Carrots Seven Ways

by Laurie Woolever

I’ve been reading Janet Malcolm’s Forty-One False Starts: Essays on Artists and Writers, the title essay of which finds her struggling to introduce her subject, the painter David Salle; she dealt with the difficulty by  presenting all forty-one of her consecutively aborted opening gambits, to satisfying effect. When I finished reading, I wondered whether any writers of lesser skill had ever attempted to hijack this novel structure.

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I am writing about carrots, steady and sturdy, before I share the recipe given to me by chef Josh Pinsky, for the shockingly good, borderline sexy roasted carrot side dish served at Claud, the New York restaurant he owns and runs with partner Chase Sinzer.