Where Do You Get These Ideas?

At lunch the other day, my good friend Helen (wearing the Have-It-Your-Way Big Beret, photo on Ravelry) asked me, "Where do you come up with these ideas?"

I tried to explain that it's like an image that floats in, unbidden, and won't let go until it's made manifest.

I remembered Ratatouille.  When Matt and I were writing the cookbook (Cast Iron Cuisine from Breakfast to Dessert), I would often joke, in the throes of needing to prove a new dessert inspiration, that the rat was in my hair again.  (If you haven't seen Ratatouille, the Pixar delight, this will sound grotesque.)

But Ratatouille is purely a kitchen diva.

So who is it that takes hold coaxingly, imperiously, and will not rest until the whim has been knitted out?

That would be Charlotte, I believe.