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I'll be at the Barnes and Noble in Pueblo tomorrow, for anyone who might want to come down and visit. I'll have plenty of titles--for you or for Christmas presents, or just come down and chat.
Barnes and Noble
Pueblo
Friday, Nov 30
12-2 pm
Two days ago, I left the house for an errand, and trotting down the street was this fox. He was chasing birds, trying to flush them out of a tree, and I was glad to know my cats were inside.
He was very beautiful and not at all afraid of me. We just looked at each other and I had plenty of time to admire the stripes beside his eyes and the fluffiness of his tail before he took off.
Not sure where he came from. There is an extensive network of parks through the houses, and we are not far from open land, but it was still a surprise. I'm used to seeing deer and even some coyotes, but never a fox before this one.
Do you see wildlife in your neighborhood?
Technically, I should post a food blog today. But I suspect we're all fooded-out after the feasts yesterday and we can wait until next week.
My Thanksgiving weekend gift to you is this: all of you, writers or not, go find an hour of your own this weekend to do something to make you feel refreshed and renewed and filled with beauty. Maybe that's going to a fabric shop to finger the silks and paisleys. Maybe you'll watch a movie nobody else wants to see. Maybe you'll have a facial or a pedicure or go for a long walk with crunchy leaves or buy some new music and listen to it.
Here are a couple of things that make me happy: going to Whole Foods to look around at things I might cook extravagantly. Last week, I was looking for the ingredients for a cereal I want to try, made with barley and almond milk and dried cherries. I found loose barley and pearl barley and bags of barley, but no quick-cooking, which is what this recipe requires. So I found a clerk, a young man with dark eyes and great hair who lit up at my request. Together we went to one aisle and then another, and then when we couldn't find it, we stood before the rices and he told me about eating eating barley bread in in his native Morrocco, and how much he likes it and how he cooks it, and how he had not had any in four years. (Hmm. Just realized there's Morrocco again.)
That counts as an artist date. Cooking counts as long as it's something that's involved and lovely and you aren't doing it out of obligation. I cooked a turkey for my youngest to take home with him yesterday (he is young and poor) and experimented with apple-blackberry crumble and--oh, host of the gods--the absolutely fantastic banoffee pudding (which said son adored. "What is this called again?"), and all the while, the girls in the basement were very busy and working hard on the pages I hope to capture today.
That counts as an artist date, too.
Do whatever you like most, for at least an hour. Nurture yourself this holiday weekend with beauty, color, music, crafts, whatever you enjoy.
And I'd love to hear what you do. Maybe I'll get some new ideas, or somebody else reading here will.
Travel to Australia with a jazzy little cookbook gathered by writers in Australia and New Zealand, Sizzle, Seduce & Simmer , a recipe collection that took on a life of its own.
Read more about it on Anne Gracie's website.
Doesn't this look like fun? It might make a different sort of Christmas gift.
I belong to a tightly knit group of long-time writers (we straggled over to the Internet when the old Genie service died, an actual victim of Y2K) who have been together so long we're sometimes like a grouchy bunch of sisters. By now we can often predict what any of us will say about anything, and we go through periods of annoyance and exuberance by turns. We talk about the craft of writing and the writing life and our families and children and health and diets and agents and everything else. I'm not sure how I would have weathered some of the crises in my life without them, and I formed invaluable professional alliances as well as formed deep, enduring friendships. I met two of my dearest friends there.
One practice we have is a place to list the things we're grateful for each day. It's a powerful tool, one that will almost certainly transform a person over time. I'm a great believer in positive thinking, affirmation, encouragement and faith, and there is a lot of science lately that supports the idea that gratitude and positive thinking contribute to health and greatly improved quality of life.
But here is the honest truth--I was very, very grouchy yesterday. I had a slight headache from the weather and had to start the day without breakfast because it was time for my physical (I really hate to start the day without my tea) and when I returned home to cook breakfast, my pepper mill broke and spilled a hundred million peppercorns into my lovely, almost finished omelette and I had to start over. I hurt my hand and knee in a hiking mishap on Sunday and my hand is very sore and swelling and I couldn't life anything and nobody was taking it seriously (thank goodness I can take it seriously enough for three people!). There's an annoying snarl with my driver's license that keeps interfering with my car insurance and no one can seem to get the thing fixed. And I'm behind on the proposal! And---
So, there's me in high drama mode. Not exactly thankful.
Then one of the writers on this magnificent loop posted a link to an article in the Washington Post about gratitude, and then I read an article about gratitude theory and the way it affects our health. I read about a practice of being grateful for 100 things everyday. My darling CR offered exaggerated sympathy over my sore knee and hand and made me laugh. And the skies clouded up and it snowed and I'm going to go see August Rush this afternoon and eat some popcorn and later make some pie (actually, an apple-blackberry crumble with extra crumble and custard from the English store, and a banoffee pudding) to take to my friend Renate's house tomorrow, and boy #2 is driving up tonight and it's going to be CHRISTMAS!! hooray.
I'm grateful for books, for mine and for everyone else's, and for writers and readers and booksellers and librarians and editors and agents and publishers and book designers and audio readers and Amazon and independent bookstores and big box chains and computers to write on and Ipods to take with me to coffee shops so I can actually write there instead of just plotting.
Grateful for all of you. XOXO
My son sent me a link to one of my books, now available on Kindle, Amazon's brand-new e-reader, which has just debuted. The reader looks viable and intriguing--I'm not going to give up books entirely, ever, but a device that holds 200 books would save so much weight and time when traveling!
What do you think? Ready for a true e-reader, or still resisting? Does this one look any better than the others? I kinda think it does.
Still not cheap, though the titles offered are quite affordable, at around $10.
People Magazine came out with its annual list of world's sexiest men this week. Topping the list is Matt Damon.
Uh. No.
Nice guy. Smart guy. Really good actor. Lots of other complimentary things--he pulls off the Bourne thing very well. But sexy he is not.
I don't argue with some of their other choices. Johnny Depp has been in my top five for decades--creative and whimsical and that mouth doesn't hurt. George Clooney isn't my type, but I get why other women think he's fabulous. Patrick Dempsey? Yes. And Brad Pitt, for all his strange little problems the past few years still has one of the best faces ever and an angst, a certain passion to change the world, that takes him right over the edge. Plus he has that geeky thing with architecture. Love a man who loves buil
dings.
The list made me think about what makes a man sexy and how individual it all is. (Thank God). Top of my list right now is Anthony Bourdain. Tall, loose-limbed man who is a chef and a writer and a traveler? Duh. He's reckless and intense and in real life he'd be a pain, but he's really in love with life, every second of it, every facet of it, every everything, and that, my friends, is hot.
Who is at the top of your Sexiest Man Alive list? Really. Who?
As promised. I wanted a macaroni and cheese recipe that was healthier and lower in fat, and this is what I came up with. Really nice.
Macaroni and cheese
Serves 4
2 cups (dry measure) whole wheat corkscrew pasta (Barilla and Rotini both have good flavor and plenty of protein and fiber)
2 T olive oil
2 T flour
1-1/4 cups skim milk
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
1 slice low fat American cheese
3 T grated full-fat, strong-flavored cheese (Cheddar will do, but play around and use what you have in the fridge)
3 T. grated low-fat Mozzarella
1/3 cup Parmesan-flavored bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 375 and spray olive oil on a square 8-inch baking dish.
Boil pasta, being careful to avoid overcooking.
Heat milk until hot but not boiling, and add the Parmesan, the American cheese, and 1 T each of the strong cheese and the mozzarella, stir to start the melting. Have this ready to add to the skillet on the next step.
Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet over medium heat (careful to keep it from getting too hot) and lightly brown the flour. (I burned it the first time, which always irks me, and had to start over.) Add the milk/cheese mixture, stirring continuously as it thickens to a good consistency. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Drain the pasta and settle it into the baking dish, and pour the sauce over it. Top with the remaining cheese and the bread crumbs and back for about 30 minutes. Let stand for a few minutes before serving.
Here's the happy part: divide into four hefty servings and get away with: 387 calories; 13 gms fat; 18 gms protein; 46 gms carbs; and a lovely 6 grams of fiber.
Compare that to a regular serving of homemade mac and cheese: 548 calories, 34 grams fat; 1 gram fiber. (The full version is a little higher in protein, but worth the trade off, no?)
I am not a natural synopsis writer. That's just not how my process works--laying out the bones and then working from there to add muscle and flesh and clothing. It always seems to me that the girls in the basement collect a basket of intriguing bits and pieces and leave it to me to sort out. What is this telescope doing in here? And what about this article on dahlias? And what are all these pine needles for?
The Ways of Publishing, however, require me to write a synopsis. I am capable, of course. One doesn't write more than 30 books of commercial fiction without figuring out how to write a synopsis. I just don't particularly like it and it made me grumpy yesterday. There are way too many pages, too many loose ends, and I'm not sure what goes where yet---
And then I remembered that my agent and editor know me. Some writers put together a fantastically beautiful and polished snapshot of the book they're going to write. I hand over a very rough sketch, with blurry faces in the corners and some swirling action and a few strong, bold lines. The book is the thing.
Back to the mines.....
Really in love with the new material, which is seducing me back to the other computer, so just a little bit of fun for you this morning.
An excellent writer blog:
Tess Gerritsen keeps an insightful and honest blog about the writing life, and a post this week was particularly honest in a way you don't often see from writers, many of whom are always worried about keeping up appearances. A snippet:
Over the past twenty years, I’ve had twenty books published. My career has been a see-saw ride, and there’ve been times when I thought my career was, if not dead, then headed for oblivion. My first nine books were paperback romantic thrillers, eight published by Harlequin, one by Harper. None of them earned out more than $12,000 in their first printings. Since I’m a slow writer, and couldn’t turn out a book any faster than every eight months, I knew I’d never get rich as a writer.
And then a little later....
By the time GRAVITY was released, it was clear that my sales were in a downward spiral. Despite publisher enthusiasm and rave reviews, GRAVITY could not find an audience among women readers. That doomed it in the marketplace. And once your sales start to slip, the pre-orders for your next book, and your next, begin to plummet. Just as depressing were my foreign sales, which had been so bad that I was having trouble finding anyone to publish me in the UK. I took off a year to re-group. I wrote my next book entirely on spec, without a contract. This time, I was writing just for myself. Read the whole piece.
I have written whole books several times for various reasons, most often because I was frustrated by the external market and needed to connect back to myself and my own body of work. It has always been a Very Good Thing. One was In the Midnight Rain, which has become one of the most beloved of my romances. Another was Heart of a Knight, a medieval romance that won the RITA. The most recent is Elena's story, working title Cooking for the Dead. (We're all batting around title ideas still.)
It's also something I highly recommend to my students. Often. Published even more than unpublished, and especially if they've hit a wall--internal burn out or publisher disinterest or a need to change direction. Have you ever done it?
Cooking and travel
I've been thinking it might be fun to go on a cooking holiday, and what popped up in my email this morning? A link to a travel-cooking site that has some lovely, lovely trips. Wouldn't it be cool to go to Morocco and cook? Of course, the coming year is already packed with travel, so it will have to go on the back burner, but I really think I'd have a blast.....
Vegetarian week
I
'm sure I've mentioned that my eldest son, his girlfriend, and virtually all of their entire circle of close friends, are vegetarians. This happened one week when Ian and his former debate partner did research for a case and read about the meat industry in the US. The both became vegetarians overnight. I kept thinking they'd go back, but it's been years now, so I think the change is complete.
And while none of them proselytize, their commitment intrigues and impresses me. I'm also working on deepening my yoga practice, and often vegetarian eating is a part of that.
So I've been keeping a vegetarian kitchen this week. Experimented yesterday with a lower fat, healthier version of that wintertime comfort food fav, macaroni and cheese. Turned out spectacularly well, enough that Christopher Robin gave it the British stamp of approval. I'll post the recipe Friday. If I can read all my notes.
I am exasperated and bored by our weather this month. 
I know a lot of you think that sunshine is the BE-ALL, END-ALL of weather (CR) being one of you But seriously, the air is dry as dandelion heads. The mountains look the same every day. I am a REAL Colorado woman--I love the snow. It's November. Bring it on! Yes, I know I complained about the blizzards by the end of last year, but that was seven straight Saturdays of four feet of snow. My car didn't move for literally months because the snow plows couldn't get to my street. That's extreme snow, and even then, I was happy with it until the very end. I wrote a book I adore, too, so weather helps me. CR loves lasagna, a dish at which I am quite skilled, and all that pasta and fat are great for his very lean runner body. My own body would just turn into a big round ball if I ate it, so I'm always on the prowl for healthier versions I can freeze for myself.
In honor of my vegetarian day this week, here is one I made when craving that depth of tomato taste we found in Naples. Because our tomatoes were only a pale imitation of theirs (I am going to grow a million tomatoes next summer), the sauce didn't quite match the Naples version, but it is quite fine, nonetheless. Adapted from a recipe in Shape magazine and one for tomato sauce I had stuck in a book. Highly flavorful, very healthy lasagna. The sauce takes a bit of time, but really worth it.
THREE GREENS LASAGNA
Tomato sauce
6 T. extra virgin olive oil
2 onions, diced
8 garlic cloves, slice thinly or crushed
1 cup fresh basil
1 cup good red wine
salt and fresh pepper
10-12 good tasting fresh tomatoes (the blander the tomato, the blander the sauce)
Blanch the tomatoes in boiling water until the skin is loose, then cool in cold water and remove the skins. Dice and set aside.
Saute onions and garlic over low heat (the idea is to infuse the oil with flavor while releasing the flavors) lightly, then add basil and saute for five minutes, stirring gently. Add the wine and reduce by half. Add the tomatoes and salt & pepper, then let simmer until tomatoes are tender and liquid is again reduced by about half. If you let it cook for about two hours, you will lose some color, but the flavor is stunning.
Lasagna
12 oz crumbled goat cheese
2-3 T. skim milk
1 T each fresh thyme, fresh basil, fresh oregano, chopped
Tomato sauce, above
6 whole wheat lasagna noodles, cooked
1 10-oz box of kale, collards, or mustard greens (I only like collards, which I find to be much less bitter than the other two, but it's your choice) or use 4 cups fresh collards, well scrubbed, if you can find them
4 cups fresh spinach
4 cups fresh arugula
1 cup roasted red peppers, drained and diced
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, cut into julienne strips
1/4 cup shaved Parmesan cheese
Preheat over to 375
Boil noodles.
Mix milk and cheese, thyme, basil, and oregano. Combine red peppers and sun-dried tomatoes. On the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish, spread a layer of tomato sauce and cover with three noodles. Layer on the greens in alternating layers (and you can scatter some more fresh basil through it if you like), then scatter a layer of peppers and tomatoes, top with a layer of tomato sauce, then cheese. Repeat, ending with cheese and sprinklings of Parmesan cheese. Bake for about 40-50 minutes, and let stand for 5 minutes before cutting into eight generous slices. Freezes and reheats beautifully.
Rough nutrition estimates (I have to figure this out for various reasons, but I'm NOT a nutritionist, so don't hold me to it): Calories 397, fat, 22 grams, fiber, 4.2, protein, 14, carbs, 19. Not bad as lasagnas go.
Happy weekend to you.
NBC is doing something interesting this week: it's Green Week, and everything is about going green. I'm loving all the little tips they're giving the audience. The local news station has done bits on a business using entirely solar panels and how to cut down your electric bill. Biggest Loser had tips throughout the show.
A good thing, and I'm learning new things. The easiest ones for me:
Going vegetarian once or twice a week
Unplugging appliances that are not in use
Replacing incandescent light bulbs with flourescent (I resisted, because I'm a lighting fanatic. I hate harsh light, but so far haven't notice a lot of difference. I'm hoping to find bulbs with yellow or rose tones--they must exist)
Recycling everything. Once there's a system in place, it's not that difficult.
What are your fast & easy tips?
I spent t
he weekend at the most mundane of tasks. Drank wine with my friends on Friday night and hiked a little while on Saturday afternoon and swept long fronds of glittery red dog hair off my sofa. Sunday was
breakfast out with CR and I took my notebook to the new Starbucks to write by hand looking at my home mountain, then shopped for groceries and put them all neatly away, taking comfort in a blue glass bowl of lemons and the crisper full of watercress and lettuces, and a basket of tiny red tomatoes. I went to a movie (Martian Child--I do so love John Cusak) and remembered that it's more interesting to write about men who are smart than perfectly good-looking.
It's good to travel. It's equally good to come home and take up the threads of ordinary life again.
I have been fretting that my process is annoyingly different every time, and as this book is brewing, I've torn out pictures from magazines, but haven't felt even the slightest desire to brainstorm with a collage. (Yet.)
Then, yesterday in the mail, I had a package from my ex, who sent me his copy of Sonny & Brownie because I couldn't find this one, and remembered he had it, so I asked if he'd copy it for me. He couldn't get copies made for some reason or another (well, I do know why--a little late to computers, this one, and the process flummoxes him).
Oh, seeing that cover.....! I rushed upstairs and put it into the computer to copy and blasted "God and Man," which is one of the best songs EVER. I played it five times in a row, swaying and singing along and letting those voices echo in my chest. Once it was safely copied, I moved a copy into the soundtrack file for the new book, which so far looks like this:
Are You Alright? Lucinda Williams
Still I Long For your Kiss, Lucinda Williams
God and Man, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee
The Wind, Cat Stevens
My Lover's Gone, Dido
Not Alone, Patty Griffin
What a Dream I Had, Simon and Garfunkel (which is not the name of the song, but I'm lazy and don't feel like looking it up)
Every Morning, Keb Mo
Let Him Fly, Patty Griffin
Moses, Patty Griffin
Home, Marc Broussard
Now, it might seem an odd list, but often it is as much about the tone of the music and the emotions it stirs up as it is about genre or artist or even tone. This is a pretty bluesy list, but there are some other things, too, and it is not yet complete, and I'm listening to tons of music, listening and listening as I do other things. Wash clothes, drive around town. New things, old things, I don't care. I know a song is right when one of the characters starts to move around.
This is morning, it occurred to me that this is just a different way to collage. I'm listening to this collage instead of looking at it. That has often happened in the past, too. Every book-child has its own requirements.
Looking at that list, is there something you think might add some nice flavor? Do you do soundtracks or collages? Just curious.
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