Linda Cardillo

Bringing Back a Favorite Christmas Dish

2011-12-15T22:46:00.009-05:00

NPR has been running a series this week on holiday food traditions among various cultures. Yesterday morning, it was Southern Italy’s turn with the Feast of the Seven Fishes. The food described—everything was breaded and fried—was nothing like the meal I remember my grandmother and then my mother preparing, but the story nevertheless awakened some culinary longing.

My mother had a kitchen in our basement that I only recall being used for this Christmas Eve spectacular. The fish arrived early in the morning from Abel’s Fish Market, packed in wooden crates filled with chopped ice.

Shrimp, clams, calamari (squid), polpi (octopus) and lobsters were my mother’s responsibility. Baccala (dried salt cod) and eels were the specialties of my Aunt Susie.

These days, the only remnant of the seven fishes that still graces our Christmas Eve table has been shrimp, served cold with cocktail sauce, just as my mother did. But when my mouth started watering as I listened to the radio on my way to work, I realized I needed to recreate at least one other of my mother’s dishes this year to satisfy what is clearly more than a fond memory.

I decided it would be octopus. Succulent morsels of purple and white flesh, dressed lightly in olive oil, lemon juice, parsley and garlic. Most people cringe when I describe the huge pots of water simmering on my mother’s downstairs range with these many-tentacled creatures bobbing gently. It took a few phone calls to locate octopus in my very New England town, but I succeeded in cornering four of the twenty pounds the fish manager at my local supermarket had managed to secure. The octopus arrives next Friday, just in time for Christmas Eve. This is how I intend to prepare it:

4 pounds of octopus, cleaned and rinsed

1 whole garlic clove

1 bay leaf

1 cup celery, chopped in small dice

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

Juice of 4 lemons

1/4 cup chopped parsley

4 garlic cloves, chopped fine

Salt and pepper

Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to the boil. Holding the octopus with tongs, plunge it into the boiling water for 10 seconds. Repeat two more times, then return octopus to the pot and boil about an hour together with a clove of garlic and bay leaf. When done, you should be able to pierce it easily with a fork.

Allow the octopus to cool and then cut it into small chunks.

Blend the olive oil, lemon juice, parsley and chopped garlic.

Toss the octopus with the celery and the olive oil, lemon juice, parsley and garlic mixture.

Drizzle with additional olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.

Celebrating--Italian Style

2010-08-23T20:57:00.009-04:00

I received an impromtu invitation last night to join the family party a friend of mine was hosting as a farewell to her cousins from Italy. They come from the same area of Italy as my paternal grandmother (Avellino), the setting for part of my novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons.

It was pouring rain and approaching darkness when I decided to take her up on the invitation. I threw on a raincoat, grabbed an umbrella and headed across town. It wasn't hard to find her mother's house--dance music was throbbing, the backyard was lit up and a tarp extended from the garage to protect guests from the rain. I was instantly embraced, kissed, dragged to meet all the relatives and handed a glass of homemade wine and a plate piled with gnocchi, meatballs and green beans sauteed in olive oil with wild mushrooms.

Three generations filled the backyard; my friend's brother, a musician, acted as DJ; everyone was dancing or singing. I looked around and felt as if I had been transported to my grandmother's house. Overhead was a grape arbor. Half of the backyard was a vegetable garden. In the basement, a second kitchen--not unlike the ones my grandmother, my mother and my aunt each had--served as the center for preparing meals for a crowd. As the evening wound down, someone pulled out an acoustic guitar. A father played while his daughters sang.

Everything about the evening was an affirmation and a reminder of my heritage. It echoed a scene from my book, Across the Table--a graduation party for Rose and Al's oldest son. When I went back tonight to read the passage, I was struck by the similarities:

"What a party! We received permission from the city to use the vacant lot behind the building. We strung Christmas lights and hired a band to play live music. Al's cousin welded some oil drums together and made us big grills to cook the sausage and peppers. We had all of Al Jr.'s favorite foods--lasagne, eggplant parm, sfogliatelle, even big tubs of lemon ice from Mike's Pastry Shop...The kids danced. My aunts sat on their plastic beach chairs, fanning themselves and pinching Al Jr.'s cheeks as if he were still a little boy. Papa and my uncles sat at a back table playing pinochle."

Craft/Making the Abstract Concrete

2010-07-12T20:27:00.004-04:00

This is another wonderful exercise adapted from What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter.

Take one of the abstract concepts below and, using sensory details, give it life.

freedom

madness

faith

wisdom

longevity

jealousy

joy

Surfacing

2010-07-09T09:29:00.006-04:00

Yikes! I've been away a long time--enmeshed in the exhilarating and sometimes exhausting process of launching my new book, Across the Table. I've been traveling, meeting with readers and answering mail. As I've told the wonderful people who take the time to send me a note, I cherish every word. Knowing that my book has touched someone is one of the special rewards of being a writer.

I want to say a special "thank you" to my first Amazon reviewers. Here are a few excerpts:

"This is a story about families. Their love, struggles and their bond. The descriptive writing makes you feel like you are part of their world. You feel Rose's love for her family and Toni's pain to become her own woman. When you read Linda's stories you feel like you are inside the story. You become a part of her characters world. It is a must read and you won't want it to end."

"Linda's fluid writing style mixed with a touching personable doorway into cherished family stories captivates her audience and warms the heart in ways unexplainable."

I'm now off to a family wedding in New York. Lots to write about when I return!

Encounters/Book Expo America

2010-05-26T08:06:00.004-04:00

More than twenty years ago, as a newly arrived expatriate living in Germany, I took advantage of my proximity to Frankfurt and spent a glorious day at the legendary Frankfurt Book Fair. I wandered from floor to floor, awed and excited about the range of human creativity contained between the covers of the thousands of books on display. By that time I was a published author in nonfiction, but still nurturing the dream of one day writing fiction. I left the Book Fair inspired (and exhausted!) and began writing my first novel the next day.

Fast forward to another book fair--the ongoing Book Expo America currently underway in New York at the Jacob Javits Center. I'm incredibly excited as I type this, because I'm about to leave for the city to attend the event as a signing author. Tomorrow, at the Harlequin booth at 11:00 in the morning and at the Romance Writers of America booth at 2:30 in the afternoon, I'll be autographing copies of my new release, Across the Table! If you are in New York and love books, please stop by for a chat, a book and some delicious biscotti.

Food/Pasta e Fagioli

2010-04-30T22:08:00.006-04:00

I came home late this evening after a brain-numbing day reviewing my organization's Form 990--the tax return for nonprofit organizations. Traffic on the Mass Pike was at a standstill for awhile, an ominous reminder that my Friday evening commute lengthens as the weather turns warm. While waiting for things to start moving, my stomach started growling and I began to long for the comfort of a bowl of pasta. When I arrived at last in the kitchen, it was easy to pull together a staple of my mother's repertoire--pasta e fagioli--or, as it is commonly pronounced, "pasta fazool." A can of chick peas, a jar of chopped tomatoes, an onion, some garlic, basil and parsley, and a pound of pasta. We lingered over supper, as I hope you will too. Here's a simple version:

Pasta e Fagioli

1 pound shaped pasta, such as shells, elbows or ditalini

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, coarsely chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

1 tablespoon dried basil or 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil

1 28-ounce can chopped tomatoes

1 15.5-ounce can chick peas

Cook pasta according to directions.

In a deep saucepan, saute onions in olive oil until soft.

Add garlic and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes.

Add parsley and basil and stir to blend.

Add tomatoes and chick peas.

Simmer for ten minutes on medium heat, stirring frequently.

Serve with pasta.

Craft/Writing Prompt--More First Lines

2010-04-26T21:56:00.008-04:00

I've been busy building my new website (soon to be launched--stay tuned), so today's writing prompt has been pulled from the pages of The New York Times. Some writers cull their ideas from the headlines; these prompts are the first lines of news articles. Have fun.

By age 12, she knew how to bake bread from scratch, braid a horse's mane, pin a kilt and set a dinner table correctly.

He clambered up and then down a narrow, rocky footpath that snaked around some hills, paying no heed to coffins that, in keeping with a local funeral tradition, hung from the surrounding sheer cliffs.

The monks, stifling their rage, mumbled a Tibetan prayer for the dead.

Encounters/Widowhood

2010-04-22T20:20:00.004-04:00

In the last two weeks, I've encountered three widows--one a dear friend, another the writer Elinor Lipman, and the third a woman I know only by name who works in my building. They are all young by the standards one usually expects among the widowed. I cannot fathom the loss and the sense of unreality that shrouds their experience. My husband is standing at the kitchen sink right now, washing the dishes as he has done throughout our marriage. I drank from his glass as we sat at the table tonight, batting back and forth a decision our youngest child needs to make about traveling home from college after exams. Later on this evening, I know with assurance that I will be wrapped in his arms as soon as I climb into bed.

As a wife, I don't want to consider widowhood. But as a writer, I find myself in awe of the women who, confronted by such loss, try to find their way in this new and unwelcome role. My close friend, widowed only six months ago, is astounding in her reaching out to others not for her own solace, but to offer with grace and wit the friendship and mentoring that has been her trademark. She continues to give as she always has. A group of her friends--about 30 of us--celebrated her birthday in January, and everyone of us had a story of the influence and impact she had had on our lives.

Have you experienced a loss as profound as widowhood?

Inspiration/Marathon Running

2010-04-21T22:12:00.005-04:00

My daughter ran the Boston Marathon on Monday, the culmination of months of training and incredible focus, not to mention the realization of a goal that probably had its origins when she was eleven years old and joined her middle school's cross-country team.

I'm in awe of her accomplishment, her dedication and perseverance. Her achievement makes one acutely aware of the possibilities open to us if we commit to the work and the practice. Running a marathon truly is putting one foot in front of the other--a phrase I often repeat to myself when I feel overwhelmed.

In writing, it's putting one word after another.

Craft/Writing Prompt--Using a Photo as a Trigger

2010-04-20T22:40:00.007-04:00

Forgive me for being a little out-of-sync today. It feels like a Monday because I live in Massachusetts and we celebrated Patriots' Day yesterday, the commemoration of the Battles of Lexington and Concord and Paul Revere's ride. It's also the day the Boston Marathon is run, about which I'll blog later in the week.

Given that I've mistaken today for a Monday, here's a note on craft:

I keep a folder in which I store images that intrigue me, that lead me to ask "What's the story here?"

I tear them out of newspapers and magazines, scan them from family photo albums. Sometimes they sit in the folder for awhile, but if the image is compelling enough I find myself continuing to go back to it until I've figured out what it's trying to tell me.

It was just such an image that was the seed for my novella, "A Daughter's Journey." The photo, a portrait of a young woman reporter during the Vietnam War, became the inspiration for Mel Ames.

Start your own collection. And in the meantime, take a stab at creating a story from the photo above.

Food/Frittata of Onions, Potatoes and Eggs

2010-04-16T18:23:00.011-04:00

One of the first challenges Rose Dante, my heroine in Across the Table, faces in the early days of her marriage is cooking. Not learning how—which Rose had absorbed growing up in her mother’s kitchen—but coping with the unfamiliarity of the barely edible on a naval base in the middle of the Caribbean.

The base had a commissary where we could get tins of evaporated milk, peas, potted beef and Spam. But I longed for fresh, so soon after I arrived I walked down to the little village that was halfway up the hill between the base and the harbor. I’d seen chickens pecking around a yard the first day, and vegetables I didn’t recognize growing in a field. I knocked on some doors, talked to the old Mama who had the chickens, and walked away that first day with a basket of greens, some eggs, and a packet of spices—cardamom, cilantro, some dried chili peppers.

They eat spicy in Trinidad. I knew Al was used to Calabrian cooking and that was spicy, so I gave a try with the local things. If I had to open another can of Spam and make it into something recognizable, I thought I would shoot myself. Or we’d both starve.

But fresh eggs I knew what to do with. I had some potatoes and onions and made a nice pan of frittata, with the greens on the side. Al came into the house and smelled the familiar aromas. He ate that night with gratitude and pleasure.

Frittata of Onions, Potatoes and Eggs

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 medium potatoes, cooked and sliced

4 eggs, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Sauté onion in a heavy, ovenproof skillet until translucent.

Add potatoes and brown lightly on both sides.

Blend eggs and parsley and add to skillet.

Cook over low heat until eggs are almost set.

Sprinkle shredded mozzarella on top of eggs.

Place under broiler for a few minutes until eggs are set and cheese has melted and golden in color.

Cut into wedges to serve.

Inspiration/Mother Campion

2010-04-14T22:53:00.006-04:00

I was musing the other night with my friend Ann, whom I've known since we were 14-year-old freshmen in high school, about the influence of our teachers at the School of the Holy Child. She prompted my memory of Mother Campion, who taught us not only Latin, but rigorous thinking. She took her name from Edmund Campion, a brilliant 16th century Jesuit scholar and martyr who had not yet been named a saint when she professed. In reading a brief biography of him, I understood why she would have chosen him. It was said that Campion had "bearing, beauty, and wit," and that "his preaching, his whole saintly and soldierly personality, made a general and profound impression."

Mother Campion was an imposing and substantial figure, demanding of us intellectual discipline and challenging us to question and analyze, not simply accept what we were told as passive sponges. At the same time, I remember her warmth and sense of humor. She believed intensely in our potential to be great women and pushed us to meet that potential. We were blessed to have her as a teacher.

Discoveries/A Stack of Books

2010-04-13T22:19:00.003-04:00

One of the perks of teaching a workshop at a writers' conference is that I come home with a totebag full of unexpected treasures. At every meal one finds a book on one's chair, courtesy of the speaker of the hour; giveaways abound as raffle prizes--bags and baskets filled with chocolates, writing implements and lots of books; and the book signing that closes the conference provides lots of opportunities to scoop up a stack of books by one's favorite authors.

I came away from the New England Chapter-Romance Writers of America Conference with an eclectic collection. Some were by authors I know and love--Brenda Novak's The Perfect Couple, a chilling and emotionally gripping story that kept me up at night turning pages; Judith Arnold's Looking for Laura, whose unconventional heroine made me ache with recognition and cheer for her determination and grit. Other books were complete strangers to me, but having roared with laughter at 7:30 in the morning listening to MaryJanice Davidson, I couldn't resist reading her Undead and Unemployed, a most unlikely book for me but which entertained in surprising ways. I'm now in the midst of Night Swimming by Laura Moore, who happened to sit next to me at the book signing. It's a complex story, rich with political and ecological conflict as a backdrop to the relationship between two childhood friends reunited after many years.

I'm always struck by the range of stories that fall under the definition of "romance." It's an extraordinary collection with such different perspectives--and every one of them a good read.

Craft/Writing Prompt-Emotional Honesty

2010-04-12T22:15:00.005-04:00

A couple of months ago I enjoyed a spirited discussion over lunch with a group of writing colleagues. One of them spoke about struggling with a story until she had an epiphany about emotional honesty. She realized she'd muffled how she truly felt about an experience from her past that she was trying to translate for her character. It was only after she pealed back the layers of her own history that she was able to create an effective and authentic moment for her heroine.

Think about a moment in your own life that was particularly harrowing, enraging or thrilling. What about it made your emotions so raw? Mine those feelings. Describe what precipitated them in specific detail and how you responded.

Food/Easter Pie

2010-04-02T20:59:00.005-04:00

At my Uncle Pal's 90th birthday party last week, conversation drifted to the recipes of our Aunt Susie, the most extraordinary baker in the family. Each of us has a few fragments of her repertoire, and a story I had heard many years ago was repeated that afternoon. Susie "left out" ingredients when she passed on a recipe, the family insists, because nobody has been able to replicate her amazing culinary feats. In addition to the missing item, Susie's recipes often don't contain measurements, just a list of ingredients. She was a magician, unwilling to reveal her secrets.

Somehow, many years ago, I managed to extract from her the recipe for what we called the "sweet pie" at Easter, complete with amounts. It seems to work, so if something is missing, I haven't detected it. I'll be baking it tomorrow for our Easter dinner. The recipe that follows is reduced by half from Susie's original.

Crust

(Susie made a pastry crust, but I tried this cookie crumb crust one year and have continued to use it.)

1 ½ cup fine crumbs from either macaroon cookies or anisette toast cookies

6 Tablespoons butter

Filling

1 lb. ricotta cheese

½ cup sugar

4 eggs

½ cup heavy cream

Zest of one lemon, grated

Zest of one orange, grated

½ cup orange juice

1 tsp. vanilla

Melt the butter and blend with the cookie crumbs. Spread mixture over sides and bottom of a 9- or 10-inch pie plate. Bake for 15 minutes at 300 degrees. Cool.

Beat the eggs.

Combine all filling ingredients and stir until smooth.

Pour filling into pie shell.

Bake for 1 ½ hours at 350 degrees until filling is firm.

Squeeze lemon juice over top of the pie after baking and sprinkle with sugar.

Encounters/Pal's 90th Birthday

2010-04-01T23:06:00.004-04:00

My father's youngest brother turned 90 on Palm Sunday and we gathered to celebrate. Uncle Pal was born on Palm Sunday and hence named "Palmino." The party was the first time I'd seen many of my relatives since the funeral of another of my father's siblings, and it was truly wonderful to be together at an occasion that wasn't associated with someone's passing.

As expected, the food and wine were abundant, the conversation lively and full of reminiscences, and many of the moments were touching as faces and names from my childhood crossed the room to reconnect. Pal and his wife, Rita, were surrogate parents to my sister, brother and me. Every winter, my parents took a vacation in Florida and Pal, Rita and their two daughters moved into our house to care for us while my parents were away. It was a vacation for us as well--filled with laughter, Rita's delicious cooking and the tumult of five kids around the kitchen table.

My father's youngest sister, my Aunt JoAnn, was also at the party, looking beautiful and brilliant as she recounted to my husband tales from my childhood.

Such encounters fill me up and nourish me as much as the pasta with broccoli and chicken francese on the buffet table.

Inspiration/Counting the Sunsets

2010-03-31T21:54:00.005-04:00

The photo at left is not to be mistaken for a sappy attempt at recapturing the cover of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. It is also not a stock photo. It is, instead, the view from our cottage on Chappaquiddick, and one of, by now, hundreds of photos of the sunset taken by my dear husband.

It is something of a mission for him every summer, capturing the nuance and texture of the sky as night approaches. Collected in one place, the photos are an extraordinary testament to the ever-changing nature of sky and sea. Not only from night to night, but from minute to minute, the scene on the horizon is dynamic. Look away and something is different--the color shifts from vibrant to muted, a cloud obscures, the wind ripples the reflection. There is nothing quiescent or dormant about the sunset.

What is continually changing in your world?

Discoveries/The Checklist Manifesto

2010-03-23T21:53:00.005-04:00

A colleague recommended this book to me last week and I found its premise intriguing: the discipline of a checklist can have a profoundly liberating effect on one's work. It is less about ticking off accomplishments on a to-do list and more about the systematic steps--the seemingly unimportant details--that together add up to a job well done.

So often we think we can skip a step, skim over a minor point. But in life, as in writing, those details matter! I'm presenting a new (for me) workshop this Saturday at the conference of the New England Chapter of the Romance Writers of America. It's about the process of developing engaging characters through the "telling detail"--particulars that inform and shape the approach they take to the world, the choices they make and the consequences they must deal with.

I attended a meeting today with OR nurses and medical researchers. Before any of them spoke I was acutely aware of how they presented themselves--the choices they had made in interpreting the "business casual" suggestion for dress or in selecting items from the breakfast buffet, the style of their cell phones or purses, the length of their hair. Such observations become a rich library from which to pull the details that are the building blocks of a character.

What choices did you observe today?

Craft/Writing Prompt-Extreme States of Mind

2010-03-22T21:17:00.006-04:00

This is a challenging exercise from What If? by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter, a text I turned to time and again when teaching creative writing.

Write three short paragraphs, the first "fear," the second "anger," and the last "pleasure" without using these words.

The objective is to create emotional states with precision and freshness.

Craft/Writing Prompt--Layering

2010-03-08T22:21:00.004-05:00

Choose a scene you've already drafted and go back to it with the intention of adding a layer of sensory images. Focus on only one sense; for example:

the ripple of the wind through a stand of cottonwood trees or

the bellowing of a frightened animal in the middle of the night;

the blue of a lapis necklace against a milk-white throat;

a coarsely woven blanket crumpled stiffly in a corner.

Encounters/Ida

2010-03-04T21:29:00.002-05:00

One of the pleasures of my life as a writer is speaking to groups about my books. A few years ago I was the featured speaker at a "Festa Italiana" held by the women's club of a small village just north of New York City. Most of the women were of my mother's generation and, like her, were the daughters of Italian immigrants. During the course of the afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with many of them individually and listen to the memories that my book, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, elicited.

Of all the women I met that day, one in particular has retained a special place in my own memory. Her name was Ida. She was 80 years old, dressed in chinos, a pale blue shirt and a colorful vest, with short white hair in a stylish pixie cut and eyes that danced. She was full of energy and curiosity, always moving and engaging others in conversation. She was both a delight and a role model.

More and more, I find myself drawn to women who have lived long and full lives. They are passionate and generous and funny--traits that seem to me to be a fine way to live.

Inspiration/Reading Aloud

2010-03-03T21:04:00.009-05:00

For many years I served as a lector in my parish. The role of a lector is to read aloud during the first part of the Mass--a passage from the Old Testament, a Psalm and an Epistle. The canonical years rotate the gospel among the four Evangelists--Matthew, Mark, Luke and John--and the remaining selections are tied to the theme expressed in the gospel of the day. (And yes, it is no coincidence that my two sons are named for Evangelists.)

I don't remember how I came to be standing at the pulpit one Sunday morning. More than likely, I got tapped to fill in when someone didn't show up. But I found the opportunity compelling. Reading aloud from sacred texts was a kind of calling for me, and a role I embraced. Some of my favorite passages are from the Book of Revelation:

Blessed is the one who reads aloud.

...the Spirit possessed me, and I heard a voice behind me, shouting like a trumpet, "Write down all that you see in a book...."

Discoveries/The History of Chappaquiddick

2010-03-02T20:20:00.007-05:00

I am in the midst of creating a new story set in a very old place. Cape Poge is a strip of barrier beach on the sometimes an island/sometimes not of Chappaquiddick. As some of you know, I spend part of my summer in this isolated corner off the New England coast and I have finally decided to write about it.

Last summer I found a book in the house where we stay--a beautiful, thick, cream-colored volume filled with photographs and memories and geology. It is a priceless history, compiled with both passion and precision by the Chappaquiddick Island Association, and a window into the lives of families who have lived there for hundreds of years. Finding the book reminded me of a visit I made many years ago to the library in the city where I had grown up and where my immigrant grandparents had settled. The library had a local history collection, a locked room filled with the minutiae of daily life in the city's past. I had to make an appointment to use the room--an excursion that I fit into one of my trips back to the states. I was researching the time period in which my first novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, was set. I'm not sure what I expected to find--dry tomes and dusty maps, perhaps. But what that room--wooden-panelled, windowless--revealed to me that day was a treasure.

There were file drawers filled with original documents organized by family--mine included. There was microfiche of a century of the city's newspaper, The Daily Argus. There were photographs of the neighborhoods in which my characters lived. I mined that material to create a sense of place and time that was essential to my story.

Discovering the Chappaquiddick history in the cottage was a similar treasure. Descriptions of meals created from what grew in the garden or came from the sea; childhood games; even the evolution of the ferry service that connects Chappy to Edgartown--all will find their way into my story to give it texture and particularity.

What are your sources for the details that shape your characters' lives?

Craft/Writing Prompt--First Lines

2010-03-01T21:50:00.006-05:00

Here are a few "first lines" to use as prompts for some timed writing:

Cristina was scribbling notes in the back of a linguistics class when, in an instant, everything went black.

He said he had never been happy until he met the Egyptian chess player.

Food/Pot Roast

2010-02-26T20:57:00.014-05:00

When Toni Dante, one of the main characters in my upcoming novel, Across the Table, starts dating blonde, 6'2" Bobby Templeton from Belle Arbor, Indiana, his mother, Hazel, gives her a cookbook for Christmas, thoughtfully bookmarked with Bobby's favorite recipes. As Toni describes:

I grew up watching my mother cook with no recipes at all except what was in her head. She would taste and adjust, with a handful of chopped parsley or a fragment of cheese hand-grated and tossed into the pot. I used to think that she had been born with the knowledge of how to cook, something she had absorbed in the womb.

Following a cookbook was a new experience for me, but I threw myself into learning how to produce the dishes Bobby had grown up with. Once a week I took the T to his apartment in Kendall Square near MIT, carrying a shopping bag filled with ingredients I’d never seen in my mother’s pantry.

One of the first dishes she learns how to create is pot roast. Here is my favorite version. The secret to its rich flavor is the combination of garlic, thyme and red wine:

Pot Roast

1 large onion

2 large carrots

3 large cloves garlic

3-4 lbs. beef chuck roast

3 tablespoons flour

½ cup olive or canola oil

2 cups beef broth

1 cup red wine

1 tablespoon thyme

1 large bay leaf

1. Peel and chop onion, carrots and garlic into small dice.

2. Pat the beef dry. Place flour in a plastic bag and season with salt and pepper. Add beef and toss until coated with a layer of flour.

3. Heat oil in a Dutch oven and brown the beef on all sides. Remove from pan.

4. Add chopped onion, carrots and garlic to pan and sauté until onion is golden, scraping up bits of meat from bottom of pan.

5. Add beef to vegetables.

6. Add beef broth, wine, thyme and bay leaf.

7. Bring liquid to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer.

8. Cover and cook on low heat for about two hours.

9. Serve with noodles.

Encounters/Women with Curly Hair

2010-02-25T23:23:00.004-05:00

The rain in my corner of New England has not stopped for days. Roads are flooding, the ground is soggy and everything is shrouded in a monochromatic nothingness. It is the sort of weather that drives women with naturally curly hair to desperate measures and binds us in a sisterhood that transcends rank.

This evening, my organization held a symposium and dinner at which the chair of our board was to give the welcoming message. I'd written her speech weeks ago and when she arrived for the event I met her at the podium to review the details. Before we jumped into the speech however, she had something far more important to discuss with me.

"How's your hair holding up in this weather?" she asked. "Let me tell you about this new treatment I tried last week..."

This wasn't the first time we've shared war stories about our love/hate relationship with our curls, and she isn't the only woman with whom I've formed an instantaneous connection simply because of what's growing on our heads. Like Frieda in the Peanuts comic strip, we feel a certain "otherness," and it's such a relief to find someone who understands on the most intimate level what we go through with our hair.

Inspiration/Theresia

2010-02-24T21:31:00.011-05:00

At dinner this evening (farfalle pasta with white beans, spinach and chopped tomatoes for my vegetarian daughter and with meatballs in a tomato sauce simmered with sausage and bracciola for my carnivore husband) our conversation drifted to strong, independent women.

My grandmother Theresia was one of them. An immigrant from southern Italy, she raised ten children, the last of whom was a boy with Down's Syndrome. To protect him from the taunts of their city neighborhood, she and my grandfather moved with him to the country. On a plot of land with towering weeping willow trees, a rippling brook and room for both a vegetable and a flower garden, my mason grandfather built a house of stone that became "home" to three generations of my family. After both my uncle and my grandfather died, Theresia remained in the country, living there alone for over thirty years until she passed away at the age of ninety-six.

She never wanted to move in with any of her adult children. She would visit with each of them a few days around the Christmas holidays, but steadfastly and robustly continued managing her household. She was funny, insightful and riveting in her ability to ferret out the truth.

We loved her intensely, and she loved us back, giving each one of her many grandchildren the gifts of her laughter and her belief that we were wonderful. "You're a good girl," "You're a good boy," are phrases that we all heard from her and that to this day, we recall with fondness when we gather together as a clan.

Theresia was the inspiration for Rose's mother in my upcoming novel, Across the Table.

Discoveries/Eco-Psychology

2010-02-23T22:23:00.004-05:00

I recently stumbled upon an article in the Sunday New York Times about the field of eco-psychology--the relationship between human well-being and the natural world. Because I'm currently developing a new story that is deeply concerned with my characters' connections to a particular landscape, I found the article both fascinating and reaffirming. Fascinating because the idea that we derive our emotional and spiritual health from the physical world intrigues and excites me. Reaffirming because along the journey of writing my books I have often discovered seemingly unrelated fragments of knowledge that tie back to my original themes in unexpected and very satisfying ways.

What unexpected fragment of knowledge made its way into your life recently?

Craft: Writing Prompt

2010-02-22T21:40:00.006-05:00

The Thousand-Word Sentence

Many years ago, when I was first beginning to think of myself as a serious writer, I had the privilege of attending a workshop with the novelist Jill McCorkle. Our first assignment was one which Jill described as "cleaning out the cobwebs in the attic." She sent us away from class with the task of writing a thousand-word sentence.

I was in Boston for a week after living abroad for many years and had foolishly scheduled dinners almost every night with old friends whom I hadn't seen since moving away from the city, thinking that I'd work all day at writing and spend my evenings enjoying the pleasures of friendship . The night of the thousand-word assignment I returned to my hotel room after a long and wonderful dinner and stared at the blank yellow legal pad I'd left on the desk. I wanted nothing more than to crawl between the covers.

But I sat down, picked up my pen and did what writers do. I wrote.

When I finished, I was exhausted and empty. But I had produced something of emotional honesty, freed of the restrictions of punctuation and editing.

Try it. Write a thousand-word sentence.

Craft/Writing Prompt--What's in the Trash

2010-02-15T22:39:00.011-05:00

When I lived in Germany, our region instituted some stringent recycling rules in order to cut down on the amount of trash that was being collected and deposited in landfills. Food wrappers fell into the category of items to be washed and recycled, and suddenly, people began bringing their Tupperware to the deli counter in the supermarket to hold their weekly order of sliced ham instead of having the butcher wrap it in waxed paper. One day, as I rolled my garbage bin to the curb, I met my neighbor doing the same and we struck up a conversation about the time-consuming task of sorting through our debris. It turned out that she was washing the paper that her butter had been packaged in, in order to recycle it. It was one of those telling details that says so much about a personality, and I tucked it away.

You can learn a lot about a character by what she throws away. Describe the contents of someone's trash as a way of revealing something significant about him or her.

Food/Chicken "Salmi"

2010-01-29T21:34:00.006-05:00

When my heroine in Across the Table needs to orchestrate an important conversation, she stages it with food. Rose Dante takes her husband to an isolated beach north of Boston to recreate with sun and a spicy meal the early days of their marriage on the island of Trinidad.

I spread the blanket on the sand near the shoreline. It wasn’t the azure blue of the Caribbean, but the sun caught the water at just the right angle and broke up into thousands of pinpoints of light. It was like my brother Jimmy’s girlfriend Marie, the Sicilian, had snagged one of her gaudy dresses and all the sequins had spilled across the ocean.

Al pulled me down next to him, and I swear, I would have done anything with him at that moment. But he whispered to me.

“I just want to hold you, Rose. Rest your head on my chest so that I can breathe in your perfume.”

We lay like that for a while, quiet, just listening to one another breathe, me feeling the weight of his arm draped over me and knowing with certainty that’s where I wanted to be.

When both our stomachs started growling, I stirred.

“How about some lunch?” I murmured.

“As long as you promise to lie down again with me after we eat.”

I set out the dishes I’d prepared the night before: chicken salmi that had absorbed the flavors of wine vinegar and garlic and oregano overnight and that we ate with our fingers, the olive oil slick on our chins; string beans and potatoes with some chopped up tomatoes from Uncle Annio’s garden; and the fried bananas now soaked through with rum and brown sugar. I even had managed to put a couple of bottles of beer in the basket.

What my mother called "chicken salmi" when we were growing up is a pungent dish, simmered for hours so that the chicken falls off the bone. She didn't leave the recipe, and I couldn't find one in my search through my cookbooks. But here is a close approximation.

1 chicken, cut up into pieces

Olive oil

½ cup red wine vinegar

1/4 cup water

1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves

1 teaspoon dried basil leaves

3 garlic cloves, chopped fine

Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a heavy, ovenproof casserole and brown the chicken pieces.

Add the remaining ingredients, cover the casserole and bake at 350 degrees for one hour, basting the chicken every 15 minutes.

As Rose explains, this tastes even better the second day, when the flavors have had a chance to meld.

Encounters/The Honey Dew Ladies

2010-01-28T22:22:00.004-05:00

I have a sixty-mile commute to work, which I share with a colleague. We've been carpooling together for almost five years and have developed certain rituals to ease the ride. One of those rituals is stopping at the Honey Dew Donut Shop for our morning tea (mine) and coffee (hers). The early morning shift at Honey Dew is staffed by two warm and gracious women who welcome us with smiles and friendly banter. They look out for us, know exactly how we like our drinks and send us off on the road with good wishes.

We probably spend no more than a few minutes with them, but starting our day this way is a simple pleasure.

What or who gets your day off to a joyful beginning?

Inspiration/The Gesture

2010-01-27T23:36:00.006-05:00

I've just returned from a dinner honoring donors who support research seeking a cure for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as "Lou Gehrig's Disease," a progressive neurodegenerative disease. They were a close-knit and dedicated group, almost all of whom had family members who had been touched by the disease.

In attendance was one member who has ALS. He is still able to sit in a wheelchair, but he requires a respirator. One by one, the other guests stopped by his table to greet him and talk with him at length. With him was his wife.

At one point during the evening, I watched her get up from her seat and reach into a pocket on the back of the wheelchair. She retrieved a soft white cloth and gently wiped her husband's face. His own hands were motionless on the armrests of the chair, unable to make even the slightest movement.

Her small gesture--thoughtful, loving--was an inspiration.

Have you ever witnessed an inspiring act?

Discoveries/Chris Guillebeau

2010-01-26T21:31:00.005-05:00

I started reading Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project blog about a year ago on Slate and it became my daily lunchtime fix. One of the things she does that resonates with me is how she organizes ideas. I've learned a lot from her, including something as simple as illustrating my blog posts with a colorful image. Through Gretchen I discovered Chris Guillebeau. On the surface, Chris is a writer and a traveler. But a few weeks into reading his newsletter and sporadic epistles that pop into my mail box, I've realized what a gift he brings to his readers. As he puts it, he gives people the courage to do something remarkable with their lives.

Yesterday, his message truly struck home with me. Essentially, it was this:

You have to do. Not just think.

Our intentions have no impact. Our actions can effect change--for ourselves, for someone we love, for the world.

What will you do today?

Craft--Writing Prompt/The Crabapple Tree

2010-01-25T22:26:00.006-05:00

I had dinner on Friday night with one of the Margies in my profile, a childhood friend with whom I had spent many a lazy summer afternoon playing games of jacks, rescuing injured birds and climbing the gnarled limbs of the crabapple tree that straddled the boundary of our backyards. We kids in the neighborhood had named every branch; it was a place to hold "meetings" or hide with a book.

Take a tree--outside your window or buried in your memory. Create a scene in which it stands at the center.

Craft/Recharging and Catching Up

2010-01-18T21:06:00.005-05:00

I've gone missing a few days, between dental surgery, family gatherings (my aunt's wake and my husband's birthday) and taking down the tree (yes, we keep it up this long because we don't mark the end of our holiday celebrations until the birthday).

I'm back again, trying to recharge my dormant creativity. Yesterday I wandered from room to room, teacup in hand, not quite able to summon the words and the discipline that sustain me. I decided to allow myself a few hours--my mouth hurt from the stitches, my brain was rebelling. I even took a nap, curled up with a comforter on our down-filled blue velvet (don't ask!) couch in front of the wood stove.

When I woke up, it was to music. My husband was listening to Bono on YouTube, singing "MLK." In the way that often happens, we found ourselves moving from Bono's version to the Heartland Men's Chorus rendition, which then led us to several other songs by the HMC. I shook off my fatigue and mental paralysis, touched by both their music and their history.

I did two things last night to get back to where I wanted to be: I made a list and I played the piano. The list set out what I wanted to accomplish in the next week, with very specific next steps for each item--even if it was something as simple as printing out an email from my editor. The piano playing was practice in the Zen sense of the word. I empty myself of everything except the notes when I play.

Tonight, as I write, I'm on my way again.

How do you recharge when you falter?

Discoveries/Jesse Cook

2010-01-12T21:30:00.010-05:00

One summer a few years ago, my husband and I were wandering in and out of galleries in Provincetown, Massachusetts. As we drifted from one sculpture to another, a vibrant flamenco guitar played in the background. Curious, we inquired and learned that the musician was a Canadian musician named Jesse Cook. His CD was for sale in the gallery. We bought it, and from that moment became avid fans. One cannot sit still listening to him, and I often find myself dancing around the house as I perform the most mundane of tasks.

When the time came for me to suggest ideas for the cover of my first novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, I recommended that the artist listen to Jesse to understand the spirit and energy of my heroine, Giulia Serafini.

Fast forward to the launch of Dancing. My husband, who does not know the meaning of the word "impossible," seized upon the idea of inviting Jesse and his band to perform at my party. It took him nearly a year. But one Sunday afternoon in March, the celebration that he had envisioned one night listening to Jesse came together in one of the most memorable days of my life: family and friends filling a theater we had rented; dancers from a local conservatory interpreting the rhythms and melodies we had come to love; Jesse Cook and his musicians expressing the joy and exuberance of his compositions; and me, alone in the spotlight with only my words to share.

As I write this tonight, I am listening to Jesse and dancing.

What makes you dance?

Craft/Writing Prompt--A Childhood Memory

2010-01-11T23:34:00.004-05:00

I have just come from the wake of my Aunt Clara, who passed away on Friday evening. After offering our condolences to my cousin and her family and sharing our memories of my aunt, my generation gathered to reconnect with one another. As my husband and I drove home, I reminisced about my childhood experiences with many of those present tonight--especially in the Eden that was my grandmother's home in the country.

Take a childhood memory and describe it in the voice of a child.

Food/Pho

2010-01-08T23:51:00.005-05:00

In my novella "A Daughter's Journey," my heroine, the journalist Melanie Ames, shares a bowl of the Vietnamese national dish, Pho, with ex-Marine Phil Coughlin on a night that changes her life.

“…the food met a need so basic that it quelled the earlier disquiet Mel had felt about being with Phil any longer than absolutely necessary. She swallowed the noodles and shredded cabbage voraciously, registering the warmth, the flecks of hot chili pepper, the intense flavors of garlic and onion and basil from the broth that must have been simmering for days.”

Vegetarian Pho Bo

(Vietnamese Noodle Soup)

8 cups Vietnamese style-broth

1 pound rice noodles
One 8-ounce package seitan, drained
1/4 cup bean sprouts
1/2 cup shredded cabbage

1/2 cup basil leaves
1/2 cup cilantro, coarsely chopped
3 scallions, thinly sliced

3 Tablespoons chopped, roasted, unsalted peanuts (optional)
1 lime, cut into wedges
3 fresh red or green chili peppers, seeded and cut into fine rounds
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

1. Make the broth as directed. When broth has been simmering for about 10 minutes, soak the noodles as follows. Bring 4 quarts of water to boil in a large pot. Remove from heat, add noodles, and let soak around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally until noodles are pliable and easily separated.

2. Drain the noodles and divide them among six bowls. Simmer the seitan in the broth until heated through, about 4 minutes. Remove the seitan with a slotted spoon and slice thinly into six portions. Add to noodles.

3. Assemble the soup by placing the bean sprouts, cabbage, basil, cilantro, scallions, and optional peanuts on top of the noodles and seitan. Ladle the hot broth onto the noodle mixture. Serve with a plate of lime wedges, chili rounds, and salt and pepper for individual seasoning.

Vegetarian Vietnamese-Style Broth
8 cups clear vegetable stock
3 Tablespoons soy sauce
8 medium garlic cloves, peeled and chopped coarsely
1 small onion, diced
One 1-inch piece of ginger
Two 3-inch cinnamon sticks
2 pods of star anise
2 large bay leaves

1. Put stock, soy sauce, garlic, and onion in a large stockpot and bring to a boil over medium heat.

2. Meanwhile, char ginger on all sides over an open gas flame or in a small skillet. Add to the stock.

3. Add the cinnamon sticks, star anise, and bay leaves to the broth. Reduce the heat to low. Simmer, partially covered, for 20-25 minutes. Strain the broth. Adjust seasonings if necessary. Return to pot and keep hot until ready to use in soup.

Encounters/Sharon and Holly

2010-01-07T20:15:00.007-05:00

One of the pleasures of the writing life (and there are many) is connecting with other writers. A few years ago I had the good fortune to be invited to spend a weekend writing by the sea with Sharon Wright , a novelist (and now wonderful life coach) I'd met when she attended a writing retreat I ran. Sharon had also invited another writer friend, the journalist (and now novelist) Holly Robinson. The three of us had escaped our daily lives as mothers, wives and jugglers of many tasks to hole up for two days in a small apartment on the beach in the middle of January. We wrote for hours, Sharon and Holly wrapped in quilts with their laptops on the couch, and I with my narrow-ruled pad and fine point pen at a small round table overlooking the water. At night, we ate a meal I had brought (a butterflied leg of lamb marinated in garlic, rosemary, olive oil and lemon juice; roasted red potatoes and baby green beans), drank some very good wine and read out loud to one another what we had written during the day.

We affirmed what was good in one another's prose and offered fresh perspectives and thoughtful commentary. And then we drank some more wine.

I count both women as friends. Although I rarely see them because of the geographic distance between us, our stories link us. My writing has been enriched because of those days I spent with them at the beach, and I feel privileged to have been among the first to hear their words as they were tumbling onto the page.

Inspiration/Clara

2010-01-06T21:44:00.003-05:00

My Aunt Clara turned 101 on Christmas Eve.

Although her hair is now white, she is still the beautiful woman pictured here. The last time I visited with her this summer, her elegant hands had just been manicured in a subtle shade of coral and she sat regally, fully enjoying her role as the matriarch of our extended family.

It is more than Clara's longevity that is an inspiration. She radiates peace and joy that extend to anyone who comes into contact with her. She also has an indomitable spirit, facing pain or sadness with strength and humor (a trait inherited from my equally long-lived grandmother).

Do you know anyone who has lived more than 100 years?

Discoveries/Madama Butterfly

2010-01-05T21:31:00.011-05:00

"But for opera I would never have written Leaves of Grass,"

Walt Whitman is said to have acknowledged in later life.

I first discovered opera when I was a child coloring on the floor in my grandmother's parlor while she listened to the Met broadcast on Saturday afternoons. My memories of the romance between my father and my mother are intricately bound to the melodies of Madama Butterfly. When my husband and I were choosing the music for our wedding ceremony we wanted to honor our parents with pieces that had meaning for them. For my Viennese father-in-law and Bavarian mother-in-law, we chose Mozart. For my parents, it was "Un Bel Di," Cio-Cio-San's hopeful dream of happiness.

I don't know that I would never have written without the influence of opera, but the motifs of Puccini and Verdi that filled my childhood have certainly shaped my vision of the elements of a passionate love story--the backdrop of a specific, climactic moment in history (the fall of Saigon in "A Daughter's Journey," the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in "The Hand That Gives the Rose"); lovers from widely divergent backgrounds thwarted by family, duty or political upheaval (the privileged daughter Giulia defying her conservative family to embrace Paolo, the union organizer with the fiery pen in Dancing on Sunday Afternoons). The stakes are high; the language is lyrical; the ending is not always happy-ever-after but has integrity and coherence in the midst of great sacrifice.

Has a piece of music found its way into what you do?

Craft/Writing Prompt--Word Games

2010-01-04T21:20:00.003-05:00

Here's a random list of words (pulled from the well-worn pages of my bright red American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, purchased when I was an editor at its publisher, Houghton Mifflin). Write for twenty minutes, using all the words.

pensive
firebird
brink
acrobat
escalate
lapis lazuli
river
almond
trace
vial

I'll be happy to critique the first three responses I receive in the next 24 hours. Have fun!

Food/Stuffed Artichokes

2010-01-01T23:20:00.004-05:00

The holidays when I was growing up were not complete without my mother's extraordinary artichokes--filled with a fragrant stuffing that spilled over the top and filled the spaces between the leaves. Just writing about them makes my mouth water.

Lena’s Stuffed Artichokes
(For 4 servings)

4 large artichokes, with stems
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped fine
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 cup breadcrumbs
½ cup grated Parmeggiano cheese
Olive oil

With kitchen shears, trim the tip of each artichoke leaf straight across.

Slice off the stems of the artichokes close to the base so that artichokes stand upright.

Peel the stems and chop into 1/8” dice.

Mix the chopped stems with the breadcrumbs, parsley, garlic and cheese.

Add olive oil to hold the mixture together.

Spread open the top of the artichoke, forming a cavity, and stuff with the breadcrumb mixture. Add more stuffing between the leaves.

Arrange stuffed artichokes in a heavy pan. Drizzle with olive oil.

Fill the pan with about one inch of water

Cover the pan and bring water to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for about 45 minutes, checking to make sure that water has not evaporated (add more if necessary).

Artichokes are done when a leaf can be pulled off easily.

Eat by pulling off one leaf at a time and scraping teeth along the inside of the leaf.

Encounters/The rituals of our lives

2009-12-31T16:10:00.006-05:00

Happy New Year! We are about to depart for our traditional celebration with my mother-in-law, at which we toast the new year as it arrives in her German homeland (six hours ahead of New England). The candles throughout the house will be lit, including those on a wrought-iron pyramid that echoes the shape of a Christmas tree. She will dance a Viennese waltz with her son, my husband. Each of us will choose a candle on the pyramid, hoping it will be the one that lasts the longest. (Once upon a time, the candles were on a real Christmas tree, but she has given up that tradition for a live tree outside on her deck, sprinkled with tiny white lights that glisten through the snow that fell this morning.)

These familiar rituals shape our lives. What are yours?

Inspiration/Remoteness

2009-12-30T22:12:00.015-05:00

Sometimes we need to isolate ourselves from the distractions of daily life. For me, the remoteness of island living has served as both a source of renewal and inspiration.

The lull of waves approaching and then receding

from the beach below our cottage;

the subtle variations in the sky throughout the day

as the winds move over the water;

the simplicity of a home without electricity or internet. . .

. . . all encourage me

to listen and see that I might then write.

Discoveries/The Blue Kimono

2009-12-29T21:48:00.009-05:00

One of my earliest memories of my Aunt Kay was a photograph of her, her back to the camera, arms outstretched in a doorway as she looked over her shoulder. She was wearing the most exotic outfit I'd ever seen in my Italian-American childhood--an elaborately embroidered kimono, with flowers and birds spilling across the back and down the elegant sleeves that hung from her graceful arms.

That photograph always intrigued me, and it was only much later that I discovered where it had been taken--the island of Trinidad, a long way from the Yonkers neighborhood where Kay, my mother and their sisters and brothers had grown up. She had sailed there to marry my Uncle Joe, who was building the naval airbase at Chaguaramas.

That kimono, and the stories it led to, became the opening scene of my new novel, Across the Table.

Have you ever discovered something incredibly beautiful but unexplained in a familiar environment?

Craft/Writing Prompts

2009-12-28T21:51:00.006-05:00

At my more-or-less monthly dinner with my writer friend Julie this evening, the conversation wandered from movies we'd seen this week to Christmas celebrations with family to evolving friendships. At one point, however, I asked for Julie's thoughts on writing prompts. We met many years ago at a writing retreat and neither one of us is a stranger to the triggers that can spark a flow of words that, like the roots of a wild lily, send out tendrils into unexpected territory.

"What are your sources?" I asked her. One of her answers was intriguing--an example from a workshop leader with whom she'd written for many years. "The first line of a newspaper article," she suggested.

When I got home I pulled a copy of the front section of The New York Times from the mounting pile in a basket in my kitchen. Here are a few sentences from which to choose.

In almost every room people were sleeping, but not like babies.

Raimundo came to this sweltering Amazon outpost 15 years ago, looking for land.

Nelson would be the first to say that he has been favored with many acts of kindness in his 23 years.

Discoveries/Oma's Calendar

2009-12-23T00:03:00.007-05:00

I've turned in my manuscript to my editor and have now turned my attention to the final preparations for our Christmas celebrations. My posts this week will revolve around what I'm doing away from the computer--it's the best way I know to keep up with the blog and still keep my sanity.

Tonight I'm in the midst of creating the gift my mother-in-law cherishes--a calendar composed of special photographs of the highlights of the year. As I type, the photos are spilling slowly out of my printer. The whole family gets involved in providing and selecting the pictures--important choices when we can only include twelve. We've been creating this memento for Oma (the German word for "Grandma") for decades.

A few months ago, Oma gathered all the calendars and we spent an evening wandering through their pages. Taken together, they were a striking record of our family history--our lives defined by the changing New England seasons, our growing children, our aging parents. We rediscovered lost moments, captured in images that sparked memories and triggered stories.

Do you have special gifts that hold great meaning for you and your family?

Writer at Work

2009-12-14T22:51:00.002-05:00

I'll be buried in the Across the Table manuscript over the next few days, reviewing my editor's line edits and making changes and additions. As a consequence, I won't be posting. I hope to resurface at the end of the week.

Craft/The Golden Sentence

2009-12-13T23:36:00.006-05:00

When I taught high school English, my mentor recommended an exercise that I required of my students as a daily practice with every reading assignment. I asked them to identify the "Golden Sentence," the sentence that resonated most with them and captured the essence of the passage; and I asked them to articulate why they had chosen it.

It was a way to get them to pay attention, but also a way for them to discover how words on a page can reach out and grab the reader.

Do your stories have a Golden Sentence?

Food/Rose's Pasta con Piselli e Prosciutto

2009-12-10T23:21:00.004-05:00

My forthcoming novel, Across the Table, is set in a restaurant in Boston’s North End run by the Dante family. They call the place “Paradiso,” after the third volume of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.

In Paradiso, Beatrice leads Dante through the spheres of heaven. Early on, believing that she has shown him more than he can comprehend, she tells him “sedere un poco a mensa.” She wants him to sit awhile at her table and digest all that he has seen.

Throughout Across the Table, the Dante family is sustained by Rose’s belief that there is no pain that cannot be eased by a dish of homemade pasta, such as the one below.

As Rose says when she prepares this dish, " I did what I always do when we have something important to discuss. I put care into what we were going to eat.”

1 lb. orecchiette pasta

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 medium onion, chopped into small dice

1 cup baby peas

1 cup diced cooked ham

2 cups heavy cream

Grated Parmeggiano

Salt and pepper

Prepare orecchiette as directed.

Sauté the onion in butter over medium heat until soft.

Add peas and ham, stirring to mix with onions.

Add heavy cream, blending with ham and vegetables until gently bubbling. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Drain pasta. Place in serving bowl and add sauce, stirring to mix. Serve with grated Parmeggiano.

Encounters/Jesper Rosenmeier

2009-12-10T22:49:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine once said that every woman should have at least one girlfriend who has known her since they were in high school and one old boyfriend she can still talk to. I would add to that, at least one memorable teacher. Mine was Jesper Rosenmeier, a Danish scholar of early American literature, who influenced my reading and helped me develop both my skill and my faith in myself as a writer.

He pushed me to articulate my ideas in class--a harrowing experience for a shy freshman who had somehow landed in an upper level English class in her second semester. He challenged me to pull together the fragments of ideas jotted down in my journal and follow them into new intellectual territory. He never allowed me to become complacent or lazy.

Rosenmeier was a big man, a towering presence with a dramatic and passionate teaching style. When he read a passage from Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," you could feel the flames of hell lapping at your feet. He was also expansive and generous and funny.

Who has shaped you?

Inspiration/Federigo's Letters

2009-12-08T21:27:00.007-05:00

"I go crazy from love. I have never loved with so much loyalty. You are the star that sparkles between the rays and you adorn my poor heart with infinite madness."

"We live incognito, full of love, punished by not being able to give it free expression..."

"How I suffered last night when in your house they made that frenzied din, "Eh, Federigo! Write to me!"

The words were written 100 years ago by my grandfather and cherished by my grandmother for decades after his death. When they were passed on to me, they not only inspired my first novel, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, but also gave me an understanding of why a fascination with language, in all its beauty and passion and mystery, is in my blood.

Have you ever received a precious gift that changed everything for you?

Discoveries/Growing Things

2009-12-07T23:30:00.008-05:00

I do not have a green thumb. More often than not, to place a tender young plant under my care is risky business. But I've recently had success with a seedling that I thought a few weeks ago had succumbed to my neglect. It had not taken kindly to the move from its summer home in a shallow flat in a protected southern corner of our garden. I had moved it inside, thinking that it was too fragile to weather over the winter, but it seemed almost too fragile to survive the change.

Nevertheless, I transplanted it to a deep pot with lots of room to set down roots and continued to water it. It kept dropping leaves, until only two were left. I despaired. Once again, my well-meaning but haphazard attention seemed insufficient.

And then, one sunny morning as I sat down at the table in my kitchen bay window where I had placed the plant, I noticed something. Green. Growing. A revival.

The plant now has several sets of leaves, as you can see in the somewhat fuzzy image above. I take great pleasure in its pushing toward the sun, and I am awed by its ability to reemerge from such a sad state. The life force is an extraordinary thing.

Have you ever nurtured a plant, an idea, a dream, that you almost lost but that survived and flourished?

Craft/Creating a Character Through Setting

2009-12-06T21:18:00.005-05:00

Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter collaborated on a wonderful handbook of exercises for writers called What If? that I used as one of the texts when I taught creative writing.

One of my favorite exercises is one that uses setting to describe a character. As the authors put it, "If someone broke into your home or apartment while you were away, chances are he could construct a good profile of who you are." I was reminded of the technique Ducky uses on "NCIS" to understand the psyche of a victim or a killer--he observes and catalogs everything in the character's home.

Choose one of your characters and describe a space that he or she inhabits. It can be an entire home, a single room, an office, a garage...the details will tell us something about who this individual is.

Food/Lentils

2009-12-04T23:46:00.006-05:00

Although the temperatures here in western New England are not quite winter-like, the prediction for tomorrow is snow. With the anticipated change in the weather, I'm starting to think about soups and stews. One of the staples of my childhood and a favorite among my own children is my mother's recipe for lentils. It's aromatic, flavorful and quick!

Lentils

2 Tablespoons olive oil
1 medium diced onion (1/4 inch)
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
½ cup diced carrot (1/4 inch)
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 cups dried lentils (rinsed and checked for debris)
2 cubes Knorr vegetable broth, dissolved in 4 cups water

1. Saute onion, garlic, and carrot in olive oil over medium heat until soft (about five minutes). Stir constantly.

2. Add lentils and dried thyme, stirring to blend.

3. Add vegetable broth and heat to boiling.

4. Lower heat and cover, cooking for 20-30 minutes until lentils are tender. If too much liquid remains in the pot, uncover the pot and raise the heat to evaporate excess liquid.

Serve with rice.

Encounters/Meeting My Daughter

2009-12-03T23:15:00.007-05:00

We celebrated our daughter's 25th birthday this evening, a raucous dinner during which we overdosed on butter, laughter and gifts that included fuzzy slippers, a pop-up Advent calendar and a spindle with which to spin her own wool.

She is my miracle child. Twenty-five years ago, I faced the prospect that she might not survive the night. Born by emergency C-section, she was whisked away to a neonatal intensive care unit before I had the chance to see or hold her. By the time I was released from recovery and wheeled into the nursery, she was ensconced in an oxygen hood and her tiny body was attached to several monitors. I remember reaching out to stroke her leg, the only accessible part of her body. Still in shock, I couldn't comprehend what the doctors were telling me; I couldn't match the fragile life in front of me with the expectations and longings of the previous nine months.

The next morning, I was able to sit in one of the rocking chairs scattered around the nursery and one of the nurses lifted my daughter into my arms for the first time. Her monitors, which had been registering erratic, jagged patterns when I had entered the room, suddenly smoothed out into luxurious waves rolling across the screen like gentle surf.

"She knows your heartbeat," the nurse told me. "She's home."

Inspiration/What Inspires You?

2009-12-02T22:16:00.008-05:00

I am still absorbing the words of Ken Burns from last night's lecture. Our wild and ancient places are essential to our spirits, and bring us the silence we need to listen and remember.

For many years, I've been privileged to spend an all-too-brief part of the summer in just such a wild place. On a walk last year as sunset approached, the light on the cedars stopped me in my tracks. I was able to capture it with a camera, but even if I hadn't, this image will stay with me, and I know that it will find its way into one of my books.

I savor and save these moments. Do you?

What inspires you?

Discovery/Ken Burns

2009-12-01T22:03:00.011-05:00

I've just returned from the Springfield Public Forum, the only free public forum in the country. Every fall, the Forum brings speakers to the city for a series of lectures that "inform, inspire and stimulate."

Tonight's speaker was filmmaker Ken Burns, whose most recent documentary, "The National Parks: America's Best Idea," aired on PBS this fall. I wasn't quite sure what to expect of him as a speaker--we are so accustomed to seeing his message, that I thought he might be at a disadvantage on a bare stage with only a podium and a mike. I was mistaken. What I discovered tonight was that Ken Burns is not only an image maker. He is a poet.

His words this evening were rich and textured; his message was one of passion and the discovery of the life within through the "common wealth" of the land without. One of the opening lines of his documentary on the national parks is a quotation from John Muir:

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul."

I was reminded of one of my own places of healing and cheer, a remote corner of Chappaquiddick Island where I spend part of the summer and where I have set my novel-in-progress, First Light.

It was a special evening, reinforced by a beauty not of incredible vistas and natural wonders, but of words.

Craft/Favorite Words

2009-11-30T21:50:00.011-05:00

palpable...murmuring...nourish...reverberation

Every writer has them--favorite words and phrases that find their way into far too many sentences. One of my second-draft tasks is hunting down all my darlings and winnowing them down to one necessary and exact instance. I love words. I play with them. And when I find one I can't live without, I know I have to choose its placement wisely and sparingly. Overuse dulls and diminishes. It also leads editors to draw circles around the offending repetitions and readers to lose their curiosity in what you have to say.

I have created a list that I keep in my notebook. "Linda's Favorite Words" is scrawled across the top of my narrow-ruled tablet and I add to it regularly as I find myself going back again and again to a particular expression. It keeps me honest. One "palpable" is evocative; three hammer the meaning into flatness and imprecision.

Take care with your words, and challenge yourself to continue to find new ones.

Thanksgiving Reflections

2009-11-29T22:51:00.006-05:00

As we sat at dinner on Thanksgiving and I reflected on all that I was grateful for, I took special pleasure in how much of a collaboration this year's meal was. Starting on Wednesday, our kitchen was a hub of activity, with my children and my daughter's significant other chopping, stirring, kneading and mashing. Each of them took responsibility from start to finish for particular dishes: my daughter for the pumpkin and apple pies, including picking the pumpkin earlier this fall and preparing the puree; her significant other for challah and cranberry walnut bread, which he had "practiced" baking the week before and which he hovered over with care, and brussels sprouts and baby greens that he had grown himself in the community garden he manages; my older son for his favorite dish, sweet-and-sour cabbage, and for the orange-cranberry sauce. It was such a treat for me to watch them, and a rite of passage as I handed over what had been exclusively mine for so many years.

Food/Sweet Potato Casserole

2009-11-24T23:21:00.004-05:00

Did you know that the sweet potato is a member of the morning glory family?

It's also another name for the ocarina, a simple wind instrument shaped like an elongated egg.

This is my husband's favorite part of Thanksgiving dinner, a recipe introduced to the family by my sister. Bubbling with melted butter and brown sugar, the nut topping is a crunchy counterpoint to the custard texture of the sweet potatoes. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Casserole (12 servings)

6 large sweet potatoes
4 eggs, beaten
1 cup brown sugar
¼ pound butter, cut into small pieces
½ teaspoon vanilla
½ cup milk

Topping:

1 cup cornflakes
½ cup walnuts
¼ cup brown sugar

Boil sweet potatoes in skins until you can pierce them with a fork.

Drain, cool, and peel potatoes.

Mash potatoes in large bowl.

Add eggs, brown sugar, butter, vanilla, and milk and mix thoroughly.

Spread in large, shallow baking dish that has been buttered.

Bake at 350 º for 45 minutes.

Mix cornflakes, brown sugar, and walnuts for topping. Spread over top of potatoes and bake for 5 more minutes. Watch carefully so that cornflakes do not burn.

Food/Apple Pie

2009-11-23T21:31:00.011-05:00

In my latest novel, Across the Table (scheduled for release in June 2010), Rose Dante is a first-generation Italian-American straddling the world of her immigrant parents and the life of an American working woman whose husband is away at war.

Here's a scene from a pivotal Thanksgiving:

I was up to my elbows in pastry dough for the pies. I’d convinced Mama to make an American apple pie in addition to the sweet ricotta pie with ten eggs and grated orange peel she always made for the holidays—not only Thanksgiving, but Christmas and Easter as well. I wanted Al Jr. to grow up an American. It was hard enough, with him spending my workweek with grandparents who only spoke Italian to him. But his father was an American serviceman, fighting for his country. The least we could do was teach Al Jr. to eat apple pie, sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.

“You spend too much time with those Americans at the bank. What’s wrong with what I cook for the holidays?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Mama. It’s delicious. But we’re Americans too! It’s not such a bad thing. You and Papa chose to come here.”

“I don’t know how to make apple pie and I’m too old to learn. If you want your son to know apple pie, then you make it.”

Which is why I was kneading dough when the doorbell rang. I wiped my hands on my apron and answered the door.

My own recipe for apple pie is a composite of pie crust from Julia Child and filling from The Joy of Cooking. Here it is!

Pie crust (for top and bottom of 9” pie)

1 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 ¼ sticks (5 ounces) chilled butter
2 tablespoon chilled shortening (Crisco)
1/3 to ½ cup ice water

Place flour and salt in food processor with regular blade and blend for 1 second. Rapidly cut butter and shortening into ½ -inch bits and drop into machine. Turn on for 3 seconds. Stop. Add all but 2 tablespoons of the ½ cup ice water and turn on the machine. In 2 to 3 seconds the dough should begin to mass on the blade and the pastry is done.

Turn it out onto a work surface and with the heel of your hand, rapidly and roughly smear it out in front of you to make a final blending of butter into the dough.

Form into a cake 5 inches in diameter, flour lightly, wrap in plastic and a plastic bag, and chill for at least 2 hours before using.

Filling

5 to 6 cups apples (peeled, cored, and cut into very thin slices)
1 cup brown sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons butter

Place apples in a large mixing bowl.

In a small bowl, blend sugar, salt, cornstarch, and spices until well mixed.

Gently stir sugar-spice mix into apples, coating them well.

Making the Pie

Divide the pie dough into two slightly uneven parts, keeping the smaller one for the top. Roll each part into a circle about 1/8 inch thick. The larger circle should be about 2 inches larger than the pan, and the smaller circle should be about 1 inch larger.

Place the larger circle in the pie pan and press it into place. Brush the bottom with egg white.

Fill the pie crust with the apples.

Cut the butter into small bits and place around the apples.

Cover the apples with the smaller circle. Pinch together the top and bottom crusts and press together with a fork.

Cut vent holes in the crust with the point of a sharp knife. If you wish, decorate the center of the crust with scraps of dough (I usually make the shape of a turkey--see above).

Brush the crust with a beaten egg yolk.

Bake the pie for 10 minutes at 450 º. Reduce the heat to 350 º and bake for an additional 45 minutes.

Serve with freshly whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Food/Thanksgiving Menu

2009-11-22T21:54:00.008-05:00

Those of you who have been reading my posts for the last several days may have detected a nascent structure to my musings, broadly hinted at by my headings. I can’t help myself—I’m the sort of person who needs some basic order in her life. My daughter used to warn her friends not to be surprised when they went down to our rec room in the basement and caught a glimpse of my pantry. All the cabinets (the original pale green metal cabinets that had been in the kitchen before it was renovated) were labeled with their contents: soups, pasta, canned tomatoes, olive oil, preserves, etc.). It was so much easier to unpack the groceries or find something when I needed it.

So, like my basement pantry, my blog will be labeled. It’s my intention to focus on a different theme each day of the week: Craft, Discoveries, Inspiration, Encounters and Food.

That being said, I’m throwing out the structure for this week because all I’ll be doing between now and Thursday is cooking. As long as I’m focused on food in the real world, I figured I might as well be in the virtual world.

I have always cooked Thanksgiving dinner for my family and assorted guests. When all our parents were alive and our siblings lived close enough, it was a very full table. This year, we are hosting only eight. Although the quantities are smaller than in years past, I’m still making the same variety of dishes.

Here’s my menu for this Thanksgiving:

Crudités
Assorted Cheeses
Artichoke Pesto
Olive Tapenade

Roast Turkey with Gravy

Quorn Roast with Mushroom Gravy (for the four vegetarians at the table)

Chestnut Stuffing

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with Brown Sugar and Walnut Topping

Sweet and Sour Red Cabbage

Green Beans with Olive Oil and Lemon Dressing

Brussels Sprouts with Maple Syrup

Mushrooms Baked with a Garlic, Parsley, Parmeggiano and Breadcrumb Topping

Cranberry-Orange Sauce

Homemade Breads

Tossed Green Salad

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie

Figs, Dates and Nuts

Roasted Chestnuts

Assorted Fresh Fruit Bowl (Apples, Pears, Grapes, Tangerines, Pomegranates and Persimmons)

I’ll be sharing the recipes for some of these dishes later in the week. For now, I’ve got to go check on the homemade chicken stock simmering on the stove—the basis for the gravy.

Happy cooking!

Food/Broccoli Rabe

2009-11-20T22:47:00.005-05:00

One of my favorite comfort foods is broccoli rabe. Like dandelion greens and arugula, it’s an acquired taste (as my husband will attest). But I grew up with these dark and distinctly flavored greens and I love them. They grew in both my grandmothers’ gardens (one in the middle of the city and one in rural upstate New York) and I remember eating them often as a child—plucked fresh, rinsed off under the outside faucet and sauteed quickly in olive oil with slivers of garlic.

When my mother was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer and I had flown to Florida on a few hours’ notice to be with her, I returned from the ICU on that first day to her home in Palm Beach Gardens, exhausted, overwhelmed and hungry. Waiting for me was my mother’s sister, Aunt Kay, standing at the stove with wooden spoon in hand. She had cooked up a pot of broccoli rabe—we called them “robbies”—and served them with a loaf of crusty bread. It was exactly what I needed.

Here is how I prepare them:

1 bunch of broccoli rabe

2 large peeled cloves of garlic

Olive oil

1/2 cube of vegetable broth

1 cup water

Rinse the broccoli rabe, trim off the stems and chop the leaves and florets into 2-inch pieces.
Slice the garlic thinly.
Film a heavy saucepan with olive oil and heat on medium high.
Add the broccoli rabe and stir, coating the greens with the oil.
When the greens are slightly wilted, add the garlic slices and continue to stir for about 1 minute.
Add the water and vegetable cube, stirring to dissolve.
Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cover.
Simmer for 5-10 minutes, checking to make sure that liquid does not evaporate.
Serve with crusty bread to soak up the juices.

Encounters/Visiting With My Aunts

2009-11-19T22:18:00.012-05:00

I have been blessed with many aunts—fourteen to be exact, the sisters and sisters-in-law of my parents. When I was a little girl they took me downtown for ice cream; as I got older, they organized excursions into Manhattan for a Broadway show and lunch at La Fonda del Sol; and when I was a sulking teenager, they rescued me from the boredom at home by whisking me off to their summer places at the Jersey shore or Cape Cod. They celebrated my accomplishments, taught me how to wear make-up and gave me a glimpse of my heritage with the priceless gift of my grandparents’ love letters.

Now that my mother is gone, they take turns filling her shoes.

Last Saturday, I visited with two of them for what seems to be turning into an annual affair. My cousin Lisa brings her mother, Aunt Cathy, from Connecticut to our Aunt Kay and her daughter Kathy, and I drive in from western Massachusetts to join them. We spend hours around the kitchen table, lingering over homemade soup and pumpkin pie and a few glasses of wine. We tell stories and call up memories that link us in our shared history. We talk about our hair—curly—and our children, all trying to make their way in the world.

The conversation, the laughter and the love nourish us all.

Inspiration/The Woman on the Bus

2009-11-18T22:08:00.005-05:00

Although I’m writing a book about a muse, I’m not one to sit around waiting for the muse to sit on my shoulder and whisper in my ear. I realized a long time ago that I had to actively seek my inspiration. One of the ways I do that is by being open to possibility. I observe; I listen; and I always carry a small notebook and a pen to capture the fragments of overheard conversations or the tableaus playing out in the lives around me.

Thirty years ago I was riding on a bus along Mass Ave in Cambridge late one winter afternoon, my four-month-old son asleep in the Snuggli on my chest. As babies tend to do, he elicited a comment from the much older woman sitting next to me, and we began a conversation that lasted all the way to Arlington. She was the widow of an Armenian poet, and she shared a few stark memories with me of being a young mother alone with an infant during World War II.

“It is the women who carry the responsibility for civilization,” she told me. “It rests with us.”

I remember what she said, what she looked like (olive-skinned, her hair covered in a scarf, her body small and thin, not bent but held with an elegant strength). I remember, because that night, after my son was asleep, I wrote it all down.

Discovery/Dirt Under My Fingernails

2009-11-17T22:50:00.007-05:00

The last leaves are finally wafting from the high branches of the oaks in our New England neighborhood. A few isolated bursts of late fall color punctuate the landscape here and there, but for the most part, the trees are now sharply defined silhouettes against the sky.

Fall cleanup is generally a family affair around here, with my husband and my energetic 87-year-old mother-in-law leading the charge as they vigorously scrub the lawns and flower beds with their broad rakes. Over the years, I’ve taken ownership of one particular patch of garden—a broad sweep of juniper shrubs that flank both sides of our driveway. The shrubs lie directly under the oaks, and by November are covered in a thick blanket of leaves that lie not only on top of the shrubs but get caught in the tangle of spreading limbs. The only way to remove them is by plunging into the hip-high bushes and plucking them by hand. It’s a slow and painstaking process. I wear two layers of gloves, thick socks and my indestructible, 25-year-old Wellingtons, but I still emerge with long red scratches on my arms and legs, a runny nose and flecks of leaf debris in my hair.

Despite the physical assault of unyielding branches that do not want to give up their prisoners, cleaning out those bushes is enormously satisfying. Even after only a few minutes of combing out the leaves with my fingers, I can step back and see progress, which spurs me to keep going. The task is a kind of detangling, teasing out the layers of clutter until the stark, prickly beauty of the juniper is revealed.

I find writing to be a kind of “cleaning out of the bushes.” You have to be willing to get your hands dirty, to get on your knees and scrape around the roots of things.

Craft/Banishing Writer's Block

2009-11-16T22:23:00.010-05:00

To make your unknown known — that's the important thing. (Georgia O'Keefe)

Often when I speak about my writing life I’m asked how I cope with writer’s block. In the early days, when I was struggling to begin my first novel, I stumbled upon a few simple techniques that coaxed my paralyzed brain into actually putting words on a page instead of agonizing about it. I still use them, and because of them think of myself as a disciplined writer. In fact, I believe that discipline is one of the defining characteristics of successful writers.

So that you do not have to stumble, but may walk upright, here is what worked for me (and which I hope will work for you).

Set a goal. When my children were small, I managed, with the help of my husband, to commit to an entire day of writing every two weeks. I left the house early and hid out in a remote carel at our community college library. I had eight hours, and I was determined to finish the day with eight pages. Sometimes I’d find myself at 3:00 p.m. with only two or three pages of my notebook filled. But I pushed on, and every time, walked out of the library with my goal fulfilled. I still set a daily goal for myself.
Set a timer. This was a composite of the “timed writing” exercises in various workshops I attended and a housekeeping tip I found on-line. The theory is that we will undertake unpleasant tasks if we think we only have to do them for a short time. I use a small electronic timer (they don’t tick), set it for 20 minutes, turn its face away from me, and don’t do anything else except write until the timer buzzes. The practice has trained me like Pavlov’s dog to ignore everything but the empty page in front of me.
Write by hand. This may not be for everyone, but when I switched from composing on the computer to writing on narrow-ruled pads it freed me to carry my writing with me and use small pockets of time whenever I found them. I also discovered that the visceral activity of moving my hand across a page with a smooth-flowing pen was a more effective way for my brain to get the words out than hovering my hands above a keyboard.

Writers write. Find your own tools for making sure that you do.

Encounters/The Women of the Philoptochos Society

2009-11-15T19:59:00.012-05:00

“Love is the doorway through which the human soul passes from selfishness to service and from solitude to kinship with all mankind.”
Georgia Skeadas (President, National Philoptochos Society)

In the last two weeks I was honored to be the guest speaker at separate events hosted by the Philoptochos Society, the women’s groups of Greek Orthodox churches in Springfield and Worcester, Massachusetts.

I discovered in high school that if you put me in front of a group and hand me a microphone, I will find something to say and actually enjoy it. This was a great surprise to me at the age of sixteen, when I was more apt to shrink into a corner and try to disappear if I had to have a conversation with a boy my own age. But a roomful of people? I had no fear. I emceed my school’s hootenanny two years in a row (I know, I’m dating myself)—welcoming the crowd, introducing each singer with amusing anecdotes and finding myself reluctant to leave the stage and the connection I was making with the audience. I may have been compensating for my lack of a singing voice—everyone except me seemed to be in Glee Club or performing in local coffeehouses—but it was the one arena where I felt confident and free to be myself.

It was a serendipitous lesson to learn, and led me to embrace opportunities as a writer to speak to groups whenever I’m invited. I’ve had the good fortune to be welcomed time and again by an amazing community of Greek women in Springfield known as Philoptochos. They meet for fellowship and charitable works, which is how I came to know them. Every year they hold a fundraiser, and three years ago they asked me to speak when my first novel, DANCING ON SUNDAY AFTERNOONS, came out. The book’s focus on the immigrant journey, family and food resonated with women who looked, sounded and acted a lot like my Italian extended family. Since then I’ve been back as each new book came out, and this year, added a visit with the Philoptochos Society in Worcester.

At both events recently, I looked around the room. Every table was filled with beautiful, vibrant and caring women, ranging in age from elegantly coifed matriarchs to busy young mothers. The food and wine were abundant; the conversations touched on celebrations and concerns; the occasions were an opportunity to share both joy and wisdom. I felt as if I were home.

Food/Plum Preserves

2009-11-13T23:47:00.007-05:00

When I was a girl, the end of summer was always marked by two events—the week-long feast of the Madonna del’Arco and the canning of the bounty of my grandmother’s garden. My mother and my aunts sat at an oilcloth-covered table under the pergola that supported my grandfather’s grapevines, peeling, slicing and preserving bushels of eggplants and tomatoes that during the winter would become the basis for antipasto and Neapolitan marinara.

It was the memory of my Aunt Susie’s grape jelly that spurred my own initiation into the mysteries of turning ripe produce into preserves. During our sojourn in Germany, one of my husband’s colleagues with an orchard had a bumper crop of plums and shared them with us. I have a wonderful plum tart recipe from my mother-in-law, and made it that night. But I had far too many plums and had to figure out what to do with them before they turned to mush. That is when I remembered Aunt Susie’s paraffin-covered mason jars filled with Grandpa’s grapes and decided one purple fruit was as good as another.

Since that summer twenty years ago I’ve put up plums almost every year, sometimes sharing the weekend-long labor with friends, as my mother and aunts did. My fingers turn purple, my kitchen is sticky and fragrant, and at the end of the day my counter is covered with rows of glistening jars filled with luscious fruit.

Plum Preserves

30 lbs Italian prune plums

12-15 lbs sugar

· Rinse and slice plums into quarters.

· Layer plums with sugar in a crock or large plastic container, in the proportion of ½ cup sugar for every cup of plums.

· Cover and allow to rest for 12-24 hours.

· Bring the sugar-fruit mixture slowly to a boil and simmer until the fruit is a deep purple and translucent. It’s important to cook the fruit in small batches of 4-6 cups at a time to preserve the best flavor.

· Ladle fruit into hot sterile jars.

· Stir the fruit to remove air pockets.

· Wipe the rim, seal and store in a dark, cool place.

Yield: approximately 24 pounds of preserves (48 8-ounce jars)

Plum Tart

2 cups flour

7 ounces butter

½ cup sugar

1 cup ground almonds

1 egg

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

12 Italian prune plums, sliced thinly

· Blend all ingredients except plums in a food processor or mix by hand.

· Press dough into a 10-inch tart form.

· Bake at 350° for 20 minutes, until firm to the touch.

· Arrange sliced plums in concentric circles on tart base, starting at center and moving out to edges.

· Bake for 10 minutes.

· Allow to cool and remove rim.

· Serve with whipped cream.

Inspiration/Die Mauer

2009-11-11T22:54:00.008-05:00

Twenty years ago this week, I was driving home from my weekly German class and listening to the news on the radio. Although I’d been living in the country for over a year and had become comfortable in using the language in my daily life, I didn’t always catch the nuances of conversation, especially when I was only hearing a voice coming out of a box instead of face to face with a speaker. And that is why I didn’t trust what I thought I’d heard the newscaster say, although it was a simple declarative sentence of only four words, “Die Mauer ist weg!”

The Wall is gone. It was such an impossible concept that I assumed I had mistakenly translated some idiomatic expression. But the agitation and exuberance of the normally somber German announcer convinced me that something extraordinary had happened.

When I arrived home I immediately turned on the television, seeking in images what I couldn’t believe in words, and understood that my initial grasp of the announcement had been correct. The Berlin Wall had been toppled. That night became etched in my consciousness as it did for the millions of Germans in both the East and the West who experienced it.

Being in the midst of such a moment taught me to pay attention to its meaning on a personal level to the people around me: the friend who was able to baptize her infant daughter in her husband’s ancestral village in the former East Germany; the new family that moved into our neighborhood from East Berlin who became fast friends, sharing meals, life stories and late-night glasses of vodka; the empty field in our village that was transformed nearly overnight into emergency housing for the thousands of East Germans pouring into the West in search of better jobs, a better life.

The emotional impact of that night on those around me became the seed for my novella “The Hand That Gives the Rose.” The political reverberated into the personal, changing lives, and that is what captured my imagination as a writer.

Inspiration/The Painting in the Attic

2009-11-11T17:31:00.005-05:00

When my husband and I lived in Germany for several years, we had two memorable encounters with one of his great-great-aunts, the wife of a painter. Twenty years later those memories have become the inspiration for one of my stories.

The first encounter took place on a brilliant fall day in a nursing home where we had gone to visit Tante M. We entered a long, dreary institutional hallway with beige tiled walls and closed doors and knocked at the room belonging to Tante M. The door was flung open by a vibrant and colorfully dressed woman of indeterminate age. Her black hair was pulled back into an artful knot at the nape of her neck. She wore a yellow blazer and white slacks, Birkenstock sandals and long earrings that dangled from her earlobes. Chunky bracelets and a ring or two completed her accessories. It took me a few seconds to comprehend that this was the 90-year-old Tante whom we had come to visit.

She welcomed us effusively into her room, filled with sunlight and lined from floor to ceiling with paintings. Her bed had been transformed into a sofa, draped in a richly patterned throw and piled with embroidered pillows. An oriental rug hid the dun-colored terrazzo floor. Every surface was covered with sculpture and books.

We took Tante M. to lunch at an open-air café and were transported by her vivacious conversation to the salons she used to hold in Berlin, entertaining potential clients whom she charmed into purchasing her husband’s paintings.

The second encounter was a year or so later. We were spending Christmas at my mother-in-law’s home in Bavaria and were rummaging in the attic for the tree decorations that had been stored there. Leaning in a corner, its face to the wall, was a cobwebbed painting. We turned it over and discovered a languorous nude. It didn’t take long to identify who she was—Tante M., muse, manager and, we now understood, model, painted when she was in her twenties. We cleaned up the painting and took it home, where it still hangs above our bed.

Tante M. has been an inspiration to me—not only in shaping the spirit of the heroine of the novel I am writing now, but also in giving me a perspective on defying expectations as I grow older.

Writing from the Heart

2009-02-21T14:01:00.005-05:00

Someone pointed out to me that each of my stories has been set in a pivotal historical moment that not only serves as a backdrop for the conflict, but also influences and colors the decisions and actions of my characters. In my latest story, "A Daughter's Journey," in the anthology A Mother's Heart, that pivotal moment is the end of the Vietnam War and the "Babylift" that was organized to evacuate thousands of children in Vietnamese orphanages.

A Mother's Heart will be released in April (just in time for Mother's Day) and I realized that this April will mark the 34th anniversary of the Babylift.

If you participated in the Babylift, or if you were one of the children evacuated, I would love to hear from you--and I hope that you will read A Mother's Heart.

Resurfacing

2009-02-18T22:34:00.007-05:00

Life has intervened for far too many months, but I've been recently persuaded to return to my random musings on this blog. Since I last wrote I've had another book published, The Valentine Gift, and have completed two more which will appear this year: the novella "A Daughter's Journey" in the anthology A Mother's Heart in April and the novel Across the Table in October. I'm currently at work on a fifth, First Light.

The stories continue to emerge, at first in fragments of dialogue whispered in my ear by half-formed characters or in images that evoke as yet undiscovered worlds. I listen and explore, stepping off the edge to see where I land. The inspiration for my heroine in "A Daughter's Journey," a young journalist writing in Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War, was a haunting face in a photograph I stumbled upon a few years ago. A mixture of bravado and vulnerability, it fascinated me and led me to create a character with the tenacity and strength of will to survive in a war zone, yet willing to open herself to unexpected love--for a fragile child and a driven physician guided by Ignatian principles. I hope you'll discover in Melanie Ames a character worth caring about, as I did.

Book Groups

2007-06-08T18:25:00.000-04:00

Last night my friend Julie and I got together for one of our more-or-less monthly dinners, followed by an event at the Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Massachusetts, a multifaceted place that offers a rich tapestry of books and community to readers and writers alike. Last night's event was their annual celebration of book groups, complete with "flash" readings by authors Elinor Lipman, Jacqueline Sheehan and Lawrence Douglas; equally rapid recommendations of a four-foot stack of books from Random House reps; and food and conversation with an eclectic group of readers who belong to book groups already or who were looking to find a compatible one.

The evening prompted my reflection on the book groups that have invited me to speak after choosing my book, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, as their selection. My first experience with a book group was two years ago, when Dancing was still a manuscript. The members of the group worked at the prep school where I taught and they offered me their insights and questions in exchange for a home-cooked Italian meal. It was a fruitful discussion for me, especially in understanding how readers came to my work and what they took from it.
In the last several months I've visited with book groups both small and large, most filled with complete strangers who heard about me through word-of-mouth. Some of the questions they raised were the same. "How much of it is true?" everyone wants to know. "How long did it take you to write it?" is another that closet novelists seem to hunger after.

But each of the groups had its own identity, forged by the needs and experiences of the women sitting around the living room or the community center table. For one group, my book was the launching pad for discussion of relationships with grandparents and family histories that had been hidden or cherished or lost. There seemed to be a lot of regret in the room that night, of opportunities missed or denied. Another group was intensely focused on the personal meaning of the book to each of them--the passion in Giulia and Paolo's relationship, the stillborn babies, the entanglement of family. Yet another group, the largest, most raucous and most free with the pouring of wine, erupted with memories--both hilarious and excruciating--of growing up Italian in America. Words flew across the room that night; nerves were touched; it was hard to stop. My last group so far was with a group of mothers of boys in a Benedictine high school (the same high school my now 28-year-old son had attended). I don't think there was an Italian at the table, but their interest in the story and their understanding of Giulia's life was palpable and real.

I love doing the book groups. I learn so much about what my words mean for my readers. They teach me, and they help me to see my stories in a different light.

Starting Out

2007-06-05T20:26:00.000-04:00

I've taken a deep breath and am plunging into my first post.

As a newly published writer whose first novel went on sale in February, I've had an exhilarating and adventurous spring taking my words on the road. My audiences have ranged from three to three hundred, in venues as cozy as Pam's Paperbacks, in Wilbraham, Massachusetts (a gem of a bookstore) and as vast as CityStage, in Springfield, Massachusetts, where my book, Dancing on Sunday Afternoons, came to life with the music of flamenco guitarist Jesse Cook and the amazingly talented dancers of the New England Dance Theater.

Along the way, I've experienced moments of deep gratitude--for the friends who cheered me on, rejoiced in this pivotal moment in a writer's life and opened their address books to invite everyone they knew to come hear me. I also discovered how deep connections can be, when my babysitter--the woman who watched over me when I was a child-- arrived in a wheelchair at one of my readings; when cousins I didn't know existed wrote to me after reading the book and recognizing my name; when friends I hadn't seen in nearly thirty years showed up at bookstores with open arms and wonderful memories.

I've also made new friends. Readers who took the time to pen a note about what my words meant to them; authors like Carla Neggers, who shared a table with me at Pam's and shared her entertaining stories and dedicated fans as well; columnists like Tom Shea, who peppered me with questions in order to understand who I was and what I was writing about; independent bookstore owners like Pam Aronson and Janet Edwards, who LOVE books and offer their knowledge and their recommendations to spread the word.

Now that the whirlwind of travel and talk is over, I'm settling in for a summer of writing. Periodically I'll stop in here to post a few thoughts as I continue on this journey.