Frederick Franck was a Dutch artist and author who wrote dozens of books about drawing, seeing, Zen, all subjects that interest me. He was also a dental surgeon who worked for a time with Albert Schweitzer in Africa; he was ever guided, like Schweitzer, by a deep reverence for life.

This morning I came across this quote from one of his books, Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing: 

When I draw a tree I am faced with a mystery. I must enter into this mystery or fail. Whatever I draw confronts me with the mystery of Being.

I don’t know how Franck felt about food, but I thought it would be interesting to substitute “cook” for “draw,” and, say, “egg” for “tree.” As in:

When I cook an egg I am faced with a mystery. I must enter into this mystery or fail. Whatever I cook confronts me with the mystery of Being.

The fact is, it’s so easy to cook on autopilot, especially something as ordinary as an egg. It’s a bit of a paradox. Like any other art or skill, successful cooking depends on repetition. But then how do you find awareness in the midst of routine—and avoid a mediocre egg? To take it one step more Zen, how do you enter into the mystery of your ingredient—your egg?

One way is to slow down, focus, and savor the moment. Another is to shake things up. A few years ago I read a comment by the British chef, Marco Pierre White, about scrambling eggs. It inspired a new way, for me, of thinking about cooking eggs. No more mixing them in a separate bowl, stirring in a splash of milk or cream or water. Instead, combine everything into one flowing act.

Scrambled Eggs a la Marco Pierre White

So simple the word recipe doesn’t belong: Warm a cast iron pan over low heat, add a tablespoon or two of sweet butter, crack two eggs directly into the pan, and slowly, very slowly, whisk yolk and white together, never taking your eyes off the eggs, until they reach a creamy perfection. Only then, season with salt and pepper. Here’s all you need:

What is the sound of two eggs scrambling? Something to savor, in the cooking as well as the eating.

It’s an intriguing group, the “black” foods: black truffle, black bass, black trumpet, black walnut, black kale. They sound elite; perhaps it’s the echo of “black tie,” or maybe the group is defined first by the truffle, or an association with another exotic black food, caviar. They sound like winter foods, foods to eat by candlelight with silver and crystal on the table.

And perhaps for this reason someone, an importer or marketer with an instinct for the American palate, decided to rename cavolo nero “dinosaur kale.” What a switch! Now you have a leafy green that children might like.

Yet another healthful, delicious brassica that can trace its ancestry to the wild cabbages of the Asia Minor/eastern Mediterrean axis, cavolo nero was developed in Tuscany in the 18^th century and only recently made its way to our markets, pushed along by chefs who smuggled seeds from Italy to grow this sweet, earthy, very menu-friendly “black cabbage.” A profusion of names attests to its unsettled place in our pantry: it is alternately known as black kale, Tuscan kale, lacinato or laciniato kale, and the aforementioned dinosaur kale. Cavolo nero shows up in late fall through early winter, and, like its cousin Brussels sprouts, tastes best when harvested after a frost or two. It’s sold in banded bunches of long, frond-like leaves with a ruffled or tufted texture and colored a dusky blue-green, and is delicious sauteed quickly, braised slowly, used in soups like a ribbolita, baked into chips (an addictive dish from chef Dan Barber), or served raw. Try it, very thinly sliced, in a salad dressed with toasted bread crumbs, grated pecorino, and a garlicky, lemony vinaigrette. Use your strongest oil: cavolo nero loves big flavors.

Cavolo Nero, like all kales and their brassica cousins, is an excellent source of vitamins K, A, and C, and the minerals manganese, calcium, iron, and potassium. Kales are also the best source of antioxidants in the vegetable kingdom. Nice. One preparation tip: the center rib will not really soften with cooking, so strip or cut off the leafy parts before using. And one gardening tip: pick leaves from the bottom, and your plants will continue producing, and producing, and producing…

One of the unwelcome side effects of writing a book about guitars is not having much time to play the guitar. And one of the cruel lessons of this is to discover that no, folks, playing the guitar is not like riding a bike. (Please: if anyone convincingly disagrees, would love to hear from you.)

A few weeks ago I called up a friend, a teacher and professional musician and occasional drinking buddy, to come over to play. In the years that he’s given me lessons, we’d gone through three notebooks of material and many bottles of single malt. In the last year or two, though, we’ve hardly gotten together. It was always because of “the book.” Well, the book’s out, and so there we were, trying to pick it up. Not easy. First I asked him if he knew “Spike Driver’s Blues,” a Mississippi John Hurt song that’s been stuck in my head for a while. He didn’t, but with a skill that still seems magical to me, he started listening to it on my iPod and within a minute or two started playing what he was hearing. Then he chuckled. You know, he said, it’s just one chord. Great: I couldn’t figure out a song with just one chord. Granted, because it was a speeded up old recording, my friend had to play it in A flat with a capo on the first fret, so that could partly explain why I had trouble. But really, to be defeated by a song entirely in first-position G?

Next we played “Stormy Monday,” which I still knew by heart. That went ok until, as always, it was my turn to take the solo. I froze and fumbled and fell out of key again and again. It’s a completely humbling experience, and I can only imagine that this is what toddlers feel like when they’re starting to walk. Except they’re not painfully self-conscious. They just get up and plow on. I plow on and, well, you don’t want to hear it. The next morning, I found myself humming some great riffs to the song, and it occurred to me: why is it so hard to listen and play at the same time? and why, with a guitar in my hand, do I cut off instead of tap into whatever music is inside me? (Again: anyone having the same problem — or knows the solution — please write.)

After “Stormy Monday,” my friend suggested we go through the notebooks and just pick out stuff we both like to play, kind of a review. “Here Comes the Sun.” “Freight Train.” “Romanza.” “Delia” in drop D. The Jorma version of “I Know You Rider.” On and on. What’s interesting is that the notebooks show a cyclic progression. I knew enough when we originally started out that we didn’t have to start at the beginning, and my progress with him must have been pretty quick, because just a few pages into the first book were jazz standards like “Summertime” and “The Girl from Ipanema.” But it was also very clear where we pushed too hard. For example, following several arrangements from the album Kind of Blue is really easy fingerstyle stuff like “My Creole Belle.” A later page gives his hand-written formula for creating complex chords like 11ths and 13ths, followed by “Honey Pie,” a funky blues in E. Your basic advance and retreat.

And then, in the third notebook, about a quarter of the way in, is my teacher’s brilliant arrangement of “Here, There, and Everywhere.” This showed up just before work on the book took over, and though I’ve played it at least a hundred times while sight-reading, I’ve never been able to get smoothly past the middle section, and I’ve never been able to memorize it. Is it just this song, or the end of the road? Will I ever get back to my pre-book chops, whatever they were? Even more discouraging, the piece before it is a chord solo arrangement for “Moonglow.” It wasn’t all that long ago that I would have been able to read and play that piece. Now, I can’t. I’m stuck on “Here, There, and Everywhere.”

Which feels like nowhere.

This work of art was the centerpiece for a Guitars toast at the publisher’s offices. It’s an amazing piece of baking: a double-thick layer cake (from scratch!), iced with mahogany-colored frosting, and decorated with meticulous attention to detail. An edible photo of the author graces the soundhole; took it home for the kids to eat. (No Oedipal references, thank you very much.) But check out the “dots” that serve as bridge posts, the spaghetti strings, the licorice tuning posts, and, most imaginative, tuning pegs fashioned out of softened Tootsie Rolls. All made by hand by Carolan Workman. And you know what, it was DELICIOUS.

THANK YOU!

A friend writes:

The idea of a guitar under a spotlight being photographed brought to mind a very special memory of mine. After a show in Easton, Pa., Willie Nelson was greeting friends back stage. There were the usual fans who had won the opportunity from a radio station, friends of friends, some relatives, Randall Tex Cobb, and the executives from the Martin Guitar Co. who were there trying to “recreate” or maybe even duplicate Willie’s Trigger.

Now, those of us who have been to many Willie concerts, and have been backstage and on the bus, know that the minute Willie finishes playing, Trigger is whisked off, put into a special case and guarded. Not this night.

I remember being backstage watching Willie so graciously signing everything from bandannas to old records that were handed to him by the adoring fans. He was off to the side, because, sitting in the center of the stage, on a little guitar stand (like the one in our music room holding my son’s guitar) was Trigger. The spotlights were on it. The men from Martin were busy photographing it. If anyone was guarding it, I couldn’t tell because I got really close to it and took pictures also. Finally, my turn with Willie came so we asked him what was going on.

He said that the guys from Martin were trying to duplicate Trigger and they were wondering how, after all these years, it managed to sound so good with that dang hole in it. I don’t remember if Martin tried to duplicate the guitar with the hole or not, and I don’t know if they ever did. I do know that Willie had one eye on Trigger and the other on the things he was signing. I think there was a grand photo session with Willie and the guitar etc. But sharpest in my memory was that of a lone guitar sitting there with the spotlight shining on it and me thinking of how Willie had just been entertaining us with it and how he can make that baby sing, especially 1/2 hour into the show and beyond. Anyone who has ever heard Willie live will know this fact. He is an awesome guitar picker!

Guitars are shiny and curvy and difficult to photograph well. Even the old ones have enough gloss to create unexpected glare and hotspots. But then again, that’s what a good photographer is paid to do—manipulate light and shadow to make a beautiful image that pops on the page. Our job during photo shoots—and by “our” I’m referring to the book’s terrific photo editor, Leora Kahn, and myself—was a lot more physical, and for me, particularly, nerve-wracking.

On the one hand, you’re a kid in a candy store. This shoot (see image below) took place in the large, cluttered 19th century office of a stringed instrument dealer and guitar collector in Philadelphia. Against one long wall were antique mahogany and glass cases, and in the cases, two rows high, were dozens and dozens of classic Martins and Gibsons. Especially notable were his rare pre-war sunburst Martins; so rare and pristine, in fact, that the folks from Martin used his instruments to insure that the color of their sunburst reissues were historically accurate. So there you are, handling one priceless guitar after another. And sometimes, when the photographer needed a quick break to adjust a light or reload film (not everyone’s gone digital), you find a moment to sit and play. What a privilege.

On the other hand, you are suddenly responsible for millions of dollars worth of rosewood and spruce, picking out the instruments, wiping them down, waiting, one in each hand, for the next shot, angling around the furniture, the lighting stands, the white seamless backdrop, hustling to keep the schedule moving. As big as the office was, it was cramped before we arrived, and the crew plus equipment made it almost impossible to maneuver.

But the most trying moment of all was when the guitar was placed on its stand. Yes, the guitar stand would be silhouetted out in the production process. But because nothing could obscure the body, the stand we used for shooting was little more than a perch. And every guitar had to be perched just right. The second you felt it was stable, you held your breath and let go.

None of them fell. Or, I should say, none of them landed. The few guitars that tipped were caught. In every shot, there’s a hand not far off to the side, hovering like guardian angel—in this case, ready to catch a 1935 Martin 00-42.

Lark Street Music is a great guitar store in Teaneck, New Jersey, (www.larkstreetmusic.com), home of wonderful new and old instruments. Last May they opened their doors to us to spend a day photographing quite a few gems from their collection, including Strombergs, Nationals, the Alembic and the Linhof. Regrettably, the Lark Street instruments used in Guitars are credited only to the photographer, David Arky; to find out which guitars are Lark Street guitars, please refer to the credits under Arky on page 518.

Hootenany, sing-along, whatever you want to call it, it’s great fun. When author copies of Guitars arrived, we invited music-playing (and not) friends over for a guitarbeque. (Clever word, right? Wish I could trademark it, but turns out someone beat me to it…so much for having an original thought.) Several of us had performed, in various configurations, at a benefit earlier in the day, so everyone was psyched. There was a big stack of signed books, a garbage can full of iced beer, and two grills going for hamburgers, hot dogs, veggie burgers, and some sort of fatty, skinless Croatian sausage. The kids all formed a pack and raced around in the dark for hours playing manhunter and jumping on the trampoline. And the grown-ups? The grown-ups sang!

Here’s a sing-along tip to pass on, discovered after some disappointing evenings—a week or so before the event, have everyone send you their favorite songs, chords included for the musicians. Make copies and clip together into rough songbooks, figuring on one per two or three guests. Then also type out all the song titles. Print it out, cut out the titles—they’ll look like fortunes from a fortune cookie—and put them in a hat or a box. Take turns picking out the tunes! With a properly stocked hat, this can go on for hours….

Five years ago I came up with an idea that had all the makings of being a fun little book—a celebration of guitars in a chunky format, kind of like a coffee table book that fits in your back pocket. What happened, in fact, was like walking down the rabbit hole. So many guitars! So much passion! Such an infinite and infinitely interesting amount of things to learn!

Teaming up with expert photo researcher Leora Kahn, the journey began at Matt Umanov’s guitar store on Bleecker Street in New York, and continued in shops, collector’s offices, museums, festivals, factories and artisan’s workshops around the country. We set up photo shoots, where I had the rare good fortune of handling one pre-war Martin after another, or could pause to strum the D’Angelicos and Strombergs. We pored over great photo collections, such as Backbeat’s, which handles the images of the Chinery collection. Got in touch with museums in the UK and Europe, begging for an image, for example, of a Stradivarius guitar, or the Grobert given to Hector Berlioz by Niccolo Paginini, and signed by both. Now that’s mojo!

Along the way I read everything I could get my hands on, talked with dozens of guitar-makers, spent long hours with a jazz guitarist and teacher, and logged in a ridiculous amount of time on web sites and message boards.

Well, the book made it. The day it arrived from the printer, and for many days afterward, I looked at it with a curious third-person wonderment, and thought, how did this happen? And when? Those thoughts have finally calmed down. Now I’m just taking pleasure in signing copies for friends, and listening to their kind words.

But the little idea lives, and is morphing into this blog. Probably a very different type of rabbit hole — well, let’s see.