The Once and Future Books

 Once again, Rhobin has chosen a meaty topic.

My current book! I could write for days about it. I'm writing about something near to my heart, the Mennonite community in my mother's small hometown, a hamlet in Kansas.  Mom's dad was born into a Mennonite family in the 1880s. He was kicked out of the church as a young man for playing baseball on Sunday for money. He was a baseball fanatic all his life and at one time managed the championship 1928 Wheat League Team.


My grandmother was a descendant of settlers from Quebec in French Canada.  No longer Catholics, they were Baptists (long story).

Grandparents House

My novel is set in two periods, 1953 and 2019.  The protagonists are a present day woman (2019) and her grandmother (1953).  It is a murder mystery and just a couple days ago I figured out the who an how of the murderer.
63,000+ words and I didn't know these things.  Now I do.  Whew!  It's fun to write about 1953 with the language and culture so different.  It was definitely a different century.  My 1953 character is a Mennonite widow, a former missionary, a teacher, a painter, a quilter, a journal writer and now an amateur detective.  She amazes me  I'm nothing like her.

French-Baptist Cemetery

Her granddaughter  is a journalist who has lost her job and left her stalker boyfriend.  She has inherited her grandmother's house and is writing  a book about the Plains. Nothing like me, either, but I know them  well.
A couple  years ago I visited the county and the town and talked to everyone.  Something that surprised me a lot was how friendly and helpful everyone was.  It was humbling and also made me cry.

Santa Fe Railroad Crossing

The writing has been off and on as I deal with some difficult life and health situations.  I love my characters and  expect them to keep surprising me.

As  part of this adventure, I discovered the breed of tomatoes my grandfather grew in his garden. Sioux. They are now heirloom an have even been improved.  I found some plants and had them shipped from California.  Again, the woman running the nursery was so nice.  One of the tomatoes is ripening, like my story.  This is personal.      

Local college- everyone so helpful and kind 

I'm sure the other bloggers have interestings works in process.  Writers love to talk about their writing.
Take a look:

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1EW
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com

Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

My Favorite Food(s)

My beloved grandmother Hattie Hess and me

My Favorite Food  would have to be fried chicken. I  know I’ll never taste one like my Grandma fried up in a couple big scoops of Spry or lard in her black cast iron skillet. She’d dip the pieces in seasoned flour and lay them in the hot skillet to brown. What was special about these chickens was that they were plucked, cleaned and  cooked within hours of being killed. They had a good life for a spell—a big chicken yard with food, water, bugs, little rocks for their craws,  the companionship of a rooster—no coyotes or foxes. A good life until it was gone. 

Home mashed potatoes (lots of butter) and creamy gravy usually accompanied the chicken. In summer, creamed new potatoes with peas was de rigueur. As a kid I refused to taste this dish. We also had string beans cooked with bacon, but I freaked out about the “strings.” A difficult child. I  got the wings which I loved, and I shared the liver with my Dad. My mom liked the ribby pieces and the dark meat. Dad also got the breast and everyone was happy. My grandma always fried two chickens if there were more than three people. She made the best Waldorf salad. And when the tomato crop came in, we had homegrown tomatoes, big red tasty ones—something I know I’ll never taste again in this lifetime. Something about the Kansas soil, or the care and love with which they were grown and tended. Huge luscious tomatoes with a zing that is impossible to find anymore, even if you grow you own. Oh, those tomatoes! 

Did I mention the home-grown strawberries?  Good luck finding a berry that tastes remotely like these berries, red all the way to the center.  Tart.  Sweet.  Juicy.  The very essence of what a strawberry should be.  By the end of the summer I began to get tired of them, dumb kid that I was. 

My grandma baked spectacular pies, with a tender flaky crust and cherries, or apples, or berries. She made those pies seem effortless with her nimble fingers and her rolling pin. Oh god, I would give almost anything to sit in the corner or her modest kitchen at that round oak table with my grandpa in  his overalls and my grandma in her house dress and eat a meal with them just like when I was a child. It was always so wonderful, and of course we never appreciate those days until they’re gone.  

Favorite foods convey love, family and caring for one another.  Without the emotion attached to them, it's just a meal. 

This weekend, other authors are also blogging about their favorite foods.  Take a look at the following blogs: 

Heidi M. http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/
Skye Taylor  http://www.skye-writer.com/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Rachael Kosnski http://the-doodling-booktease.tumblr.com/
Margaret Fieland http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Geeta Kakade http://geetakakade.blogspot.com/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/

Ginger Simpson http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/