The Owl & Moon Cafe
Hello Readers,
Sorry for my long absence, but I was doing something all that time: writing my new book, just finished, titled The Owl & Moon Café.
This book of feisty women and difficult daughters and the strange ways love touches our lives seemed to pour out of me—the characters so fully formed and storyline so fleshed out that at times it spooked me. But it also reminded me how much I love writing, and how when a writer gives a book her all, the return can be worth it. So I stayed indoors and didn’t go anywhere except to the café and its environs, with an occasional soak in the Jacuzzi.
Of course the minute I finished Anchorage was in the throes of fall, which means rain and gray clouds and Vees of Canada geese flying south. The squirrel in our birch tree is packing up for winter and driving the dogs insane, especially Henry. Italian Greyhounds are sighthounds, which means he spies things long before I do. Sometimes he even looks up in the sky. We had a dry, hot summer, so a lot of leaves have already fallen. There were terrible fires north and south of us—at times the sky reminded me of California.
Fall semester started August 30 th, and I have two great classes of fiction writers. Among the books we’re reading are: Ten Little Indians by Sherman Alexie (www.fallsapart.com), The God of Small Things by Arundahti Roy, Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri, Fight Club by Chuck Palahuink (my students love him), and The Three Junes by Julia Glass. That slate should provide interesting discussions, I’m sure.
So here’s a little teaser for the new book:
The menu at The Owl & Moon changes daily, but you can count on two good soups and lots of pastry. Inside the café you’d swear you were in an Iowa farmhouse in the 1930’s. The beadboard walls have been painted so many times it looks as if the painter just threw cream up and called it a day. There’s a dog bed by the door and the magazine rack. Sometimes Khan the Chihuahua is there, and other times it’s Emma, Sylvie Tompkinson’s bichon.
Sylvie shows up every afternoon about 4 and edits copy for The Blue Jay by hand. “If you read it in the Blue Jay, “ her masthead reads, “you can safely repeat it.” And while you’re at it, here’s recipe for meatloaf that’s simply divine.
Glory Templeton’s Real Man’s Meatloaf
1# ground sirloin
1# ground pork
1# ground lamb (or you can use turkey—I do)
1 finely chopped onion
1/2 cubed sauteed eggplant (honest!)
eight strips of thick bacon
a couple eggs
some bread crumbs
So you saute the onion in butter, then add the eggplant and cook it until it’s crisp on the edges. Then put it in a food processor and make it kind of soupy. Add it to the meats in a huge bowl. When mixed, add egg and bread crumbs and mix some more. In 2 or 3 loaf pans, lay down 3 strips to bacon. Pack meat on top. Add remaining bacon to the tops. Bake at 350 45 minutes to an hour. Remove from oven when done and let it sit for 15-20 minutes. Turn out onto platter. Slice VERY thinly—this is a rich meatlof—and a green salad and potatoes will make the meal perfect. So why 3# of meat? Because this recipe makes the best meatloaf sandwiches.
Sierra Grove is just across the road from Bad Girl Creek. So it’s not surprising that several of those characters show up in this book. If you thought Sally was a handful in Goodbye, Earl, well, all I can say is get ready for her as a preteen. And I thought I gave my mother trouble!
I think this book will be out in late 2005, though I can’t guarantee it, not having heard from my publisher. I’ve started on the sequel already, and expect to visit my son in Carmel, California to do more research for that book this winter. What an astute critic my son Jack has turned out to be—he read my rough draft and caught lots of things I missed.
When he was a kid, we read to him every day, and one of his first words was “book.” We knew we were up against TV and videos and home theater so we went to the library a lot, and the bookstore. He read the books he bought, and sometimes one I bought. Sometimes I even gave him some money to read, figuring it couldn’t hurt and might appeal. And you know what? He’s a terrific reader today—consuming philosophy books, novels, nonfiction—he’s also turned into a wonderful man with a gift for healing and the kids in the ER where he works seem to love him. What a gift is all I can say. I want the whole world to know how proud of him his father and I are.
So hopefully this will be the start of me posting more essays. I missed writing them, but I think my long silence was well served considering the book that came out of it. Keep checking the website and I’ll post news as soon as I hear it.
My writer friends have also been productive:
Earlene Fowler has a book of quilt patterns taken from her quilt mystery series featuring Benni Harper. www.earlenefowler.com
Judi Hendricks has moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and just hearing her talk about the weather and the sopapillas makes me so homesick. She’s got a new book coming out soon www.judihendricks.com, The Baker’s Apprentice.
Jodi Picoult, who had a New York Times bestseller this summer with My Sister’s Keeper, has just returned from Nova Scotia where she watched the filming of her book on the Amish, Plain Truth. www.jodipicoult.com
Caroline Leavitt’s book Girls in Trouble is a great read, so if you haven’t got it, go get it. She’s writing a column for The Boston Globe!
The dogs and I hope you are all well and enjoying autumn. More soon, I promise,
Jo-Ann
^Top
