K. Lang-Slattery's Blog, page 6

Comfort Food for Shelter in Place Days

The simple cooking style I practiced of necessity in my van-life days translates well to the shelter in place weeks we are experiencing now. One of my favorite comfort food ingredients, white sauce, is finding its way back into my repertoire.

If you are older (say in your 70s like myself), mid-twentieth century comfort food may be calling to you in these stressful times. For all of us, comfort foods are the dishes that remind us of the love and safety of our childhood home. In the decades between 1940 and 1970, many traditional family meals originated in the great depression when food was sometimes scarce and money scarcer. Our mothers (or grandmothers) learned to be frugal and prepare meals that satisfied the stomach without leaving a hole in their pocketbooks. Many of these simple comfort foods used dairy products—think Macaroni and Cheese, custard, Tuna Noodle Casserole, bread pudding, and those great layered Stratas made of little more than stale bread, eggs, cheese, and milk.

When I was a child, canned goods were plentiful but frozen food was a modern luxury few could afford or store. Refrigerators were small and if they had a freezer, it was inside the main compartment and only big enough to hold an aluminum ice-cube tray and a rectangular pint of ice-cream. Home cooks knew how to use pantry items and staples that needed little or no refrigeration. If you were lucky your family might have a shelf in the basement stocked with home canned vegetables, fruits and jams.

My mother understood the value of calcium to growing children. I remember she used to say that Americans were taller than Europeans and Asians because we drank more milk. True or not, that was my mother’s interpretation and she made sure we had some kind of dairy at every meal. With limited refrigerator space, fresh milk was reserved for drinking and breakfast cereal. For cooking, where the clean flavor of fresh milk was not essential, she often used dry powdered milk or canned evaporated milk. Today, we also have long-shelf-life milk, a super pasteurized product that keeps close to three times longer than “fresh” milk.

In these pandemic days, I have cut back on trips to the grocery store. When I do go, I find myself looking at things that safely store longer making frequent trips to the grocery aisles unnecessary. Sometimes the dairy and freezer sections stand half empty and selection is limited. I find myself returning to staples I used during the two years I cooked in a Volkswagen van (as told in my upcoming memoir, Wherever the Road Leads) —dried or canned milk, canned fish and vegetables, pasta, rice and beans.

I have to admit, that many of my favorite comfort foods start with a good Bechamel sauce. My mother called it White Sauce and declared it too much trouble, though I suspect she avoided it because of its high calorie content. I learned to make creamy, lump free, white sauce in my high school home economics classroom. Mrs. Messman taught us that white sauce wasn’t difficult as long as you kept stirring and didn’t let those pesky lumps form in the bubbling milk.

Bechamel sauce can be made using fresh, extended-life, reconstituted dried, or canned evaporated milk. Besides the milk, all you need is butter (or some other fat or oil), a little flour, salt and pepper. A heavy bottomed pot helps prevent scorching the milk and a wooden spoon or a wire whip is needed for constant, patient stirring. Recipes for classic Bechamel sauce (aka cream sauce or white sauce) abound in basic cookbooks like The Joy of Cooking or Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook, as well as on the internet.

The sauce can be made ahead and stored in the refrigerator for about a week to be used as needed to create a rich and delectable dish from all kinds of left overs or pantry staples. Some classic dishes that use white sauce are: Seafood a la King, Kedgeree (a casserole of rice and canned fish), filled dinner crepes, Croquettes, Tuna Noodle Casserole, New England Clam Chowder (or any creamed soup), and the ubiquitous Macaroni and Cheese.

In my tiny, van kitchen (two burners, no oven, and a bar ‘fridge) one of the white sauce dishes I prepared regularly was Creamed Tuna on Toast. Not very elegant, certainly not something my mother would have served, it was satisfying after a long day on the road and easy to make when we hadn’t been to a market recently. If I had canned tuna, dried or canned milk, and bread on hand, dinner could be ready in minutes. I would prepare the sauce, stir in the tuna along with any left-over or canned veggies I could scrounge up to make it healthy, and pour the mixture over sliced bread browned (in the absence of a toaster) in a skillet. Garnished with some chopped parsley, a few olives, or a slice of tomato, it even looked pretty on the plate.

Though I haven’t made creamed tuna for almost fifty years (not since our return from the long van-life adventure), I’ve been thinking a lot about those meals recently. Maybe it’s time to make it again.

What comfort food do you find yourself craving these days? Have you made any long neglected, mid-twentieth century dishes recently?

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Nomadland, A Book about Van-life Today

Over the last months, while I was researching travel memoirs, I came across Nomandland, by Jessica Bruder. Not a memoir, still this triumph of personal journalism hit a cord with me because it reveals van-life as it is today.

I am aware of the trend of adventurous youth to spend some years living in a van or camper on the road.  Some time ago, I read about the upswing of interest in van living that highlighted in The New Yorker Magazine (“#Vanlife, The Bohemian Social-Media Movement,” April 2017 issue).  Instagram reveals dozens of hashtags about this lifestyle, including #vanlife (266,126 posts), #vanlifediaries, and #vanlifeexplorers. 

Jessica Bruder’s brilliant and fascinating book explores a different aspect of life on the road. The author interviews, intimately gets to know, and becomes friends with men and women who turn to the nomadic life-style for serious financial reasons.  She makes clear in the very beginning that these travelers are not homeless.  They have shelter and transportation.  The nomads of the American 21st century prefer the label “houseless.”

It was the aspect of living in a van (or a camper, truck, or sedan) that first caught my interest.  I could identify with many of the issues confronted on a daily basis by the people the author meets and introduces to readers.  The real people of Nomandland deal with issues of space, storage, hygiene, power, car repairs, and how to find a safe place to park for the night. These are the same concerns Tom and I dealt with during two years living in a Volkswagen minivan in the early 1970s.

I especially enjoyed the details that reminded me of those years.  How do today’s van-dwellers wash clothing and hang it to dry? I had to nod in understanding when I read of damp laundry strung across the inside of the vehicle. How do they handle hygiene and water supply?  Gyms and truck stop showers. And what about that all-important safe sleeping spot? Modern day vanners in the US look for Wal-mart parking lots, undeveloped public lands, and side streets in commercial areas.  These are the places they hunker down after dark, pull the curtains closed, and turn off the lights.  They sleep, often knowing they must be up and out in the early morning hours.

For modern van dwellers, entertainment consists mainly of the internet, socialization at camp areas, and reading, including the constant sharing of books. Jessica Bruder writes that Travels With Charley, “John Steinbeck’s tale of road-tripping in a pickup camper . . . [in the 1960s] was popular among the nomads and dog-eared copies passed from hand to hand.” Steinbeck’s memoir was one of our (Tom and I) main inspirations to travel by VW camper-van.  I love that Steinbeck’s writing still helped travelers.

Today’s “houseless” enjoy a few advantages that Steinbeck, Tom, and I did not:  internet and cell phones to stay in touch with family, solar panels on their roofs to bring in more electricity, the ease of finding a truck stop with hot showers or a local laundromat. Still, I’m sure they would gladly trade these conveniences for the financial security Tom and I possessed.

The emotional stress felt by financially struggling nomads today is very different from the bliss of my van-life years. They don’t have savings waiting for them at home or a strong union to help find a well-paying job at the end of the adventure.  Twenty-first century nomads see no end to their lifestyle.  They work long, physically taxing hours doing seasonal work at Amazon warehouses, in agricultural fields, and as camp hosts at public campgrounds. Most are of social security age and they worry about their health and how they will manage in ten years.

Besides the descriptions of van living, Bruder’s book covers in depth the social issues of our time that have sent so many people on the road, living from paycheck to paycheck, and ending each day sleeping in their vehicles. Nomadland is an important read for anyone concerned with our growing numbers of poor—both the homeless and the houseless.

To quote the back-cover blurb: “Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us.”

I highly recommend Nomadland, Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, by Jessica Bruder, 2017, W.W. Norton & Company.

 

 

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Mexican Fried Rice, Van-life Cooking at a Time of Uncertainty

Last night for supper I prepared a rice dish that was inspired by both Chinese Fried Rice and the delicious Persian dish, Baghali Polo.

Creating new dishes has always been relaxing and fun for me and, during these days of enforced “sheltering in place,” I’ve set myself the goal of making the best use of what food I already have in the cupboard. Normally I shop for groceries several times a week, but my plan for the next month is to hunker down and use what I have in the refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. These are skills I perfected during the two-year road trip that is the subject of my upcoming memoir, Wherever the Road Leads. Often, we didn’t know when or where we would find the next grocery store or open market. Occasionally my small cupboard offered nothing more than a few cans and a bag of pasta. Other times, after a visit to a local market, I would have a surplus of food. Our mini-refrigerator could barely house fresh meat, eggs, and dairy, so produce was stored in tubs and bags on the floor of the van. There the veggies and fruit gradually aged and threatened to spoil before I could use them all.

My early cooking experiences in the van, often far from a grocery store, taught me to be creative with ingredients and use everything. I pride myself that I know what is in my refrigerator and cupboard and seldom allow anything—not even a couple tablespoons of chopped nuts or half a jalapeño—to go to waste or spoil. My “van-life” cooking skills will come in handy during these difficult times as my usually well-stocked home larder begins to empty.

Yesterday, I searched my refrigerator shelves for ingredients to create a side-dish for a portion of fresh salmon purchased at Costco earlier in the week, the last such trip I intend to indulge in for some time.

Here is what I found:

• Cooked rice left from the previous night’s Green Curry. Whenever I steam plain rice to go with an Indian or Chinese dish, I make extra. Pre-cooked rice can be stored in the refrigerator for several days and also freezes well. Best of all, cold, cooked rice is preferable for dishes like fried rice.

•  a 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro (also left from the night before).

• a fresh jalapeño chili that was starting to get wrinkled.

• a half of a red-pepper, also showing a few wrinkles.

The pantry offered up an onion, garlic, a can of kidney beans, and flakes of dried chilies.

Preparation of this Mexican Fried Rice is easy. Get everything set out in bowls ahead of time and toss it all together in 5 minutes when you’re ready to eat—enough for a side dish for 2 or 3 or a vegetarian main dish for one hungry person.

Set aside in separate bowls:

• About 1/2 cup chopped onion and 3 cloves garlic, chopped

• 1 and 1/2 cups cold cooked rice and 1/2 of a 15.5 oz. can of kidney beans or black beans. Sprinkle with a pinch of chili flakes (optional).

• Salt and pepper. (plus a few sprinkles of ground cumin or even chili powder, if you like.)

• Seeded and diced red pepper (approx. 1/2 cup) and half a large jalapeño seeded and diced, more if you like it spicy.

• Up to a 1/2 cup of chopped cilantro or a combination of cilantro and chopped green onion..

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet. Sauté the chopped onion and garlic on medium heat until soft. Add the rice and beans. Stir fry for about 5 minutes on high to heat through, but don’t let it scorch. Sprinkle with spices if you want. Add chopped red peppers and jalapeño and stir fry another 3 minutes or so. Salt and pepper to taste. Add the cilantro and the green onion if you have it. Stir and toss for another minute. Turn off heat and serve.

Sorry, no photo this time as I had no idea while I was cooking that I would write this. Please let me know if you’d like to see more “Van-Life Cooking” blogs.

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Comparable Books for A Travel Memoir

A nonfiction book (including a travel memoir such as Wherever the Road Leads) is first presented to an agent or publisher in the form of a book proposal. One of the most important elements of this proposal is the section of competitive and complementary books. These are often called “Comps.”

I looked for narratives that matched my own in some way. I scanned memoir lists for woman authors who wrote of long road trips. These are popular, though most focus on solo travel and personal discovery. I found stories of travel with a man, told from the woman’s perspective, to be a rare commodity. Travel books that talked of the local cuisine were a  easier to find. Illustrated memoirs were also rare. Still, my search turned up many worthwhile books, and I developed a list of comps.

As I  composed my proposal, my go-to resource was How to Write A Book Proposal by Judy Rein and Michael Larsen. This extremely helpful book, published by Writers Digest Books, included an entire chapter devoted to comps. The authors write, “A well-constructed comps section will convince publishers that you . . . can judge your book accurately . . . [and] have a verifiable new slant.”

But it was the first sentence of the next page that opened my eyes to another factor. “Effective comparisons dig a hole your book will fill.” The things that made my memoir unique were as important as the similarities to my chosen comps. With this broadened understanding I set to work.

Here it is the comps section of my book proposal:

Comparative Titles

In the opening sentence of his introduction to Inventing the Truth (2018), William Zinsser says, “This is the age of memoir.” These days, travel memoirs, longtime staples of the genre, need to be more than descriptions of places visited. However, the medley of a personal relationship story and exciting travel experiences can be a winning combination.

A couple of best-selling memoirs of this type come to mind: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach. Because of their fame, I hesitate to list them as comps, though some parallels exist between Wherever the Road Leads and these two books. All three share a love story, an interest in food, travel to India and Italy, and are told by a female narrator. In fact, during the time frame of my memoir, I was only a few years younger than Elizabeth Gilbert when she made her journey.

Two other memoirs (not quite so famous) written by women traveling alone describe journeys to some of the same places Tom and I visited. In Nothing to Declare, Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone (published by Houghton Mifflin in1988), author Mary Morris recounts a long stay in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, the first major town Tom and I visited. Alden Jones writes of more contemporary travels in her collection of linked essays, The Blind Masseuse, A Traveler’s Memoir from Costa Rica to Cambodia (Terrace Books, 2013). The style and organization of this book differ quite a bit from my memoir. I was especially interested in Jones’ insights into the way travel changes the traveler, a phenomenon Tom and I certainly experienced and which I tried to show in my story. But these memoirs of solo adventure cannot show how travel changes two people and their relationship to each other, something that is integral to my story.

One of my favorite comps is An Embarrassment of Mangos: A Caribbean Interlude, by Ann Vanderhoof, published in 2004 by Broadway Books of Random House. This memoir, like Wherever the Road Leads, relates the intimate story of a young couple traveling in a tight space (a 42-foot sailboat) for two years. In her book, Vanderhoof highlights her introduction to and experimentation with Caribbean food. An Embarrassment of Mangos is sprinkled with cooking descriptions and recipes. Though I include experiences with food and cooking in my memoir, I also share my interest in art. The inclusion of artwork done during the journey will contribute a dimension that is rare.

We’ll Always Have Paris, by Jennifer Coburn, published in 2014 by Sourcebooks, is a travel memoir with a mother/daughter relationship at its heart. Though the story of a new marriage, Wherever the Road Leads mirrors Coburn’s honest storytelling. Like Coburn, I share my personal foibles, mistakes, and emotions through the use of detail and dialogue.

A more recent comparable memoir The Yellow Envelope, One Gift, Three Rules, and a Life-Changing Journey Around the World by Kim Dinan, was also published by Sourcebooks (2017). When Kim and her husband Brian decide to leave their homebound lives to follow her dream of world travel, they find the new lifestyle and stress of travel cause them to rethink their relationship. The nuances of the book’s premise (represented by the yellow envelope) of passing on “small acts of kindness to strangers,” is surpassed by Dinan’s story of change and growth, a theme shared by Wherever the Road Leads. Both books honestly tell of the ups and downs within a marriage. Throughout her memoir, Kim Dinan recounts her intimate thoughts, emotions, worries and concerns. My writing style in Wherever the Road Leads shows these things through dialogue and action rather than telling them through internal musings. Another big difference between the two memoirs is that Wherever the Road Leads takes place between 1971 and 1973 and includes travel to places no longer easily accessible (Afghanistan), while Kim and Brian’s story is set in a totally contemporary world (they Skype home and send emails!) and they travel by air, use local transportation, carry everything in their backpacks, and sleep in local apartments, homes, and hostel. Tom and I lived and drove for two years in a minivan.

This mode of travel is one of the things that sets my story apart from another comparable memoir, At Home in the World, by Tsh Oxenreider (2017, Nelson Books). As Oxenreider writes in her introduction, “I can shout from the rooftops that you can both love to travel and be happily married with children . . . Parenting and global travel—I can’t think of a better mix.” In the chapters about the visit of our school-age niece and nephew, Wherever the Road Leads shares the ups and downs (mainly ups) of travel with children. We tested the parent lifestyle and found it to our liking. In  many ways the tone of both my memoir and Tsh’s is similar. Like myself, Tsh uses details, conversation, a matter-of-fact attitude, and a touch of humor as she disclosures family interactions and personal foibles. But At Home in the World does not offer illustrations, maps, or the experience of van travel in the 1970s, all of which are primary features of Wherever the Road Leads.

I cannot help but mention here the memoir which influenced  Tom and me before we began our trip. I recently reread Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck (Viking Penguin, 1962) and was once again charmed by this simple story told by a literary icon of his travels in a truck-camper with his beloved poodle, Charlie.  Tom and I were inspired by the idea of a journey of exploration in a fitted-out vehicle camper. Steinbeck’s packing list, presented in one of the early chapters (similar to my description in chapter three of our van’s particulars), included (like ours) tools of all kinds, canned and dried food, notebooks, books, dishes, linens, too many clothes, and yes, a typewriter. I also brought my art supplies which were used far more often than Tom’s typewriter.

Memoirs are intensely personal stories, thus making comparative titles difficult to assess. I have done my best to find a few that work and hope the effort reveals a place in the travel memoir genre waiting to be filled by Wherever the Road Leads.

What do you think? Do you see a value in finding comps? As a reader, does these comparisons make you more eager to read Wherever the Road Leads?

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A Summer of Memoir Reading

Recently, following the writer’s adage to read the genre you write, I set out to read memoirs in search of stories that would inspire my own writing and push me to expand and excel.

Some time ago, I fell in love with the memoirs of Isabelle Allende. Starting with Paula, a memoir about her youth and her daughter’s illness and death. I continued with The Sum of Our Days and My Invented Country until I have come to feel that Allende is a friend, a sentiment I’m aware she doesn’t share. Getting to know all kinds of people, both famous and not famous, is one of the joys of reading memoirs. Gradually this has become my preferred type of nonfiction.

Over the years, I have read all kinds of memoirs —everything from The Color of Water by James McBride to Tender at the Bone by Ruth Reichl, from The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger to Born a Crime by Trevor Noah, from Hillbilly Eulogy by J. D. Vance to In Sickness & In Health by Karen Propp, from A Pig in Provence by Georgeanne Brennan to The Liars’ Club by Mary Karr. I am not  drawn to memoirs of disfunction and addiction, though I have read a few. I prefer a positive memoir with humor, insight into something of interest to me, and a window into a different world or an interesting personality. During the time I have been writing Wherever the Road Leads, An Artist’s Memoir of Travel, Food, and Love with a Car Whisperer, I have made the adage “read what you write” my mantra.

Throughout 2019, including during a summer road trip across the West, I read memoir after memoir. Luckily, I can read while a car passenger and my partner enjoys being at the wheel and doesn’t mind me riding with my nose in a book. My goal during the summer was to find memoirs with parallels to my manuscript (travel, food, relationships), yet different in ways that allow my story to add a new perspective or insight.

A discussion of comparable books is an essential part of any professional proposal sent to publishers or agents. At a recent writers’ workshop, I listened carefully as one of the speakers emphasized the importance of a complete and detailed list of comparable books published in the last few years. This advice brought to mind essays from my school days when we were told to compare and contrast two books or ideas. I would need to find the similarities, but also root out the differences that make my story unique. Experts on crafting a book proposal also warn against listing well-known, bestsellers as “comps.” This effectively eliminated my use of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck.

How could I resist mentioning Steinbeck’s tale of travel in a camper around the United States with his dog Charley. Recently, I reread this simple story told by a literary icon and was charmed by it all over again. Back in the late ’60s when I first read Travels with Charley, I was inspired by the idea of a journey of exploration in a fitted-out vehicle camper. More specifically, Tom (my companion for the long-ago travels described in my memoir) and I copied Steinbeck’s use of a plastic garbage bucket as a laundry washing container.

Memoirs, by definition, are each an intensely personal story. This makes finding comparative titles difficult at best. During my search, I discovered some that were obviously not comparative titles, but which fascinated me, and I read those, too. Stacks of memoirs form unsteady piles on my desk and by my bed.  I know there is a spot in the travel memoir genre waiting to be filled  by Wherever the Road Leads.

 

My 2019 memoir reading list:

• The Choice, Embrace the Possible, by Dr. Edith Eva Eger, 2017 (Holocaust and personal growth)

• An Embarrassment of Mangoes, by Ann Vanderhoof, 2004 (travel, sailing, the Caribbean, and food)

• The Truths We Hold, by Kamala Harris, 2019 (personal/political)

. Becoming, by Michelle Obama, 2019 (personal/political)

• The Only Girl in the World, by Maude Julien, 2014, translated from French (dysfunctional family and coming of age)

• In Sickness and In Health, by Karen Propp, 2002 (illness and marriage)

• The Invisible Wall, by Harry Bernstein, 2007 (family, historical, Jewish culture in turn of the century England)

• The Dream, by Harry Bernstein, 2009 (immigrant experience)

• The Blind Masseuse, by Alden Jones, 2013 (travel)

• The Yellow Envelope, by Kim Dinan, 2017 (travel, relationships)

• Travels With Charley in Search of America, by John Steinbeck, 1963 (camper travel in America)

• Nothing to Declare, Memoirs of a Woman Traveling Alone, by Mary Morris, 1988 (travel, Mexico, friendship)

• The Accidental Asian, Eric Liu, 1998 (immigrant experience)

• Nobody will Tell You This But Me, Bess Kalb, 2020, (family and humor)

• All Over the Place, by Geraldine DeRuiter, 2017 (travel, humor, relationships, family, illness)

• Where the Past Begins, Memory and Imagination, by Amy Tan, 2017 (family and history)

 

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Memoir Writing Update: Wherever the Road Leads

I can’t believe it’s been two years since I posted my last blog! How could it have taken so long to write my memoir?

Originally, I set a goal for myself to finish within a year. For twelve months, I poured over old letters, studied maps, looked up details of time and place on the Internet and wrote the account one chapter at a time. Assuming I can count a manuscript of over 200  pages to be finished, I achieved my goal. I had written a full account of two years of travel and, though it all interested me, I knew it not ready for publication. I was too close to the story to know where to cut and what to keep. Sending the manuscript to Beta readers who promised to give me their unvarnished opinion was my next step.

Our Van on a snowy morning in Yugoslavia, 1972

 

My selected readers ranged from an old boyfriend from high school to my younger sister’s friend, from the husband of a lady in my book discussion group to a woman I had never met who volunteered after seeing the request on my Facebook page. I signed-up seven readers in all. Each was sent either a PDF file or printed-out hard-copy. I also asked them to answer specific questions customized for the main sections of the story. The three pages of questions included, “If you read only the table of contents and the first page, would you want to buy this book?”; “Does the author reveal sufficient personal details to keep you interested in the relationship aspect of the story?”; and “Do you feel the last two chapters bring the story to a satisfying finish? Why or why not?” I also asked the readers if they liked the working title—Venus and Mars in a Van. Mostly they did not.  The title is now Wherever the Road Leads.

A variety of comments came back from my Beta readers. Some liked the travel sections best, while others found the description of life in a van more interesting. Some readers liked the discussions of food and cooking, while others wanted less food and more travel. One reader suggested more material on my motivations. They asked why I would leave a good job and a safe home for this daunting journey. Another wanted me to share more about our romance and what held us together as a couple. Several readers suggested maps and drawings as illustration. With all their comments in mind, I worked to improve some sections and cut others. I was able to reduce the word count, but at 112,700 words, I knew it was still too long.

At this point my fabulous editor, Lorraine Fico-White, who works with me on my writing, suggested I send the manuscript to her son, a young man in his twenties who is also an editor and writer. Nick and I had never met or worked together so his critique would be unsullied by past experience.  Also, his reactions would exemplify a younger audience. Nick’s comments gave me confidence. He was sincere and his appreciation and insight helped. Again, I  edited the manuscript and was able to further reduce the word count, in spite of an added preface and expanded dialogue. In the fall of 2018, with the manuscript at 108,900 words, Lorraine and I began to work together.

While I waited for Lorraine’s content and line editing suggestions, I roughed in illustrated route maps. I labored using an old Adobe publication program I had learned years before. After only a couple of the maps, I decided to enlist the help of Cole Waidley, the graphic designer who created the book cover and map for my novel, Immigrant Soldier. His knowledge and up-to-date graphic skills soon produced maps that reflected my vision.

After months of the back-and-forth editing process, Lorraine and I felt the manuscript, a leaner 94,000 words, was ready. As one final test, I asked a friend from my high-school days, Georgeanne Brennan, a well-known cookbook and memoir author, if she would be willing to read my manuscript. Georgeanne’s comments led me to write an epilogue, as well as change lingering overused words such as “delicious” and “lovely.”

Finally, after more than two and a half years of work, Wherever the Road Leads was ready. My “baby” has been sent into the world of agents and publishers. I am determined to see it published, whether through a traditional publisher or by publishing it myself as I did Immigrant Soldier. Either way, the story of my honeymoon in a Volkswagen van probably won’t be launched into the public realm for as much as a year. Publication is another slow process.

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A Memoir of Love and Travel Van-Life Style

“A journey is more than a vacation; it is an opportunity to challenge our beliefs and expand our minds.   . . . At its best, travel brings cultural understanding between people and helps affirm our common humanity.”    I found this quote many years ago on a travel website that no longer exists: www.passionfruit.com. I wish I knew who actually wrote these words as my love of travel has always been based on the ideas expressed by them. 
 
What was the most influential journey of your life? How has travel changed your perspective? 

A Memoir of Love and Travel Van-Life Style

         Travel is my passion and my way of learning about the world. What was the most influential journey of your life? How has travel changed your perspective?

        The first question is an easy one for me — it was my honeymoon!  Granted, my honeymoon was a bit different than most.  It lasted for two years in the early 1970s and featured four continents via Volkswagen microbus.  For years, I resisted writing about the experience.  When we were traveling, I took notes, thinking I would write a travelogue or a food essay for a cooking magazine when we returned home. However, by the time I was back in California, I realized that most of my notes, by then as much as two years old, were already out of date. I set the idea of writing about our trip aside and proceeded with my life as an artist, a mother, a Girl Scout leader, a cooking instructor, and a traveler.

         For years, I have been amazed by how interested people are when they first hear of my van-life adventures. To me it all seemed like old stories of long ago. However, recently I began searching for a new writing project that would grip me like Immigrant Soldier did. Encouraged by a friend, I began to consider the idea of writing a memoir of my honeymoon travels. Known as “the long trip” among family and friends, the stories from those two years always seemed to fascinate listeners at dinner parties and gatherings.

         For the travel details of the story I have been aided by seventy-three letters (over 700 pages of hand-written journal style writing) which I sent home to our parents for safekeeping.  I also have hundreds of photos (yes, slides) taken by my travel partner Tom, as well as drawings and sketches I did along the way.   Because the letters were written to be read by our parents, emotional and intimate details were censored out.   Thus, for the personal aspects of the experience, I have had to rely on my memory.

        As I reread the letters, I recognize many things hidden between the lines. What I did write often reminds me of what I didn’t include. Though the memoir can only be my perspective, I have talked to family members about their memories of the times when they became players in the saga. I have become totally immersed in the project. I feel again the fruitless anger of our first argument at the Guatemala border, the satisfaction of washing Tom’s underwear in a river in Honduras, the terrible heat and disappointment in Panama, the joy of seeing my sister Karen waiting for us on the dock in Barcelona.  I am delighted by the memory of the weeks we shared England and Holland with our nine and ten year old niece and nephew.   I am amazed all over again at Tom’s ability to fix anything that went wrong with the van and I experience again my love for him as he constantly built and improved our tiny home along the way.  I remember the thrill of seeing the bazaars of North Africa, the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, women in burkas in Afghanistan, and the sights and smells of India.

         Now that I am actually writing the memoir, I must tackle the second question. How did this experience change me?  I think about the places we saw, the people we met, and the ways we learned to live together in the small confines of a microbus. How did the experience  transform me into the person I am today, forty-five years later. I entered the adventure as a twenty-eight year old, single woman—an art teacher off to see the world with her lover. Two years later, I returned to the U.S as half of a committed, married couple, looking forward to having a family and teaching our future children to love travel as much as we did.

        After nine months of dedicated work, I am nearing the final section. I have enjoyed creating chapter titles which I hope will keep my readers interested—An Iberian Winter, For Richer or Poorer, Four Peas in a Pod, and Another World Entirely. Though the working title is “Memoir,” I can’t help but contemplate possible titles for the finished work.  Here are my current favorite:

• Wherever the Road Leads, An Artist’s Memoir of Travel, Love and Food with a Car Whisperer.


Would this title make you want to read the memoir if you saw it on a shelf in the bookstore?   I’d love to get your comments and input.

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The Muralist and LBJ, a Secret Hero.

Summer is a great time for catching up on that stack of books waiting to be read. Maybe your stack is on your bedside table, or in leaning towers on the floor under your desk, or stashed neatly in boxes in a corner of a little used room. My waiting books are scattered in small horizontal piles across the top of the neat vertical rows of titles in my several bookcases. 

The Muralist and LBJ, a Secret Hero.

        WWII novels always figure importantly among the stacks of books waiting for me to read and summer is a great time for catching up. Maybe your “to read” stack is on your bedside table, or in leaning towers on the floor under your desk, or stashed neatly in boxes in a corner of a little used room. My waiting books are scattered in small horizontal piles atop of the vertical rows of titles in my  bookcases. Many of the books in my stacks are World War II related fiction and nonfiction.  But sometimes I crave a break and want to read a book that has a different slant, and these wait patiently, too.  Thus, some weeks ago, I selected from the stack of waiting books a historical novel about an abstract painter.  I thought it would be a pleasant break to read about another of my interests—art, artists, and painting.

         The novel, The Muralist , by B.A. Shapiro, did not disappoint.  Real artists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Lee Krasner populated the pages and were friends of the fictional main character, Alisée, a mural painter working for the WPA (Works Progress Administration).   Set in New York in 1939 and 1940, the book soon revealed that I had not strayed as far from my WWII obsession as I hoped.  Alizée is not only French but also Jewish.  A US citizen because she was born in the states, after the death of her parents, she was raised by relatives in France.  While she works in New York City, painting and experimenting with abstract images, she is also obsessed with trying to get visas for her aunt, uncle, cousins, and brother, who are still in France as that country is overrun by the Nazis.

         Very soon, Alisée’s struggle to help her family escape Europe becomes the heart of the novel.  Shapiro deals with organizations such as the Emergency Rescue Committee, a private relief organization trying to help refugees, President Roosevelt’s hesitancy to buck isolationism, which was vocally supported by Charles Lindberg and Joseph Kennedy, the US visa quota system of the time, and the anti-Semitism of Breckinridge Long, who was Assistant Secretary of State.  The author also manages to create a plausible friendship between Alisée and Eleanor Roosevelt, who unsuccessfully attempts to help secure the needed visas.  During an early meeting, the First Lady mentions to Alisee, “a young congressman . . . confided he’s getting visas to Polish Jews and secretly bringing them into the country through the port of Galveston, Texas.”   This seemed odd when I first read it. Texas is not a place I associate with rescuing Jews, though I know there are three Holocaust museums in the state (Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston), a fact that perplexed me when I was researching places to market  Immigrant Soldier, The Story of a Ritchie Boy.

         A few chapters later, the heroic congressman was again discussed by Eleanor Roosevelt in a fictional conversation with Alisée, and this time his name—Lyndon Johnson —was mentioned.  Generally, historical fiction endeavors to make all references to actual people factual or, at the very least, possibly true or likely. My interest sparked, I wanted to find out if there was any truth to Lyndon Johnson’s involvement in helping Jewish refugees.  So I headed for Google.  Happily, there is quite a bit of material, though the story remains unclear and largely substantiated except by anecdotal and circumstantial evidence.

         “Operation Texas” was Johnson’s alleged undercover operation to help European Jews enter the United States through Latin America with false passports and one-way visas. Once in the US, they were initially housed in facilities of the Texas National Youth Administration where Johnson had connections. Finally they would be settled safely in surrounding areas, especially around Houston.  The number of refugees helped by “Operation Texas” may be as low as forty-two documented Polish Jews who were able to leave Europe before the war because of visas given by Lyndon Johnson to his friend, Jim Novy, an American Polish business man who visited his homeland in 1938. There are also estimates of four to five hundred additional Jewish refugees who may have entered the country extra-legally with Johnson’s help, after they made it first to Cuba, Mexico, or elsewhere in Latin America.  The lack of primary documentation is not surprising for such a clandestine operation.  The need for secrecy would naturally have produced no written documents or tangible evidence that might cause the arrest and deportation of the refugees, the arrest of anyone involved, and the destruction of Lyndon Johnson’s political career.

        The first known public mentions of Johnson’s involvement helping Jewish refugees came when he was introduced by his friend Novy at the dedication of a new sanctuary at an Austin synagogue.  Only thirty days after Kennedy’s assassination, the event was Johnson’s first public appearance as the 36th President. After Novy’s introduction, which referenced Johnson’s aid to Jewish refugees with gratitude, the president’s keynote speech did not acknowledge or deny Novy’s story.

          The announcement at the Austin synagogue attracted little attention in 1963,; however, twenty years later, a doctoral dissertation submitted by Louis S. Gomolak to the history department of the University of Texas began to circulate.  In the dissertation titled, Prologue: LBJ’s Foreign Affairs Background, 1908 — 1948, Gomolak put forward the theory that, without the knowledge of the US government and with the help of Novy, LBJ managed two large-scale covert rescue missions of European Jews. Gomolak refused to reveal the identity of the survivors he interviewed, which has made substantiation of his theory difficult.

         Johnson’s political record shows he was always a friend to Israel and an opponent of anti-Semitism;  however, efforts begun in 2008, to have LBJ declared a “Righteous Gentile” did not gain traction. This was partially due to lack of documentation, though additional antidotal evidence from the families of survivors surfaced as the result of the inquiry. In the end, Lyndon Johnson was not awarded “Righteous Gentile” status by Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among Nations Department because most of the Jews he helped had already escaped Europe and he only helped them gain admission to the United States.  Also, LBJ did not put his life in danger by his actions—only his career was jeopardized.

         Though LBJ did not receive this high honor from Yad Vashem, in 1994, the Holocaust Museum of Houston honored him by establishing the Lyndon Baines Johnson Moral Courage Award.  This award is given to persons who show moral courage, individual responsibility, and the willingness to take action against injustice, either by a single act or a lifetime of behavior. Past recipients have included Miep Gies (bookkeeper of the Otto Frank family), Steven Spielberg, Bob Dole, Martin Luther King Jr., Elie Wiesel, and Daniel Pearl.

http://hmh.org/au_award_page25.shtml

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