PRE-ORDER NOW Coming your way January 5, 2010: FROM THE BACK COVER: In this spectacular new novel, Barbara O’Neal delivers a generous helping of the best in life–family, food, and love–in the story of a woman’s search for the one thing worth more than anything. At thirty-seven, Tessa Harlow is still working her way down […]
women’s fiction
My gluttony of choice…reading, reading, reading
Over the past two weeks, I’ve had a slight hip injury (incurred while hiking the top three miles of Pikes Peak without enough warm clothes), and a cold that knocked me flat for a couple of days. Also a side effect of the big hike, probably, and someone said, “Why do you keep doing these […]
Cooking and books, books and cooking: my Julie/Julia story
One Christmas season, I was at loose ends. I was finally, officially divorced after a fairly long marriage. My sons were working and traveling, or out with their friends. There was a man I’d been seeing, but he was traveling, too, and anyway, he was never going to be My Guy and I knew it. I […]
Gifts of summer: Peaches, green beans and a ghost
Around here, we’ve been mellow. Haven’t gone back yet to my usual schedule–the girls and my brain needed a rest. I’ve been haunting the farmer’s markets, gardening, going to Nia, and working with the bounty from summer gardens. Don’t you love summer food? One day this week, I ambled around the markets, picking up plums […]
Guest blogs elsewhere
I’ve been recovering from all the back and forthing, and doing copy edits for my next book, THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING, which will be out at the end of December, and sleeping, and watching movies. Also have guest blogged twice in the past week. At WRITER UNBOXED, I blogged about how to get yourselve moving […]
Philly Inquirer’s “Foodie Beach Reads”
Happy to report The Lost Recipe For Happiness made the list. In: Beach reads for foodies; A menu of summer treats to sate your literary hunger, Dianna Marder writes: “The perfect foodie beach bag contains prime kitchen lit: books on food history, essays on sustainability, food-centric fiction (call it foodtion), and sentimental food memoirs, or […]
10 little stories about Michigan
10 little stories about Michigan over 4th of July, including fireworks, foodie visit to Zingerman’s, Guru
Grilled lemon slices
I’m sure everyone in the world has thought of doing this but me–but you know how it is when you discover something stunningly simple and delicious: Hey-sanna, Ho-sanna, Sanna-sanna hey!* I’ve been grilling lemons with chicken breasts and it is amazingly delcious. And easy. Chicken breasts with Grilled Lemons and Sauteed Spinach Serves 4 Olive […]
The heady alchemy of baking bread
It’s a cold winter afternoon, the kind when winter blisters past the windows, turning everything blue. Inside, I am kneading bread. Not in a bread machine but with my own palms and wrists. The dough is whole wheat, heavy and thick, and it takes muscle to punch it down, to knead and fold and press, […]
Strawberries and diamonds X 2
The whole bed looked like this. A photo from yesterday morning. Four days to deadline.