This 1945 penny was in my change from the grocery store in 2010, and it’s one of my most prized possessions. I’m not really a monarchist, but I like to imagine the way the world was when this coin was new. In the grander scheme of history, it’s very recent, but these days the world of 1945 seems so far from our own. Even just to think of all the little features of that 2010 […]
Reading descriptions of food in books is maybe one of my favourite things. I often read the descriptions two or three times, imagining how the combinations work and comparing the food to what I’m already familiar with. Recently I read a food description in Ethan Frome that was among the most unusual I’ve seen: She set the lamp on the table, and he saw that it was carefully laid for supper, with fresh doughnuts, stewed blueberries
There are some writers who I enjoy as writers more than I enjoy their writing. Stephen King is one of them. Doris Lessing is another. That’s not to say I dislike their writing, but I don’t respond to it as well as to what they say about the practice of being a writer. I’m really noticing this lately. For nearly a month I’ve been “reading” Doris Lessing’s first novel, The Grass is Singing. The book is slim, only
On not finishing books, and peer pressure Read More »
My friend Teri has an article in the latest Ricepaper, titled Between Representations: Filipinos in Canadian Literature. Teri’s one of my favourite writers so I am always eager to read anything she writes, but I was especially excited to read this. She and I are both half-Filipino, and have talked in the past about how we express that in our writing. For my part, I’d say about half of my stories have either fully Filipino or
Writing and Filipinos. Read More »
Some of my fondest childhood memories are of playing Nintendo and Super Nintendo games with my brother, and making that long suburban walk to the arcade on summer afternoons. In high school and my early twenties, I dropped the hobby for a while mainly due to lack of a console and a lack of funds (and discovering blogging probably helped), but I happily returned to it after a few years. I haven’t looked back since.
Books and video games. Read More »
One of Decca’s favourite words. In a 1977 essay in the London Daily Mail (reprinted in the New York Times and later in Poison Penmanship), she wrote that “frenemy” (which she sometimes spelled “frienemy”) was “an incredibly useful word that should be in every dictionary, coined by one of my sisters when she was a small child to describe a rather dull little girl who lived near us.” Her sister and the neighbor girl, she said, were “inseparable companions,all
Arrived back at Joan’s just in time for dinner. To it came Doris Lessing (you know who she is, a best-selling English writer of the Angry Young school) . . . and, joy of joys, 12-year-old Peter Lessing, who had learned about Benjy’s arrival and has planned his whole Easter vacation around showing Benj London! Peter is a super-nice boy, and he and Benj became bosom friends immediately. He called for Benj early this morning,
Decca and letters. Read More »
But then one day, you know, I suddenly realized with an absolute shock that there never was going to be a convenient time, and that if I didn’t make a beginning, I would be saying to my grandchildren, ‘What I really wanted to be was a writer.’ So I had to make time. – PD James, interviewed on CBC’s Writers & Company I’d never read anything by PD James. Even so, today I listened to an interview
PD James interview Read More »
Since I last cooked from my c.1938 copy of Mrs Beeton’s Household Management, I’ve wanted to try another recipe. I marked out a few contenders that didn’t necessitate sourcing a pheasant or a sheep’s head, and today’s lunch was: Carrot Soup with Rice. Here’s the recipe: Ingredients – 2 pints of white second stock, 1 pint of milk, 5 large carrots, 1 onion, 1 strip of celery, 1 leek (the white part only), 1 1/2 ozs of
Another Mrs Beeton recipe: Carrot soup with rice Read More »
I recently picked up an uncorrected proof copy of Annabel Lyon’s The Golden Mean at a secondhand book store. I liked the book overall, but I think this section was my favourite:
The fun of the uncorrected proof. Read More »
