Just a little Rosemary grows a long way.
Buongiorno and Bon Septembre, Cari Lettori!
Herein you’ll find a few goodies.
A travel memoir story. Just a little Rosemary...
Book Recommendations.
A link to a travel memoir story. Vin de Noix.
Thank you, dear Readers.
Book Club Breads.
Travel Memoir. Just a little Rosemary grows a long way.
In Provence, rosemary bushes grow everywhere, even on the streets of many villages, like St Remy. One of those summers, my co-conspirator in the teen tours at the time, Aileen, and I were shepherding a group of excited teens towards Joel Durand’s Chocolaterie, where we would dip, and roll and taste exotic combinations like star anise and chocolate.
We had parked the van behind either the church or the charcuterie, I don’t remember which, because there were plenty of both in St Remy. We ran our hands through the branches and breathed in. Who am I kidding? We gulped down as much of rosemary’s scent as she would allow.
Rosemary’s scent invigorates and calms.
Rosemary helped us fly over the streets of St Remy to get all of us to the chocolaterie in one piece.
In Tuscany, I had taken a group of adults on a culinary excursion to Torre Cona, a wine estate east of Florence. I was in their big kitchen assisting Chef Paolo with our class. We butterflied the wild boar roast, cinghale, that his father had hunted that morning on the grounds of Torre Cona. We stuffed it with rosemary needles, pink garlic, and anchovies. We slid it off the wooden cutting board onto the oil-shined potatoes. In a kind of hunting ceremony tribute we splashed some local chianti over it, and hoisted the big black roasting pan onto our shoulders and lifted it outside the kitchen. We passed huge bushes of rosemary. We shivered to think maybe these rosemary bushes were the ones the wild boar had brushed past. We heaved the pan of meat, garlic and potatoes into the wood-fire burning in the oven in the old stone wall of the house. We slid the oven door in place for about four hours while we ate lunch.
Rosemary’s scent connects us back to the earth.
And in Chapel Hill, I remember watching, thirty years ago, when our neighbors, dug the hole at the top of their driveway for a little rosemary bush. It was the very first spring that we and they, had lived in Chapel Hill. That first spring the blooming redbud trees and dogwood trees were novel creatures to both of us. We had packed memories of spring in Colorado, and they had a huge box of Rhode Island winter memories. But that spring in Chapel Hill, tricycles and cowboy boots flew along with the red bud flowers around the cul de sac. Perhaps like both of our hopes for life in a new place. Those packed up memories of snow in May and roof icicles melted and watered the mounds of shoveled fresh warm red dirt where they planted the little rosemary and where it could, and did, thrive.
I had never lived in a place where rosemary grew but that spring of 1991, I was also on the cusp of discovering them, and it seems now that that discovery of places where rosemary could, and did grow, France and Italy, was planted when our dear neighbors, who were Francophiles, too, planted their rosemary bush in that spring of 1991.
Book Recommendations.
A Bakery in Paris by Aimie K. Runyan.
The Unlocked Path by Janis Robinson Daly. "An often riveting fictional testament of a doctor's life at the turn of the 20th century." –Kirkus Reviews
The Bravest Soldiers by Elaine Schroller. “A mother's love. A new love. As the Pacific War looms ever closer to Australia, will waiting and wondering break their hearts?”
A link to my travel memoir story. Vin de Noix.
Barbara Bos, the plucky editor of Women Writers, Women’s Books published my story, Vin de Noix, the Drunken Poetry of Walnuts. Read it here.
Thank you, dear Readers!
All my gratitude to you for picking up my novel, Tales of the Mistress! I would so appreciate it if you would post a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Truth is, even a few words can help others find my book!
Book Club Breads.
Do you want to do something really different and fun for your Book Club? Pick one of these topics along with one of the Bread of Dreams from the novel, to bake together! I have a few openings left in 2023. Let’s compare calendars.
We can discuss…
- the Elysian mysteries, what were they? why are they still a mystery?
- the Ceres vs Persephone myth, retold in Tales Of the Mistress.
- agrarian cults and traditions, what the hay?
- seed saving - why bother? crop trust, seed banks, etc
- local grain, wherefore art thou?
- the ancient culture of flat breads vs not flat breads in the Mediterranean
- the Mistresses of Psomi, which one are you?
- the Guild (corporate farms/food) vs Psomi (small farmers/food)
- the quirky sayings of Languedoc
- the culture of walking/pilgrimage