Something Cooking

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One recent morning I awoke in the dark, pre-dawn chill of my room and squinted at the blue numerals on my clock that read 4:50. Instead of turning over for that extra hour of sleep, I blinked, shook my head, and had one not very coherent thought: why is that oven up so high? Yes, I even think about food in my sleep. I had started my Christmas baking that day, and my subconscious was apparently still back in the kitchen, mixing up a bowl of my grandmother’s anise-flavored ricotta cookies. * Except for reading and writing, there are few things in life I like better than cooking and eating. In fact, food figures prominently in my books: characters fall in love over simmering pasta pots and steaming plates of risotto, and they trade secrets and confidences across tables. Not surprisingly, my heroes seem to know their way around a kitchen. If you are Italian—and perhaps even if you are not—you know that food is love.  So here's a little from me to you. Happy holidays!

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*Mema's Ricotta Cookies 2 cups of flour 2 teaspoons of baking powder 1/4 teaspoon of salt                                                   1 cup sugar 1 stick of butter 2 eggs 2 teaspoons of anise extract 1 cup of fresh ricotta cheese

  1. Pre-heat oven to 350. Sift flour, baking powder and salt into bowl and set aside.
  2. In a larger bowl or stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs and anise extract.
  3. Add dry ingredients and ricotta alternately to butter mixture until well blended.
  4. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls, two inches apart, on parchment covered cookie sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes. Do not overbake! The bottoms should be a light golden brown.
  5. Let cool and top with confectioner's sugar glaze and non-pareils or colored sugars.
  6. Try not to finish them all before Christmas Eve.

"When She is Beginning to Write"*

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I spent a lot of years "beginning to write." I  purchased endless reams of paper--from plain white to yellow legal pads to pretty floral stationery. ** I  bought journals from the dollar store and ordered leather portfolios from catalogs. I've got  manila folders, accordion files, colored index cards and several sizes of sticky notes. My desk drawers are filled with gel pens, ball point pens, erasable pens, disposable fountain pens, highlighters, mechanical and wooden pencils, and erasers of every size and hue. I have a desktop, a laptop, and a wide assortment of USB sticks. (And then there's that giant erasable white board with a set of multi-colored markers that seemed like such a good idea at the time.)

But each time I sat down to begin to write, that's all it was--a beginning. A few short stories, some scribbled poems, plans for a novel that never fully materialized. And when I couldn't sustain the attempt, I just bought more writing paraphernalia. As if a packet of colored index cards could somehow replace diligence, or a new green fountain pen were a substitute for inspiration. I know better now. Because when I finally committed to being a writer, it came down to just me and a keyboard. And time. And sweat. And lots of disappointment, and doubts that crept in like a dark fog. Followed by more time and sweat. And finally, the exhilaration of  three hundred pages emerging from my printer faster than I could stack them up. I still prowl the aisles at Staples. (I never met a gel pen I didn't like.) But all the sticky notes and colored index cards in the store won't make me a writer. Only I can do that.

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*William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing **Many thanks to the awesome design team at Waxcreative for the virtual equivalent of pretty paper!