Traveling with Friends

As you may know, I haven’t been a fan of social media. (For more on that, click here.) All this crowd-sourcing, this electronic interaction--it's a stage for narcissism. “Look at what I made.” “Look at what I ate.” “My life’s better than yours.” Or “my life’s worse.”

I post on facebook, mostly because my publishers insist on it. I refuse pinterest. I can't fathom google+. And I don’t tweet much. I don’t want my experiences reduced to a hashtag. #bestdinnerofmylife. #sickofbeingsick. Or the ultimate insanity: #iloveyou.

Then we went to Italy for two and a half weeks: Venice, Florence, and Siena. They say Stendhal passed out from all the cultural treasures. I’ve always accused him of daft drama. I hadn’t been in twenty-five years. I didn’t pass out. But I, too, changed.

I’ve always fallen on the Gallic side of the France/Italy split. I like French culture, French food, and best of all, the French countryside, particularly down south in the Vaucluse. As a committed introvert, I like the way the French are often silent, rather than talkative. I like the way they don’t feel the need to smile at strangers. Heck, I even like Parisians. I love grammar. I love that it’s a national sport. And I’m not embarrassed to be wrong. I once had a French woman stick her finger in my mouth, not to provoke anything nefarious, but to help me pronounce “poivre” to her liking. She wanted to hold down my tongue. You gotta love that chutzpah. (Which is a word she couldn’t pronounce if she tried.)

I've always found most Italians too brash, too loud: “too much of a muchness,” to quote Lewis Carroll. I quoted Julia Child regularly: “Anyone can make a plate of pasta but it takes a skilled chef to put out a fine, French meal.”

Not any more. Maybe it’s because I lived in Manhattan for a decade and got fully bored with ennui. Maybe it’s because I grew up and learned to stand on my own two feet, mostly to brawl in conversation. Maybe it’s my current penchant for Italian wine. Something snapped—and I now find myself on the other side of the divide.

Click to read more ...

The Remains of the Night

I'm not sure what's my favorite part of a dinner party. The anticipation? Setting the table? The day spent prepping the food? Or the meal itself? The hours at the table? Or the afterglow the next day?

Yeah, maybe that part: what remains. As we clean up, we always line the wine bottles on top of the fridge--and then leave them there for several days, a remembrance of things past. Proust had his madeleine. Last night, the eight of us apparently had our champagne. And much more.

Click to read more ...

The Extroverts Won

About a week ago, I left the house to lead one of my book groups. I headed for our Honda Hybrid. I usually do. It's got the iPhone jack, so I can cue up music for the ride.

I got in, got situated, got plugged in--and stopped. There sat the old Jeep next to me. With no jack, no fancy outlets, no GPS, and a bum radio, to boot.

I hauled my things out of the loud car and into the other one. I then rode for an hour in utter bliss: down twisting roads, past small farms, and in silence.

Likewise, this blog has gone quiet lately--enough that many of you have sent me messages to ask if everything's okay, if something's happened. Thank you for that.

Silence happened. Well, that and other things. Bruce had some nasty surgery. In the meantime, we've been trying to finish a 700-recipe book that's due on 12/30. And there's been publicity for our whole-grain book. Plus the continual business of writing a column for weightwatchers.com. And a spate of feature articles. You know: life.

Which isn't twitter. Or facebook. Or maybe even a blog.

What I'm about to say may have a whiff of those vaunted sour grapes, rotting on the vine. But I'm trying to figure out how the way I practice this old-world skill--writing long-form prose--can make it in this new-fangled world of constant words. Of too many words. Of incessant words. Of so many extroverts.

Click to read more ...

Stung

I've been debating whether to write this post for a while. Not sure it does much good. But maybe it needs to be written. If only so the words are on the page.

I want to start out with this: Bruce and I have a wonderful life, one I couldn't have dreamed I would ever live. After a long time in New York City together, we have a house in a very quiet New England town. We have made good friends up here and love the clear air, the peace that comes at night, when the owls sing us to sleep.

But lately, we've had some written assaults tossed at us, mostly because of our sexual orientation. Not by anyone we know, anyone who lives around us. I can say without a doubt that our town has been more welcoming than I could have believed. And indeed, I wish I could say these assaults were direct, face to face. Instead, they're snarky barbs online. The most public are in the amazon reader comments. And they've gotten a little out of control. Yes, we get the random email every few months from someone with an ax to grind. But the intensity and fervor have become more pronounced.

Click to read more ...

The Important Things Come Back

Let's face it: it's easy to lose so much. We all edit details, events, moments, thoughts. We condense them into the story of the life we're telling ourselves. So much slips away. Sometimes, for the better. The unimportant dissolves, trickles off--and good riddance. But I've found that what's significant returns. Often years later. And in ways we can't imagine.

Lately, I've been doing more than writing cookbooks and researching food articles. I've been teaching literature. It's a bit of a throwback, a return to my days as an academic. And it feels, well, strange--mostly because it feels like coming home.

I lead the book group at the library in Norfolk, Connecticut. (If you want to find out more, click here.) It's mostly a discussion group--and almost always lively. Lately, we've spent eight weeks reading George Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH--one meeting every two weeks, taking the big book in four chunks. At our last meeting, I heard several people say the most amazing thing: "I don't want this to end."

Click to read more ...