Creative Juicing for Dummies

Extraction is just the beginning.

Dec 20, 2021

Note: Don’t like reading? Allow me to read it to you!

Nope, it can’t be fruit. Fruit is too happy. Too pleased with itself. Something so rich and dark can’t possibly come from fruit. There’s no way you can cut into its brightly colored skin, expose the plump orbs of liquid, and squeeze it out like pure sunshine. Creative juice—it’s just not that kind of juice.

No.

Creative juice is primal.

It is of the flesh.

Your flesh.

It’s not sweet, nor tart. Isn’t good on fish, or in a Margarita.

It is the schmaltzy secretion of a body in the process of self-immolation. To extract it requires brain-on-fire sacrifice, not the touch of a Chef’n Freshforce Citrus extractor.

What’s that you say? Creative juices don’t need to be extracted; they just have to flow. I should go for a walk to get them going. Meditate. I should take a long and lazy shower.

Where I come from, those things are just called activities. They don’t appear in the Creative Juicing for Dummies manual.

Trust me on this. Creative juicing takes practice and true culinary creative curiosity. It’s not a relaxing stroll in a park requiring only the ability to lace a pair of shoes as prep work.

No.

It’s butcher to the kill floor and get your knives and bowls ready for the yield.

I should warn you that there’s no real recipe to follow for the juice itself, which is a bummer because you will have to make it from scratch every time you start something. It doesn’t come pre-packaged. There is no Grab-n-Go at Whole Foods.

To get a portion, you’ll have to salt your flesh and stick yourself in a pressure cooker or human-sized sous vide to get the ball rolling. After that, you might want to baste yourself with inspiration before you step into the roasting pan because to get down to the pure drippings of you a sprinkle of Inspo Seasoning never hurts. This roasting of a body—your body—will extract the life force marrow from bone, and blood from muscle, and stretch from sinew, and it’ll be clear and fatty and, if you’re really lucky, double as a base for many a creative casserole going forward.

Now it must also be said that creative juicing is a messy business and that anything that splatters can leave a stain. That’s a good thing. That is the stain of output on the front of your smock, and you should wear it like a badge of honor. Look, that one looks like the face of Jesus! Work the brew. Extract the juice. Let it go where it may go. Remember always—this is not a production line business. It ain’t no cookie-cutter franchise. It’s bespoke. Custom. A single-origin one-off.

“This is all well and good, but how do you actually extract it, Janeen? You still haven’t said.”

To Thine ownself be Stew.

What does that mean?

OK. Well. Since we’re in this creative kitchen I might as well come clean.

NFI.

All these words up until this point have been me trying to extract some creative juices of my own. Because when I sat down to write this I had none. And it got me thinking about the juice from fruit or juice from meat thing and looky look, here we are. Sitting in my stew. I’m so sorry.

This is what I do.

This is how I do it.

This is what I did today.

First, when I realize my creative juices are low, I corner myself like the wild animal I am. By this, I mean I stop circling and procrastinating and just sit at the desk. I don’t like doing this one bit and I rear up and it makes me mad and anxious and jumpy and I snort and paw at the ground. I don’t want to sit at the desk.

That’s when I throw a metaphorical hessian bag over my head to calm myself down. This bag comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s a cup of tea or coffee. Sometimes it’s closing the blinds to make my office dark. Sometimes it’s putting on soft music. Some folks would call these things rituals. Maybe they are, but I like calling them bags that I put over my head. Consider me a horse to be broken. Wait, are we juicing a horse now?

Moving on.

Once I am calm with my arse in the chair, I preheat my brain to a medium to high heat. I do this by staring at a blank screen, my fingers gently resting on my keyboard and pretending to type without actually pressing down on keys. Like Play Him Off Keyboard Cat1. Sometimes there’s no screen or keyboard and I’m at the desk with a notebook and blank paper, but it’s the same deal. Just no delete key. My most frequent doodles are stars.

And then I wait to reach boiling point.

This part feels a lot like “meditation without mantra”. My mind wanders off in random directions, but unlike meditation, my eyes are actually open and I’m glancing at objects in my office. These are objects of affection. A drawing of Thom Yorke, gifted to me by a friend. A Princess Leia print with the word HOPE. A poem by Mary Oliver. Some Post-Its with whacky titles for stories I will never write. And finally a corkboard with a bunch of topic ideas for this very newsletter—ingredients for another meal on another day.

I let my thine-self stew for a good while, stirring the mixture occasionally and seeing what rises to the top by way of juice. And by stirring, I mean I get quite cross that nothing’s happening, what with all the staring and doodling, and just start banging out any words and any thoughts that come into my head for five- to ten-minute spurts. You have to force them out of the blocked pipes and arteries. These are unseasoned words—whatever is in my pantry at the time, thrown together, sharing flavor profiles.

Words roil. I simmer.

It cooks down eventually, leaving a fragrant… something. That’s when I gather all the fatty juice that’s settled on the surface of my work and inspect it to see if there’s any kind of taste to it. After the juice skimming, the garbage disposal gets a workout, and there’s usually enough extracted creative juice to declare the session a success. On a good day, the liquid is clear and rich. On a bad day, there’s not much in the pan, but to be honest, you don’t need a lot of it to make something and bloody hell Janeen, not everything has to win a Pulitzer. Or get a Michelin star.

Point is, if you ever want to get the good juice, you have to put on your apron and get in the kitchen. The end product won’t always be bursting with a rich and hearty liquid that squirts out when you stick a fork in you, but at least there’ll be something.

Anything that comes after that is just gravy.

Yours in tiny thought,

Janeen

This week’s amends…

The Art of Disappearing

by Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don't I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It's not that you don't love them anymore.
You're trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven't seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don't start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.