Another amazing review!

"Carousels of Paris" was the recipient of some amazing words from reviewer Kathy Boone Reel at her well known and popular blog, The Reading Room.

I am proud and happy and gratified and delighted beyond words.

You can read Kathy's review here


" . . .  if your heart, soul, and mind could use some uplifting, The Carousels of Paris will wrap you in its charm and beauty, and when we can once again physically travel to Paris, you can include a tour of carousels, too."

Kathy Boone Reel having a cup of coffee at Daisy Dukes, New Orleans
Photograph by Kaye Wilkinson Barley
on what was a very fun day

Paris and Vickie Smith

Continuing with responses from friends who love Paris as much as I do.


When I asked Vickie Smith what she missed most, or what she might want to do when first returning to Paris, she said - 

"As the quarantine drags on, Paris calls to me. I can’t wait to sit in an open air cafe, with a local wine and a view of the Eiffel Tower. I want to shop an outdoor market for fresh breads and cheese. And most of all, I want to breathe in the beauty of the city and her people. I miss Paris."

Lesa Holstine, Lisa Butler, Me, Vickie Smith
Paris
September, 2017

Jenn McKinlay and Paris

I recently asked a few friends who I know love Paris as much as I do what they missed most, or what they might want to do first when they were able to return to the city that owns a part of our hearts.

The wonderfully irrepressible Jenn McKinlay  shared this.


"When I get back to Paris,
I’m going to smell the sweet chestnut air.
I’ll sashay down the Champs-Élysées,
and buy trinkets for my hair.
While reading the novels of Colette,
I’ll practice my flirting and be quite the coquette.

When I get back to the City of Light,
I’m going to dance on a barge on the Seine all night.
Glorious art and history will fill me up,
Like the chocolat chaud in my café cup.
Through the streets and gardens I will roam,
And my heart will be joyous because I am finally home.

I am not a poet (obviously) but when I think of Paris, it strums the strings of my heart and makes me feel positively undone. When I sat down to write about what I wanted to do when I finally get back to Paris, it was too hard. There is just so much I want to see and hear and taste and smell and touch. The city of light really is a place to immerse all of one’s senses. Whether, it’s the chocolate in Saint Germain, the art in the Montmartre, or the sound of the beautiful French language in conversation all around me, I simply can’t wait until I return. À bientôt, mon Paris! "


Jenn's book "Paris is Always a Good Idea" is scheduled for release in July.

Jenn is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher's Weekly bestselling author of several mystery and romance series. She is also the winner of the RT Reviewer's Choice Award for romantic comedy and the Fresh Fiction award for best cozy mystery. Her work has been translated into multiple languages in countries all over the world. A TEDx speaker, she is always happy to talk books, writing, reading, and the creative process to anyone who cares to listen. She lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with kids, pets, and her husband's guitars. 

Book Give-Away

If you would like to enter our contest to win a copy of "Carousels of Paris," send an email to info@kayewilkinsonbarley.com  by Friday, April 17th.

Please type "Carousels of Paris Contest" in the subject line, your name and mailing address in the body of the email.

Don't forget that mailing address!

I'll put the entries in my magic pink Willie Nelson baseball cap.

And we'll draw a name on Saturday, April 18th with Annabelle acting as witness.

I will then contact the winner and ask from which bookstore you'd like to receive your book.

This is an opportunity for us to help support local independent bookstores, but that will, of course, be up to the winner.

The winning name will be posted at the webpage and here.

Good luck!

Stay healthy,

and

stay home, if you're able!

The Peacock

Music for when the music is over
Is what a poem is. There’s no music
In a poem, just the imaginary
Composer breathing beneath the deep wreck,
The curves of that glorious alphabet

Resilient as bioluminescence
Stuck in the seafloor. There’s something in it,
How poems pretend to sing. Like a peacock
Pretends in the wide span of its plumage
That there is no end to it: the far stars
Of galaxies and its ocelli gaze,
Gazed and gazing as one, the first fissions
Finally arriving to the listener,
Who makes sense of it sooner or later.

— Rowan Ricardo Phillips, “The Peacock,” Paris Review (no. 223, Winter 2017)

Philosophical Poem

The disease of civilization is not tools, citizen.
Ignorance might be closer to it.
Politics closer. But only Money
Will hit the brass tacks everyone wants to get down to
Squarely on the head.

Above all, I have no case against human nature.
Whatever that is, I like it.
I like mechanics with wrenches,
Taxi drivers' photos on licenses,
Drunks lighting cigarettes.
What the hell else is there to like
After you've kissed your wife and gone to sleep?

I like everything but important people being important.
And academic people being academic.
What I like least is bookkeepers
Spending their human eyes on accounts receivable,
Interest receivable, payment due, balance on hand.
And columns of soldiers marching.

April 10 Newsletter

Hello Everyone! I hope you are all healthy and happy during this stressful time, and doing things to keep your spirits up.  We're sending good thoughts out to all of you.   Unfortunately, the news right now isn't what we had hoped it would be regarding Carousels of Paris .  The book signings have, of course, been cancelled.   Signings, as you know, boost book sales and revenue. There is still hope for, some day, a fun French theme party/signing at the wonderful Sugar Island Bakery and Bookstore on Topsail Island, NC.  You know I'll keep you posted. COVID quarantines have also put a different spin on what we had hoped to do in the way of give-aways. Donald and I have been to the post office once in the past three weeks. And that was after hours to check our box. Because trips to the post office are going to continue being few and far between for us we will not be mailing out packages. So. That means the personalized books and tote bags and a couple other surprises we have planned as give-aways will have to happen at a later date. What we are going to do is have a book give-away contest that will have a copy of Carousels of Paris mailed to one winner from the bookstore of their choice. This means, of course, that the book will not be a signed edition.  The contest will take place between Monday, April 13th and Friday, April 17th. All you have to do is send an email to info@kayewilkinsonbarley.com. Please type "Carousels of Paris Contest" in the subject line, your name and mailing address in the body of the email. That's it! I'll put the entries in my magic pink Willie Nelson baseball cap. And we'll draw a name on Saturday, April 18th with Annabelle acting as witness. I will then contact the winner and ask from which bookstore you'd like to receive your book. This is an opportunity for us to help support local independent bookstores, but that will, of course, be up to the winner. The winning name will be posted at the webpage. Good luck! In the meantime, we've made a few changes to the webpage, and there will be more to come, so do drop by from time to time. A fun thing that is happening today is that The Poisoned Pen Bookstore is running a series about authors’ reading distractions during this time of COVID lockdowns and quarantines. I am honored, SO honored, to be included. You can read the piece here, and be sure to check out the other authors Poisoned Pen is featuring talking about their own distractions. And finally -  To those of you who have bought the book already, Thank You!  I hope you're enjoying it, and we appreciate, more than you know, your support. It has been, truly, a project of love and one Donald and I will forever have fun memories of doing, and being able to do together.  It means a lot to us to be able to share it with you. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Kaye xox

My Mother’s Colander by Dorianne Laux

Holes in the shape of stars
punched in gray tin, dented,
cheap, beaten by each
of her children with a wooden spoon.

Noodle catcher, spaghetti stopper,
pouring cloudy rain into the sink,
swirling counter clockwise
down the drain, starch slime
on the backside, caught
in the piercings.

Scrubbed for sixty years, packed
and unpacked, the baby's
helmet during the cold war,
a sinking ship in the bathtub,
little boat of holes.

Dirt scooped in with a plastic
shovel, sifted to make cakes
and castles. Wrestled
from each other's hands,
its tin feet bent and re-bent.

Bowl daylight fell through
onto freckled faces, noon stars
on the pavement, the universe
we circled aiming jagged stones,
rung bells it caught and held.

“My Mother’s Colander” by Dorianne Laux from Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems. © W. W. Norton and company, 2019.

Distractions

The Poisoned Pen Bookstore is running a series about authors' reading distractions during this time of COVID lockdowns and quarantines.

I am honored, SO honored, to be included.

You can read the piece here:  https://poisonedpen.com/2020/04/10/kaye-wilkinson-barleys-distractions/


And be sure you check out others talking about their distractions!

Dana Stabenow - https://poisonedpen.com/2020/04/08/dana-stabenows-distractions/

and

Laurie King -  https://poisonedpen.com/2020/04/06/laurie-r-kings-distractions/

with more to come, so check back at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore.

The Gift

This morning there’s snow everywhere. We remark on it.
You tell me you didn’t sleep well. I say
I didn’t either. You had a terrible night. “Me too.”
We’re extraordinarily calm and tender with each other
as if sensing the other’s rickety state of mind.
As if we knew what the other was feeling. We don’t,
of course. We never do. No matter.
It’s the tenderness I care about. That’s the gift
this morning that moves and holds me.
Same as every morning.

—Raymond Carver

My Grandparents’ Generation

They are taking so many things with them:

their sewing machines and fine china,

their ability to fold a newspaper
with one hand and swat a fly.

They are taking their rotary telephones,
and fat televisions, and knitting needles,

their cast iron frying pans, and Tupperware.
They are packing away the picnics

and perambulators, the wagons
and church socials. They are wrapped in

lipstick and big band music, dressed
in recipes. Buried with them: bathtubs

with feet, front porches, dogs without leashes.
These are the people who raised me

and now I am left behind in
a world without paper letters,

a place where the phone
has grown as eager as a weed.

I am going to miss their attics,
their ordinary coffee, their chicken

fried in lard. I would give anything
to be ten again, up late with them

in that cottage by the river, buying
Marvin Gardens and passing go,

collecting two hundred dollars.

“My Grandparents’ Generation” by Faith Shearin from Telling the Bees. © Stephen F. Austin State University Press, 2015.
[via Reckonings]

[Alive On All Channels]

Spring is springing

Lia Eliades

I found an old shirt in a drawer
as i pulled it on over my head
i realized i have loved my life

Trying something new

Having seen so many Facebook friends fixing and enjoying Dalgona (whipped) coffee, I'm itching to try it. 

I asked Don Barley (who has WAY more patience with our oh so poorly designed kitchen cupboards than I) if we had any instant coffee.

He looked at me with something close to fear on his face.

"Instant Coffee???"

I nodded yes.

"INSTANT coffee? Why? Why would we ever have that? You mean that horrible stuff in a jar? Like Nescafe!?"

Me: "Well, yeah. Sorta. But not, please god, not Nescafe. But something like it."

Him: "WHY? Did the electric percolator die?!"

Thinking he might keel over I tried to quickly explain whipped coffee. Including video.

Him: "No."

Me: "Well, hell."

He disappeared into the kitchen. I hear banging, rattling, a little cussing.

He reappears to tell me he's found a few things that might work as substitutes for me to play with.

Being the guy who can fix anything and loves the challenge, I couldn't wait to see what he'd come up with.

I didn't know we had some of this stuff, but we'll see what we might be able to do with some of it. I'll let you know.

So.  I tried the Folger's Cafe Latte.  Nope.  

Nope
Nope 
Nope

Ugh.

Later.
I will try again later.

Stay healthy!

Stay home, if you can!

To Play Pianissimo

To Play Pianissimo
Does not mean silence,
the absence of moon in the day sky
for example.

Does not mean barely to speak,
the way a child’s whisper
makes only warm air
on his mother’s right ear.

To play pianissimo
is to carry sweet words
to the old woman in the last dark row
who cannot hear anything else,
and to lay them across her lap like a shawl.

(from Forty-Four Ambitions for the Piano, reprinted in Desire Lines) by Lola Haskins

Annabelle and I having a serious conversation

Annabelle:  "Mama?"

Me:  "Yes, darlin'?"

"I love this book."

"Aw, thank you, Annabelle.  That means a lot."

"Will you and Daddy go back to Paris and take some more pictures?"

"I sure hope so."

"Carousel pictures?"

"Oh, yes."

"And will you do another book?"

"That's the plan, Princess."

"And will you stay for a longer time?"

"Now wouldn't that be a dream come true?!"

"And can I go?"

"Another dream come true, Annabelle!"

"I would really love that."

"Me, too.  Let's plan on it, okay?"

"Okay.  And can I ride a carousel?"

"You bet!"

"And have my picture taken?!"

"Absolutely!"

"I love you, Mama."

"I love you back, Annabelle."

Dreams do come true 

Stay Healthy!

Stay home if you're able!

Matisse Replies to Snodgrass: A Poem About a Poem About a Painting

His mind turned in in concentrated fury,
Till he sank . . .
His own room drank him.
- - W. D. Snodgrass, "Matisse: "The Red Studio"

Looking into my red studio,
were you surprised to find no one there?

Calm yourself, my friend, I was only out
of sight, preparing the space for visitors.

Since I am not a part of what I see,
I leave myself unframed. Do you undersstand?

This room is decorated for pleasure,
colored warm to comfort your needled heart.

My art is an embrace, not a devour.
Come inside. A painted chair awaits you.

I will be there. Together we will share
a refreshing drink of my bright scarlet air.

by Joseph Stanton

Chicken in the crock pot, puzzle on the table

I have some chicken breasts slow cooking and they are smelling fine.

Puzzle pieces are scattered across the dining table.

Looking closely at all the different elements making up this picture, I have to say, there are some very pretty, some very unusual and some very weird and creepy things in this cupboard.

I love it.

COVID-19 update :

Rapid acceleration of U.S. confirmed cases: .

Mar. 20: 17,935
Mar. 30: 160,718 (3,002 dead)
Apr. 5: 311,536 (8,499 dead)

The U.S. mortality rate is rising:

Mar. 22: 1.25%
Mar. 30: 1.86%
Apr. 5: 2.72%

(The mortality rate for the common flu in the U.S. is about 0.2%.)

Stay safe!

Stay healthy!

Stay in!

"Warming my cold hands
over my cup, I gaze through
my foggy windows
and feel, not unpleasantly,
all the autumns of my life."
– Michael Boiano

In the kitchen - Quiche

I love quiche and and constantly trying new recipes.

Here's the latest - - - 

Bacon, Cheese, and Caramelized Onion Quiche

Rating: 4.33 stars    

My husband said this is the best quiche he's ever tried! The combination of caramelized onion, bacon, and Cheddar cheese is perfect.

By KAREN

Prep:

20 mins

Cook:

1 hr 45 mins

Total:

2 hrs 25 mins

Additional:

20 mins

Servings:

8

Yield:

1 9-inch quiche

Ingredients

Ingredient Checklist

• 4 slices bacon
• 1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust
• ¼ cup butter
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
  
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 eggs
• 1 ¼ cups sour cream (I used only 1 cup)
• ¼ cup cream cheese, softened
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• ⅛ teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (I used a bit more - not sure how much, but added more to the top before putting it in the oven)

Local Offers

ZIP 

AmazonFresh
Groceries delivered to your door
LINDEN, VA 22642

White Onion, Large

See Store for Price

Harris Teeter
530 Fletcher Dr
WARRENTON, VA 20186

• •

Directions

Instructions Checklist

• Step 1
  Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
• Step 2
  Fry bacon in a large skillet over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until crispy, about 10 minutes. Drain bacon slices on paper towels. Let cool 10 minutes. Crumble and set aside.
• Step 3
  Roll out pastry crust into a circle using a lightly floured rolling pin. Line a 9-inch pie pan with crust. Prick holes into the base of the dough using a fork.
• Step 4
  Bake crust in the preheated oven on the middle rack for 15 minutes.
• Step 5
  Remove pastry crust from the oven. Brush crust with beaten egg. Return crust to the oven and bake 5 minutes more.
• Step 6
  Heat butter in a pan over medium heat and stir in onion. Cook and stir until onion has softened and turned translucent, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking and stirring until onion is very tender and dark brown, about 40 minutes more.
• Step 7
  Whisk 2 eggs together in a bowl using a fork. Add sour cream and cream cheese and beat using an electric mixer until well combined. Beat in salt and pepper.
• Step 8
  Spread caramelized onions with remaining butter onto pastry crust. Sprinkle with 1/2 the Cheddar cheese. Place crumbled bacon evenly over the top. Pour egg mixture over bacon. Top with remaining Cheddar cheese.
• Step 9
  Bake quiche in the preheated oven until golden and fluffy, about 30 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes before serving. (I baked for about 50 minutes)

Nutrition Facts

Per Serving:

390 calories; 32.5 g total fat; 123 mg cholesterol; 506 mg sodium. 13.7 g carbohydrates; 11.3 g protein;

© Copyright 2020 allrecipes.com. All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.allrecipes.com 04/03/2020

And it's delicious.

Bon Appétit