executes, a surprise.
Or else write a scene that involves a meal, carefully and precisely described.
Happy writing—
Emily
P.S. On Wednesday, I shared a plan for writing a short story in a month. Here are some thoughts on story premises.
He also wrote about his friends without warning them.
Autun figures prominently in Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime.