Posts Tagged ‘food’
In praise of sweet corn
‘Tis the season. We’ve had fresh sweet corn around here for weeks now, but I’m in Massachusetts, and that corn is from Georgia, which isn’t to say it isn’t good, simply that it isn’t local. Locally-grown produce is a big part of Sweet Salt Air, and though corn isn’t a major player in the book,…
Read MoreSnapshots of SWEET SALT AIR
Last week’s blog talked about which character in this book is my favorite, but I have other favorites here. Since Sweet Salt Air is a highly sensual book, I’m thinking see, smell, feel, hear, and taste. I’m calling them snapshots, because they’re just quick little moments from the book. I guess that makes this blog…
Read MoreWhere SWEET SALT AIR came from
Most of my books are inspired by things I read about in the newspaper. The inspiration for Sweet Salt Air was much more personal. I have three sons, all of whom have recently had children, and when each of those babies was born, its umbilical cord blood was harvested, frozen, and stored. The premise is…
Read MoreAre you healthier eating organic?
Since one of the protagonists in Sweet Salt Air (my coming book) is a die-hard locavore, I was naturally interested in this. Not that a locavore necessarily eats organic. By definition, a locavore buys and eats food that is locally produced – food produced by local farmers and sold in local markets – but since…
Read MoreHow to control food cravings
I asked you all about food cravings in yesterday’s SPEEDY BD SURVEY, and there were some really interesting replies. The most frequent? Chocolate. So, let’s talk about food cravings. Do you get them? I do. There are times when I am desperate for a fried egg on buttered toast. Or a sizzling steak. Or yes,…
Read MoreI believe! I believe!
I’m a fiction person, which isn’t to say I don’t read the newspaper or watch the evening news, but simply that my entertainment of choice involves pretend. Add to that magical elements that sometimes creep into my own work, like the coyotes in Escape, the wishes in Three Wishes, and the herbs in Sweet Salt…
Read MoreFiddleheads!
They’re back! DH and I were strolling through Whole Foods the other night when I spotted a precious sign. Fiddlehead Ferns, it read – and there they were, packed in a bin with tiny ice chips to keep them crisp. For the uninitiated, fiddleheads are the immature, unopened fronds of a fern that, when harvested…
Read MoreWhen characters are name-callers
Here’s another thought for those of you who are interested in the kinds of things a writer has to consider. In a single stretch of dialogue, how often should the characters call each other by name? I’ve been hypersensitive about this lately, because I just read another book that, IMHO, did it very wrong. Here’s…
Read MoreA watershed moment for SWEET SALT AIR
I do try to blog several times a week, but it’s been ten days since my last post, and you loyal readers have Sweet Salt Air to blame. I’ve reached a critical point in the book – three hundred pages done, with the final climactic hundred ready to go. But … but … but ……
Read MoreThe how-to of collecting maple sap
Have you ever had pure maple syrup? Once you have, the other never quite works for you again. Pure maple syrup is deep in color, rich in taste, goes down slowwwww-ly, and lingers wherever it lands. It is sweet without containing the kinds of processed sugars we’re told to avoid, which makes it a super…
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