Mary Kay Andrews

The Christmas Boxes

Maas Bros. Department Store in downtown St. Petersburg
My late mother-in-law Dorothy was a child of the Depression. She’d grown up in a Pennsylvania steel town, married young and never worked outside the home or even learned to drive. Dot was widowed young too, left to raise five children on her own–the oldest being my husband, who was 15 when his father died, and the youngest his seven-year-old baby sister. To say that she was a woman of tremendous spirit, and unstinting faith, is an understatement. Despite the fact that she didn’t drive, I can’t remember a Sunday she didn’t manage to somehow make it to Mass. There was no football or baseball game missed, no swim meet skipped if her children were involved. She was a band booster, a PTA stalwart, a constant presence in the football concession stand. I used to tease her relentlessly about being a “career athletic supporter.” She perfected the art of making do and positive thinking. An expert seamstress, she took in sewing to help make ends meet, and baked thousands of cookies and sweets at Christmas to give as gifts. God love her, she could squeeze a penny ’til it squeaked. Dot was a coupon-clipper extraordinaire. You could always tell if she’d been in your house, because the cans had all been stripped of their labels for couponing purposes. And woe be to you if you threw away an empty cookie tin or a used butter wrapper–“Honey, save that!” was her cry, as she rifled through your kitchen trashcan. At Christmas, she was in her element. She’d saved up all her Crisco and Dixie Crystals coupons, had stashed away bags of chocolate chips bought on special at Publix (her happy place), and in the garage, she had a mountain of Tupperware tubs and holiday tins bought at yard-sales for pennies and nickels, for just such re-gifting purposes. Her oven was ancient and unpredictable, with a door that routinely fell off, but still, Dot managed to turn out her masterpiece cookie trays. Nut roll, a sweet yeast bread with ground pecan filling was her specialty, but then there also the peanut blossoms, date pinwheels, meringues, wedding cookies, congo bars, bird’s nests, jelly-filled thumbprints, and her trademark confection–the lady locks–a flaky puff pastry creation baked around a wooden rod and piped with a cream filling.

When it came to gifting, she was just as thrifty. Every year, the weekend after Thanksgiving, her sons would be directed to put up a ladder to gain access to the “attic” crawl space. Down would come the cartons of ornaments, and more importantly, the boxes of boxes. Of course, Dot saved wrapping paper and ribbon and tissue year-round, but the boxes were her triumph. A gift box at Dot’s house had the half-life of plutonium, which meant that every year you could count on taking a sentimental stroll down retail lane.

Kaufmann’s in downtown Pittsburgh

Come Christmas morning, you’d open your gift from Dot and stare down at a gift box from Kaufmann’s, the “big store” in downtown Pittsburgh, where she hadn’t lived since 1965. Of course, it was unlikely the gift had actually been purchased from Kaufmann’s. More likely it was something she’d picked up on clearance months earlier at the Beall’s Outlet, or another discount store that didn’t have anything as fancy as gift boxes. Or maybe you’d find something encased in crinkled tissue from Webb’s City, a St. Petersburg landmark shuttered in the 1970s. If the gift was a nightie or slip, it likely came in a pink and white striped Belk-Lindsey box–another long-closed retail fixture in our hometown. After my freshman year of college, when I worked as parttime Christmas help at Thalhimer’s in downtown Richmond, there were recycled Thalhimer’s boxes for several years. Better than a Kaufmann’s or Webb’s City box, though, were the stacks of turquoise and white Maas Bros. Department Store boxes with the stylized palm tree emblem that she’d squirrelled away after our wedding in 1976. She especially adored the hard-sided gold foil boxes our wedding china and crystal had been sent in–not to mention the now-yellowed bubble wrap that had swaddled said crystal.

After my husband and I moved to Savannah, and then Atlanta, boxes from the old Levy’s Department Store on Broughton Street in downtown Savannah, and then the iconic Rich’s in downtown Atlanta took their place in Dot’s box of boxes. Every Christmas morning, after the presents were opened, the gift boxes were collected, collapsed and carefully stored in a cardboard carton that went back up to the attic. A heart attack felled Dot in the summer of 1999. It took months to sort through the house she’d lived in for more than thirty years. She’d packed every closet, cabinet and cupboard with the fruits of decades of yard-saling. At the estate sale, we resorted to throwing in a free piece of Tupperware with every item we sold. Ten years later we all still have pieces of Dot’s Tupperware. And at Christmas-time, at our house, somehow, when the cartons of ornaments and decorations come up from the basement, so does the box of gift boxes. My practical husband thinks it’s ridiculous to save the boxes. Why not pop a gift into one of those handy gift bags, or just wrap it in tissue and slap a bow on it? But I’m sentimental. The downtown Maas Bros., where I attended charm school as a teenager and worked as a sales clerk, buying my wedding dress on layaway with my employee discount, met the fate of so many other “big stores” across the country in the ’70s. First it was closed, then it’s identity was subsumed by another retail giant, and then, the final insult, it was bulldozed. Gone too are Kaufmann’s, where Dot shopped on her infrequent trips home to Pittsburgh. It’s called Macy’s now. The old Levy’s store in downtown Savannah is a college library now, and that dear old downtown Rich’s, where I spent many a lunch hour when I worked at the newspaper, was closed and eventually torn down too.


R.I.P. Rich’s in downtown Atlanta

These days, I rarely shop at Macy’s, the entity that also swallowed Rich’s. It’s infantile, but like a lot of other people in Atlanta, I’m still pissed at Macy’s for doing away with the Rich’s name. (I’m pretty sure Chicagoans are also still holding a grudge against Macy’s for doing away with Marshall-Fields.) I like Talbot’s, and their pretty and substantial red gift boxes. And I admit to shopping at Marshall’s and TJMaxx, lured by the promise of low prices. But the discount stores are charmless, and they don’t give you gift boxes, not that I’d want to flaunt that TJ logo anyway. So out come the old Rich’s boxes, augmented by the occasional Orvis or the rare Bloomingdale boxes. The recipients know, and I know they know, their gift probably didn’t come from Bloomies. Or maybe it did. I’ll never tell! And I also know that sometime Christmas morning, when he thinks I’m not looking, my husband will try to slide the used gift boxes into the fireplace along with the wrapping paper. And I know I’ll find myself stopping him, hear myself crying, “Honey, save that!”

Eddie Ross Mon Amour Toujour

Doris and Rock

MKA and Eddie

After our fateful meeting last February, and again in August, I knew Top Design finalist and HGTV star designer Eddie Ross would be returning to me. It was instant chemistry between us–I was Doris Day to his Rock Hudson. You do remember us in LOVER COME BACK, right? Eddie will be back here in Atlanta in January, ostensibly leading another tour of the Scott’s Antique Market, but in reality he just can’t stay away from you-know-who. If you hurry, you can sign up to join him there, and at a fun event at Larson-Juhl Framing. Of course, I’ll be stalking, er, joining him at both events. Gotta make sure that hussy Kathie Lee Gifford isn’t trying to horn in on my man, just because he gussied up her house for the holidays for HGTV. Find info for the events here. And if you’re an Atlanta area blogger, do let Eddie know that too.

Ring in the New Year at The Breeze Inn

Tired of the same old auld lang syne? Take advantage of our change of plans and spend New Year’s at The Breeze Inn on Tybee Island. Our family had planned to do just that this year, and we’d blocked off the cottage for ourselves. But my little sis and her husband and some friends are coming to see us right after Christmas, so we’re going to delay going down until right after the first. This means the cottage is available to you. Gather up some family or close friends and book the Breeze for yourselves. There’s a midnight fireworks display off the beach, or you could go dance up a storm at Doc’s Bar. If you get overserved you can just call the Crab Cab to take you the few blocks back to the Breeze. Or, you could make dinner reservations at The Sundae Cafe or AJ’s or The Hunter House, three of our favorites. Or, just stay in and cook a quiet seafood dinner–pick up the ingredients at Bowie’s Seafood right there on the island. Watch a movie from our DVD library, or watch the big ball drop on the big screen TV. On New Year’s Day, fix yourself some collard greens and black-eyed peas for luck, then go watch all the crazies doing the Polar Bear Plunge on the beach. Oh yeah, there’s always football watching too. Or maybe a long bike ride to work off some of those Christmas calories. And did I mention we’re running a Blue Light Special? Book two (or more) nights and get a third night free. And tell ’em Mary Kay sent you.

Pound Cake–the Ultimate Southern Gift

Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake

The original goal was simple: a dense, moist, sublimely sweet pound cake. I’d tasted dozens of variations over the years since I’d moved to Georgia as a young bride. But the art of mastering the pound cake eluded me. No matter what recipe I tried, mine turned out pretty as a picture and as dry as a brick. My sister Susie joined me in this quest. I was working at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a features reporter, she was working a few blocks away, a nurse at the emergency room at Grady Memorial Hospital in downtown Atlanta, one of the busiest ERs in the country. At staff gatherings, one of her co-workers, a black lady of a certain age, would bring in the lemon cream cheese pound cake of our dreams. Susie wrangled the recipe out of her, and we made it. And still, no dice. Dry. Dry. Dry. Months later, I was interviewing Shirley Corriher, the Atlanta-based award-winning food chemist and cookbook author. I mentioned our pound-cake roadblock to her, and she came up with some suggestions, after I described the recipe. More fat–meaning a quarter cup of vegetable oil added to the two and a half sticks of butter and eight ounces of cream cheese. More sugar–a quarter cup more, to be precise. Cake flour instead of regular flour. And most importantly, Shirley suggested we bake that baby low and slow–at 325 degrees instead of the 350 the recipe called for, and for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The results were mind-boggling. A pound cake so moist, dense, sweet it would make you slap your mama. And your grandma. The cake became our go-to dessert at family gatherings and potluck suppers. At Christmas, I sent one to my editor in New York, and my literary agent. Word spread. Pound cakes, it seems, were a novelty to jaded Yankees. The next year, at Christmas, I added a few names to the list of cake recipients. My publicist. My editor’s assistant. The head of paperback sales. And the next year, it was gently suggested that the head of marketing might like a cake. Also the head of publicity. And let’s not forget the folks who produced the audio versions of my books. And the art director–the person who was responsible for giving me those good-looking best-seller book jackets. And the telereps–the women I refer to as “the girls in the back office” who hyped my books to independent bookstores all over the country–didn’t they deserve a cake for Christmas? The years passed, and as my books became more successful, I became more grateful for the publishing and agenting team responsible for that success. The year after I had my first New York Times bestseller, I woke up a couple weeks before Christmas and realized that my list had grown to 30 cakes. Yes. Thirty. By then we were living in Raleigh, NC, and my kitchen came with an enormous Viking stove, plus a wall oven. If I really squeezed, I could bake six poundcakes at once. Of course, I had to hire my cleaning lady to come help do the prep work. And it took me two more days to wrap and package the cakes, plus trundle them off to the UPS store for shipping. I think that was the year that I later learned we’d mixed up the shipping labels, sending cakes with inside cards addressed to “Mr. Q.” to “Mr. Z” instead. The year after that, we moved back to Atlanta. We’d only been in our new house two weeks when it came time to start baking the Christmas pound cakes. I hadn’t even unwrapped all our cookware. And so I came to a compromise. I would still send out my full list of cakes. They would still be baked from my recipe. And they would be home-made. Just, not all of them made in my home. I found a small neighborhood bakery who would sub-contract the baking of half the cakes, from my recipe. Life was good. The recipients were still grateful. And I was able to relax and get on with Christmas preparations. I even managed to write a little. This year’s cake-baking took place two weeks ago. I hired my daughter Katie to come over and be my sous-chef, measuring out the flour and sugar, separating the eggs, and unwrapping all those blocks of cream cheese and butter. We managed to turn out eight cakes in one morning. On Friday, the recipients started letting me know they’d gotten their cakes, and how delicious they were. Last week, I got an email from one of the recipients, who was out of his office when his cake arrived. He assumed, he said, it was delicious, so thanks ever so for the PUMPKIN CAKE. Pumpkin cake????

LEMON CREAM CHEESE POUNDCAKE

Turn off the phone and shut out any other distractions when making this cake. It’s a bit of work, but the results are definitely worth it. I usually bake two cakes at a time when I get started, one to serve (or give as a gift) and one to pop into the freezer. Since it’s such a large cake, you can always slice and serve half, and freeze the other half for later.

Preheat oven to 325. Spray bundt pan with floured baking spray
2-1/2 cups unsalted butter
1 8-oz. pkg. cream cheese
¼ cup vegetable oil
3-1/4 cups granulated sugar
5 egg whites
7 egg yolks—yes, this means you’ll discard the two extra egg whites unless you’ve got plans for ‘em.
1 tsp. lemon extract
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups cake flour
¼ tsp. salt
Beat five egg whites until stiff and set aside
In mixing bowl, beat together butter, cream cheese and vegetable oil. Add in sugar and cream well. Beat in lemon extract and vanilla. Add egg yolks one at a time and beat well. In smaller bowl combine flour and salt, beat into batter, adding flour mixture by thirds. Fold in beaten egg whites, pour into prepared bundt pan and bake for approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes—check for doneness with wooden toothpick. Let cool 5 minutes, then remove from pan onto cooling rack and finish cooling. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap or store in large ziplock bag for freezing. You may choose to add a lemon glaze.

Blue Christmas Signing and Tour of Homes

I’ve got one last signing in 2009 for BLUE CHRISTMAS and THE FIXER UPPER–just in case you’re interested. I’ll be at the Avondale Estates Community Club, Sunday, Dec. 13, from 2-4 p.m. as part of the Avondale Tour of Homes and Holiday Market. The community club is located at 59 Lakeshore Drive, Avondale Est. 30002. Come and meet me and grab some tasty goodies and shop for Christmas gifts from the other authors who’ll be signing and the wonderful craftsmen who’ll be represented. Then plan on staying for the candlelight tour of homes from 3-8p.m. Tickets will be on sale at the clubhouse. We are NOT on tour this year, thank GAWD, but loads of wonderful homes are, including our friends Lindsay and Wes, who Katie and I helped “fluff” for the tour. Y’all come, okay?

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

As a little girl growing up in snow-less St. Petersburg, FL, I was always fascinated with “up north” and in particular, New York City. I loved Kay Thompson’s ELOISE books, and dreamt of living at The Plaza Hotel. Any movie set in New York, especially MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET, was a big hit with me, and of course I was dying to see a Broadway play. I was in my 30s before I actually made it to New York, and it did not disappoint. Nowadays, I go to New York on business four or five times a year, but I never tire of going. And going at Christmas is especially exciting. This year, I talked Mr. Mary Kay into taking me on a fun trip to NYC for our anniversary. Normally, MMK is not big on doing touristy things. His idea of a great day would be one that included hunting, fishing, golf and tennis. And bourbon. I, on the other hand, am the ultimate tourist. And when I get to New York, I happily turn into a total rube. But since it was an anniversary, he humored me. And we had a great time. We flew up last Thursday and checked into our hotel on Lexington Avenue in midtown Manhattan. Someday, I’ll stay at the Waldorf-Astoria, which is across the street from our hotel, or the Plaza, like Eloise. But this time, we were looking for Marriott points, so Marriott it was. That night my super literary agent Stuart came by in a cab and whisked us off to a fun dinner at a Greek restaurant called Kefi on the upper westside. On Friday, Stuart and I had business meetings with my publisher, and Tom went Christmas shopping. I helpfully pointed out to him that Cartier’s is on the same block of Fifth Avenue as HarperCollins, and Tiffany’s and Bloomingdales were a quick stroll away. Don’t know if he made it to the jewelry stores, but he did manage to find Orvis all by himself. With the meetings over, we went to lunch with my friend Virginia, who is in library sales with Harper. Gin and I hit it off years ago when she invited me to speak at a convention of librarians and we discovered we both love to drink and sing showtunes. At the top of our lungs. In public. We joke that we’re going to record a CD called SONGS YOU BEGGED US NOT TO SING. But it was a very merry lunch where we talked about books and librarians. And showtunes. After lunch, Tom and I toddled down the block to Saks Fifth Avenue, where I was immediately accosted by every cosmetic counter salesclerk in the store. I DO LOVE to have my makeup done, and MMK was very patient and stood by bemused while the Clinique Lady slathered my face with every potion and lotion and spackle known to mankind. She inquired about my “skin regime.” Apparently scrubbing your face with Irish Spring in the morning does not a “regime” make. She tried to educate me, but I’m afraid I’m hopeless. Besides, what exactly is a “free radical?” In the end, I bought some new eyeshadows and mascara, and a green eyeliner which is my version of exotic. After our purchases, we strolled on. As we were passing the Nars counter, a lady of a certain age snaked out an arm and grabbed me. “A little magic under your eyes?” she asked.

“Pardon?” “Your eyes,” she cooed. “We have something for those bags of yours.” I blinked.

“But, I just had my makeup done.” She leaned in, and gave me a disapproving once-over. “They put all that makeup on you, with no eye cream?” I swore the Clinique Lady had put eye cream on me. But the Nars lady was not convinced. “Tsk-Tsk,” she tsk-tsked. “They don’t train them anymore,” she said, jerking her head in the direction of the Clinique counter. “What I forgot already they don’t know.” Well, how could I argue, since she put it that way? She dabbed the eye cream on one eye to show me the startling difference. What was startling was that I couldn’t SEE any difference. Still, I begged her to dab it under the other eye–just in case somebody else could, I did not want to walk around Manhattan looking whoppy-jawed, as my grandma would say. The Nars lady was clearly disappointed, but I did not make a purchase from her, and my baggy eyes and my husband and I strolled onward.

Since we had tickets to see BYE BYE BIRDIE for a 7pm curtain time, we left the hotel early to allow time to walk over to Rockefeller Center and see the Christmas tree. The crowds were enormous, the streets jammed with families and folks gawking at the tree, and the skating rink a sea of skaters. It was all very Christmassy. After that, we found a little bar near the theatre, and settled in for a pre-show drink. If you’re seeing a show this winter, I recommend the bar in the Iriquois Hotel. The drinks are generous, and they even have a free antipasto buffet to hold you over til after the show. Sadly, the show somehow lacked energy that night. I’d loved the movie as a kid, and I actually own the DVD, but this cast seemed to need some steroids. The actor who played Conrad Birdie, who is, after all, supposed to channel Elvis Presley, was barely out of puberty and actually resembled Doogie Howser more than the King. Although I won’t deny John Stamos, who played the Dick Van Dyke part, was very easy on the eyes. Apres-theatre–doncha just love it when I get all big city and start talking all frenchified?–we had dinner at a nice French restaurant called Triomphe.

When we got ready to leave the hotel Saturday morning, it was raining, and the rain quickly turned to snow. But these were not Hollywood-type puffy, Bing Crosby type snowflakes. No. These were slutty, sloggy, slushy snow-type product flakes. But we had our umbrellas, and we pressed onwards. We walked down Fifth Avenue for blocks and blocks, taking in the fun department store windows, gawking at the crowds, and trying vainly to look cosmopolitan. We eventually switched over to Madison Avenue, and at 72nd Street, I tried to act surprised that we’d stumbled across the Ralph Lauren mansion/store. Mr. MMK was not fooled by this ruse, but he did gamely allow himself to be dragged inside. The Ralph Lauren mansion is high church WASP/Prep/English Gentlemen’s Club, and at Christmas it is decorated with miles of tartan wool bunting, and the sterling silver doo-dads and crystal whim-diddies seem to gleam and wink and say…”You are a poser and you will never be worthy of owning me.” Posers that we were, alas, we did not purchase the buttery leather hand-stitched butler’s tray for $2,450 which caught our collective fancy. At one point, we stationed ourselves in front of a Christmas tree in a bedroom setting, and another shopper agreed to take our photograph, volunteering that on a previous year she’d posed for a similar photo, which she then sent out as her Christmas card. Now why didn’t I think of that? Have a family picture snapped at the Ralph Lauren mansion so that distant friends and relatives might be duped into thinking we lived amongst such splendid trappings??? The resulting photo was blurry, otherwise I’d use it for next year’s author pic.

Leaving Ralph, the snrain got unbearable, so we finally took a cab the ten more blocks to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. I love this museum, partly because of its awesome exhibits, but also partly because I loved the book FROM THE MIXED UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER. As we were walking in, I could tell from the look on MMK’s face that he was mentally checking the Met off his bucket list. He gamely viewed the Neapolitan creche, and he silently traipsed through the exhibit of American paintings, but after an hour of that, he clearly felt that he’d had all the culture he needed for one day. We strolled part of the way, but when we noticed that our shoes and pants were soaked up to our knees, we surrendered and caught a cab back to the hotel.

Late in the day my junkbuddy Beth phoned to implore us to join her and some friends at Michael’s, a swanky restaurant on 55th Street. The place is sort of a clubhouse for the publishing and media world, and on two previous visits with my editor, I’d spotted Barbara Walters, and then, in an unprecedented coup, I saw Anna Wintour sans sunglasses. So we had some nice adult beverages, and then it was on to dinner. At Patsy’s. Being the rube that I am, I’d done some reading up on Patsy’s, and discovered that it was supposedly Frank Sinatra’s favorite restaurant.
It certainly had the requisite number of aging Italian waiters. Our waiter helpfully showed us Frank’s favorite table, shared Frank’s favorite menu items, and volunteered that when Frank came in after a show, you didn’t close the restaurant down until Frank was ready to go home, which might not be until 3 or 4 a.m. I had the veal chop, which was enormous. And tasty. We didn’t close the joint down at 3 a.m. but it was certainly a great evening. And as we walked back to our hotel, arm in arm in the glow of Manhattan at Christmas, not to mention many adult beverages, we deceived ourselves into thinking we were very chic.

Sunday morning, we took one last stroll down Fifth Avenue, to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, for Sunday Mass, which was beautiful and spiritual and just the right way to cap off a wonderful weekend and get us in the right kind of Christmas spirit. And then we went to one last chic deli breakfast, where MMK had his third bagel with salmon of the weekend, and I had a six-dollar bowl of steam-table oatmeal that closely resembled wallpaper paste. Ah, the memories!

I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Let us give thanks…for family…and lotsa turkey

Yes, as some friends have pointed out, I’ve been a bad blogger of late. It’s not that I’ve been any busier than any of you, it’s just that I don’t have anything exceptional to write about. So…You want mundane? We can do mundane. Mundane is waaay better than disastrous. As soon as I got back from my writer’s retreat in Weymouth I plunged into Thanksgiving plans. This year we had dinner at my sister-in-law Jeanne’s house. After catching Martha Stewart demonstrating her method on the Today show, my husband decided to do a Martha turkey. We brined the bird for 24 hours in a soak of water, kosher salt, white wine and herbs, then on Thanksgiving morning, he draped the turkey with cheesecloth soaked in melted butter and more white wine. I made a stuffing of cubed French bread, onions, celery, diced Granny Smith apples, dried cherries and pecans. The turkey was a vision to behold, and once the pan was clear of said bird, I made the gravy. Only trouble was the briny pan drippings were horribly salty. After a moment of panic, I looked up the solution on the internet–drop a whole peeled raw potato in the gravy. It totally worked! In addition, I made pecan and pumpkin pies and sweet potato casserole with crunchy pecan brown sugar topping. This recipe was my late father’s favorite. Dinner at Jeanne’s was a festive occasion, and Tom and his brother Bob, who is also a fantastic cook, had duelling turkeys.

Two brothers and their birds
We’re talking 40 pounds of turkey for 14 people! Both birds were incredibly moist and delicious, so I guess the duel was a draw. Of course, Molly was the star of the day.

Molly can’t wait til next year when she can chew
After dinner, Katie and I actually ventured out for a little shopping. Finally, after we all pulled ourselves out of our turkey comas, we made our way home with our leftovers.
Friday was our anniversary, so that night, some friends dropped by and we toasted with some of the special wine I brought back from my trip to Sonoma Valley. The red wine drinkers raved over the Zio Tony Pinot Noir from Martinelli, while the white wine drinkers loved the Chateau St. Jean Chardonnay. On Sunday, Mr. Mary Kay and Boomerang Boy put up the Christmas tree and the lights–including the blue outside lights that signals our neighbors that we’re having a Blue Christmas at our house. Again. Right now I’ve got my seasonal playlist on the CD player–Elvis, Sinatra, Crosby, Harry Connick Jr., the Phil Spector collection. I found my WHITE CHRISTMAS DVD, and the decoration boxes are scattered all over the house. I’ll be signing the brand-new paperback of BLUE CHRISTMAS at the Avondale Estates Community Club on Sunday, Dec. 13 from 2-4 p.m. So let the holidays begin. I’ll be home for Christmas. You can plan on me!

Writer’s Retreat Time…Again

From left, Katy Munger, Alex Sokoloff, Diane Chamberlain, Margaret Maron, Sarah Shaber and moi.

Back when my husband and I first moved to Raleigh six years ago, I was a woman adrift. For the first time in my adult life I was geographically cut off from friends of twenty years and more. As a novelist who works in solitude, I found it hard to find and make new connections. Luckily for me, North Carolina is a state virtually crammed with writers, and my old friend Margaret Maron lived only half an hour away from our house in Raleigh. Margaret introduced me to some of her other mystery writer buddies, Katy Munger, Brynn Bonner and Sarah Shaber. We started going to lunch to talk about our work and gossip about the book biz. After a year or so of these lunches, we decided to make a writer’s retreat at one of Brynn’s relative’s homes at Holden Beach, NC. I think four of us went on that first retreat. It was winter, the winds outside were howling, but inside our creative fires were burning. We met in the mornings for coffee (Diet Coke for you know who) and to set writing goals for the day. I became the self-appointed warden and wrote down our goals on a yellow legal pad, posting said goals by taping them onto the kitchen cabinets. Then we went off to our separate hidey-holes to pound the keyboards. We met again at lunch to chat about the work and brainstorm, then it was back to work again. After communal dinner we did more brainstorming and checked off any goals we’d achieved. And so went our week. We were all amazed by how much we accomplished at that first retreat. So we met again. And again. Eventually our little group grew. Diane Chamberlain moved to the triangle, and joined up. She and Margaret knew about a place–the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, in Southern Pines. Weymouth is set in a meandering 9,000-square foot 1904 mansion in the horse and hound country of the Carolina Sandhills. It was the home of historical novelist James Boyd, heir to a Pennsylvania coal fortune who spurned the family business to become a writer. In the 1920s and 30s, Boyd’s home became a gathering place for such jazz age literary figures as Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson and Maxwell Perkins. Today the house and grounds are part of a foundation dedicated to fostering the arts in North Carolina. And in the library, which was once James Boyd’s study, the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame houses portraits, biographies and the works of the state’s most accomplished authors. But this is a place for living, working contemporary scribes too. Writers with North Carolina connections can apply for spots as writers-in-residence, for up to two weeks each year. And no, you don’t have to be published. Just serious about getting published.

Around the time of our group’s first retreat at Weymouth, my husband and I moved back to Atlanta, but the writer’s group was joined by Alex Sokoloff, another newcomer to the Triangle area. So here we are again, in 2009, the week before Thanksgiving. Three of us arrived this past Wednesday, and slowly, the others have drifted in. We’re missing an important member of the group, our friend Brynn Bonner, who couldn’t make it this time. But we’re working away, and the pages are piling up, and we’re doing lots of problem-solving. In the evenings, after the work stuff is out of the way, we sit in the library, surrounded by the likes of Thomas Wolfe, Lee Smith, Reynolds Price and Louis Rubin, not to mention our late friend Elizabeth Squires. We sip wine and play word games, Balderdash being one of our favorites. Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve played Balderdash with a bunch of cutthroat writers. Last night’s words included such plums as prickmadam, sonk, snudge and zarp. Yes, really. We burn the midnight oil, and then the next morning, it’s back to the keyboards. When I leave here this Tuesday, I hope to have the first part of SUMMER RENTAL totally revised, and be ready to start work on Part 2. And as I head south, out of Southern Pines and Weymouth, home for Thanksgiving and family, I know I’ll be thankful for these few days at Weymouth, not to mention good work, good friends and good writing.

Sip a Little, Talk a Little

The girls on “The Rock”–minus Sean Connery

If you have one lifelong friend you can count on, you’re a lucky person. I am blessed to have five great girlfriends. We’ve all known each other since at least seventh grade at Bay Point Junior High in St. Petersburg, FL. Two of us have known each other since kindergarten. But we are scattered all over the globe these days. Only one of us still lives in our hometown. One friend lives in Fort Lauderdale, another lives in Ohio, another lives in St. Croix, and one, Debra, lives in Paris. As in France. We’ve been through some “stuff” together. Fifteen years ago, we decided to celebrate a big birthday by taking a trip to Cozumel. Halfway through the trip we named each other “malas chicas” after a run-in with a silver merchant. We had such fun on that trip that we decided to do it again for another big birthday–that time we took a cruise. In the years since, we’ve been to too many funerals of parents and siblings. So after the last funeral, it was decreed. We would not wait for yet another funeral, or another “big” birthday. We would take a “double nickel” trip. You do the math. After an avalanche of emails, it was decided that San Francisco and the Sonoma Valley wine country would be our destination. Sue, who is our logistics expert, spent untold hours researching and planning. And so the adventure began. Last Saturday, we met up in San Francisco. Sue found us a great deal at a nifty hotel–the Park Galleria, only a short distance from Union Square. Our favorite thing about the hotel: winey happy hour every afternoon from 5:30-6:30 p.m. On Sunday, some of us took the ferry over to Alcatraz and took the guided tour, which was fascinating. On Monday, we took a great (free) guided tour of Chinatown which was offered by the library. During the tour, we saw several places that offered Chinese reflexology, so we tried that too. Very relaxing!

Big trouble in Little Chinatown
Tuesday morning, several of us took the cable car down to Fisherman’s Wharf. Then we loaded up our rental van and headed to Sonoma County and Healdsburg, where we’d rented a house on the Russian River. For our first wine tasting of the week, we went to Domaine Carneros for a tasting that had been arranged by Nancy’s wine club friend. We tasted several yummy champagnes and pinots, and flirted outrageously with Jean Claude, our sexy French wine guy. Highly recommend Carneros champagne, and not just because of Jean Claude, either. While at Carneros, we met several women who talked us into joining them for a tasting at Artessa, which was just across the road. Good times! Finally, we toddled over to our house on the river and fixed a gourmet dinner of grilled salmon and roasted veggies.

Double nickel divas with the Martinelli clan

On Wednesday, we travelled over to the Martinelli Vineyard. Debra, the Parisian member of our posse, had a connection who lined us up with a very very special tasting with Julianna Martinelli, who is the fifth generation of this wine-making family. For two hours we tasted the luscious wines of Martinelli, and Julianna told us the history and philosophy of each one. Afterwards, Julie’s dad and brothers dropped by the winery as we were leaving, so we were able to snap a family photo with them. That’s Julie on the right back row, standing next to her unbelievably youthful Paul Newman look-alike dad. From Martinelli, we went to Iron Horse, which has an outside tasting room, so we were able to enjoy another gorgeous crisp California afternoon while we tasted that winery’s pinots, zinfandels and sparkling wines. We had dinner in Healdsburg that evening, then went back to our house for a dip in the hot tub.

Salud from the double nickel divas

Thursday we designated as spa day. But of course we had to detour to the Montelena Winery in Calistoga to taste their famous chardonnay and other goodies. The winery is set in an 1800s chateau and sits amidst beautiful Japanese tea gardens, as well as the vineyards themselves. If you’re a movie buff, maybe you remember that Montalena’s founder Jim Barrett and his son Bo were portrayed in the movie BOTTLE SHOCK, part of which was filmed at Montalena and in and around Calistoga. We actually bought the movie–and some very nice wine. Then it was off to the Golden Haven spa in Calistoga for our mud baths and massages. We were fascinated with the number of spas in and around Calistoga, many of which are located in little old-timey motels. My friend Linda and I used a discount “couples” coupon we found in a magazine, which lead the spa people to conclude that we were an actual couple. Which lead to some funny moments. After our soaks and massages, we paddled around in the hot mineral pools to unwind for an hour or so. Heavenly!

Linda and me, playing in the mud in Calistoga
Thursday night, we cooked a lovely dinner of grilled ahi tuna, steaks, salad and sweet potatoes. Afterwards, we screened BOTTLE SHOCK, which is the true story of how, in 1976, at a blind Paris taste-testing, Napa Valley wines outscored the snooty French wines. Fun movie. And did I mention that the six of us managed to kill five and a half bottles of wine–including two bottles of bubbly? Today we’ll try some more wines, check out the redwoods and spend our last night in Sonoma before heading back to San Francisco for our Saturday red-eye flights home. It’ll be tough getting back to normalcy after such a great week. But we’re already planning our next chick trip. Tuscany? St. Croix?

Yes, We Have Some Winners

Patty Deveau chills out on her St. Simon’s Island porch with a good book

Tammy Sampler gets in the swing of summer reading


Drum roll please. It’s time to announce the winners of both the Summer and Fall contests that we ran on my site and via my newsletters.

We had loads of entries for the summer contest where I asked you all to tell me about your all-time favorite beach reads. I had a great time reading each and every one of these entries. I could certainly relate to readers like Debby Mundy who lamented that there’s no way to pick just one! Pat Conroy’s Beach Music and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby were both singled out by readers who said they loved those books enough to re-read them every few summers. Nods were also given to Dorothea Benton Frank’s Plantation, Mae Nunn’s Mom in the Middle, and anything by Elizabeth Berg, Maeve Binchy, and Anne Rivers Siddons as hands-down faves. I was flattered by those who told me one of my books was their favorite! I even got a couple of recommendations including Tour de Force by Elizabeth White and Murder by Mushroom by Virginia Smith which both sound so interesting I just might have to check them out—as soon as I get a break from writing Summer Rental, that is!

But after I read all the entries, two of them just stuck with me. So there are two winners for the Summer contest. The first is Keisha DeShazo Robinson who told a really heartwarming story about how she read my book Little Bitty Lies on her honeymoon, basking in the breezy sunshine on the bright blue water of Paradise Island and how thinking about my books takes her back to that idyll. If I can take someone back to their honeymoon in their mind, I must be doing something right! Our other winner is Antoinette D’Ammora who told a great story about how she first learned to love reading during the summer of ’52. With the help of the Nancy Drew mystery The Spiral Staircase and a shady spot on the lawn in front of the Minneola, NY public library, Toni was able to escape the chaos of her large and loud Italian family and enter a new world all her own.

For the fall contest I invited readers to send in photos of themselves reading The Fixer Upper. I wondered where in the world you might have taken my books—or they might have taken you! Well, since I only received two entries, you are both big winners this time! Patty Deveau sent in these snaps from the 52-foot veranda of her National Register home “Strachan Carriage House” in the village on St. Simons Island, GA. Tammy Sampler also sent in this great shot of herself thoroughly enjoying The Fixer Upper on her porch in Decatur, GA.

So, Keisha, Toni, Patty, and Tammy, I will be sending each of you a signed copy of The Fixer Upper along with a stack of Fixer Upper go-cups.

Be sure to tell your friends to sign up for my newsletter too. We’ll have a new one coming out for the holidays and it will be chock-full with a recipe, another contest, and the latest news from my front porch. You won’t want to miss it.

Happy reading!