WHO COULD RESIST a book with the subtitle “My Life in a Harem”? OK, probably a lot of people. But I’m not one of them. [click to continue…]
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Posts tagged as:
memoir
SOMETIMES, YOU JUST HAVE to read a book. You love (or know!) the author, the subject compels you, something on the dust jacket sucks you in, a review is so provocative you cannot skip it…I have hundreds of different paths to reading, but the one I took to my latest favorite read is roundabout, for sure–and yet, at least for my life here on TSP, it feels totally inevitable. [click to continue…]
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Pleiades and Stardust. Credit: Rogelio Bernal Andreo (Deep Sky Colors)
MY KIDS ARE exploding this spring, turning into ever-evolving, endlessly fascinating, newly reinvented versions of themselves. And though I try to pay attention, it seems that many days, I’m just hanging on for the ride. [click to continue…]
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IF YOU’VE SPENT much time here, you already know how we TSP sisters feel about the power of memoir, and Mary Gordon’s layered remembrance of her mother is an outstanding example of the genre. [click to continue…]
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MY GOOD FRIEND told me that Mary Karr’s Lit was the best non-fiction she’d read in years, that while she couldn’t bear to put it down, the prose was so divine it made her want to stop after each passage just to savor it. This friend is no easy sell when it comes to writing and reading, so ok: add that book to my reading list, stat. [click to continue…]
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IHAD TO BREAK the news to my mother last night. A huge player in our shared history was gone. Her face went white, and she looked like she might cry. As we sat down to dinner (a dish I re-christened Cold Comfort Chicken Potpie) she looked down. “I just can’t believe it’s gone.” She was talking, of course, about Gourmet magazine. [click to continue…]
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AS A WAY TO BRING the happiness back into our family’s world of pie, I suggested that my mother and I do a joint project: enter a local pie-baking contest. I’m competitive when it comes to board games, but not so much to contests with judges and juries; I kind of assumed she’d beat me, and the world of pie would be returned to its axis. Best-laid plans… [click to continue…]
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"Mom! These are DEFINITELY POTATOES."
ARE WE ADDLED YET? Has the heat cooked your brain, softened your resolve, wilted your garden? Why yes, I say, to all three, which is perhaps why, when the Rock and I were washing our slender haul of assorted love apples from the garden yesterday, I didn’t bother to correct her when she insisted the tomatoes were potatoes and ate more carrots than she washed. It’s too hot to argue. It’s too hot to do much of anything, which is why I say: Make soup. (Does this seem proof positive that I’m not thinking clearly? No, no, I promise, this is good advice–read on.) [click to continue…]
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Joe Forte's artwork just about sums me up.
A FEW DAYS BACK, my (internet/have never met her in person, yet feel like she’s a part of my dysfunctional family) friend, lovely Marilyn of Simmer Till Done, asked me to chime in with a guest post on her blog. The assignment was simple: food & memory. I pinged her back (this whole convo, of course, was over Twitter) and said I’d LOVE to be a part of her blog (it rocks) but that my initial, stream-of-consciousness response to the assignment was pretty dark. “I’m cool with dark,” was her reply (or something like that) and so I was off to the memory races. [click to continue…]
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MY INTENTIONS WERE pure, I swear. My mother is one of the two best pie makers I have ever known. Ruth Reichl is the other one, so Mom is in plenty fancy foodie company. (I’m not picking favorites here. That would be stupid, and probably reduce the amount of world’s-two-best-pies in my future.) Since Ruth was in Brazil, and therefore not available for stalking for pie tips (and I suspect she’s more likely to put them on her own site, anyway) I turned to Mom. “I have a great idea!” I began. She looked suspicious. My “great ideas” and “suggestions” can be as annoying to her as hers are to me. “I want to film you making pie, and put it up on The Sister Project this week!” Her face seemed to pale, and the corners of her mouth plummeted. [click to continue…]
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