Use Good Words
I can’t tell you exactly when I first started to cook from Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa cookbooks. But I know it was before my second child turned two, for that’s when I called up the grandparents and asked if they’d come to watch the kids. My husband and I had been invited to a wedding in northern California we didn’t want to miss.
The timing of the trip and the location practically demanded we celebrate our anniversary early with three extra nights on our own in wine country. And Ina becomes a part of this memory because it was on that trip when I learned—nay, when I finally understood—her recipes.
What she does, you see, is repetitively use the word “good” to qualify items on her ingredients list.
For Old Fashioned Potato salad, use good mayonnaise.
Raspberry Crumble bars, use good granola. (Good granola? Isn’t even bad granola good?)
Vegetable lasagna, use good marinara.
Fig and Goat Cheese toasts, good fig spread.
Beatty’s Chocolate Cake, good cocoa powder.
And then there’s the olive oil.
Anything that’s roasted, sauted, braised, steps foot in the kitchen: use good olive oil. Chicken, good olive oil. Spinach, good olive oil. Salad dressing, good olive oil. Get baptized, good olive oil. Wash your hands, good olive oil.
Geez, Ina. We get it.
Before our California trip, I’d grab the gallon jug of whatever olive oil I had tucked away in my cupboard, the cheapest one I could find, from the bottom shelf of the grocery store, and use it when I cooked thinking olive oil is olive oil, lady.
The same went for cocoa powder, mayo, marinara—and yes, even granola. What Ina called good, I’d shrug and call, “same difference.”
Enter wine country.
On our last day there, instead of another vineyard, we booked an olive oil tasting. My husband and I arrived at the orchard with a handful of other couples and were taken on a walking tour of the grounds. In the pressing room, we saw the old-fashioned stone mill and the new way, with an industrial-looking stainless-steel machine. After that, we all sat at a U-shaped table and were taught how to properly sip—yes, sip!—olive oil. Shape and place your tongue against the back of your teeth, allowing the peppery blossom to catch in the back of your throat. If you cough, you’ve done it right.
Finally, we sampled. And my mouth exploded with joy. With the precision of sommeliers, we were taught to note hints of orange, apple, nuts, fresh herbs. We coughed. We laughed. We marveled at the flavor profiles … in oil.
Oh, Ina. You were right. There is such a thing as good olive oil.
I came back home changed.
In time, I could taste different sugar contents in mayonnaise. Discern, by nature of the process and ingredients, why certain marinaras were sweeter and more robust than others. And the cocoa powders—my goodness—how rich and bright and fantastically bitter.
But words? Can words be good?
If I’d be audacious enough to create a recipe for writing, it would be this deceptively simple process:
Step 1: Read good words, collect and set aside.
Step 2: Write.
Step 3: Edit, use saved good words.
Repeat, repeat, repeat.
Like Ina with her brilliantly tailored recipes, what I’m asking of us, what I’m offering here, is an awareness that some words, like some ingredients, are better than others. Good words have depth, complexity, nuance, and emotional heft. They can be simple, but profound. When used, the writing becomes an experience, with subtle qualities of literary pleasure.
But I won’t suggest which words are good for you. Like wine, like art, like music. (Let alone a good fig spread.) Good is subjective. Good is what it needs to be for you.
And what any teacher—of cooking or writing—wants, is for you to develop your own palate.
So taste good words as you read. By what you read. Note how they sound in your mouth. How they slide over your tongue. Close your eyes and describe the flavors you taste, the emotions you smell. Is the aftertaste bitter? Or sweet? Or something else entirely? Do the words found in curated books and essays and reviewed collections satiate differently, more holistically, than the over-processed on-the-go hot-take snack bar words of social media? Which words are your favorites? Which words changed you? Which words were a delight?
Then after reading good words, use them. In your own writing, in your own way.
I came home with a bottle of that olive oil—and savored every drop. But the truth is, most often I use the middle-priced Costco jug to drizzle over vegetables or to make a weeknight salad dressing for our boisterous dinner table. Because to me, that oil is good—or as good as I can offer in this season.
I use the best I can, as often as I can. And I hope I make Ina proud.
///
A few starting points (pick your own):
Set an intention to be aware of good words in the coming month (or in this coming season).
As you read whatever you’re already reading, make mental notes of words or phrases that reveal, feel powerful, or evoke emotion and offer complexity.
Open a page in a notebook or on your notes app. Create a “Good Words” bank. Use it to keep track of the good words you read. When you go to edit your writing, use some from your list.
Commit to buying or borrowing from the library a book of good essays. Maybe you join a literary review or set aside time each week to read essays from The New Yorker. Open a few tabs and read from sites like this or this. For shorter work, this. For humor, this. Add good words (or phrases) from the reading to your good words list.
Utilize a thesaurus and other word-centric online resources each time you sit down to edit.
Related resources: Choosing One Word Instead of Another by Ashlee Gadd, where she lovingly calls me out for all my red-pen-esque edits. Or Be Specific, where I confess the words ‘thing’ and ‘it’ make me break out in hives.
