Recipes and Recommendations for Imbibing Beauty through Books and Beverages
By Annie Nardone
Here's a July recommendation for your summer reading and refreshment. “Pages, Pints, and Pours” is celebrating June, July, and August with short titles easy to dip into in between hikes or road trips. Plus, this month's beverage suggestion may turn out to be your favorite summer sip!
THE PAGES: THE WRITING LIFE BY ANNIE DILLARD
“Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?” — Annie Dillard [2]
Have you ever mused on writing your own poetry or fiction? Or perhaps wondered what the creative process looks like in the mind of an author?
Annie Dillard, author of Pulitzer Prize winning Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, published her delightfully accurate, ambling thoughts of a writer in The Writing Life. Dillard drops anecdotes and observations on a page like Jackson Pollock drips paint on canvas — abstract at first, but carrying a cohesive message that the writing life isn’t a dreamy experience of eloquence. Any creative endeavor — whether you sing, act, paint, compose music, build — is gritty, soul-bearing work with a bit of humor thrown in for perspective.
When asked how one learns to write, she answers, “The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity.”[3] She’s not wrong.
I recommend this book even if you are not a writer. The simple act of planning a garden or house party is a creative call filled with moving pieces. It is a comfort to know that even the professionals have their crisis moments. And most importantly, stay grounded and keep your sense of humor.
PINTS AND POURS
HIGH TIDE
1 shot herb-forward gin
1 shot blueberry vodka
Lemonade
1/4 cup frozen blueberries
Ice
Pour blueberries into a tall glass. Add gin and vodka and stir. Add 3 or 4 ice cubes, then pour lemonade to fill. Stir again with an ice tea spoon (to reach the blueberries, of course) and serve.
low tide
Same recipe as above, omitting liquor and replacing with flavored seltzer.
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Annie Nardone is a lifelong bibliophile with a special devotion to the Inklings and medieval authors. She is a Fellow with the C.S. Lewis Institute and holds an M.A. in Cultural Apologetics from Houston Christian University. Annie is a writer for Cultivating Oaks Press and An Unexpected Journal. Her writing can also be found at Square Halo Press, Rabbit Room Press, Clarendon Press U.K., Calla Press, and Poetica. Annie is a Master Teacher with HSLDA and Kepler Education and strives to help her students see holiness in everyday life and art. She lives in Florida with her husband and six cats, appreciates the perfect cup of tea, an expansive library, and the beach with family.
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