Run, do not walk (well, in internet terms) to the London Review of Books and read Hilary Mantel’s Diary of being ill. It’s by turns hilarious and hallucinogenic and scary (and probably not for the squeamish) and brilliant. Especially her take on Virgina Woolf’s On Being Ill. (Although I feel a little bad for enjoying her ad feminiem attack on Woolf, since it wasn’t until I became chronically ill in grad school that Woolf’s work started to open up for me.) Nonetheless, I loved this essay.
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This time of year the only safe place to hike is Yellowstone, so since it was a gorgeous day yesterday, off we went. It was the last day that the roads are open, so we headed down to Swan Lake flats and took off to the west. About an hour in, we saw two grizzlies, high on a ridge to the south of us, eating grubs or something. I don’t have a photo, but they were unbelievably beautiful up on the high ridge with the sunlight gleaming off their guard hairs. They were illuminated. Meanwhile, a couple of magpies were…
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So I went off to vote this morning — we vote at the fairgrounds here, and as always, the act of voting restored some of my confidence in the American people. There we all were — ranchers in their muck boots, my fellow Democratic activists, the guy who fixes boilers, and next to me, a very very very old woman (who said “God Bless You” to the election worker as she handed over her ballot to go through the counting machine). It was, to say the least, a diverse group. And yet, was there shouting? Was there tension? Were people…
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I’ve been just the tiniest bit obsessed with peppers this year. I grew a bunch of different varieties — Hungarian Wax, Cayenne, Aci Sivri (a Turkish pepper), hot Italian cherry peppers, Spanish pequillo — and for once, I got a decent crop. I also bought a few bags of hot peppers from the local farmer’s market (as well as several bags of roasted New Mexico green peppers from another vendor). I made salsa out of the roasted green peppers, and I pickled just about everything else. For the pickled peppers I used Michael Symon’s Pickled Pepper recipe (via Michael Ruhlman).…
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the subject of fictional characters and “likeability.” Probably because I’m writing again, but also because it’s a topic dear to my heart, since so many readers found Anne, in Place Last Seen deeply unlikeable (go take a look at the Amazon reviews if you don’t believe me). Patrick and I used to laugh about it, because we both thought I’d pulled my punches and had made her sympathetic, or at least much more sympathetic than in her earlier incarnations. I wasn’t entirely surprised when she was greeted with a hail of criticism because…
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Look what the UPS man brought me yesterday — It’s always a surprise to see something you’ve written in an actual book, one that was produced by someone else, and has managed to independently make its way into a store. The first time I saw Place Last Seen in a store I had an inexplicable urge to scoop them all up and take them home, as though it was somehow dangerous for my wee book to be out there all by itself. And then of course, Patrick picked up a copy in each hand and started waving them overhead while…
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Fall must be upon us since I’m back to making no-knead bread. I bake once or twice a week during the winter — seems goofy to spend four bucks on a loaf of bread when I can make it myself, but in the summer I can’t bear to heat up the house any more than I need to. So this new loaf of bread felt like the beginning of cooler weather and more cooking. My sourdough starter is getting it’s mojo back, and this loaf came out so pretty that even though I’ve posted a zillion no-knead bread pictures on…
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This month in my Bookslut Column, I take a look at Recipes from an Italian Summer and Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. And for even more fun, Dorie Greenspan herself tweeted yesterday that she liked my “thoughtful” review. I’m always shocked that anyone out there actually sees anything I post … nice surprise.
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I got an email yesterday from a local organization that is hosting a fundraising dinner in mid-October. The chef they’re bringing in wanted “wild-foraged greens” on the menu. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Wild. Foraged. Local. etc … In mid-October in Yellowstone?! Look, chef types, if you’re going to go all wild-and-local at least pay some slight attention to where you are. Yellowstone in October will, in most normal years, have experienced it’s first snows. And wild greens? wild greens are a spring food. Read Patience Grey. Or even Euell Gibbons (whose books still hold up). By October most “wild greens”…
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There’s a lot of chatter this morning about David Simon winning the MacArthur Foundation Grant. While it’s true that he’s hardly a starving artist, and hence there’s griping about whether or not he needs the money, I think it’s a fascinating choice on their part. Simon, along with his many collaborators including novelists like Dennis Lehane, Richard Powers and George Pellacanos, has in some crucial way reinvented the novel as a multi-part, long form television show. Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s the other way around, maybe he’s just plain old reinvented the long-form television show. All I can say…