Cynthia D. Bertelsen's Blog, page 12

Writing about Food IS Writing

An interesting thing happened to me today. I ran into a person who knows me, a person who is also a writer. And they said the darnedest thing. Something about me just writing about food. As if it were something lesser than writing a novel or whatever. Actually, I have written a novel. In the … More Writing about Food IS Writing

The Three Sisters: A Celebration

Corn. Beans. Squash. The Three Sisters. Many Native American groups tell very different creation stories about these New World crops, which – as “sustainers of life” – meant deep sacredness. According to Shelia Wilson of the Sappony Tribe in North Carolina: The legend of “Three Sisters” originated when a woman of medicine who could no … More The Three Sisters: A Celebration

La Mouffe

It was Julia Child‘s favorite outdoor market in Paris. La Mouffe. Or rue Mouffetard, in the 5th arrondisement. Ancient street, cobblestone-strewn. Romans trod there, and marched, too. In the third century, Legionnaires laid the first rock in the town they called Lutetia Parisiorum. And that thoroughfare stretched all the way to Rome via the modern … More La Mouffe

On the Borderlands

Uniformed men on horseback, lassos at the ready, chase brown and black people standing in the surging water of the Rio Grande near Del Rio, Texas. The photographs shock. They call up long-buried images. Of the Ku Klux Klan night riding. Of patrollers chasing runaway slaves. Of Native Americans and the U.S. Cavalry at Wounded … More On the Borderlands

Stoves & Suitcases: Searching for Home in the World’s Kitchens

My latest book is out, a story of culinary discoveries and life’s big-and-little adventures.

Literature as Witness

Witnessing doesn’t always mean expressing words out loud. Or even in written form. You act as a witness, every day, in one way or another, merely by living. Witnessing can be as simple as waking before the sun rises, shuffling to the kitchen, waiting while the coffee gurgles through the filter, peeling a bruised banana, … More Literature as Witness

Not Long Now: New Book Due Out Soon!!!

Stoves and Suitcases is a marvelous magic carpet ride (although a carpet is the only mode of transport Cynthia Bertelsen doesn’t employ as she and her future husband, Mike, a fellow Peace Corps worker, make the rounds of Africa, South and Central America, the Caribbean, France, the American Heartland, Florida, and Indonesia). Her story addresses … Continue reading "Not Long Now: New Book Due Out Soon!!!"

A Dearth of Pleasure: The Curse of Modern Food Writing

Thankfully, the Millennium Bridge across the River Thames didn’t sway under my feet that day, giving lie to its other name, the Wobbly Bridge. But the chilling wind whipped at everything not tied down, painting a disagreeable redness on my nose and a deep-seated hunger in my belly. The aroma of roasting sugary peanuts floated … Continue reading "A Dearth of Pleasure: The Curse of Modern Food Writing"

Afghanistan … Where the Enchanted Snows Fall

Note: I first wrote this post in 2008, when the U.S. had been at war in Afghanistan for seven years. Now it is 2021, thirteen years have passed, and we are finally leaving Afghanistan. But the price paid by all for war is not over. And never will be. The fall of Kabul on August … Continue reading "Afghanistan … Where the Enchanted Snows Fall"

Discovering Cookbooks, a Memory

Once you have mastered a technique, you barely have to look at a recipe again.  ~ Julia Child Everybody says it happens, yes. Love at first sight. It happens. I must concur―it was true, at least for me, when it came to cookbooks. The summer I turned fourteen, I fell hopelessly in love with the … Continue reading "Discovering Cookbooks, a Memory"