I spent a wonderful Tuesday-Friday this past week visiting my dad in Virginia. He’s a wonderful supporter of my books and just a great all-around dad. The visit included walks into downtown Lexington and around the premises of his retirement community. He and his wonderful Dianne and I enjoyed eating meals together and watching a favorite series from when I was a kid, the original “All Creatures Great and Small”.
I had also planned ahead for two preschool visits and a book signing at Lexington’s new indie book store, Downtown Books. Dad, with phone camera at the ready, accompanied me to the Lexington events and Dianne drove with me to Charlottesville for the preschool visit there.
I drove home Saturday, heart full of gratitude that I was able to spend such a special few days down there. However, since I’m still catching my breath from it all, instead of a new post today, I thought I’d share a few pictures from the trip, followed by a favorite writerly post from 2012 about… eggs! We still love quail eggs at our house, BTW. Enjoy!
First some pictures:
And now for the retro post: QUAIL EGGS: Thoughts on Making Ideas EXTRAORDINARY
A Korean-American friend invited me to shop at a Korean supermarket. The store was brimming with the most beautiful produce and authentic Asian foods I have ever seen. I filled my cart with Korean BBQ sauce, dumplings, seaweed, barley tea, bok choy, Japanese eggplant, oyster mushrooms and more. But the best find of all was the carton of tiny speckled quail eggs I discovered by the tofu.
“How do you eat these?” I asked my friend. “Hard-boiled,” she answered. “Then pop them in your mouth.”
The excitement at our house over these miniature eggs was astounding. My kids couldn’t wait to try them and insisted that I boil them immediately. Then, even though it was almost dinner time, we peeled them and, lo and behold, the inside of the shell was aqua colored. When we popped them in our mouths, they tasted exactly like chicken eggs. The magic was in their tiny size and their magical shell.
“Can we share them?” my daughter asked. Then, nestling them in her hands, she shared the magic of the quail eggs with the neighbor kids. They were a big hit!
Ideas are kind of like eggs. Sometimes it seems they’re a dime a dozen. The trick is finding one that stands out from the rest. After all, no one wants to read yet another story about an ordinary egg. YOUR egg needs to be extraordinary. Add speckles and a magical lining. Scramble it. Fry it. Poach it. Do whatever it takes to make it stand out from the rest.
Quail eggs are destined to become a frequent snack in our house. Not only are they rich in protein and pretty, but they’re a tasty reminder that I don’t want to settle for plain old chicken egg ideas. Instead, I want to savor the exhilarating process of transforming ordinary ideas into extraordinary eggs. Happy writing!
Laura Sassi Tales 
So lovely to see your books and you on your travels ❤
Would have loved to see your dad, also 😉
Oh, me too! He and I were lamenting that we, over the years, are not in many family pictures because we are always the ones taking them… then we forgot to take one of us!!!!
So happy that you were able to take this trip, Laura! It sounds wonderful!
Thank you, Kath.