Memories of Kansas

I completed the first assignment for the Food Writing class at Brown, writing about my Kansas grandparents chicken yard, garden and kitchen. It's a memoir piece, and I have to tell you I shed a few tears writing it, and now, of course, the rationalist, the cynic, wonders if it's too sentimental. Only the ending is sentimental, which I try to tie back to the beginning. It's hard to write heartfelt without getting soppy. It is for me. But I think it will be O.K. At least from my other writing, I've learned to appeal to the senses, which food writing should absolutely do, and to create some drama and have a beginning, middle and end.

I wrote another chapter of In Flight, and adding that to my five pages of short story for the Guppy Anthology, this has been a productive week. And in the garden, too, as we brought everything into the house but the geraniums. Winter is a comen in.

We went for a walk today and discovered a path to the swimming pool that we didn't know about. Good walk through the woods. Glorious maples. You just can't beat fall in New England.

And now the Red Sox (sob) are trailing eight-zip, and will have to get their act and their pitching together. I do still miss Manny, and wish Big Pappi would slam a few out of the park. Ah, it's a frustrating sport.

I actually survived not going to Bouchercon. Everyone has posted photos and it looked like loads of fun, but gosh I'm glad I kept that thousand dollar bill in the bank. Everyone around here is having garage sales to raise a bit of cash.

We really did eat beans tonight, navy bean soup and it was so tasty! The recipe called for fresh thyme and rosemary, and the usual bean soup fixins. The bacon was fried, drained and sprinkled on the finished soup. Yum! I halved the recipe which was for twelve, but we won't get three meals out of it, oh my no!

You have yourself a very fine Sunday evening!

Grapeshot