Reading, Writing and Arithmetic

Yup! I've been reading. Three novels on the trip. The Last Trip since I've been home, also finishing up Hallie Ephron's book, 1001 Books for Every Occasion. Lots of good suggestions. And for about a year I've been struggling to get through The Guermantes Way. Almost done. Don't think Hallie recommended Proust. He's a bear, but so rewarding.

Writing, yes. Always writing. More rejection. One that particularly stung yesterday, because the editor didn't like the characters, thought the main character unbelievable and the beginning forced. This was the book which my writer's group favors.

I admit I have plenty of unlikeable characters in my books, which is odd, because in life I tend to like most everyone. There are a few exceptions of course, but if I think back over jobs and organizations, most of the folks were all right.

The beginning of this book originally started much earlier in the story, but there is always, always, the advice to get to the murder, the action, no back story, blah, blah, and obviously the advice "shows." Forced beginning. How to make the character believable? My character is much different from me, so how to get into someone else's head? Dunno. Struggling with that in the current opus. So, suck it up, as usual. Currently, that book is nowhere. I'm wondering if I should try non-fiction. Short stories? Poems? Put down the pen forever. Then what?

Arithmetic, you ask? Always the calculations about the month and the money in this time of diminished value of investments. We have been through hard times before, and are used to scrounging, so it isn't so bad. The shock and adjustment were the worst things. So . . . suck it up there, too. Life is a series of suck-ups, isn't it? Or periods thereof.

Goulash soup last night. I stopped at Shaw's and bought one potato and one stalk of celery. . . everything else was in house, and then I discovered, whoops, no pepper. Used the rest of my jar of dried peppers. Couldn't tell any difference. My trick is to use 1 t. sweet paprika, 1 t. hot paprika, and 1 t. smoked paprika. Generous but not obscenely so toss of carraway seeds. Plenty of onion and garlic. I used some cheapy round steak that became tender in cooking. Plenty left for lunch today. I also used a mixture of beef and chicken broth.

Next topic today: competitive cooking

Reading on the Rise

A bit of good news in a sea of bad. Reading is on the rise. Is this some new escapist thing to get away from the economy, your 401K balance, and the other bad news? More people are even reading fiction, especially fiction. Yowza!

One of the publications I read mentioned that no one has determined if readers were picking up Proust or Nora Roberts. Read both, I say! Read Water for Elephants! Read your local mystery writers. Some of them are awfully good. Pick up a children's book you haven't touched for ages. Wind in the Willows comes to mind. If you can't afford a book, go to your local library. Swap with friends.

Here is a short article discussing the reading phenomenum. Yay!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/reading-on-the-rise/books/

Read The Shadow Warriors. See link on the right.

The party's over now . . . .

I'm tired but still exhilarated. After ten months of effort, the Crime Bake weekend is almost a blur, and the credits are rolling and you want to say, “Wait! Stop! I want to see that scene again.”

These events come together with a huge effort and much attention to details, and we all know that's where the devil is. If you want to live the Crimebake vicariously, try the web site http://www.crimebake.org/ in a few days because Mo Walsh, roving photographer, snapped pictures everyplace except the restrooms and I’m not too sure about them.

Between the bar and the banquet I spent a lot of time visiting what we call “the dark side,” in other words, noirish writing, which is what I seem to have plunged into, in this new book “In Flight.”

What is noir? According to a panel I heard years ago, in a noir film or novel, the world is corrupt. All the characters are already in purgatory. Trying not to slide into hell. Knowing the truth doesn’t change anything. It just makes life worse.

Cozies need not apply.

With moderator Hallie Ephron, the Playing After Dark panel discussed their noir genre, and whether there is any redemption for the characters and the answer is yes and no. Compelling authors Alex Carr, Amy McKinnon and Richard Marinick told how and why they write on the dark side. For non-readers who watch movies or television, the Wire, Chinatown, The Sopranos and even Mad Men are all dark to greater or lesser degrees.

One can O.D. on all this writing stuff. Come Saturday evening you just want to go home and write, but by Sunday, on overload, I am more inclined to watch, say, Sex And The City and chill, preferably with chocolate.

Of course I want to read all the new authors I discovered. The house looks like a book drop, with stacks all over and no end in sight. This week we hauled off a huge collection to the jail, a book exchange and the Viet Nam Vets and nothing seems to make a dent because I come home with more including Hallie’s book about 1001 more books to read. Sheeesh! Just what we need. 1001 more books.

Two days of newspapers, await, including the Sunday papers. I recycle the newspapers once a week ere they take over the house like the books have. Of course I’ll read the New York Times book review this evening and want even more books.

Something triggered an old memory this week, and I recalled discovering my parents Frank Yerby novels when I was perhaps in fourth grade and reading them and lots of other stuff that was unsuitable. Elinor Glyn in high school, Guadalcanal Diary, Forever Amber, which fell open at the “good parts.” I think I read most of the fiction in our little town's Carnegie Library, so thank you Andrew Carnegie. Let’s hear it for a robber baron who gave much, much back to the little towns of this country. Fortunately, my parents took no interest in what I read, assuming perhaps that it was Nancy Drew and something suitable for young ladies. Ha!

Back to the Crimebake. The attendees also sat rapt through riveting forensics discussions which we crime writers like. Your assignment is to hie thee to the web site and surf around, especially once the photos are up.

In the meantime, all those Sunday papers are calling my name.

Cheers!
Grapeshot

Lemon-Glazed Poppy Seed Cake

Clowning in my sister-in-laws kitchen.


When I was fourteen, I palled around with the Lutheran minister's daughter in our small town. The Lutheran church had a Wednesday night pot luck supper--I can't recall if it was weekly or monthly, but I used to go with Jurene, and the highlight, foodwise, was a poppy seed cake made by Mrs. Dahms. She never gave out the recipe. I wasn't into cooking at all, but once I asked my mom, and she said that the recipe was secret. Secrets are good. Secrets are tempting.

It was a white cake with poppyseeds, and there was somekind of curd, maybe lemonish on top, an frosting on top of that. Years later, when I ran across what looked to be that recipe, I passed on it. Too sweet and too gloppy, but when you're fourteen that's good stuff.

The great love of my fourteen year old life, Jerry D. , was at those church suppers, and I swooned over his father, too. The men would go outside to smoke and stand on the corner in their suits. Jerry's father was very handsome, and he smiled at me. Of course Jerry didn't smoke because he was a football player and a wrestler. We took piano lessons from the same teacher and he played "Dangerous Journey."

Jerry was one of the few kids in the school who was smarter than me. Hey, it was a small school and I was kind of a dweeb.

Those were the peak of my piano playing years, at least, the years when I still took lessons. The one piece I tried to master but couldn't was Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C Sharp Minor. God, it seemed to me then a beautiful, passionate piece of music, but playing it without strugges, missed notes and hesitations was beyond my talent, which is to say, I played it, but badly.

This all came together in my head yesterday, because I made a poppy seed cake, much simpler and maybe even better than Mrs. Dahms, and my friend is writing a book with Rachmaninoff in it, and we were talking about my piano abilities, now sadly gone.

I remember practicing the piece in the Manse, and the reverend being somewhat uncomplimentary about my efforts. I remember the Christian fellowship in the church basement and the cake and Jerry and his Dad and being fourteen years old. I remember where every church in town was.

How much I remember from those years and how little from others. Proust had much to say about memory, and he said it so well.

My cake was sort of a Proustian thing, although the taste was unique and did not transport me back to Northeastern Colorado and the high plains, just the idea of the cake and thinking of that piece of music brought back strong memories.

You can probably Google the recipe. It was in a May Gourmet, most likely a couple years back because I am cooking and baking my way through the clippings slowly, and either my arteries will clog or I will weight 300 pounds before I finish.

I found it for you: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/GLAZED-LEMON-POPPY-SEED-CAKE-238394

Create your own Proustian moments.

Thoughts on a cool September eve when the Red Sox are travelling.

Grapeshot

Off to Atlanta

Out of town for a few days. I will have some comments on travel when I return.

Two new mysteries are coming along with me. The only good thing about being en route is the ability to read.

We had French Toast this a.m. and ate a whole loaf of sour dough bread.

3-4 eggs, some milk and cream, 1 scant spoonful of sugar. Dip any kind of bread (within reason) in and fry in butter and canola oil or all butter if you are living on the edge.

Serve with low-salt bacon, maple syrup, apricot syrup and powdered sugar. Drink plenty of medium pulp o.j.

Enjoy.

Grapeshot