love letters

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Wow. Here we are in a new decade and everything old feels new again. The world is troubled. We all want to live happier lives. We rise on January 1st (well, maybe January 2nd ) with bright eyes and an impulse to be more authentically ourselves, to embrace joy, and then, wham, bombs, threats, and bloviators take over the news cycle. Please. Let’s continue with the plan. Embrace your authentic self, whatever that looks like. If it means running for office, if it means taking music lessons for the first time, if it means going back to school to get a degree, if it means dancing in your kitchen and making room for laughter, if it means dedicating time and resources to your favorite candidate, I applaud you!


read

I failed. Yet again. Each year I strive to read 52 books and for the second year in a row, I only read into the 40s, a solid B. Oh well. I made the same pledge to myself for 2020 and if I don’t make it again, I will have watched some great shows or listened to some funny podcasts. (Just today I embarrassingly laughed aloud, and I mean LOUD,  all the way through the grocery story while listening to Conan O’Brien and Al Franken chitchat.)

Here’s what I’m excited to read:

Yellow House, by Sarah M. Broom, a memoir about place as much as it is about people, which won the 2019 National Book Award for nonfiction. I’ve never been to New Orleans. Maybe this memoir will help me understand wider aspects of the city. Broom says in the book, “Much of what is great and praised about the city comes at the expense of its native black people, who are, more often than not, underemployed, underpaid, sometimes suffocated by the mythology that hides the city’s dysfunction and hopelessness.” Yellow House has received accolades from nearly everyone, here’s what the NYTs had to say.

The Days of Abandonment, by Elena Ferrante. I LOVE her work. I read about this book on Elisa Gabbert’s list, which is fantastic and you can find it here. Gabbert says her mouth was, “hanging open” as she read the entire second half.  That to me is the best recommendation ever.

Eve’s Hollywood, by Eve Babitz, which was described by Dwight Garner in the NYTs as a, “potent cocktail of a book.” This fits the bill for my 2020 desires, no not to imbibe, but to laugh and enjoy.

Drop me a line and let me know what you’re looking forward to reading. I need to reach my goal!



write

I’ve not been writing much since I finished my manuscript. Yes, I have ideas circling in my mind like raptors but I’ve not really committed much to the page. I don’t recommend this. It’s a great idea to keep writing, start something new, remain busy so you aren’t as wed to the outcome of the reception of your manuscript…with agents, with editors, with the world.

What I’m very interested in writing is fan mail. Last year, the editor Susan Kamil died and the NYTs published a love letter from Ruth Reichl. I was so moved reading this, I thought, wouldn’t Kamil have loved reading the emotional and lovely tribute while she was still alive? I’m certain we all could write so many love letters right now, to people breathing and eating and walking upright! Why shouldn’t they know the beauty and value they bring to our lives?

Last year I resolved to make a cake a month, to bring sweetness to my life. Cakes are fun, right? This year, I resolve to write a love letter a month, to bring sweetness to someone else’s life. How about you? Who can you tell that they’ve brightened your life?



eat

As I write this note, I am eating dinner alone for the first time since mid-November. Oh my god! It makes me so happy. I love my husband. I love my friends. And I’m delighted to have this night. I’m surprised by what I cooked for myself, New York steak, (I know, I know, but really I don’t eat much meat, I had a craving, I’m sorry) with sautéed shitake mushrooms, roasted acorn squash with chimichurri, delicious red wine, and sourdough bread with Irish butter. It’s so indulgent and fantastic. The only thing missing from the meal, for a total cholesterol assault, is a slice of cheesecake, which I baked (see my attempt here and trust me, it was prettier in real life) for the final installment of my 2019 cake-a-month pledge.

Smitten Kitchen has a fantastic New York Cheesecake recipe, which I thoroughly recommend… with caveats. Watch it like a hawk during the first 12 minutes with the insane inferno oven temperature of 550 degrees. At the slightest hint of browning, turn the oven to 200 degrees and open the door a crack to release some heat. Instead of the cherry topping, I made a compote of grapefruit, Cara Cara oranges, and pomegranate. It was, and I won’t be shy about it, amazing, the pièce de résistance of the whole cake-a-month delight.

a painter and a writer walk into a bar

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I write to you from sunny Spain where we’ve been eating, swimming, strolling, and sipping our way through the end of 2019! When I get home I plan on starting a new holiday tradition, paella for Christmas. What a way to share one big pan of homemade love with our people. I hope the last month of the decade brings you joy!


read

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying T Kira Madden’s, Tribe of Fatherless Girls. There are loads of reasons to tout this memoir: beautiful sentences, at times harrowing narrative, interesting shape and structure, Madden’s use of time, the surprises along the way, her grit. Many of the chapters can stand alone, and one in particular, “Can I Pet Your Back,” I found very moving. It’s use of repetition reminded me of Jamaica Kincaid’s flash fiction, “Girl,” and Rick Moody’s short story, “Boys.” The repeated phrase, “I found pretty,” is deeply sad and powerful, exploring the loss of self to suit a toxic worldview of womanhood. Here, finding pretty involves a complete erasure of individuality to fit the bleached teeth, dumbed down, tanning beds, dyed hair, permed eyelashes, G-strings, anorexia, back seat blow jobs for a ride to the mall, expectations of girlhood.

Because we’ve been so close to Madden prior to her finding pretty, the losses tangled up in her “discovery” are more profound. Consider this early moment, when fishing for trout with her mom as a young girl. They catch and release and she has a singular and specific view of the world.

“I wrestled with the hook to free it; I was in a hurry. Easy like this, said my mother, and she did it in one motion, a popping sound…I tossed the fish back into the mud of the pond, and the two of us watched it shoot off like a single strand of tinsel in the sun before it disappeared.
What I mean to say is, it lived.”

Living, in Madden’s world, is slippery, no easy feat, and a glittering thing to be celebrated.



write

Sometimes not writing is the best way to write. In Madrid, I spent a good bit of time at the Reina Sofia museum. It is huge. A labyrinth. Of course there is Picasso’s Guernica to see, which we did, and what we also found incredibly inspiring was the temporary exhibit by Ceija Stojka, “This Has Happened.” The show is a series of paintings that tells the story of her Lovara Gypsy family, Hungarian horse dealers who had settled in Austria. The first paintings in the series are bucolic, the paint joyfully applied in a way that invokes a happy childhood. Lots of color and flowers, caravans, chickens, horses, the cycles of nature. The next paintings deal with the Nazis discriminating against the Gypsies, whose movements were restricted, her father was taken to Dachau, later she and her mother were taken away as well. The colors change in these paintings, the flowers are replaced with recurring frightened eyes crouching in brambles. Canvases are filled with dark, abrupt slashes of paint, and coiling barbed wire. There is a motif of crows, as both harbinger of evil, and a message of hope, for the crows can fly over the fences into freedom. Studying how Stojka applied paint, changed her hues and perspective, her use of repetitions and motifs, was relevant to writing, for all are tools at the disposal of the memoirist, the novelist, the short story writer, the poet.

Another great way to write is to give yourself the gift of time. I will be participating in and guest teaching at a spirit boosting retreat with my friend, Jen Louden. If you need time to hang out with 20 or so fabulous women, if you want to dance to funny and fun playlists in the morning, write in the afternoon, participate in inspired talks, get in touch with what may be holding you back in your work, spend time in beautiful Taos, eat delicious food, move ahead in your current writing project or discover what’s next, this is a wonderful, restful, replenishing experience.  Check it here: Jen Louden.

And, if you want to get an idea of what Jen is about, I loved this recent blog post from her about self recrimination, merciless expectations, and forgiveness during the potential shit-show of the holidays.



eat

I’ve bought so many little packets of saffron for gifts my entire suitcase is redolent. My socks reek! Please stay tuned for some rice/paella news in the future, but for now, I’ve got this perfect nibble for a cocktail soirée.

Before Spain, we spent a couple nights in NYC. I grabbed a quick lunch with one of my all time favorite students/friends at one of my favorite over-priced restaurants, ABC Kitchen.  There are quite a few recipes from ABC Kitchen up at NYT’s cooking that I make again and again. Amy and I shared three: roasted carrots with avocado, micro-greens and crème fraiche, the winter squash toast, which is a fantastic dish, and the kale salad with perfect tiny croutons and jalapeños. All of it delicious.
If I’ve already shared my version of the Squash Toast with you, forgive me, I’m doing it again. Yes, it is that good.

One 3-pound butternut or kabosha squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (you can place in a 250 degree oven for about 15 minutes to soften the squash enough to cut, otherwise it’s a struggle!)
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil, divided, plus more for drizzling
1/2 teaspoon dried chile flakes, more to taste
Kosher salt, to taste
1 yellow onion, peeled, halved, and thinly sliced
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup
Bruschetta/toasted baguette slices (why not buy them pre-made and save yourself a little work? ????)
1 cup ricotta
Flaky salt, for finishing
1/4 cup chopped mint
Pomegranate seeds

  • Dump the squash onto a heavy sheet pan and toss with a 1/4 cup of olive oil, the chile flakes, and a generous pinch of salt.  Roast the squash at 425° F until tender, about 20 minutes.
  •  While the squash is cooking, make the onion jam: In a small saucepan, heat the remaining 1/4 cup of oil over medium heat, and add the onions, stirring, and cook until they begin to soften and darken, about 15 minutes. Add the vinegar and syrup, and reduce until everything is jammy. Depending on the surface area of your pan, this could take as little as 15 minutes or as long as 30. When it looks as though it’s ready to be spread on toast and it tastes tart-sweet, it’s ready.
  •  Add the onion mixture to the cooked squash, stirring gently so as to preserve a few chunks of squash. Taste, and season with salt or more chile if needed — the mixture should have a nice heat.
  •  Spread a layer of ricotta on the bruschetta, and then the same amount of the squash-onion mixture. Sprinkle with a bit of flaky salt, then scatter the chopped mint and pomegranate seeds on top.

burn the page down!!!

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I’m just home from a sacred landscape. I feel so lucky to have visited Taos, New Mexico, where I taught and participated in Jen Louden’s amazing writing retreat with twenty-two women. At 7000 feet we all pushed the pause button on our lives, made writing and our stories a priority. The Mabel Dodge Luhan House hosted us. We wrote, laughed, danced, listened, learned, napped and sweat! (It was hot.) Sometimes we cried, and oh my god did we eat…  Hop over to my Instagram page to see some beautiful photos.


read

I read Deborah Levy’s gorgeous, portmanteau of a book, Things I Don’t Want to Know. Part memoir, part gender politics, part writing treatise, and literary theory, the book is a swift and deep river. I was moved by all that Levy had to say about painful reckoning with one’s past. It is particularly when we don’t choose to remember that our past remembers us, and sneakily invades our lives.

Levy also has much to say about voice and agency. “To speak up is not about speaking louder, it is about feeling entitled to voice a wish.” Throughout much of her childhood, Levy spoke very softly and was admonished to speak up, though she could not. Using her voice felt dangerous. (Her father was imprisoned for five years in apartheid South Africa.)

As a grown woman, a writer, she said, “A female writer cannot afford to feel her life too clearly, if she does, she will write in a rage when she should write calmly.” I get it. I intimately understand the rage and dismay that can arise from the loss of freedom a woman feels when she leaves her child body behind, becomes an object, perhaps a wife and a mother, and is told again and again that to voice a wish that is solely of the self, for the self, is outrageous. Because women are givers, we risk merging into anonymity.

But I don’t believe this is entirely gender based. Any giver is threatened with erasure. Nor do I believe women aren’t strong, and cannot write from a place of rage. Don’t be sloppy, don’t harden, remain curious, bold, and recognize your strength. Then, burn the page down!!

In “Laugh of the Medusa,” Hélène Cixous, the French poststructuralist thinker said, “Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.”



write

Jen Louden, the most authentically enthusiastic person I’ve ever met, led the Taos retreat. She offered many questions and ideas to encourage us go deep into the why of our writing lives. She asked us reflect upon a question that dogs us–in our lives, in our writing. We scrawled questions on slips of paper and dropped them in a cookie jar. Everyone then drew one and held onto the question for a few days, walking the beautiful Taos landscape, jotting answers when inspired, then taping the questions to the wall. Where do I go from here? Who am I without ambition? How will I know when enough is enough?

And this: Is everyone lonely?

The question slayed me. Because of course, the answer is yes. Not all the time, but perhaps more often than we like. We’re lonely binging Netflix on our sofas. We’re lonely swiping through Instagram, or Twitter, or checking our Facebook feeds. We’re lonely sitting at our desks, struggling to write one true sentence, and then another. We’re lonely when we miss connections with those we love. We’re lonely when we don’t feel seen.
Any of the women at the retreat could have written the question. What I came to understand as I thought more about it: Thank God for my writing. Alone at my desk I am challenged and infuriated. I feel really shitty as I try, then fail, and then fail better. But that lonely time writing is when I’m with my best friend. My writing/my friend has seen me through really dark times. It has helped me gain understanding about…well, me. It has helped me develop compassion. My writing has helped me become a better human being.
So yes, Dear Writer who posed the question to all of us. Everyone is lonely. But you have the magic tool to learn the world and bring it closer. Do what you love (and hate) to do, write.



eat

The food was so terrific at the lodge in Taos, mostly fresh vegetables, big salads and lots of baked treats.Yum! But, I didn’t get much Southwestern food. So, I plan on making these, even though Portland weather will be in the 90’s all week.  I promise, you will love these enchiladas. They were a staple in our home when the children still lived with us. Oh, now I’m feeling a little verklempt, missing their sweet faces at our dinner table. Which brings me back to Deborah Levy and the struggle for self. I guess the question is, how do we stay strong in the self and continue to give, to share our lives? I think an answer is to take time, to make time, to retreat and do what you love, just for you.