I was cooking the other day with cauliflower. I got it out of the fridge and unwrapped it, and then split all the leaves away from the stem, and what was I left with? A brain.
No, well, OK, obviously it wasn't a brain, it was a cauliflower. But I couldn't help imagining that it was a brain, as I cut it into bits and boiled it. In the same way that when I skin tomatoes I'm thinking about how the skin peels off just like human skin, leaving that veined raw-looking pulp underneath, and - well, who doesn't eat grapes and feel them popping in the mouth like eyeballs? And that's before I even mention things like livers and kidneys, which actually are livers and kidneys.
I realise this makes me sound like a psychopath. And it's true that I can see a rather macabre theme developing here. But this is my job. I spend my life imagining the worst, so that I can inflict it on my characters - and after a while you can't stop yourself. Sometimes I end up imagining it in such detail (what would happen if that car mounted the pavement just as I walked past?) that I scare myself. It's a litte bit unhealthy.
But it's also fun. Next time you cook a cauliflower, try pretending it's someone's brain. It's a lot more interesting.
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