Phyllis Grant is the author of Everything is Under Control: A Memoir With Recipes. She is an IACP finalist for Personal Essays/Memoir Writing and a three-time Saveur Food Blog Award finalist for her blog, Dash and Bella: Cooking With 2 Kids. She has cooked in world-renowned restaurants, including Nobu, Michael’s, and Bouley. Her essays and recipes have been published in dozens of publications including Best Food Writing, New York Times, Esquire, O, Real Simple, Saveur, Time, San Francisco Chronicle, Food52, and Salon. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children.
I had to change the parameters of what I thought success was. Success might be a plate of eggs with toast or a talk on the curb. Sometimes the most simple thing is the thing that makes the difference. I
Start at the beginning—you would think it was something I should have learned from the first novel. But I wonder about these obstacles that we put in front of ourselves that keep us from getting further along or finishing.