Susan Rooke's Blog, page 8

Sweet Batter Bread: A Recipe

Long, long ago when The Daughter was a mere child, her 2nd Grade teacher would occasionally bake and sell loaves of slightly sweet, soft, very tender bread. To ensure good sales, the teacher would cannily pass out samples to her students, who then went home and begged their parents to buy the bread. It really was delicious, and the teacher was understandably very secretive about the recipe. But Katie didn’t see why we should be restricted to enjoying the bread only two or three times in a school year. She asked me if I could come up with a recipe that produced a similar loaf.

In those days, my passion for food had broadened beyond collecting recipes and cooking to encompass a curiosity about the science of food and an interest in its history. I had a decent library (still do) of food-related volumes, covering topics ranging from the memoirs of professional chefs, to food’s influence on culture and human development, to the people who devote themselves to winning cookoff contests. I subscribed to several food magazines, watched Emeril and Ina and Alton on the Food Network and read cookbooks for fun.

So Katie’s request wasn’t made just from a child’s wishful thinking and boundless faith in her mother. Could I devise a similar loaf? You bet I could.

This is a batter bread, and requires yeast, but no kneading. (And no electric mixer! Stirring with a spatula in a big bowl is preferable.) For anyone who’s nervous about using yeast, don’t worry. I call for instant yeast (SAF is an excellent brand), so you won’t have to proof it first, or even be extremely cautious about the temperature of the liquids you’ll add to the batter. I store my SAF in the freezer, and it keeps for a long time. Yes, one of these days I’d like to make a bread using wild yeast spores that I’ll harvest from the air around me (taking the concept of terroir to extremes, and probably resulting in an unsavory bread that tastes a bit like dog hair), but I use instant yeast exclusively and have for years.

SWEET BATTER BREAD Makes two 8 ½” x 4 ½” x 2 ½” loaves, or 24 dinner rolls

2 tsp. salt

½ c. sugar

4 Tbsp. (½ stick) softened, unsalted butter

½ c. very warm water (see Notes)

2 c. very warm milk, whole or 2% (see Notes)

4 tsp. instant yeast

5 c. all-purpose flour (divided into 3 c. and 2 c.)

1 egg (lg. or extra-lg.), beaten

Cooking spray or soft butter or oil, for greasing bread pans, muffin tins, etc.

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.

2. In a large bowl, stir salt, sugar, butter, water and milk together with a spatula until salt and sugar are dissolved.

3. In a separate bowl, stir together (with a fork or whisk) 3c. flour with the yeast.

4. Add the flour/yeast mixture one cup at a time to the water/milk mixture and stir with spatula to blend.

5. Next, stir in the beaten egg. The mixture will be very runny:

6. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and set in a warm place to rise. It should at least double in volume, and may go a bit higher. It will look like this once it’s risen:

7. Once the batter has risen, add in the last 2 c. all-purpose flour and mix thoroughly with a spatula to blend.

If making loaves:

8. Spray two 8 ½” x 4 ½” x 2 ½” nonstick loaf pans with cooking spray (or oil or butter them).

9. Divide batter evenly between the two pans and let rise again at room temperature (otherwise the batter might overflow) until almost at the tops of the pans. Do not cover with plastic.

10. Bake at 375°F for about 25 minutes, or until golden.

11. Cool in pan 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

If making dinner rolls:

12. Spray two 12-cup muffin tins (nonstick is best, but I can’t find mine) and an ice cream scoop with cooking spray (or oil or butter them, but cooking spray is much easier).

13. Filling the scoop not quite full each time, divide the batter evenly between the 24 muffin cups.

14. Let rise again at room temperature (otherwise the batter might overflow) until slightly rounded over the tops of the cups. Do not cover with plastic.

15. Bake at 375°F for 12 minutes, then reverse muffin tins top to bottom, front to back.

16. Continue baking about 5 more minutes, or until golden.

17. Cool in tins 5 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

Notes:

• By “very warm” water and milk, I mean warm enough to dissolve the sugar and salt, but nowhere near scalding. While instant yeast is very easy to use, any liquid that’s too cold or very hot will ruin it. If you don’t want to leave it to chance, use a thermometer to check that the temperature of the water/milk mixture is between about 105° to 120°F when you add the flour/yeast blend.

• Bread recipes are an excellent opportunity to use up sour milk, by the way.

• I keep all homemade breads in the refrigerator. Very helpful for maintaining freshness and retarding mold.

• If you want to make toast, do it in a toaster oven or under the broiler. This bread is so tender it won’t hold up to a toaster. But it will make fabulous cinnamon toast, perfect with a cup of hot tea in the afternoon. Just be sure the butter is very spreadable.

Admire your handiwork. Then enjoy!

The Last Box: Of Trash and Treasure

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the bong-tree grows […]

—from “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat,” by Edward Lear (1871)

It’s January 4th, 2018, and I’ve just added last year’s engagement calendar to the stack in the office closet. That makes twenty; I’ve been saving them for a while now. Twenty years’ worth fits in a compact space:

As I’m shelving 2017, I decide to pull another year’s calendar at random. It’s 2011. Opening it to a week in July, I see that Glen and I had two dinners with friends and attended a Dwight Yoakam concert with two of those same friends. I had a hair appointment, a lunch date with a girlfriend, an Austin Poetry Society Board meeting, and sternly reminded myself to “pay electric @ HEB!” I glance through a few more weeks, finding notes of surgeries on family and friends, funerals, a wedding. Five minutes later, it’s back on the shelf with the rest.

Why do I hang onto these calendars? I don’t really know. They aren’t diaries. The entries are sketchy, at best. It’s not as if reading them will transport me back to the hour, to the electric energy of the moment, that Dwight Yoakam took the stage. But there is something about flipping through these pages, despite the cryptic quality of some of the entries (“PUNCH HOLES!”), that makes that time tangible again. And oddly, it’s the utter banality of most of those days, rather than the excitement or the trauma, that serves to make them even more real.

The good thing is, saving those calendars doesn’t require much room. I wish I could say the same for the family memorabilia that I’ve been saddled with since the early 1970s. No one else would take it, so I became the designated relic-keeper. It wasn’t my idea; it was my mother’s, presented to me as duty, a sacred trust. Some of it, from my father’s side, dates back 140 years or more. The very formal letters of courtship that passed between his mother and father. His mother’s riding habit. Old reel-to-reel commercially recorded tapes of popular music. (Why was there ever a demand for such a thing?) My mother’s collection of 78s. Photographs from the late 1800s, of a little boy in a dress and very long blond curls, as the fashion of the time dictated. If my mother hadn’t taped typewritten labels to the backs, I would never have believed those photos were of my father. (He’d be 125 if he were alive today.)

Why ruminate on temporality and keepsakes now? Well, in the month following Thanksgiving, I finally finished unpacking the last of the moving boxes in the “forever home” garage. I’d put off the memorabilia till the very end because the decades it spent moldering in a series of other garages meant it was in disgusting condition. What hadn’t crumbled into dust was crawling with silverfish or freckled with mouse droppings. As I wiped the pieces down before transferring them to large, sturdy plastic tubs, I was overcome with a giddy thought (probably a symptom of incipient hantavirus): Why not throw it all away? Anyone who at one time might have been interested in that stuff was long gone. Oh, it was tempting! But guilt stopped me. Someday it’ll all be Katie’s problem. Just like the sewing basket.

Among the spiders and dead moths, I found some much more recent memorabilia, though: keepsakes from Katie’s early childhood, and some drawings I’d made in the month before she was born. Mutant floral designs, which, out of some misguided notion of “nesting,” I’d thought I would embroider on a quilt:

These, in turn, made me remember “The Owl and the Pussy-Cat,” a favorite of Katie’s when she was a little girl. Unlike some of the books that bored us senseless after we’d read them to her countless times, it was one that Glen and I always enjoyed too. Now, after all these years and all our adventures, Glen and I settled in what we hope will be our last home, The Daughter soon to turn 30 in hers, I heard myself reciting that poem of Edward Lear’s while unpacking these final few things. The Owl and the Pussy-Cat embarked on their journey “in a beautiful pea-green boat,” with only themselves, a small guitar, and “some honey, and plenty of money, / wrapped up in a five-pound note.” I’ve never tired of the reckless, glorious enchantment of their romance, and that two such different creatures found in each other a soulmate.

And hand in hand on the edge of the sand

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

Imagine that. A “nonsense poem” as a metaphor for life.

Cream Tacos: Feeding the Holiday Houseguest

If you’ve ever had houseguests staying for several days over the holiday season, there may have come a time when you’ve wondered what to feed everyone for dinner. A time when you needed something filling and delicious, in quantities that would satisfy a hungry crowd. Preferably something very easy to throw together, because you, as chief cook and bottle-washer (as my father used to put it) would have already spent enough time in the kitchen prepping for the day of the major feast. Ordering pizza is an option, but it gets expensive.

Today I’m sharing with you a recipe for just such a situation, one that has stood the test of many of our own family events. It’s warming, it’s satisfying, AND it’s flexible. Think of the recipe more as a set of guidelines rather than hard-and-fast dictates about measurements and ingredients. Feel free to make changes. Let’s say you’ve got only a one-pound package of ground beef in the freezer. Not a problem. Don’t like jalapenos? Leave ‘em out. Want to use chili with beans? Go for it. Top your plate with sour cream? Sure, why not?

I present it along with a justification. I don’t make Cream Tacos often, certainly not as often as Glen would like. (He calls it “Creamy Tacos,” which is probably more fitting.) Why? Because it’s the lowest of the lowbrow: not much else but cans and cartons thrown in the pan with a package of ground meat. This is not my style of cooking, as you probably know by now, and the only way I can rationalize making it is that I’ve put my own stamp on it over the years, changing the proportions and adding seasonings to better suit me. And be warned: Don’t expect tacos just because of the name. It’s more of a taco salad.

But I have to admit . . . it’s really good.

CREAM TACOS

Olive oil, for browning the meat

1 ½ lbs. ground beef (venison is great too!)

one 19 oz. can Wolf Brand Chili (no beans)

one 10 oz. can Rotel Original Diced Tomatoes & Green Chilies

one 15 oz. can Ranch Style Beans (I like the kind with sliced jalapenos)

1 lb. Velveeta Original

2 minced jalapenos (pickled or fresh)

1 cup heavy whipping cream

½ tsp. cayenne pepper, or to taste

Other spices, 1 tsp. each: garlic powder, onion powder, ground comino (cumin), smoked paprika, regular (sweet) paprika, dried oregano leaves

For plating:

Corn chips

Cheese, grated (cheddar, Monterey jack/cheddar blend, colby, etc.)

Lettuce, shredded

Tomatoes, diced

Onions, diced

Sour cream, if you’re feeling it

Salsa

1. In a large sauté pan over medium-high heat, brown the ground beef in olive oil (salting to personal taste, but don’t overdo it).

2. Add all the spices, plus the Wolf chili, the Rotel Tomatoes, the Ranch Style Beans, the Velveeta and the minced jalapenos.

3. Turn the heat to medium-low as the Velveeta melts, stirring periodically to blend everything.

4. When the Velveeta is melted, add the heavy cream and stir to blend.

5. Turn the heat to very low and cook the mixture gently, stirring every so often, for about 15 or 20 minutes to allow the flavors to develop. You can taste for salt at this point, but I don’t usually need to add any more.

To Serve:

1. Break up some corn chips onto a plate.

2. Ladle some of the meat/cheese mixture over them.

3. Sprinkle with grated cheese, shredded lettuce, chopped tomatoes, chopped onions as desired.

4. Top with salsa and sour cream as desired.

Notes:

• See what I mean? It doesn’t get any easier. And everybody can adjust their toppings and their corn chip to meat/cheese mixture ratio to suit themselves. I put more lettuce, tomatoes, onions and salsa on mine, cutting back on the corn chips and meat/cheese. Because of these variables, I can’t give you an exact number of servings the recipe makes, but I can tell you I’ve fed 8 people easily from one batch, and had leftovers besides.

• Be careful salting this, as there is salt in the prepared foods. I salt the ground beef as it’s browning, and after that I salt the raw lettuce, tomato and onion that I top my plate with.

• In the spices, note that I use garlic powder, not garlic salt. Some folks treat them as if they’re interchangeable.

• The meat/cheese mixture keeps for days in the refrigerator, and also freezes nicely. To freeze: Put it in an airtight container, press wax paper or plastic wrap over the surface of the mixture to minimize the risk of freezer burn, then snap the lid on. A great convenience, especially over the holidays.

Glen and I first enjoyed Cream Tacos more than thirty years ago in San Antonio, at a family gathering in the home of my older brother Bob and his wife Jan. Where Jan found the recipe, I don’t know, but it has a back-of-the-box feel to it. So much time has passed since then. Bob died in March of this year; Jan, a couple of years before him.

Bob relished cultivating a certain quirkiness; he was the kind of person who left you stunned speechless with every overshare he casually (and always with a wry smile) tossed out. Jan, the most genuinely good and sweet person I’ve ever known, would just beam at him with enormous tolerance and devotion, gently chiding, “Oh, love.”

Together the two of them spent a good share of their later years in volunteerism: visiting nursing homes, performing endless kindnesses for the ill or elderly, even driving them hours across Texas to medical appointments (with Bob’s lead foot on the gas, and, no doubt, his passengers’ fingernails digging into the upholstery). Bob had always read widely, and he appreciated good music, teaching me about jazz and Shakespeare when he was about 20 and I was no more than 7 or 8. He loved to eat (occasionally whipping up something delicious himself), and Jan, a placid yet fearless cook, loved to feed him.

I make Cream Tacos at least once a year; it’s one of Glen’s favorites. And now, for me, each bite is remembrance.

This is All Josh Groban’s Fault

I love Halloween and I love Thanksgiving. Those are great holidays, celebrating, in my view, mostly the simple joy of the experience. They don’t come nearly so burdened with unrealistic expectations of the perfect family moment, the ideal gift. Just good company, yummy nibblies and mutant gourds.

Most years, I enjoy Christmas too. Just last year I wrote that observing Christmas in an empty nest, deprived of The Daughter’s snarky, hilarious company (which these days she often shares with her in-laws) doesn’t make me as whiny as I’d thought it would. But this Christmas season has been different. I’ve been whining. A lot. (Just ask Glen.)

And it’s all because of Josh Groban.

I’ve written before that I’m always saddened when something triggers a memory of happy times Katie and I used to have together before she moved out on her own. The movie Legally Blonde, for instance, often makes me cry, because it reminds me of the fun mother/daughter excursions—the shopping, lunches, haircuts and pedicures—it inspired. (Just to be clear, we didn’t get matching haircuts.)

But I haven’t seen Legally Blonde recently, so I can’t blame that for my whininess this Christmas. What I blame instead is the concert Glen and I saw on TV a couple of nights ago. It featured a grand finale from Josh Groban, which triggered a memory. And of course I cried.

About twelve years ago when Katie was a senior in high school, a classmate and her mother offered us two tickets to a Josh Groban concert in San Antonio. Their plans had changed, and they knew that Glen, Katie and I were big Josh Groban fans. Would we be interested? Sparing only a moment’s thought for poor Glen’s feelings, or for the drive to San Antonio and back, I told Katie, “Sure, I’ll take you!”

And they were great tickets. Floor level, aisle seats, close to the stage, a large but comfortable venue. As we sat chatting with another mother/daughter pair next to us (who were just as excited as we were), I lamented aloud that I wished I’d brought a sign to hold up when Josh took the stage: I’D MAKE A GREAT MOTHER-IN-LAW! Then the opening act came on: Chris Botti. Well. The icing was on the cake. That night was cemented in our memories forever.

A couple of years later, The Daughter moved out of the nest. And ever since, though I always enjoy listening to Chris Botti’s jazz trumpet, hearing Josh Groban’s magnificent voice makes me forlorn. It brings on a sad nostalgia for the fun we had at that concert twelve years ago.

As I learned the other night, hearing him sing during the holiday season is much, much worse. After the TV concert was over, Glen cued up more of Josh on the stereo as I sank deeper and deeper into melancholy. I cast a gloomy look around the house and saw that we had no Christmas tree, no lights, no ribbons or ornaments, nothing that sparkled or glittered or flashed. In fact, I realized—getting whinier by the moment—we’d had no Christmas decorations for five years. We stopped decking the halls when we put our old house on the market. All to avoid distracting potential buyers, or making the house seem cramped. I used to have so much fun with it, especially on the dining table. At Halloween:

At Thanksgiving:

At Christmas:

But now? “I haven’t even done a tablescape!” I exclaimed to Glen in despair. “Because everything I used to decorate with is still in boxes in the garage!” (That’s right. We moved into our “forever home” 9 ½ months ago, and the garage is still full of boxes to unpack. Mea maxima culpa. I can’t blame Josh Groban for that one.)

Glen, meanwhile, was fiddling with his phone, paying no attention to my wretchedness. Not much, anyway, because he was busy finding us a Christmas tree on Amazon. It didn’t take him more than thirty minutes, and it’ll be delivered by the time you read this.

After I finished being weepy over how sweet and thoughtful he is, I realized I was a touch disgruntled. It was disconcerting to have my whining doused so efficiently by Glen’s practical, man-of-action response. But December is young. I’ll bet I can find something else to whine about if I put my mind to it. For one thing, I haven’t found the box with the tree skirt or the ornaments yet. Or any of my tablescape materials. That’s good for an evening’s worth of whining, at least.

A footnote about that long-ago concert in San Antonio: We all know, of course, that Katie did not end up marrying Josh Groban. Possibly because I neglected to hold up a posterboard advertising my mad mother-in-law skills. That’s all for the best, though, because she married Wesley instead. Who happens to be the best son-in-law ever. And—the icing on the cake—he sings very well, too.

A List of Small Gratitudes, 2017

Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Readers! I hope you’re all having a pleasant sufficiency of delicious nibblies and festive, fizzy beverages! This is a busy week for everyone, so today I’m offering a post from last Thanksgiving, but updated for 2017. Last year, for instance, I was thankful that Meyer, our lemon tree, had produced a record-setting 18 lemons, which we enjoyed using over the holidays. Within 2 months of that writing, a severe cold snap blew through and, despite Glen’s efforts to keep him wrapped in a blanket, Meyer’s arms froze and had to be amputated. His condition is improving, but we might have to change his name to Stumpy. No homegrown lemons to be thankful for this year, then. I guess I’ll just have to remember last year’s crop with gratitude.

In spite of our lack of lemons, I offer this list in a renewed spirit of thankfulness and counting one’s blessings. It’s impossible to note everything I’m grateful for, so the list is as short as Meyer’s arms. And it’s not the enormous things, either. It’s not about beloved family, friends, animal companions, or health. I know that’s what we tend to focus on at this time of year, but if we have the self-awareness God gave a yam, we already know the big things to be grateful for. These are much less important things, noted completely at random. Things that tickle me, or that I think of with fondness. Small gratitudes that make me thankful out of all proportion to their modest size:

• For Costco, where I can buy all the holiday treats our hearts desire (and please, could you hurry up and build the Pflugerville store?). Délice de Bourgogne, that soft-ripened, triple-cream, heavenly cheese . . . Fresh persimmons . . . Prime rib roast . . . Costco has these delights and many more, plus the perfect tipples to enjoy them with.

• That eating turkey at Thanksgiving is not mandated by law. Prime rib, anyone?

• For Julia Child’s prime rib recipe from Julia Child & Company

• For autumn, which may take forever to get to Central Texas, but I’d rather wait for those few cooler days here than live inside the Arctic Circle

• That the autumn sky is filled with huge numbers of migrating birds. In the past few weeks I’ve seen American White Pelicans, Sandhill Cranes, Roseate Spoonbills and several different species of ducks—hundreds and hundreds of ducks. Here’s an inadequate photo of the pelicans, which were very high up:

• And speaking of ducks, that the great Carl Barks drew and scripted the finest Scrooge McDuck comics in history (illustrated weird fiction, if you will). Yes, I own a Carl Barks Scrooge McDuck boxed set.

• For my Little Lulu comics boxed set too, and I’ll be even more grateful when I unpack it (because it’s still entombed in the garage)

• For rail car art

• For weird eyes that appear in the sky

• For the reruns of Josh Gates’s snarky, intriguing Destination Truth TV series showing on the Travel Channel

• That I can pay most bills by phone, thereby putting them off every month until almost the last minute!

• For the set of Cards Against Humanity (“A party game for horrible people.”) that Katie gave Glen and me for Christmas a few years back, and that we can laugh ourselves silly playing this vile, politically incorrect, hilarious game with her and Wesley in the privacy of our homes, with no one judging us

• For Beard on Bread, James Beard’s book that, so many years ago, first made possible the frequent sight (and alluring, yeasty aroma) of fresh-baked bread in my kitchen. My copy has seen some use:

• That about ten years ago I successfully imitated the Schlotzky’s bun (the recipe for which I’ll reveal in a future blog post), thereby creating the Rookie

• For persimmons slowly ripening in the kitchen. And I mean slowly. They’re the banana slugs of the fruit world.

• That we no longer have to look at the dumpster and portable toilet which, though they played an important part in the forever home construction, were not especially attractive

• That, on the smoker he designed and built himself, Glen makes the best Texas-style brisket and pork ribs I’ve tasted. EVER.

• For the day when Glen will finally move said smoker from his warehouse to our forever home so that we can enjoy his best-ever brisket and spare ribs at least one more time before the zombie apocalypse

• For the extraordinary moths that grace our patio. I still don’t know the name for this one. Anybody?

• For the moment a fish yanks my cork under. Or, failing that, Glen’s cork.

• That the convenience store/gas station closest to our house sells fishing gear and bait

• For the day when Glen will finally move the smoker from his warehouse to our forever home so that we can enjoy—Oh, wait . . . Did I mention this one already? Sorry, just a careless oversight on my part. *ahem*

May we all have a Thanksgiving full of gratitudes, small, medium and large!

Does This Suit Come in Purple?

Do you know what shagreen is? Here’s a picture of a wallet in shagreen:

Until I read a magazine article about it some years back, I didn’t know that shagreen is what’s more commonly known as stingray hide. Appreciated for its striking appearance and lasting durability, it’s been in use for hundreds of years, to make items ranging from book covers and sword hilts to lampshades, bracelets, boots . . . even nightstands. And boy, could I use a suit of shagreen to wear right now. Because, not for the first time in my life, I’m going to need a tougher hide.

The Daughter warned me many revisions ago that I’d written a polarizing book. That once it was published, I should be ready for hate mail. I agreed with the thrust of Katie’s argument. With its reimagining of Old Testament themes, The Space Between has the potential to offend people at all points on the spectrum of religious belief. So I was more or less prepared for the woman so affronted by the subject matter of my book that she refused to review it. It controverts her idea of a Supreme Being, evidently. Okay, score one for Katie’s predictive skills. But I wasn’t prepared for the reviews that have materialized. Not because they’ve been bad. The majority have been decent so far and some have been great. (That doesn’t mean five bad ones won’t appear in the next 24 hours, of course.) It’s the fact that people have opinions about the book at all that’s surprising. That’s what I was not prepared for.

Was that naïve of me? Maybe, but my hopes for the book have been fairly modest from the beginning. What I envisioned was that friends and family would buy it, read it or not depending on their literary tastes, and then the whole episode would quietly subside until the sequel came out. Did I expect total strangers to read it? No. Despite all the promotional magic my favorite publicist Danielle performed to try to bring that about—the Facebook ads and the Goodreads giveaway, just for starters—I really didn’t. I sort of wished they would, but after the manuscript spent twelve years mostly hidden away in my computer, it seemed impossible that The Space Between should ever cross any random stranger’s reading radar. But the book has been out almost two months now, and some random strangers are indeed reading. And they’re beginning to express themselves.

Imagine people openly discussing your child or your spouse and not caring if you overheard. They could be lavishing your loved one with admiration and praise, but if you’re anything like me, you’d be anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop, the part where they’d say, “Of course, there’s that really annoying thing he does when he . . .” Or, “She could do so much better if only she would try to be more . . .” So it isn’t just the bad reactions I fear, it’s every reaction. Whether it’s good, bad, or meh, I realize I’m happier not knowing any of it. That fear creates a state of nail-biting anxiety, and living in it makes me yearn for supreme self-confidence and complete indifference, or, failing both of those, a shagreen suit.

I want to be one of those writers who never reads their own reviews, never gives interviews, and just carries on with the job of writing. Occasionally I would emerge from my sanctum to make ice cream or drink cocktails or clean Phoebe’s Catbox of Despond. Unfortunately, that’s all just a pipedream.

Instead, I’ve been asking myself, What on earth have I done? Well, I’ve dropped my literary child out the third-floor window of a burning building and it’s landed headfirst on a cement trampoline, that’s what.

It’s much too late to go back to the way things were. To quote from James Thurber’s charming book, The 13 Clocks: “The fat is in the fire, the die is cast, the jig is up, the goose is cooked, and the cat is out of the bag.” I wished for it. I got it. I’m stuck with it.

Last night while we were watching a segment about Russian oligarchs on the national news, I told Glen I wanted to be an oligarch too. “How does one get to be an oligarch, anyway?” I asked him.

He fixed me with a loving, but uncompromising, gaze. “Sell more books.”

Oh, what the heck. In for a penny, in for a pound. Book 2 should be coming your way later next year. In the meantime, I’ll find some purple shoes to match my shagreen suit.

“Everyone Hail to the Pumpkin Song!”*

Here we are in late October, and there’s (finally) a brisk snap in the morning air. It’s the Halloween season, which has been my favorite time of the year since childhood. Not because I ever enjoyed dressing up in costumes. Far from it; that’s too close to clown territory for me. But I’ve always loved the trappings of Halloween: reading ghost stories in the autumnal gloom, carving jack-o’-lanterns, decorating with . . . skulls . . .

Many people enjoy celebrating Halloween by viewing scary movies all month. I always thought I did too. In fact, from the age of 5, I watched parent-approved (what were they thinking?) old black and white horror movies on TV, at least one of which was so frightening it gave me nightmares and I’ve never forgotten it. Did anybody else see this one?

The Beast with Five Fingers, starring Peter Lorre in one of his sinister, murderous freak roles, was about a hand that’s severed from the corpse of a concert pianist. The disembodied hand then creeps and scrabbles through the rooms of the dead man’s mansion to wreak vengeance, catching his enemies by surprise and strangling them. Through the decades I would think of this movie and chuckle over having been such an impressionable child. Then a few years ago during the Halloween season, I came across it on Turner Classic Movies and watched it again. I was sure the vintage 1946 special effects crawling hand would be laughably crude now, but no. It was surprisingly well done.

The movie wasn’t in color and the hand didn’t creep about with exposed tendons and blood vessels dribbling realistic gore from its severed edge. So it’s true that by today’s standards it was pretty tame. Thank heavens for that, though, because in the intervening years since I first watched The Beast with Five Fingers, I’ve discovered I’m actually a sissy. I like my frights lite.

Where blood and body parts are concerned, Jaws pretty much set the special effects bar for me, and then John Hurt’s gut-wrenching scene (ha!) in Alien vaulted right over it. (The Exorcist was a very close call, but was mostly just gross.) Thus, while others might get a special kick out of watching every iteration (evisceration?) of Halloween or Friday the 13th in October, I’ll avoid the slasher pics, thanks, because psychological horror is quite frightening enough. (Just saw The Babadook the other night. I recommend it!) But my very favorite choice for Halloween viewing isn’t a horror movie at all. It’s this film from the deliciously off-kilter mind of Tim Burton:

Katie and I first saw it together in 1993. She was 5 years old, the age at which I was having nightmares of a vengeful severed hand. I’d planned just to take her out for a movie and entertain her for a couple of hours. Instead, that afternoon set in motion for both of us a lifelong love affair with The Nightmare Before Christmas and its wonderful characters: the Pumpkin King Jack Skellington, his faithful dog Zero, Jack’s love interest Sally, the villainous Oogie Boogie and a host of others. We bought the soundtrack and the video, and drove all over town singing along at the top of our lungs to Danny Elfman’s inspired music. Until Katie moved out to live on her own, we watched the video at least twice each year between Halloween and Christmas. These rituals kept us happy and provided Glen with fond, head-shaking amusement. We’re rarely afforded the chance to watch it together any more, of course, but we’re not done. There will be more viewings in the future. And if you haven’t seen the movie yet, I hope you do soon. It’s the perfect time of year for it. Sally, the heroine, has an unsettling habit of detaching her arm and sewing it back on again, but I promise it’s not the stuff of crawling hand nightmares. You might even find yourself bursting into creepylicious song at odd moments.

“I am the shadow on the moon at night,

Filling your dreams to the brim with fright!”*

I’d meant for today’s post to also feature this year’s jack-o’-lantern. Unfortunately, I’ve been fighting off a cold and fever, and have been too puny to do any pumpkin shopping, much less carving. Luckily today’s only the 26th, so there’s still time to find a suitable gourd and cut a face in it.

um . . . Boo?

But at least I’ve got the design done, and I want to share it with you.

Happy Halloween, Everybody!

Your faithful correspondent,

The Beast with the Streaming Nose

*from “This is Halloween,” music and lyrics by Danny Elfman

A Book Release Celebration

Today is October 12th. The Space Between: The Prophecy of Faeries was released exactly one month ago. And somehow, despite my frequently stated intentions, the release still came as a bit of a surprise. Even more surprising: Hell didn’t freeze over, Earth’s magnetic poles didn’t reverse (not lately, at least), and the mystery surrounding suspected planet-gobbling star KIC 8462852 and its proposed alien megastructure/Dyson Sphere has still not been solved. These were all possibilities I often thought stood a better chance of occurring in our lifetimes than the publication of my book.

The biggest surprise of all was when this happened:

These are some of the 55 dear friends and family who, despite having—I’m sure—better things to do, came together on the evening of September 29th to eat and drink merrily, helping Glen and me celebrate a story that was 12 years in the making.

And they bought the book.

I was dumbfounded. Before the book release party, I’d worried endlessly that no one would want to come, and even had several dreams in which I sat at a table stacked with copies of The Space Between in an otherwise empty room. Then when the invitees started accepting, I moved on to a new worry, as scripted by my subconscious in this dream a night or two before the event:

I was wandering through the lobby floor of an enormous hotel, looking for the small back room where the book release party was being held. I knew the party had started, but the room was impossible to find and no one could direct me. I was crossing the lobby yet again, looking for faces I recognized, when the hotel guests surged inward from the front doors, shouting that the hotel was under terrorist attack. I saw an SUV thrown into reverse and speeding backward up the hotel front steps. As I joined the crowd running to escape, the police moved in to calm everyone down. It developed that the vehicle was driven by a man who’d had an argument with another man and intended to “teach him a lesson.”

Since the police seemed to have the situation successfully defused, I wandered off again to continue searching and came upon the hotel nightclub, where a music act called the Rodeo Clowns was playing. The other musicians were offstage, but in the spotlight was the lead singer, in full rodeo clown costume, face paint and all. The nightclub floor was slippery with squashed tomatoes, because part of the group’s act was to pretend that the audience had pelted them with rotten tomatoes. After listening to a little of their music (a catchy little number), I left the club and—finally!—succeeded in finding the room where my book release party was. I walked in and saw Glen, Katie and Glen’s sister Denise coming to meet me, emerging from a noisy, vibrant crowd of . . . utter strangers. All of whom were having an uproariously good time. And not one of whom bought a book. There the dream ended.

The subconscious can be a mean and snarky mother. “You can throw a party, but no one will come. Okay, fine, they may come, but you won’t know any of them and they won’t buy your book.”

Well, Subconscious . . . you may have an impressive track record, but you aren’t always right. These wonderful, supportive friends and relatives proved that.

Honestly, though, if I didn’t have these pictures to remember it by, I’d be thinking the real party was as insubstantial as the dream version. Katie left three days after the party. Denise, four. They’ve been gone less than two weeks, but already it seems as if they were never here. Their visit went by in such a whirl. But Denise, thank heavens, takes pictures. Unfortunately, as happens so often with the family picture-taker, there are no photos of Denise at the book party, since she was pointing the camera. So here’s one I took a couple of days later when we were fishing.

Yes, she’s got her back turned to the camera. You have to keep an eye on those calves because you never know what they’ll do when they sneak up behind you. They might even lick the back of your head with their big slobbery tongues.

And that’s why I was fishing on the opposite side of the stock tank.

Thank you, everyone. I am so grateful for all of you.

**************************************************************

READERS: If you’ve enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon!

Soul-Searching, Five Years On

Five years ago at the beginning of this month, Glen and I put our Austin house on the market for the first time, getting serious about our dream of moving to the country. Six months later, after a hard-fought contract fell through, we took the next six months off to reclaim some sanity. Being forced to maintain constant household readiness and submit to the whims of looky-loos with no intention to buy was draining. And humbling. “I don’t like being able to see the kitchen when I walk in the front door,” sniffed one woman. Well honey, you really wouldn’t like the house I have now.

Standing in the kitchen. Hey, whaddaya know? There’s the front door. And Lucy.

So after a breather, we put the house on the market a second time. At last, after another sixteen months, we were free. Good-bye City, Hello Country.

But was it really our dream? If you’d asked me thirty-five years ago, I’d have said, “It may be Glen’s, but it’s sure not mine!” At that point, we weren’t married yet. Thirty-five years ago, I was all about dieting into designer jeans (remember those? Charlotte Fords were my favorite), experimenting with new eye makeup and going weekly to the late, great Steamboat, a Sixth Street Austin music venue, to see the Austin All Stars play. Oh—and straightening . . . every . . . last . . . bit of curl out of my hair, at temperatures that could fry catfish. I was so successful that, until I gave up flat ironing thirteen years ago, Glen had no idea I had curly hair. And just how curly. (To be honest, I was a little surprised too.) Now he claims I married him under false pretenses. He probably would have a case against me for fraud.

After we married, we did move to the country. Still not my dream, but I would have followed him anywhere. Our first house together was east of Austin in a tiny farming community. (That was where the FBI came knocking at our front door one day, asking probing questions about one of the neighbors.) Over the three years we lived there, we managed to keep up a semblance of city life, driving to Austin daily for all errands and fun excursions. We were much younger then. We could maintain the pace. When we moved back into Austin again, though, we chose an area removed from the city’s heart, which was fast becoming a hotbed attracting throngs of residents. And over time, we found ourselves moving farther and farther into the outskirts. Turns out it was just one short step from that to owning cows.

Some people will always thrive on the lively turmoil of city dwelling. Glen, on the other hand, came to need the serenity of quieter surroundings, with great dollops of nature to nourish his soul. It came as a surprise when I found I needed these things too.

Now we have a place with great neighbors, who live more than fifteen yards away. We can watch a bald eagle standing tall in a treetop as it observes its youngster’s awkward swoops and glides. Or note the predictable daily habits of black cattle who retreat beneath the shade trees each morning, then emerge to bathe in the stock tanks each afternoon. The simplicity of such routines brings focus to our minds, as well as a measure of comfort and reassurance. And a sense, however illusory, that all will continue just the same when we’re gone.

This time, unlike thirty-five years ago, we share the same dream. Thank heavens. After too much noise for too many years, I think I needed the emptiness of days spent watching the changeable, eloquent face of the sky.

Glen asks me every week if I’m happy here. I try to reassure him, but he still remembers the girl with the straight hair who wanted to go out and have fun. I remember her too. She would have thought this place was lovely, but living here would have been hard for her. I’m not that girl anymore, Glen. I have to tell you, though, even then, it was just as it is now. All I really ever need for happiness is to be with you.

However. I’m obligated to point out that it wasn’t just me who wasn’t being entirely honest when we married.

I only surprised you with curly hair. You surprised me with . . . cows.

A huge thank-you to everyone who’s been reading The Space Between! If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving a review on Amazon!

The Space Between: IT’S HERE!

Ladies and Gentlemen, September 12th has come and gone. You know what that means, don’t you? The Space Between is now released, and climbing to the top of the bestseller charts!

Well, okay, it’s ranked on the bestseller charts. Somewhere . . .

But the point is, it’s finally published. And I can’t quite believe it.

I’m writing this on September 13th, the day after the release. I’m dadgum exhausted. Apparently my condition is not without precedent. My favorite publicist Danielle likens putting out a book to birthing a baby. This particular baby gestated for 12 years. No wonder I’m plumb tuckered out. (Not sure why I’m indulging in corny, outdated idioms, but plain old “tired” didn’t seem to cover it. And I just looked up the plural for “idiom” to be sure “idioms” is correct. It is, but did you know that the rare plural form, seldom used nowadays, is “idiomata” [which my spellcheck didn’t even recognize as a word {it recognized “spellcheck,” though!}]? Anyway, kind of like “stigmata.” Isn’t that cool??)

I digress. Yesterday was a day of highs and lows, with the highs supplied by the stream of congratulations from family and friends. Thank you all so much! I wouldn’t be writing this today if I didn’t have you in my corner. The best moments of the day came from Glen’s sister Denise, who’s flying in later this month to help us celebrate the book’s release. Denise revealed last night that she didn’t wait for me to present her copy in person when she arrives. Instead she ordered one from Amazon so she could read it again, then advertise it on the plane and in the airports on her way to Texas. Years ago, Denise was the first person to read the manuscript when it began to resemble what it is today, even before Katie and Glen did, and she’s been my tireless supporter ever since. You can see why this is the book’s dedication:

Today brought more joy, as my brother’s wife Jean sent me this incredible photo of what had just arrived in her mail:

Jean is the corporate accounting brain behind my new publishing company, and all the attendant permits and documentation that requires. (What an awakening that’s been. Luckily Jean has infinite patience with my cluelessness.) There are no better sisters-in-law than these two! I’m so grateful and blessed to have loved ones like this in my life.

So it’s clear why there have been such highs. The source of the lows is more complicated. Being tuckered is a factor, certainly, but there’s more to it than that. When I look at the book I see all of those 12 years, and I’m saddened when I think of the changes they’ve brought. There have been too many deaths; there has been no stasis. Time demands from us constant change, whether joyous or adverse, as its toll. Nothing ever stays the same. Whether or not time is an artificial construct, it’s our perception of it that matters, and time’s methods are heartless.

Then there’s the feeling that some large hand wielding a pair of pinking shears has scissored a hole out of the center of my life. Since I began writing The Space Between on September 1st, 2005, not one day has passed that the book hasn’t been in my thoughts or directly in my field of vision. And now at long last, I’ve let it go, sending it out into the world. On its own.

In a span of hours I went from birthing a baby to sending a child off to college. I’m surprised I could even get out of bed this morning. As it was, I spent some time in “Okay, now what?” mode, my sense of purpose unbalanced, requiring a dose of rigor. Happily, I’d resumed work on the sequel on Labor Day. Today, as soon as I stopped dwelling on the child that’s flown the nest and returned my focus to the one still in its infancy, balance was restored.

And good bubbly always helps. The evening of the 12th, Glen and I opened a bottle of very special champagne. We’d had it for a couple of years, holding on to it while we waited for the commensurate very special occasion to arise. We decided this occasion fit the bill.

To all of you. To The Space Between.