Reading Proust

I feel asleep reading Proust last night, and woke up in the middle of the night with the book open and the light on. The thing about reading Proust is that you don't need to worry about a) too much excitement, keeping you awake, b) too much suspense, c) violence. Just beautiful sentences and descriptions.

I've been editing Festival Madness, because I thought I found some disjointed passages, but when I went back, I couldn't find them. The main character is in the process of putting all the clues together while dealing with her job, her colleague and her husband. Sometimes life itself is disjointed. Should fiction reflect? These are questions I can't find an answer to.

My small houseguest and I saw "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" in Mansfield this afternoon. The performance was truly delightful, and the cast, ages 10-13 was superb. We both enjoyed it a lot, a serendipitous find. If you're in the neighborhood, do go. Cheap tickets, too. Free cookies. Life is good. We've enjoyed Shreck III and Rattatouie.

Tonight it grilling weather, and we're doing a pork tenderloin on the grill along with summer squash and zucchini, and a risotto aux fines herbes (but not on the grill). Salad. Ice cream for dessert. Sounds good to me. French toast this a.m. My dad taught me to make French Toast and this is the secret: cream (or half and half) and a spoonful of sugar to make the toast brown nicely. I use half butter/half canola oil for frying, the yin and yang of fats.

While we're telling secrets, I put little quarter teaspoons of cream cheese into scrambled eggs to make them extra yummy. Also, not an original idea, but thanks to my old college friend Hester Finke Zimmerman for this idea. Cooks, like artists, pass on secrets to the next generation. When the time comes, I will tell our little guest about these secrets. I already told her about French Toast, but she is so young she'll need additional lessons. Today I told her about Mockingbirds, Cow Birds and how much fun it is to raise a baby robin. Nature lore is passed down the generations, too. At least I hope so. My mom lured fish worms to her garden with coffee grounds.

I told three secrets. How cool is that?

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