Brief Hiatus

 TBR is on a brief hiatus. Looking forward to featuring new books and authors in the fall!

On Hiatus

My author interview series is on hiatus until January 2025. Keep an eye out for my annual list of "Best Books (I Read) in 2024."

On hiatus...

 TBR is taking a short break. We'll be back in mid-June with new posts. Thank you for your continued support.

TBR on Hiatus...

We'll be back in January with a fabulous line-up of new books and authors!  

Best Thanksgiving Stuffing EVER!

I really think the headline says it all…if stuffing is the obvious highlight of your Thanksgiving meal, you owe it to yourself to give this recipe a try. Put away the bagged bread cubes, drop that Stove-Top! This is not a hard recipe, and I promise what emerges will be worth your time. In an ideal world, you might have homemade chicken stock, but quality canned will do. This stuffing can be made early and reheated in a microwave. You can stuff it in the turkey or not. Keep it warm all day in a slow cooker. Eat it all by itself all by yourself for dinner (as I have done). In short, it is THE BEST and it has NEVER FAILED TO DELIGHT!

Cornbread & Scallion Stuffing

Adapted from the beloved, still-missed Gourmet magazine, November 1992
(It’s actually called Cornbread, Sausage & Scallion Stuffing, but I don’t put in the sausage. See the note below if you’d like to add the sausage.)

For the cornbread:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk
1 large egg
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the stuffing:

¾ stick unsalted butter plus an additional 2 tablespoons if baking the stuffing separately
2 cups finely chopped onion
1 ½ cups finely chopped celery
2 teaspoons crumbed dried sage
1 teaspoon dried marjoram, crumbled
1 teaspoon crumbled dried rosemary
½ cup thinly sliced scallions
1 ½ cups chicken broth if baking the stuffing separately

Make the cornbread: In a bowl stir together the flour, the cornmeal, the baking powder, and the salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, the egg, and the butter, and add the milk mixture to the cornmeal mixture, and stir the batter until it is just combined. Pour the batter into a greased 8-inch-square baking pan (I actually use a cast iron skillet) and bake the cornbread in the middle of a preheated 425 F oven for 20-25 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. (The corn bread may be made 2 days in advance and kept wrapped tightly in foil at room temperature.)

Into a jellyroll pan, crumble the corn bread coarse, bake it in the middle of a preheated 325 F oven, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until it is dry and golden, and let it cool.

Make the stuffing:  In a large skillet, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and cook the onion and the celery over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened. Add the sage, marjoram, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste and cook the mixture, stirring, for 3 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, add the corn bread, the scallion, and salt and pepper to taste, and combine the stuffing gently but thoroughly. [In the original recipe, they tell us to “Let the stuffing cool completely before using it to stuff a 12-14 pound turkey. But the USDA now tells us the stuffing “should be mixed just before stuffing and cooking the turkey.” No one’s getting salmonella on my watch! Again, remember you can warm the stuffing in the microwave if needed.]

The stuffing can be baked separately: Spoon the stuffing into a buttered 3- to 4-quart casserole, drizzle it with the broth, and dot the top with the additional 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into bits. Bake the stuffing, covered, in the middle of a preheated 325 F degree oven for 30 minutes and bake it, uncovered, for 30 minutes more.

Serves 8-10; fewer if I am one of the dinner guests!

Note: Here are the instructions if you want to add the sausage: The recipe calls for “3/4 lb bulk pork sausage” that you brown in a skillet. Remove it from the pan—leaving the fat—and proceed with cooking the onions, etc. Add the sausage at the end, when you combine the cornbread and scallion with the onion mixture.

Hiatus

Work in Progress will be on official hiatus until mid-November.

(Speaking of November, don’t forget my favorite Thanksgiving stuffing recipe, found here!)

Spice Nog Flip...and More Links about ME!

Oh, I’m so, so, so, so, SO far behind on EVERYTHING! Please pardon this giant wrap-up of a million links all about me. But as a reward at the end of this post I’m including an excellent holiday drink that I made all by myself when Steve was away! It is rich and delicious and easy, and you know what? You deserve it!

Biggest news of all! I adapted the first story in THIS ANGEL ON MY CHEST into a non-fiction essay which is featured on the cover of the Washington Post Magazine! It’s really a lovely layout, with stunning illustrations. The web version is pretty—but imagine the print version being 10 times prettier!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/when-your-spouse-dies/2015/12/15/21241326-5d51-11e5-9757-e49273f05f65_story.html

I was featured on The Quivering Pen, in the “My First Time” feature, and I wrote about my first time creating a literary community, when I co-founded Folio literary journal while in graduate school.

http://www.davidabramsbooks.blogspot.com/2015/12/my-first-time-leslie-pietrzyk.html

THIS ANGEL ON MY CHEST was selected by Kirkus Reviews as one of 16 best short story collections in 2015. There doesn’t seem to be a direct link, but if you want to confirm I’m not making this up, you can click at the top to the “best of 2015” link and scroll though the lists.

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/lists/best-story-collections-2015/angel-my-chest/

Here’s a quickie interview on The Story Blog in which I reveal that my ideal writing day would end with watching “Jeopardy”!

http://thestoryprize.blogspot.com/2015/12/leslie-pietrzyk-gets-all-answers.html

Modern Loss is featuring my short story “I Am the Widow” (which maybe you already read if you read the book, but there’s a beautiful picture to accompany the story, so check that out!)

http://modernloss.com/fiction-i-am-the-widow/

As promised, here is a recipe for Spice Nog Flip, from Cocktails for the Holiday by the editors of Imbibe magazine (yes, that’s a magazine about craft beverages!):

Spice Nog Flip

2 ounces black spiced rum [I am lucky enough to have some excellent rum from Haiti, but I don’t think it’s spiced and the drink tasted fabulous; Captain Morgan’s is spiced rum]

1 tablespoon powdered sugar

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg [I love nutmeg so added more]

1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 ounces half & half [I’m sure whole milk is good, or real cream!]

1 egg

Dash of vanilla extract

Ice cubes

Combine the rum, powdered sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, half & half, egg, and vanilla in a shaker. Add ice and shake well. Double strain [or simply strain if you’re as lazy as I am] into a chilled mug and garnish with a dusting of nutmeg and a cinnamon stick. [Or decide you don’t want to waste a cinnamon stick and you’ll be fine.] [Also, I actually served this over ice in a tall glass.]

AND DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE EGG! IF YOU SHAKE IT ENOUGH, YOU WON’T EVEN KNOW IT’S THERE!! [Think of it as adding nutritional value.]

And the Winner Is...

….Allison F. of Durham, NC, who will be enjoying a year of the fabulous Gettysburg Review! Thank you to all who entered, and if you really, really, really had your heart set on reading the journal, well…here’s the link for subscriptions!

The Winning Picture!

Thank you to everyone who voted for their favorite.  This may not be your favorite, but it got the most votes in the end (often paired with another), and it got only one vote in the "please don't ever distribute this terrifying picture in public, I beg of you" section.

I am also going to hang onto this one, as several people suggested that there are venues who prefer a more serious look:




And thank you to photographer Susan Hale Thomas! 

“Fall on your knees, O hear the angels' voices…”

This, from “O, Holy Night,” is my favorite moment of any Christmas song, the most beautiful lyric I can imagine, the soaring stretch of the voice about to break—though I will say that my interpretation is not necessarily as intended, in a religious sense.

Instead, I’m thinking like a writer (as usual) and see this moment as acknowledging and accepting humility before something greater than ourselves, and gratitude that there we are, in that moment, hearing those voices, witnessing a miracle.  Whether that thing, that miracle, is a god or nature or love or the creative force or something else altogether…well. I guess that’s why that lyric is, to me, such a great piece of writing.

Wishing all of you happiness and joy! xoxox

Seattle! If I have to die eating, may it be here....

Oh, the shame of having a fabulous trip to Seattle and not writing it up while it all fresh in my mind.  Perhaps that’s one way of editing myself, to wait three weeks and see what I still remember.  In my defense, I’ve just spent ten days at the amazing Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VCCA) where I immersed myself in my novel-in-progress (which is starting to feel more like a novel and less like a 200-page mess).  There were two days of magical writing, where ideas and sentences flowed like a river, and eight days of the more brutal hard work of pushing, prodding, and hoping—which is a pretty good ratio, I’d say.

Anyway…time to catch up on Seattle, where I went to the AWP conference, the largest gathering of writers in the country.  I believe they’re up to 13,000 of us in this one place.  Thank goodness Seattle was up for the task of absorbing us and making sure we all got enough excellent food and liquor.

I had the first afternoon to explore on my own, and it was oysters all the way:  a wonderful selection of six at Cutters Crabhouse, and then I won’t tell you how many at Elliott’s Oyster House, which was an oyster bar I will dream about for the rest of my days.  Let’s just say, I ordered six, and they were the best oysters I’ve ever had—each unique, each bright, each with lingering mouth-feel and taste.  I may have ordered more after that first six…but how many more will be my little secret!  Perfect wine pairing, and very friendly waiter (everyone in Seattle was super-friendly—buzzed on coffee?).  I didn’t want to ever leave.  I’m sorry to say that I’m pretty sure that west coast oysters are the best.  And this place was so serious about oysters the menu included information about how they were harvested! (For the super-serious, here are my selections: Otter Cove, Penn Cove, Hama Hama, Fanning Bay [can’t read the handwriting!], Eagle Creek, Calm Cove.)

I walked through the Pike Place Market and the surrounding area and truly almost went insane because I wanted to eat EVERYTHING!  It was overwhelming, and I wish I had four stomachs like those lucky cows.  I tried some chowder at Pike Place Chowder, pastry at Piroshky Piorshky, and stared longingly at the ginger beer place, the cheese place, and a thousand other places and produce stands.  I cracked when I found the Copperworks Distillery, and tried a small (honestly, VERY small) sample of gin and bought some interesting-looking, amber tonic (Bradley’s Kina Tonic) that Steve later noticed was featured in the new issue of Imbibe magazine (yes, there’s a magazine for mixologists).

There had to be some space between all this eating, and woman does not live on food alone…she needs books!  I found the deservedly famous Seattle Public Library, which is an architecture wonder and—if the crowds are an indication—a vital part of the fabric of the city.  Seriously, this building is so beautiful and such an incredible showcase for the vibrancy of books that I almost cried as I rode the artsy escalators to the top floor for a fly’s eye view of the city through the glittering glass panels.  Of course I bought a ton of stuff in the gift shop. (See below for some photos I took with my NEW smartphone!!!)

That night, I met up with some fabulous Converse students at the Taphouse Grill, which had about a zillion beers—seriously, out spot at the bar faced a solid and vast wall of beer taps—and then hung out with more Converse folks at Wild Ginger, a Thai and Thai-inspired restaurant that created one of the most perfect appetizers I’ve ever had, which basically was a salmon curry compacted and distilled to its essence, all wrapped up in a banana leaf.  I had made a big production of how I don’t like sharing food and wanted my own…but when I got this dish, it was so incredible that I had to force bites upon other people so they could try it and I could watch their faces when their tastebuds got the hit.  This is why they trusted me when I ordered ginger ice cream for dessert to share, and that, too, was incredible.

Another dinner highlight was Miller’s Guild, located in a hip-happening hotel (not part of the conference hotel selections!) that was also one of Seattle’s oldest buildings (1926).  The restaurant was known for some sort of famous wood grill that looked very fiery and intense.  So I had to get beef—so tender and lush—but the most memorable aspect of this wonderful meal (with another fabulously friendly waiter!) was the cask-aged gin old-fashioned.  Yes, a GIN old-fashioned.  If you’re not up on current mixology experimentation, aging spirits for several weeks in a wooden cask is the new thing—flavor and color is added, and what flavor!  This was about as perfect a drink that could exist.  I was so enamored of it (and knew Steve would want to know everything about it) that the friendly waiter sent over the friendly bartender who answered every question I had—which gin, which bitters, what kind of sugar for the simple syrup.

Did I mention that people were friendly?  And that Seattle actually can be gloriously sunny, and when it is, people are even friendlier?

This might not come as a shock to you, dear reader, but it was a shock to me that I felt sick on Friday night, something sudden and drastic.  And—brace yourself—I HAD TO MISS A MEAL!* The horror, the horror.  But I hear that the Purple Café and Wine Bar was wonderful.  Next time (and there will be a next time; despite my extended stay due to weather, I am not done with Seattle).

Caution prevailed food-wise the next day, Saturday, which almost broke my heart.

And then the gods intervened in the form of a snowstorm in Washington that delayed my Sunday flight until Tuesday.  And, lucky for me, I was stranded with a DC friend who also had not had her fill of Seattle!

Sunday morning, I jumped back on the food wagon with a wonderful breakfast at the bar of Lola, a happening breakfast/brunch spot with an hour long wait, unless you lucked into a seat at the bar, as I instantly did (as if the food gods felt sorry for my prolonged compromised state).  Awesome bloody marys, and the bartender was pouring them out at a rate of about one every two minutes.

I walked to the Seattle art museum and took a guided tour of the Joan Miro exhibit which was informative.  I liked the museum overall, especially a wild and wonderful exhibit of African art.

My friend and I taxied up to the Capitol Hill area for drinks and dinner, and what a night!  One of the best food experiences I’ve ever had.  This was the night of the Oscars (on west coast time, remember) so there were no crowds, which made for a pleasant evening. First stop:  Tavern Law, a craft cocktail bar, with a thoughtful menu and a—guess what!—friendly bartender (thank you, Michael)!  I had to try a gin drink with egg white, since that’s something you don’t find at most bars (making a drink properly involves much, much, much shaking, which is hard on the arms and rotator cuff), so I had the Lusty Lady, which was delectable without being cloying: Genever gin, cranberry juice (I think…fuzzy notes!), egg white, and something lavender…actual lavender? Lavender simple syrup?  For my second drink, the bartender went off-menu for me, making a drink he had invented that involved—I kid you not—blue cheese tincture and saffron tincture. How does a drink work with blue cheese, you wonder?  Amazingly!  (I mean, as long as you’re a blue cheese fan.)  There was an earthy after-glow that was surprising in a delightful way.  (See Steve’s “Two at the Most” column for more on Tavern Law.)

Alas, we had to get some real food, so we walked to Lark and settled into a wonderful booth and had one of the best meals I’ve had, EVER.  The waiter spoke my language immediatelywhen he came to tell us about the menu and that everything was a “small plate” and that most people got three things.  Three!  Yay!  Exactly what I wanted to hear…though it was hard to pick three.  I decided a focus on fish would make sense, so I started with a yellowtail tuna Carpaccio that was bright and melted on the tongue.  And my friend had heard the char was to die for, so we both got that and if dying is anything like what that char tasted like, sign me up!  (For the super-serious, the dish is actually called:  “Arctic Char with Brussels Sprouts, Smoked Butter, and Rye Salt).  So beyond lovely…lovely times infinity.  (This is where I wish I had been taking notes, but I always find that it’s much more fun to simply eat and enjoy the moment.)  I felt guilty for so much indulgence that I asked the waiter for a vegetable recommendation, and he suggested the Bloomsdale spinach sautéed with Meyer lemon butter.  Any spinach with its own special name had to be something worth checking out, and it, too, was AMAZING!  If I could only have one meal in Seattle, Lark would have to arm-wrestle with oysters at Elliott’s.

On Monday, I walked back up to Capitol Hill, which was an interesting city walk and gave me a stronger feel for the real town, away from the tourist/convention life of downtown.  I came across about 1000 coffee shops and tiny restaurants that were begging me to eat something…more heartbreak as I pressed onward, to The Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle’s (deservedly) famous and amazing bookstore.  I had decided that I would spend as much time as I wanted to, looking at books, reading staff recommendations, and my mission was to buy books by people I didn’t know or know of, books I hadn’t heard about…to just explore and go wherever that led me.  So, two hours and six books later, I emerged as if from a dream.  This is probably the best bookstore I’ve ever been in (I guess if I could only go to one, it would have to arm-wrestle The Strand in New York City), and certainly one of the best bookstore experiences.  (You can read about one of the books I bought and read, The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout, here.) 

For a light lunch, I picked Oddfellows Café, a hipsterish, brunchy vibe in an old, restored Odd Fellows building from the 20s or so.  The salad was…amazing!  And scrambled eggs with cheese on homemade biscuit with homemade strawberry jam was…amazing!  The eggs were such that the cheddar had melded into them, as if into its own form of food product.  So yellow!  And walking back to the hotel, I came across a dog park, so I people/dog-watched in the sun, which is—surprisingly, since I’m not really a dog person—is one of my very favorite city activities.

And the last meal:  Blueacre Seafood, where I had another really excellent salad (lavender-infused goat cheese!) and, of course, finally, SALMON with a brown butter sauce and almonds and dried cherries. Ah, so this is what salmon really can be?  Again, sign me up!  And for dessert, salted caramel pot de crème, so rich and luscious I regret to this day that I had to leave behind two bites.

And off to the airport the next day, sitting on the plane with my friend for entertainment, my amazing book to read, and time to digest it all before hitting DC and snow.

Oh, the AWP conference….right.  That was fabulous too…learned a lot, talked a lot, listened a lot, ended up with a lot of journals, saw a lot of cool people, had a lot of fun doing my four-minute reading of this story.

_____________

*Please note that on these extravaganzas I do not typically eat three meals a day.  Otherwise, you’re right, I would explode.  But it was awful to have to miss a planned meal (not to mention the fine company I was supposed to dine with).

Here are some pictures of the public library (uh-oh...I've got a smart phone now, but I'll try not to get out totally out of control):

Hambidge Update: Goodbye!

Oh, the dreaded last day of the Hambidge residency…alas!  But don’t cry too hard for me, as now I’m embarking on a short driving tour of Georgia that will include a visit to Flannery O’Connor’s house and the Civil War site of Andersonville.  (Yes, an odd combination.)  I’m guessing some barbecue and southern food will get thrown in there as well.  Then it’s off to the big city, Atlanta!

I had such a wonderful time here, finding my Inner Nature Girl out on the hiking trails.  Being here makes me feel as though I should more purposefully incorporate nature into my daily life.  While I was typically terrified every time I ventured down a trail (refrain: is that poison ivy-what’s that noise-snake or stick?-boulder or bear?-don’t fall and break your leg because no one knows where you are-look up dummy and admire the beauty-look down dummy and watch out for mud-look for animal tracks-look for mushrooms-is that poison ivy-is that poison ivy), I was drawn back in and went venturing up more and more distant trails.  I never saw a bear—or anything else for that matter—though there were moments where I felt certain that something was watching me, that unexplained neck prickle, a certain musky smell.  What I liked is that no matter how familiar I was with a certain trail, there was always something new to see—mushrooms, the light through the leaves, water jumping along stones—and I was always aware that nature is in charge.  I never conquered; I was only there to witness a neutral, impassive force.  (Whenever I felt the tiniest bit confident, then I would do something dumb like realize that I had just put my foot down one centimeter away from a snakehole.)  Nature will win in the end, and there is something majestic about realizing one’s one insignificance in the bigger picture.

I guess that’s how I viewed my writing here, too.  While I moan and complain a lot (!!), I will say that this writing here has been more hard-fought than usual.  I can’t tell if that’s because I’m at the beginning of a longer work and I’ve just forgotten how challenging that place is, or if this material is particularly difficult for me emotionally, or because I haven’t found the right place to enter the material.  And always there’s the concern that the material simply isn’t right for a book and I’m wasting my time.  (Fun!)  Whatever it is, I tried to use my experience on the trails as a metaphor for the writing, to just move forward despite the fear, to trust that I will find my way out and through and onto the trail.

A final food note:

--I hate lima beans, but the succotash here was incredible!  I think the fresh lima beans made a huge difference.

What I won’t miss:

--bugs!!!!!!!!

--damp humidity that turns everything limp and soggy: crackers, paper, hair, books, dollar bills

--thinking about poison ivy to the point of dreaming about it

--the hornet that showed up from time to time with a buzz as loud as a dentist’s drill (NO exaggeration)

What I will miss terribly:

--the call of the wood thrush on many mornings and evenings (listen here)

--fireflies twinkling in the bushes and trees outside my deck

--sitting on the deck to watch darkness gently settle in

--spring water coming out of my faucet

--editing my work while sitting outside on the deck

--rhododendron growing wild

--the variety of otherworldly and amazing mushrooms growing in the woods

--a certain patch of ferns glowing in filtered sunlight

--reading a Flannery O’Connor short story every morning, being immersed in her brilliance

--drinking a glass of wine or a Bobcat* on the oh-so-southern screened in porch, enjoying the smart conversation while waiting for dinner

--amazing and inventive vegetarian cuisine four nights a week that I didn’t have to cook

--the light rush of raindrops dusting the canopy of leaves before thickening and drumming my cozy cabin roof

--perfect stillness; utter darkness

--the seesaw of cicadas calling to each other

--tadpoles

--frogs croaking at night

--the six-inch wide, yellow imperial moth that came to my window two nights in a row

--thunder rumbling across a clear sky

--mist blanketing the mountains

--the large orb weaver spider who set up ten days ago directly outside my desk window, spinning its web night after night: always showing up to do the work, to sit and wait, reminding me that the biggest and hardest job in life is simply to be present…showing me another metaphor for the writing process

And, perhaps more than anything, I will miss the leafy view from my cabin, nestled here on the side of a mountain, in the treetops, which filled me with joy the moment I first set eyes upon it.  Here’s a quote from one of the books I read that captures my feelings, though Mary Gordon is writing about her writing room on Cape Cod, so I don’t think she had such a thick forest to watch as I did:

“And above all, I was grateful to the window for providing me the view over the tops of trees, the old locusts with their mobile leaves that were responsive to the wind even when words were obdurate, that always gave me something to look at: a perfect view for writing, lovely, but not great, suggesting community rather than grandeur.  I would never want a view of a mountain whose intractability would only replicate the shape of my own mind; a view of water would be either too beguiling or would convince me of the futility of my task: for nothing I could make of words could ever be so satisfying or so various as the movement of sun on water.”

~Mary Gordon, Seeing Through Places

If you’re interested in learning more, here’s the Hambidge website:   http://www.hambidge.org/ Note that the next application deadline is September 15, 2013, for a spring residency…what could be more beautiful than these mountains and this forest in the springtime?! 

*The Bobcat was the official Hambidge drink during part of my residency.  It sounds weird, but trust me:  it works!! An easy recipe:  Bourbon (we liked Buffalo Trace) and Fresca over ice...as strong as you like.  Try it, and as they say in the churches down here, you’ll become a true believer!

Hitting the Road

Off I go again, this time down to the mountains of Georgia to a writing residency at the lovely Hambidge Center.  They swear that there is no internet in the studios, that to access the internet one must ford a river, rassle a bear, dance a passable jig, and recite the secret password in pig latin…so blogging will probably be light for a while.

Happy writing, y’all!

Margot Livesey on How to Create Vivid Characters

I’ll be leaving for AWP tomorrow, so no more blogging for the rest of the week.  But luckily, Redux has published a fantastic essay by writer Margot Livesey about creating characters, so I can leave off by urging you to read this smart and elegant piece:

Anyone who has read Margot Livesey’s books (which include Eva Moves the Furniture Homework, and The Flight of Gemma Hardy,) will find this hard to believe, but Livesey claims, “I am character handicapped.”  She writes,

“This essay grows out of my efforts to understand why the process of creating characters in fiction often seems so elusive and what we can do to make it less so.  To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor’s famous remark about story, everyone knows what a character is, until they sit down to create one.”

 

Through a close consideration of memorable characters, she comes up with valuable insights that will aid writers at any point in their writing career, reaching back to Aristotle, E.M. Forster, William Gass, and following up with her own observations, making a compelling case for one quality particularly necessary for successful character development:

 This seems to me the key to creating vivid and memorable characters.  It is also, I think, the reason why doing so can prove such a tricky task.  No amount of detail – eyes, teeth, hair, jobs, dreams, relationship to mother, history of dog ownership, bank balance – will avail unless it conveys attitude. 

 

There’s much more!  Read on.

A Christmas Wish...

For Christmas dinner there was the tender, juicy, roasted turkey.  There were the sweet potatoes, baked in the ashes and carefully wiped so that you could eat the good skins, too.  There was a loaf of salt-rising bread made from the last of the white flour.

And after that there were stewed dried blackberries and little cakes.  But these little cakes were made with brown sugar and they did not have white sugar sprinkled over their tops.

Then Pa and Ma and Mr. Edwards sat by the fire and talked about Christmas times back in Tennessee and up north in the Big Woods.  But Mary and Laura looked at their beautiful cakes and played with their pennies and drank water out of their new cups.  And little by little they licked and sucked their sticks of candy, till each stick was sharp-pointed on one end.

That was a happy Christmas.

 

~Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie

*****

I hope we all will all know such happiness....

Blogging will be sporadic until I return from teaching at the low-residency MFA program at Converse College in mid-January. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Link Corral: ISO Poems About Bourbon; Lee Child on Creating Suspense; New on Redux

This week is really "hello—goodbye," as I’ll be away from the blog for the rest of the week.  But there may be some food-related posts in the future….

*****

Who can resist a call for poems about bourbon?

Winged City Press and Two of Cups Press announce a call for submissions for the forthcoming anthology tentatively titled BOURBON FOR BLOOD, due out in July 2013.

We are looking for well-crafted, full-bodied poems that mention bourbon. A passing reference or a traditional ode to your favorite distillery, we have no stylistic preferences other than to demand that your work is top shelf.

Submission guidelines

Send up to three bourbon-related poems to twoofcupspress@gmail.com by Jan 1, 2013
Previously published poems are accepted for consideration as long as all the required information is provided in the submission. Contributors will receive one copy with the option to buy additional copies at cost. Bios will be requested if your poem is selected.

For more information:  http://www.wingedcitypress.com/p/bourbon-for-blood-anthology-of-bourbon.html

*****

I thought this was a terrific article about creating suspense in your writing, by Lee Child:

How do you create suspense? I’m asked that question often, and it seems that every writers’ symposium has a class with that title. It’s an important technical issue, and not just for so-called suspense novels. Every novel needs a narrative engine, a reason for people to keep reading to the end, whatever the subject, style, genre or approach.

But it’s a bad question. Its very form misleads writers and pushes them onto an unhelpful and overcomplicated track.

Because “How do you create suspense?” has the same interrogatory shape as “How do you bake a cake?” And we all know — in theory or practice — how to bake a cake. We need ingredients, and we infer that the better quality those ingredients are, the better quality the cake will be. We know that we have to mix and stir those ingredients, and we’re led to believe that the more thoroughly and conscientiously we combine them, the better the cake will taste. We know we have to cook the cake in an oven, and we figure that the more exact the temperature and timing, the better the cake will look.

So writers are taught to focus on ingredients and their combination. They’re told they should create attractive, sympathetic characters, so that readers will care about them deeply, and then to plunge those characters into situations of continuing peril, the descent into which is the mixing and stirring, and the duration and horrors of which are the timing and temperature.

But it’s really much simpler than that. “How do you bake a cake?” has the wrong structure. It’s too indirect. The right structure and the right question is: “How do you make your family hungry?”

And the answer is: You make them wait four hours for dinner.

As novelists, we should ask or imply a question at the beginning of the story, and then we should delay the answer. (Which is what I did here, and you’re still reading, right?)

 

Read on.

*****

New on Redux:  Former advisory editor Anna Leahy’s wonderful poems:

From “Anatomy Class”

We halved sheep’s eyes and hearts,

sliced frogs and pinned their skins down--

female frogs with tiny, black eggs

scooped gently from their bellies

and males frogs--and animal parts

with no sex, no attachment

to a particular body. Remember the walk

to the boys’ school, the blood taken

from fingers, our cat spread on the slate table,

its eyes closed and its mouth open,

teeth exposed and tongue rippled slightly,

curled up at the tip as if to pant. …

Read on.

The Best Stuffing in THE WORLD!!

Confession:  I have been a lame blogger lately, missing days of postings.

Confession:  I don’t think this will be the week that I’m going to get my blogging act together, so I’ll be back posting in earnest on Monday, November 26.

A food-related confession:  I will be going OUT TO EAT for Thanksgiving!!  This seems to me to be both shameful and a huge relief.

Further confession:  I will also be making a small turkey on Friday, so we can have turkey sandwiches, yes, but really so I can have this stuffing, which is the best stuffing in the world.  I would happily eat it—by itself—for dinner if permitted.

Darkest confession of all:  I’m also using Friday's non-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving menu as an opportunity to make sweet potato casserole with mini-marshmallows, which no one allows on the “real” Thanksgiving table.  I can’t wait!

Cornbread & Scallion Stuffing

Adapted from the beloved, still-missed Gourmet magazine, November 1992
(It’s actually called Cornbread, Sausage & Scallion Stuffing, but in an uncharacteristic nod to heart-health, I don’t put in the sausage. See the note below if you’d like to add the sausage.)

For the cornbread:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/3 cups yellow cornmeal
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk
1 large egg
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For the stuffing:

¾ stick unsalted butter plus an additional 2 tablespoons if baking the stuffing separately
2 cups finely chopped onion
1 ½ cups finely chopped celery
2 teaspoons crumbed dried sage
1 teaspoon dried marjoram, crumbled
1 teaspoon crumbled dried rosemary
½ cup thinly sliced scallions
1 ½ cups chicken broth if baking the stuffing separately

Make the cornbread: In a bowl stir together the flour, the cornmeal, the baking powder, and the salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, the egg, and the butter, and add the milk mixture to the cornmeal mixture, and stir the batter until it is just combined. Pour the batter into a greased 8-inch-square baking pan (I actually use a cast iron skillet) and bake the cornbread in the middle of a preheated 425 F oven for 20-25 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. (The corn bread may be made 2 days in advance and kept wrapped tightly in foil at room temperature.)

Into a jellyroll pan, crumble the corn bread coarse, bake it in the middle of a preheated 325 F oven, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until it is dry and golden, and let it cool.

Make the stuffing:  In a large skillet, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and cook the onion and the celery over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are softened. Add the sage, marjoram, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste and cook the mixture, stirring, for 3 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl, add the corn bread, the scallion, and salt and pepper to taste, and combine the stuffing gently but thoroughly. Let the stuffing cool completely before using it to stuff a 12-14 pound turkey.

The stuffing can be baked separately: Spoon the stuffing into a buttered 3- to 4-quart casserole, drizzle it with the broth, and dot the top with the additional 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into bits. Bake the stuffing, covered, in the middle of a preheated 325 F degree oven for 30 minutes and bake it, uncovered, for 30 minutes more.

Serves 8-10; fewer if I am one of the dinner guests!

Note: Here are the instructions if you want to add the sausage: The recipe calls for “3/4 lb bulk pork sausage” that you brown in a skillet. Remove it from the pan—leaving the fat—and proceed with cooking the onions, etc. Add the sausage at the end, when you combine the cornbread and scallion with the onion mixture.

Link Corral: ISO Work by Women Writers and Jen Michalski in Redux

I’ll write up an update about my personal “Ernest Hemingway Day” in Key West, Florida, later this week, but for now, a quick link corral.  (And don’t forget to vote today, if you haven’t already!)

*****

ROAR Magazine is a print literary journal dedicated to providing a space to showcase women's fiction, nonfiction, poetry and visual art.

We publish literature by emerging and developing writers, as well as interviews with established writers,such as acclaimed novelist and short story writer, Jill McCorkle, who, in our current issue, talks about balancing her life and writing.

ROAR Magazine is now accepting submissions for our 2013 winter issue.

ROAR accepts work that represents a wide spectrum of form, language and meaning. 
In other words, don't worry if your work isn't specific to feminist issues. If you're a gal, we just want your point of view!

For detailed guidelines, please visit our website at www.roarmagazine.org.

*****

New on Redux:  Jen Michalski’s story “The Safest Place,” previously published in Reed magazine:

When Andnej turned sixteen he set like concrete. His cheeks and jaw flattened and squared, and so did his nose, which pointed downward, like a beak. Basha wondered if he smiled whether his face would break. In the afternoons and evenings he sat on a playground swing behind their apartment complex, his necklace catching the sun as his Adidas and jean cuffs dragged across the pavement. When the boys came up to him, he no longer ran.

              “He sold drugs to Henka’s sister,” Kamilia said as Basha studied him through the apartment window.

              “How would you know?” Basha looked down at her. Last year Kamilia had played princess games with Henka, the other 9-year-old in the building. Kamilia, whose face colored and eyes found the floor of the elevator when the boy down the hall read aloud all the bad words spray-painted on its walls. “Do you even know what drugs are?”

              “He gives her aspirin.” Kamilia moved her thumb and pointer finger together to show the size of the pill. “Henka says that Ania takes them to lose weight.”

              Basha could not forbid Kamilia to play with Henka; if it was not one child in the complex, it was another. They were the children of mostly second-generation Polish and Chechnyian families, and they tended to stick together.

 

Read on.

Getting a Good Author Photo

I’ll be away from the blog for a few days—back next week.  In the meantime, this is a helpful piece about how to take a good author photo.  For some reason, I’m not able to cut and paste from the article and am too tired to try to figure out why not, so take my word:  reading this will give practical advice about you how to hide blemishes and double chins….not that any of us need to worry about that!

Oh, whew:  here's an excerpt:

To hide a double chin, lift your head, put if forward, and tilt your head down a bit. Not too much, or you’ll actually exacerbate the problem, or look insane. Position yourself so that the camera is a bit above your eye level. Of  course, there’s always the old trick of putting one hand under your chin as though you’re resting your head on your hand. And of coursenobody knows what you’re doing. (Avoid pushing extra skin into weird positions.) Some say resting your tongue against the roof of your mouth helps.

See?  Practical!

Bye-Bye, Sandy!

The chipmunks were the first to return to the front yard, and then the birds and the squirrels followed.  It’s a busy little world out there now, everyone running around, filling up with the ba-jillion acorns suddenly on the ground.  It’s not remotely sunny, and rain and drizzle comes and goes, but what a lovely sight.

The power is on, the trees are still standing, and the basement stayed dry.  We caught up on some reading, some TV, and some movies.  I’m happy we spent the $$ to get the trees trimmed in the spring, because this was some kind of wind.  And some kind of rain.  I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a noisy storm for such an extended period of time.

There is a stubborn roof leak now affecting the living room ceiling.  Third time’s the charm in getting the repair done right, right!?  Well—as they say, it could be much worse.  All in all, feeling lucky.