I’ve heard a lot about ‘slice of life’ writing. What is a slice of life? How do you take a life and slice it up? When you do, can you ever put it back together? I guess when you take a slice of cake or pie or lasagna, it lets you see right into the messy innards that make up a delicious bite–or if it tastes bad, you can feel all the lumps of flour or the bitter cocoa that wasn’t mixed in properly or the raw bits of meat not cooked long enough.

A slice of life could just be that perfectly browned wave of meringue atop bright yellow sweet smooth lemon on a flaky crust–but is it real if you don’t include the precise measuring of eggs, sugar and lemon, or the exact amount of boiling, or the way you have to whip the egg whites to achieve those high peaks and then bake it just until golden brown. And sometimes you take it out and it looks like a shiny picture in a gourmet food magazine, but when you cut into it, it is a sloppy puddle of lemon goo on  a soggy crust with meringue sails floating on top. Definitely a slice of life!