Baking is NOT an Exact Science

In honor of everyone's favorite food holiday, I'd like to encourage those of you who are intimidated by baking to give it a try. Here's what bakers don't want us to know: it's not an exact science. I know, this flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But a friend posted something on Facebook about improvising when baking recently, and when I questioned her further, she insisted it was possible, that all I needed was trial and error. I remained skeptical.

But just as when you're pregnant, suddenly you see baby bumps everywhere, with my baking antenna up, I kept hearing the same message: there is wiggle room. Feeling brave, I attempted the yogurt cake recipe, found in Bringing Up Bébé, a lovely memoir by Pamela Druckerman, an American woman raising her children in France. Druckerman claims a toddler can make this cake on their own and not mess up, because the measurements don't have to be exact. I was intrigued, but thought I'd try it myself before involving Daniel.

My only problem was that the only yogurt I had was Greek. When I folded this into the batter, it seemed too thick, so I added some milk and hoped for the best. It came out beautifully—my friend Carolyn said it looked like something from a patisserie. I don’t know about that, but it tasted good, and looked good too.

Spurred on by my success, I offered to bring dessert to a friend’s house after a last minute dinner invitation. Daniel was napping, so I scanned the cabinets. I had chocolate chips, but not enough to make Blondies, my only baking standard. I looked in my trusty How to Cook Everything for a Brownie recipe. It called for unsweetened chocolate, but I figured semi-sweet chips would just be a bit sweeter. (A substitution I wouldn't have dared make a few weeks prior.) After I began melting the chocolate and butter, I realized that all our eggs were hard-boiled. Grr.

With my new baking confidence, I scanned the internet for an egg-free brownie recipe, and found one that uses flour and water as a binder instead of eggs. It called for cocoa powder rather than chocolate, so I was really putting my improvising theory to the test. I figured with chocolate, butter, flour and sugar, even if they weren't a masterpiece, how bad could they taste? I sprinkled some sea salt and chocolate chips on top of the batter for good measure and prayed to the kitchen gods.

My dinner companions oohed and aahed when I revealed the pan of brownies. I sliced them, noting a cakey consistency, then wished I would have tasted them at home. But I channeled Julia Child, and decided to just laugh it off if they were horrible. Thankfully, they tasted quite good. Yes, they were more cake than brownie, but still delicious.

Maybe I’ll ask Santa for some baking tins and attempt the cupcakes with caramel filling Liz told me about. This new hobby could really increase my dinner invitations.

Wonder is an Inside Job

A few weeks ago, I went to see Frances Mayes speak at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I loved her books about Italy—Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany among others. Thrilled at the chance to see a favorite author in person, I sat alone, fourth row center, six months pregnant. She read an essay about art, Orvieto and churches. Afterwards, while being interviewed, she was funny, and smart, saying, “When people say ‘I don’t like Venice,’ I want to say, yeah, well I don’t like you.”

Most striking about her, to me, was her passion for Italy—an infatuation that has deepened into respect and devotion. She spoke of loving a place on a molecular level, how one can fall in love not just with people but with places. I have experienced that. Lisbon stole my heart at first sight. And my ardor for Mexico I can never shake, though Mexico does its best. So yes, I understand the marvel inspired by travel, by discovering unfamiliar places, by creating a life someplace new.

Yet, to my surprise, I left the lecture, not dying to move to Italy, but rather, filled with gratitude that I love my home and my life so much today. I spent many years either moving somewhere else or plotting when I could one day move somewhere else. Although I enjoyed Mayes’ adoration of Italy, I thought, I feel that way all the time, no matter where I am. In fact, immediately after her talk, I stumbled into a small hallway in the museum that I had never seen before. I stood before a giant deformed female statue with pointy nipples and medusa-like hair, and then was pulled across the room to a twelve-foot Tiffany column, covered in shiny blue mosaic tile. And I felt that child’s wonder of discovery, of adventure, of life being full of beautiful surprises.

Frances Mayes speaks of Italy as “endless,” and I’m sure it is. But so is Ocean City, where I find untold beauty in the sandpipers scuttling, the giant horseshoe crabs washed up on the sand, the coin-shaped iridescent gold shells. Narberth in Spring can steal my breath with entire lawns covered in purple crocuses, bulbs bravely sprouting through the still-cold ground. Just observing my puppy as she sleeps with her head resting on a pillow and her pink tongue poking through her teeth makes my heart swell. There is endless wonder in my life, no matter where I am, if I take the time to look for it. I’m so grateful that I often do.

Ignorance is Bliss?

I loved The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini’s first book. I know people had beef with some of the coincidences in the plot, but for me, I loved that Hosseini brought Afghanistan to life for me, in a way the news never had. I loved living in Kabul, before the wars. I loved the themes of treachery, forgiveness and redemption. I thought it was beautifully rendered, moving, hopeful.

I approached his follow-up book, One Thousand Splendid Suns, with some trepidation. After I had read the first half, I realized why. The characters’ lives were so grim, so relentlessly horrible, that I wanted to put it down. I really did. It colored my weekend, which was already rainy, even more gray. But I was too invested. I wanted to see what would happen. So I give Hosseini credit for that. And also, for once again, bringing Afghanistan to life. The war, the poverty, hunger, violence, the complete powerlessness of women—they became very real to me as I read the book. And God bless him for writing it. I can imagine the burning need he must have had, to give voice to the women of his country who suffered so greatly.

But…it was hard to take. There was hope at the end, thank God, but if I’m being honest, I really don’t want to spend my time living in such horror. I think works like that are important. I’m sure there are people in the world who don’t know such atrocities exist. I hope people read that book and felt moved to do something for others, be it refugees, victims of domestic violence, or someone in their family. But in the years I worked with refugees, I heard enough gruesome stories to last a lifetime. People told me things so terrible, I would sit in awe, amazed that the person who survived them was sitting in my office, drawing breath.

My clients’ stories inspired me. Seeing the resilience of human beings, of what people can endure, and come through gave me faith that I too, could endure hardship should it appear. But they also exacted a price. I couldn’t hear the stories without taking the details into my very vivid imagination and living with them.

It’s not that I want to be unaware of what’s happening in the world, it’s that I don’t want to be so paralyzed by sadness, so overwhelmed with horror, that I do nothing. For similar reasons I limit my intake of news, which is rarely anything but doom and gloom, and I avoid books like One Thousand Splendid Suns. Because by spending time in that world, I don’t feel inspired, I don’t feel empowered, I feel borderline despondent. And I don’t see how that helps anyone.

Is that willful ignorance? Maybe. But I guess I fail to see how me having a sad weekend will do anything to help people like the characters in the book. So, I’m glad it was written, I’m glad people read it, I hope it did some good in the world, but for me, I’d rather have spent the weekend laughing with Bridget Jones.

Literary Betrayal

Perhaps it's my fault. I wasn't loving the book to begin with, so maybe I should have put it down. But I had read more than half of it, and the pace started to pick up with a good conflict, and I wanted to see how it would end. So on Sunday, tired after an evening of entertaining at my house, I curled up on the couch to finish the last hundred pages of My Name is Memory.

To my dismay, a few hours later, in spite of an amazing come-from-behind Eagles victory, I felt angry--betrayed by Ann Brashares. Why? Because she didn't resolve the main conflict of the book. Not only that, she used the last chapter to blatantly set up a sequel. Which is bullshit. I understand leaving room for a sequel, even making it obvious, but to ask someone to invest the time to read 300 pages, with no resolution--that's just rude.

Sometimes, as a reader, I get worried as a book nears the end and the conflict is still not resolved. Like, how is she going to do this in 30 pages, 20 pages, whatever. But almost always, the writer pulls it off to my satisfaction. If I wanted unresolved conflict, I would just observe real life. When I'm reading a book, I don't need a happy ending, but I need an ending.

Do you have any unsatisfying endings to report? Spare me future pain, readers.

More Summer Reading

One more great book I wanted to pass along:

The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings. Very highly recommended reading

This book is one of those rare treats, like The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, where I thought--I haven't read this voice before. It's so fresh and vivid and real. How a 30ish woman so accurately nailed the voice of a 50ish father of teenage daughters, I don't know, but kudos to you, Kaui Hemmings.

Set in Hawaii, which was a big selling point for me, the book opens with Matthew King in a hospital room with his wife who is in a coma. Doesn't sound like a funny premise, but the book is hilarious. First line: "The sun is shining, mynah birds are chattering, palm trees are swaying, so what." Hemmings' writing reminded me that honesty can make anything funny. Watching this snarky, detached man try to parent a 17-year-old and 10-year-old daughter is funny. Watching him mess it up is funny. Watching his attempts to make amends is funny. And touching. And ultimately, sweet.

It's a powerful story, hard to put down, originally told. Oh, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Apparently Alexander Payne (director of Sideways) just finished filming a movie based on this book. Pretty cool. And a little someone named George Clooney is the star. I wonder if Clooney could play a 20-year-old Mexican for the adaptation of my novel?

Summer Reading

What do I like in a book? I have to care about the protagonist, and prefer someone I like and can root for. Funny is good, though not necessary. A juicy problem helps, especially if I can relate to it. Bonus points for taking me to a time or place I’ve never been, or letting me return to a place I love. Good writing—do I need to say that? Oh, and I’m a sucker for a love story.

Here’s a short list of books I would recommend for summer reading.

If You Follow Me by Malena Watrous. Highly recommended reading

This book jumped off the shelf at Borders at me, with its intriguing title and its sea green cover, showing a Japanese drawing of a woman. The back copy begins with “Hoping to outpace her grief in the wake of her father’s suicide, Marina has come to the small, rural Japanese town of Shika to teach English for a year.” My novel is about a girl trying to outrun grief by going to Mexico, so I had to read this one.

Watrous transported me to rural Japan, a place I knew nothing about previously, and made me feel like I was there. She took me on Marina’s journey as she adjusted to a foreign culture, tried to face her grief, and figure out her romantic relationships—one with a woman, one with a man. It’s funny and tender and unlike most books I read.

The Secret Year by Jennifer Hubbard. Highly recommended reading

This is a young adult novel, but don’t let that put you off—it’s mature, well-written, and compelling. It also deals with grief. (Are we sensing a theme to my reading list yet?) The story begins right after sixteen-year-old Colt finds out that the girl he was secretly seeing for a year has died in a car accident. It explores class issues in contemporary America—Colt was from the wrong side of the tracks—also self-esteem, love, and sex. All from a male teenage perspective. I enjoyed living in Colt’s brain for awhile, and finding out why he had put up with Julia’s conditions of secrecy. I was compelled to know how Colt would handle this grief that he wouldn’t even talk about. How would move on, make peace with the past?

I was a bit surprised by the amount of sex in the book, and how casually the teenage characters seemed to treat it. I could buy that from the boy's perspective, but I found it a little hard to believe that none of the teenage girls in the book seemed to place much emotional import on sleeping with someone. Despite that minor quibble, I really enjoyed reading this book and definitely recommend it.

After You by Julie Buxbaum. Very highly recommended reading

I really enjoyed Buxbaum's first novel, The Opposite of Love, and liked After You even more. This book also focuses on grief, ostensibly over the death of the protagonist’s best friend, but also hidden grief over another loss. The story took me to contemporary London, and introduced me to a lovable, precocious eight-year-old girl. It explored themes of friendship, secrecy, loyalty, and loss, all with Ms. Buxbaum’s irrepressible sense-of-humor. I cried at least once reading this book, and also laughed out loud. Pretty good for the same book.

Nice Girls Do by Sarah Duncan. Recommended reading

I’d never heard of this author or this book, but I saw it by the checkout at the library. It looked like a light read with some sex and romance, which it was.

The protagonist, Anna Carmichael, is a mousy academic type in contemporary England. When we meet her, she is recently divorced, in a bit of a rut, with no love interests in sight. Two interesting men appear rather quickly, and Anna goes though a journey of self-discovery that involves high living, cocaine, sex and a historic garden. This book isn’t a life-changer, but it was highly readable, with a character I cared enough about to hate sometimes, and root for all the time. Plus, it took me to a world of historic English gardens, and taught me some things I’d known nothing about previously.

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. Loved it loved it loved it!!!

Chances are, you know who Barbara Kingsolver is. I’ve been reading her books for years, though I must admit, I wasn’t a fan of The Poisonwood Bible, the one all the critics loved. The Lacuna, though, is one of the best books I’ve read in the past few years. Kingsolver has an enviable mastery of language and imagery. I annoyed whoever happened to be sitting near me by reading aloud particularly beautiful sentences—her writing is that good. Combine her talent with a Mexico City setting, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera as major characters, and a novelist protagonist, and you can’t be much more up my alley. I loved this book!!!!

Open by Andre Agassi. Highly recommended reading

I include this so you know I do read non-fiction occasionally, and because I loved this book too. I am an ardent tennis fan and a lifelong Agassi fan, so I was predisposed to like this book. The story is compelling, but what surprised me most was that it is beautifully written and searingly honest. This book also made me cry. It’s a damn good story about a little orphan who finds love and redemption. It’s funny, inspiring and fascinating to see what life is like behind the curtain of fame, success and money. Though Andre and I may not have much in common on the surface, we both suffer from perfectionism, and I really enjoyed following his journey as he identified about his demons and eventually learned to get out of his own way.

Happy reading! And please pass along any book recommendations you have. I'm always looking for a great read.

Why Do I Love the Twilight Saga?

It’s true—I’m a Twi-hard. I’m not stalking Robert Pattinson or anything, but I read all four books of the series, in about a month, and I’ve watched both movies more than once. Now I’m a 33-year-old woman, well-educated and well-read, yet I’m susceptible to a teenage vampire romance. As a writer, it behooves me to try to figure out why.

So for those of you who have yet to succumb to Twilight’s charm, it’s the story of 17-year-old Bella Swan, klutzy and plain, who falls in love with Edward Cullen, 104-year-old vampire in the body of a gorgeous 17-year-old boy. Rob Pattinson comes close to perfection, I admit, but the descriptions of Edward in the book paint a portrait of the most exquisite male specimen humanity has ever seen. And somehow, the amazing supernatural Edward Cullen falls in love with plain old ordinary Bella.

Throughout the first book, which I devoured, I held on to some skepticism about their “love.” It seemed too obsessive, too consuming, too teenager. No one falls in love so completely at 17 and stays that way forever. No one finds their soul mate that young. (Oh, except my parents.) But not nowadays, that doesn’t happen. (Oh, except for my friends James and Stephanie.) Fine, so maybe it happens.

But the talk about completing each other, needing each other, was a bit much for seventeen I thought. I enjoyed the fantasy, escaping into the world of supernatural beings who are so good that they fight their nature, live a moral life in spite of great temptation, and are fabulously wealthy, athletic, beautiful, and funny. Who wouldn’t want to spend time in that world?

But in the second book of the series, New Moon, when Edward breaks up with Bella and leaves, I began to believe that Edward really was her soul mate, that she may live without him, but it was no kind of life. Seeing Bella’s devastation, and feeling it, made me believe in the relationship between the characters. That’s when Stephanie Meyer (the author) got me.

Maybe because I’ve lived through horrible breakups. Maybe because I have a soul mate, and can’t imagine having a complete life without him. Maybe just because Meyer so effectively conveyed the horror of being devastated by love. Bella can live without Edward, she does, but it’s not the same. She will never be the same.

And this all appeals to me why? I like to believe that two people can love each other so completely. Even if it’s hard to believe that can happen when you’re seventeen and last your whole life, sometimes it does. Don’t we all want someone who loves us so much that they would sacrifice their happiness, even their life for us? Bella and Edward’s love is idealized, I’m not sure that humans really love each other like that, but it’s nice to watch and to imagine. Maybe it’s something to strive for—putting your partner’s happiness first, sacrificing for them, protecting them, standing by them, forgiving them when they make a horrible mistake.

Isn’t it nice to think that kind of love is possible?