Usually my mom is tying up the laptop doing stuff. But she's off doing other stuff tonight, so I thought I'd take my turn and wish you all a very Happy Holiday Season.
and to share a few of my favorite things that you might enjoy also.
My mom buys some of Evie's notecards, and refrigerator magnets (LOTS of refrigerator magnets), and totes, and boxes and stuff at her Evie's Cafe Press shop. Stuff like this:
We think Evie and her Corgis, Chloe & Gwenevere, are very, very cool.
And, you know what?! We love "The Boss!" Do you??! Especially when he sings this song about Santa Claus. Mom & Dad dance around the sunroom when they play this song on the stereo. (don't tell them I told, okay?).
And what Corgi on God's green earth didn't just adore Tasha Tudor. This is one of my favorite paintings she did. I'm going to miss her. lots. I never got the chance to meet her, but I always enjoyed looking at her books while my mom would read them to me. Do you know that she wrote books about Corgieville?! She did! AND, she had a house named Corgi Cottage. How 'bout that? I wish I had gotten to meet Ms. Tudor and all her corgis. sigh.
Tasha Tudor's "Sugar Cookies"
And snow - - - I do love snow !
source: Peter Pauper
I hope you all are surrounded by joy and love this holiday season.
Judy Greber is a peace-loving woman who lives in Northern California with her husband, her ancient cat Mehitabel (does anybody recognize that name?) and the world’s cutest puppy. Judy has written four mainstream novels.
Judy mutates into Gillian Roberts when embarking upon crime. Gillian’s supposedly penned sixteen mysteries, including the award-winning Amanda Pepper series, all of which are about to be released in e-book form by Untreed Reads. (And Caught Dead in Philadelphia, the first in the series is now available in every e-format and from Untreed Reads itself.)
Gillian—(or maybe Judy?)—recently finished a “novel with murder” set in 17th century Mexico. When/if it’s published, the ego and the alter-ego will battle it out as to whose name goes on the cover.
THE SCARLET R
by Gillian Roberts
I’m not calling it a bucket list because it isn’t a list—it’s a single item, and it isn’t something I want to contemplate doing before I die—it’s something I’m about to do right now. I want to read.
Of course I already read, but right now, I want reading to be my answer when anybody asks me, “What do you do?”
I want to say, “I read. In broad daylight.”
Not that I’ve ever stopped reading. I’m never without a book, and if I were forced to choose between reading and writing, or, like some other writers, unable to read fiction while writing it, I’d stop writing fiction. But I have nonetheless accumulated hundreds of unread books. These are physical books, p-books as my sons call them. We aren’t going to talk about those electronic volumes accumulating on my Kindle. Nobody but I can see them. They don’t totter in huge piles or fill up the secret insides of a large cabinet or fill bookshelves.
I should feel guilty about my book-buying problem, but I don’t. Diamonds aren’t my best friends. I have a pathetically small collection of shoes, and when stressed, I do not seek out retail therapy.
But I do buy books. New books, second-hand books, paperbacks and hardbacks. I also borrow them from the library and from friends. (Those don’t accumulate. I do try to get them back to their owners promptly.) But if there is a way to acquire good things to read, I do it.
Then one unhappy moment, I looked at the huge inviting stacks and did the math. Assuming I can read 50 pages an hour (which is definitely not always true and depends on the book) and assuming the average length of all the books still unread here is 350 pp,(which is also not necessarily true) how long would it take me to read what I already owned?
I counted how many books I had and multiplied how many hours reading them might take.
Then I factored in my age.
This was a sad moment of truth. At the rate I’m going, if I don’t buy another book (and what are the chances of that?) I will have read down the piles when I’m 247.
Raped by reality, a good friend used to call moments like this.
Given that a writer seldom actually (willingly) retires, is never given that gold watch and told to go forth and enjoy indolence, there would never be that fabled easy-chair and long hours with books. I would be stuck with my usual reading pattern. That would be having it as that final activity of the day, enjoying a book in bed until my eyes crossed and I accidentally dropped the volume on the head of the poor old cat curled on my lap.
Either I could hope to be the new Methuselah or I could accept the idea that I’d never make a real dent in the bookpile.
And then I had a heretical idea. I’d (finally!) finished the new book, dressed it warmly, packed it some food for the road and sent it off to find its place in the world. As usual, I then thought about what I wanted to do next, which also as usual, meant what did I now want to write.
And then I actually thought outside the box, or more accurately, outside the manuscript. What did I really want to do next? The answer was clear: I wanted to read other people’s writing, not when I was at the point of exhaustion and the day’s work was done, but in the daytime.
This, to me, is a heretical, daring and guilt-inducing idea.
While buying books is not fraught with guilt (I’m helping my profession if nothing else) reading them in broad daylight is. The Reading Nazi’s rules clearly state that reading for pleasure while the sun is shining is allowed under only five conditions:
1.You are on vacation anywhere, especially on a beach or by a pool.
2.You are on a plane, train or bus, getting yourself to somewhere else.
3. You’re taking a course and the book is required reading. (That is the real reason to be a lit major.)
4. You are reading to small children. You’re being useful: they can’t read them themselves and also, often as not, it eases them into naps. (While they are napping, however, you cannot read for your own pleasure—that’s a time to get things done.)
5. You’re reading pleasurable books to the old or infirm. This is a good and virtuous thing and for somebody else’s enjoyment, so this is allowed.
Aside from those exceptions to the rules, daytime reading is for utilitarian reasons. It is okay to read a useful text before dark. Consulting a cookbook, doing homework or research, checking a word in the dictionary, solving a problem with a helpful how-to do-it magazine article, reading the news--not Hollywood gossip—all of those are permitted.
But reading for pure pleasure when you could (and should!) be Doing Something Useful—that’s forbidden. Downright sinful.
I come from a family of readers and I’m sure nobody ever told me these things or set down these rules but they are firmly imbedded in my old brain. Are they in the atmosphere, floating around? Do other people feel that way?
In any case, that’s why breaking the rules will be so exciting.
So what am I going to do next? I’m going to read. Anything, any time, anywhere. I’m thrilled by the prospect of all those good books awaiting me.
But aside from the pleasure of what I’ll find between those covers is the guilty pleasure of what’s already in my head. Habits are hard to break, so I’m sure I will be constantly on the lookout for a great gaunt man in Puritan garb, ready to make me wear the scarlet “R” for the sinful pleasure of reading for fun in the daylight.
I was born the youngest of five girls in upstate New York. I've lived in Maryland, Vermont, back in New York, in Nashville, TN and now in North Carolina. I have a love affair with words and with Christmas, and my husband and I come from a long line of elves. Not too surprisingly we seem to have founded a dynasty of wordsmiths and caregivers and counselors.
I have had varying amounts of success in writing, but I couldn't be happier than when I am devising a plot, revising a manuscript, or revisiting the chaos of the annual NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month aka November).
Friendship: More Than "BFF!"
by Robin Minnick
Kaye raised the question recently about friends, friends who come in and out of our lives, friends who hurt us and leave, and just friendships in general. It raised a few more questions for me.
First, I'm one of those pain-in-the-neck friends who is probably too present when she's around, and not enough when there is distance between us. I completely believe in the philosophy illustrated in this sign. (Luckily, so do quite a few of my friends.)
This can be attested to by the fact that a number of my classmates have found me or been found by me on Facebook. -- and we still only talk every now and then.
I've moved around a lot. As much as I've picked up friends in new places, I always wound up leaving a few behind. Even best friends. I may be a writer, but I am a truly lousy correspondent -- until email. After all, that's what phones were for, right? But I love email. Electrons are such cute little devils, and they seem so much more immediate.
I raised the question on FB -- but no one answered :( -- about how many writers had ever written about their friends in their fiction? Okay, it was a dangerous question. I don't blame people for not answering. However, at the risk that I'm putting my head on some sort of virtual chopping block here, I have. I've written about friends or used bits of them as characters for reasons both bad and good. Human nature being what it is, I daresay they will see what is not there and not recognize what is, so I think I'm relatively safe. Writing about them -- and my own past -- has provided fodder for the storymaker and ease for my soul in so many ways.
Going back to Kaye's question about friends, however, I do have a story to relate.
In the 1990's we made friends with the neighbors who lived behind us. Our only previous exposure to them had been when they built a bonfire in their back yard to get rid of a tree they'd taken down. I watched from our kitchen door, thinking what nuts they were to take such a risk. Later, the day we met officially, our oldest daughter trundled out her new twin baby sisters in a laundry basket for our neighbor to see. That zany behavior and the babies sealed our friendship.
We already attended the same church; their daughter and son were respectively each one year older than our second oldest daughter and our son; and we were fascinated with each other. Their family and ours fit together beautifully. We went through dance recitals, summer classes, card games, Little League, and children's choir together, Our daughters shared -- and got in trouble in -- the first combined grade 3-4 class our schools had. Actually, it was the two of us mothers who got in trouble, but that's another story altogether.
We talked writing projects. She was an educational director at a local historic site and an artist. Together we had ideas in abundance. In fact, we once discussed an idea for a book series that actually appeared a year or so later, but not from us.
The event that showed the culmination of our friendship had to be when we returned from a vacation to find they'd installed a gate in our back fence so that we could visit back and forth without going around the block. They placed a big red bow on it so we'd be sure and see it the moment we got back
A couple years later they moved, but only to a bigger house down our street. The friendship continued. There were other small disruptive changes; the kids changed schools away from ours, but it was to follow their own academic plans, so it was all right. Our friendship endured and grew with little more changing.
Until the dad was laid off. They had already seen us through one lay-off; now it was their turn. And the ax completely fell when the job he got was not in Tennessee but in Minnesota. With heavy hearts we saw them off, everyone being as brave as they could be, not admitting how horrible this was.
Despite good intentions, we didn't write or even phone as much as we'd planned. Partly because we were all trying to rebuild our lives without each other. It's one thing to lose a personal best friend. These were our best family friends, the only family we'd ever known who fit with all of us. They were also our youngest child's godparents.
I felt bereft. Never mind that I had an equal responsibility to maintain our friendship. She sounded so cheerful when we did communicate that I assumed all was well with their new lives. I was, we were, completely left behind.
They had a bad scare when their daughter developed meningitis, and we were in fairly close contact then. But as her daughter came out of the illness, my friend attacked her masters and teaching degrees, her husband moved along in his job, all our kids grew and attended college,
I knew I'd never have a best friend again. It was that simple. Friends yes, but my best friend was gone, along with the possibility of ever having another. I didn't even stop to think about the best friends I'd left behind at various stages of my life. We were still in touch. We all lived lives in different states. And we'd all grown comfortable with our separate lives. Somehow, this felt different. Maybe it was because this friendship was part of the roots we'd finally put down. All I knew was that it hurt.
I resisted FB for a while. I'm no better at maintaining that than I am at other social environments. And I didn't want to intrude on what I saw as my kids' territory. However, Kaye here, and Scott Simon on NPR, made comments that made me see the sense of signing up.
I learned how FB could keep me in touch with family far away, even with members I barely knew. I made some new online friends through Kaye's referrals, and even a few professional contacts. Now my workplace has a page, and I'm in touch with people there. But I didn't expect to see friends from all stages of my life suddenly appear. Anyone with a FB account knows what I'm talking about. It is a wonderful way to reconnect with people you would otherwise never hear from again.
And that's how my friend found me. It was a cautious communications at first, but then our reacquainting spilled forth.
And I learned some stuff.
By this time, our family had been through the same trauma of changing states, ripping up roots put down over 24 years. We knew what it was like to come into a family community cold and have to make a place for ourselves. We're actually still working on that. I was in a better frame of mind to understand that moving took a great deal of energy and concentration, long after the furniture is arranged and the kids settled in the new school.
Still, what I learned startled me. I'd known about the daughter's illness. That had taken a lot of their time and emotional energy to deal with. What I had not known was my friend's subsequent emotional state. She'd gone into a depression, in part due to missing me and her life in our city. As with all depressions, it took her a while to climb out. She had, and she was stronger for it, as was her family.
I read her story with both guilt and humility. While I'd been nursing my wounds in the city she'd left behind, she'd been enduring heartache. When we talked, she always regaled us with her adventures, so it had never occurred to me that she was suffering too. I, who should have known there are always multiple sides to any story, had failed to even consider the possibility. I had moaned that she was not here for me, but I was not there for her either.
Neither of us blames the other. We both know our own natures. And, I think we have recovered, at least for the most part. We are still lousy correspondents. We do, however, keep tabs on each other, and our families. We celebrate on FB, and we mourn together privately. It is, however, lesson learned.
I no longer assume I know what is going on in my friends' lives. I no longer take for granted that I've gotten the worse end of the deal in a relationship. And I look a little harder at how I can keep a friendship healthy.
Kaye could tell you. We seldom see each other, as we are at opposite ends of the state, and she no longer works at ASU where one of those twin daughters goes. I'm not nearly as good as she is about sending holiday cards or ecards. But we're in touch, and if one of us really needs the other, we're there.
So here's to success in friendship, and success in whatever you do, but most of all, here's to friendship!
***
I've sent pics before of my workspaces, in the car, in my office. Here is a picture of what is across from my workspace, in our living room. The piano in the corner hosts a variety of scenes. The Hallowe'en display recently ended. Here is our Thanksgiving tableau. Not sure what's up for Christmas.
Any excuse to use these videos - Don't you love 'em?!
Now that we've pretty well handled all the "All That Jazz," back to the cooking and baking . . . .
One of my favorite blogs is Mystery Lovers' Kitchen, and I was honored to be invited as a guest blogger a year or so ago by my friend, Julie Hyzy, who writes the White House Chef Mystery Series and The Manor House Mystery Series. I admitted there that I'm not much of a cook. The type of cooking I do enjoy consists of tossing a lot of stuff into a pot, like soups, stews, chili, spaghetti - you get the idea. A little of this, a little of that - maybe a little more of this, etc. Nothing ever tastes like it did the last time, but still tastes pretty good - or so we hope. I seem to lack the focus, or the interest, in following a recipe closely. I just feel the need to tweak; to add and/or subtract from the original. For this reason it strikes a lot of people (including myself) as odd that I love to bake as much as I do.
You don't get to do a lot of tweaking while you're baking. Oh, you may get away with a little, but take that tweaking too far and you're gonna end up with a disaster on your hands sooner or later. Mother and I can attest to that as we threw away a very messy, expensive version of a Harvey Wallbanger Cake many years ago. WHY we felt this recipe needed more Galliano, I have no idea. I have made it since (following the recipe to a "T" and it was delicious. There are a lot of recipes for it on-line, including one at allrecipes.com, if you're interested.
But there is one recipe I love that I will fix for special occasions. It's pretty labor intensive, not to mention the "fat factor," but I love it.
I vividly remember running across this recipe at my friend John's house. He was always cooking wonderfully elegant meals, entertaining with ease and panache and I always just sat back and enjoyed the fruits of his labors. If there's one single thing I miss about living in Atlanta it would be John's parties. But. Since he's now in Miami and not Atlanta, it's a double moot point. Now we have to travel to Miami (NOT that we're complaining - we adore Miami!) to be wined and dined by John, who still does it all as lovely as he ever did.
Speaking of John and his entertaining - he graciously opened his home on May 11, 1986 and gave Donald and I one of the most memorable gifts of our life.
Our wedding reception.
He had just recently bought this wonderful old home in Atlanta and had just started the long project of renovation. Having our reception put a bit of extra stress on him, and we'll be forever grateful. It was the most beautiful wedding ever.
and here he is -
Isn't he handsome? We adore him.
Anyhooooo - (I do manage to get off on a tangent now and then, don't I?)
Back in those days in Atlanta, while John cooked and threw the most perfect parties ever, I would spend loads of time looking through his Gourmet and Bon Appétit magazines and scribble down recipes. Some I would actually try. One I did try and am still using is Joan Hackett's Country Pâté. I've guarded this recipe with my life. I've made about a beezillion copies of it in case one (or 20) copies might get lost. It also now resides on my computer (in several places). Then, just to be "for sure, for sure," I bought a copy of an old cookbook which I learned had the recipe in it. THE BEST OF BON APPETIT published in 1979. 1979! See how long I've been guarding this recipe? I was so happy to finally find, just recently, that it's actually in a cookbook!
And, just in case you're interested, here's the recipe:
Joan Hackett's Country Pâté 20- 25 servings
4-6 bay leaves 6 thin slices bacon
3 tablespoons butter 1 cup chopped parsley ½ cup chopped green onion ½ cup chopped onion 3 garlic cloves, minced 2 shallots, minced
1 thin slice bacon, chopped 2 cups crushed herb stuffing mix 2 large eggs, lightly beaten Salt & freshly ground pepper ½ cup shelled pistachio nuts
Put bay leaves in single layer in 9 x 5 inch loaf pan. Line length of pan with bacon; set aside.
Half fill a large roasting pan with water and place in oven. Close oven door and preheat to 350.
Melt 3 tablespoons butter in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add ½ cup parsley, green onion, onion, garlic and shallots and saute about 2 minutes. Remove to large bowl.
Place sausage in large skillet; add 1/4 cup beer and cook over medium heat, mashing and turning with spatula, just until sausage starts to lose pink color but is only partially cooked. Stir in fennel. Remove from heat and add to parsley-onion mixture.
In same skillet melt 1 tablespoon butter. Add veal and saute until partially cooked, about 2 minutes. Add 1/4 cup beer and cook 1 minute more. Remove from heat and add to bowl.
Place chopped bacon in same skillet and saute about 2 minutes. Add stuffing and blend thoroughly. Stir in remaining 3/4 cup beer and cook 1 to 2 minutes more. Remove from heat and stir into onion-meat mixture. Add eggs, remaining ½ cup parsley and salt and pepper to taste; blend thoroughly. Mix in pistachio nuts. Carefully pack mixture into loaf pan, pressing down firmly. Wrap entire pan in heavy duty foil (or doubled regular foil) as if wrapping a package. Place carefully in roasting pan and bake 1 hour. Very carefully remove from roaster and weight pâté for 3 to 4 hours by placing another loaf pan filled with heavy objects (such as books or canned goods) on top of a cookie sheet on top of wrapped pate loaf.
Remove weight and refrigerate pâté several hours or overnight. To serve, remove foil, loosen completely with knife and unmold onto serving plate. Pat off excess fat with paper towel.
OR - if you love cookbooks as much as I do, it's available at some of the used bookstores on-line - such as abebooks.com
How 'bout you guys - do you have a favorite recipe you do for special occasions? I'm going to do the Country Pâté for our little neighborhood Christmas party. Thank you, Joan Hackett!
Pat - I don't know why I didn't think to include the torte recipe! But here it is - with my thanks to my friend Gigi Markyna for sharing it with me many years ago -
Fruit Torte (Obsttorte) from Gigi Markyna Grease torte pan carefully, flour.
Beat 3 eggs on high speed till very foamy. Add 5 Tbsps. warm water while beating. Add 1 cup sugar - beat vigorously. turn mixer to slower speed and add 1 cup of flour, and 1 tsp. baker powder add 1 tsp. vanilla flavoring (or almond, or rum) Pour into pan and bake at 350 for 15 or 20 min., till top is lighly golden. Remove to cooling rack immediately. When completely cool, arrange fruits of your choice as desired. Use Dr.Oetker clear glaze over the top (found in the baking section of your local grocery). Serve with cool whip.
Wendy Bartlett is a reader from Ohio. She has two cats and one boy, and a great job as a book buyer at a large library system. She actually got the nerve up to say hello to her favorite writer, Laurie R. King, at this year's Bouchercon, and is very much looking forward to this year's Malice Domestic.
Chicken Little’s got nothing on me
by Wendy Bartlett
Kaye had a great blog a few weeks ago about a “red crayon friend” who betrayed her trust. She wrote about tackling harder subjects on Meanderings and Muses this year and invited us to do the same. It just happened that I read her blog on a night when I was scared enough to be peeled off the ceiling, so the suggestion came at the perfect moment.
Like Kaye said about her subject, it would surprise most of my friends to know that anything scares me. I’m pretty tough, pretty independent and pretty cool under fire. But a couple of things scare me on a fairly regular basis, and try as I might, decade after decade; I just don’t outgrow ‘em.
The dumbest? Household emergencies. Yes, you read that right. Not heights, not the bad guys breaking in, not financial calamity, but those unexpected household disasters that my former sister-in-law and still very good friend, Nancy, refers to as “surprises”. “I love home owning,” she says. “but I’m tired of the surprises.” Amen and hallelujah.
As I sit here, the pipe running to (from?) the hot water tank is dripping in my laundry room, and when I saw it, it scared me silly. Like blood-run-cold-I’m-this-far-away-from-tears-scared. Those pipes burst, right? What if it does that? What if water goes all over my family room and laundry room and it costs me a zillion dollars to fix and clean it up, not that I ever have the money to pay for this stuff, and what if I have to take a zillion days off work to cope with it? I can’t do that. I have nine million things to take care of at work! What if it ruins everything?? What if it’s so bad it can’t be fixed?
When the going gets tough, my catastrophizing goes from 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds. You name it, I can imagine it happening. I can imagine it a hundred times worse than anybody you know can imagine it. And you’ll have a hell of time convincing me that those fears are groundless.
And what’s weird? This doesn’t happen in any other arena. I don’t do this when my kid is sick, or they’re laying people off at work and everyone is jumpy. I’m super-duper cool, calm and collected. In fact, I’m the one that calms everybody else down. But a crack in the plaster, and I’ve got the roof caving in on my head. You just wait. Chicken Little and I will be right in the end, you’ll see.
Not to go all zodiac-al or anything, but my friend Pat Browning would assert that as a Cancerian, I am all about my home. For us, our home is the heart of our existence, not just somewhere we hang out after work. A disaster happening to our home might not be our worst nightmare, but it’s a security destroyer, that’s for sure.
And I’m post-feminist enough to cheerfully admit that one of the best things about being married—which I used to be--was that dripping pipes were HIS department. I was in charge of sick kids, dysfunctional relatives (both his and mine), money, and cooking. He was in charge of Little League, school fundraisers, lawns, and Scary Home Repairs. I was okay with the sports. The fundraisers are harder, because I’m too shy to ask for money, and too overwhelmed to motivate my kid to do it. The lawn? Hate it! Hate mowing, hate gardening, hate leaves, but have learned to do all of it, with varying degrees of success. But the Scary Home Repairs? If I live to be a hundred in this house, a leaking anything will still scare me out of my wits. Hasn’t gotten a bit easier, all this time.
So what did I do? I did what any grown up independent smart home-owning woman would do. I emailed my dad. Now, unfortunately, my dad is in Florida, and at this hour, probably in bed. But he’s also addicted to his computer, so I’m fairly sure by the time I get home from church tomorrow, I’ll have an answer.
