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A spicy recipe for the solstice
The winter solstice is upon us, but before we can look forward to incremental surges of sunshine, we first need to get through the darkest day of the year. If you need a recipe for comfort food to ease the way, chef Dani Lind has a recipe for sweet potato and black bean chili in the winter issue of Edible Madison magazine that might help. The recipe goes along with an article I wrote on how local potters are organizing grassroots events to fight hunger by donating their artwork. The sweet potato chili recipe was served at one of such events. Besides being delicious, the recipe is healthy, too. Perhaps I’ll whip up a…
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Blogs to Books
Yep, I’m that person. The person who buys books for everyone on her holiday list. What to get Dad who returns nearly everything I buy him? Books. What to get my nephew whose Japanamation jargon resembles a foreign language? Books. And what to get my niece who, like me when I was a kid, aspires to be a writer? Why, blank books, of course. One of my favorite blogs, Style Maniac, recently teamed up with independent bookseller Books & Books of Westhampton Beach, NY, to launch a month-long celebration of the art of giving and receiving books. The Blogs to Books challenge invited readers to choose one book and one recipient…
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Pucci: Antidepressant in Fabric Form
At the same time I’ve been nurturing a baby boy, soon to be born in July, I’ve also been nurturing another baby: the manuscript of my novel, GENTLY USED. It’s a multi-generational tale about a vintage clothing store and the stories behind the clothes on the racks and the women who work and shop there. Doing research for the book was almost as much fun as writing it. Over the last year, I amassed a lot of pictures and information, uncovering more vintage fodder than I could ever include in a single novel. And, of course, I stumbled upon some new obsessions. What I didn’t have room for in the…
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Need a Prom Do-Over? Go Vintage
Ever wish you could have a re-do for your high school prom? Did you choose the wrong date, the wrong dress, or get too drunk off Dr. McGillicuddy’s? Maybe, like me, you had not yet learned the importance of proper eyebrow maintenance. Or maybe you still cruise past the juniors’ section in your local department store every spring, secretly wishing you had an excuse to wear polyester satin and sequins again. Well, there is still hope for you. Vintage Madison, a group of “like-minded ladies who collect, sell and adore vintage clothing” is hosting their first annual Vintage Prom at the East Side Club on May 7. And if you…
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What Oscar Wilde and Dolly Parton Have in Common
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde I’m not usually in the business of providing inspirational quotes on this blog. My cynical nature, further honed by law school, prevents me from getting jazzed up over “Just Do It”-type mantras (in fact, sports analogies actually unmotivate me). However, I came across the Oscar Wilde quote above on another writer’s blog, The Siren’s Song, and it stuck with me. It got me thinking about the link between individuality and creativity. Lately, I’ve been listening to old Dolly Parton songs. And I’ve come to admire her– rhinestones, fake 40DDs and all. Yes, that’s right. If you would have told me,…
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Book Review: An Urban Fairy Tale
The Ballad of West Tenth Street: A Novel by Marjorie Kernan My rating: 4 of 5 stars A friend from my writing group (and the fastest reader I know) recommended this book to me. The back cover of The Ballad of West Tenth Street calls the novel an “urban fairy tale.” The story revolves around two Greenwich Village brownstones and their eccentric inhabitants. In one of the houses lives Sadie Hollander, the tipsy widow of a British rock star, and her adolescent children, Deen and Hamish. Her oldest child, Gretchen, lives away from home in a mental hospital. She was the only child who truly knew her father before he…
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A Winter Pick-Me-Up
When I opened my February 2011 copy of Food & Wine magazine, an unusual picture caught my eye. A band of adults and kids, all of them clad in bright parkas and clutching broomsticks, were captured mid-sprint in a game of broomball on an ice-covered lake. The scene looked like a modern Norman Rockwell painting. It also looked vaguely familiar. As I turned to the article that went along with the photo, I realized it looked familiar because it was familiar. The article featured Madison’s own chef Tory Miller, of L’Etoile and Graze restaurants, and the photo was taken on Lake Mendota. As pointed out in the article, which was…
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Women on Writing
I’m guest posting over at WOW! Women on Writing today, on their blog, The Muffin, about the process of searching for a literary agent and finding a publisher for a completed novel. See, it turns out that writing the novel is not the hardest part, though that certainly takes discipline. Getting the book out into the world is an even more difficult process… one that involves a lot (and I mean a lot) of patience. If you’ve never checked it out, WOW is a great resource for authors and bloggers to connect and to learn about the ins and outs of the writing world. They also have a quarterly flash…
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Putting Deadlines on Dreams
November is almost over which, for me, brings the end of a frenzied month of writing. I signed up with several writer friends for NaNoWriMo, which means we each committed to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Some of us (like me) started with a work in progress. Some started new novels and some wrote nonfiction. What we have in common, though, is that all of us tapped into the positive peer pressure of making a public commitment–much like people do when they train for a marathon. I don’t run marathons; I write them. Novelist, screenwriter, and memoirist Dave Eggers sent an email today to all NaNoWriMo participants. I found…
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Vintage Vixen
I have not been posting as frequently in the last couple of weeks because I’ve been working like a crazed woman on my second novel, Gently Used. The novel tells the story of a fictional vintage clothing store, the women who work and shop there, and the garments that come through the door. It is loads of fun to write, and whenever I get blocked, I do research on vintage fashion, which has led me to some fun discoveries online. A recent search for 1950’s ball gowns led me to the Etsy store of Timeless Vixen, a vintage shop based out of Beverly Hills. The shop carries an impressive range…
a blog on fiction, fashion, food + family