I shopped at Trader Joe’s today. The store featured dill pickle popcorn. The sample tasted good so I bought two bags since our college-aged daughter, Ariana, is living with us during her freshman and sophomore years. She has liked pickles since she was little. Of course, I checked the ingredients and the flavor is from dill pickle oil. I wouldn’t have bought it if it was artificial pickle flavor.
On the drive home, I thought about my novels’ characters and which ones would eat dill pickle popcorn. In Hada’s Fog, her youngest granddaughter, Judi, certainly would but her older sister, Esther, would not.
In Norman in the Painting, Jack, the jerk, as Jill, the protagonist, calls him would eat the dill pickle popcorn, so would Jill and Norman, when he’s out of the painting, of course. Her sister, Viv, wouldn’t and neither would Evelyn or Maggie, certainly not Arctarius.
Jessica Barksdale, my mentor and friend, told us the benefits of writing food into our stories. Food provides several senses for the readers to experience: texture, taste, smell and hearing (if eating something has a sound, like crunching popcorn or pickles.) Now I’m wondering which scenes would be the best places to put this new popcorn. Besides evoking the senses, how would it move the plot forward?
I received Ariana’s review as she has had her first taste of Dill Pickle Popcorn. She says, “At first it’s confusing, but then it gets addictive.”
By the way, have you tasted Cotton Candy green grapes? Nob Hill Grocery Store has them.
