Another Window

I see blogs as windows into other places, other lives. And a new window -- one that I've been hoping for -- has just opened. My very good friend Louise Langsner has begun a blog called The Garden Kitchen -- " a blog about food: growing, foraging, cooking, sharing, enjoying. It’s about adventures in the kitchen…alchemy, discovery, amazement."

Louise is one of the very best, most creative cooks I know.  We've been friends for over thirty years and I've enjoyed many an incredible meal at her house. She has a way of combining unexpected ingredients that is nothing short of genius.

Louise cooks for the students at Country Workshops and seems to be capable of conjuring up a meal for twenty without breaking a sweat.  She's also a dedicated gardener and her cooking is informed by the wonderful fruits and vegetables grown on the Langsner farm. Her first post, inspired by a recent trip to Italy, describes the cucina povera of Puglia and Southern Italy.  

If you like to cook or to read about good food, if you enjoy gardening, if you want to look through yet another window, hop over HERE and meet my extraordinary friend Louise!

Blog Friends

You know what's been really, really nice about visiting bookstores to do presentations for my latest publication? Meeting blog friends -- folks who read this blog and/or whose blogs I visit. Of course, I always meet nice folks -- book lovers, by definition, are nice folks. But what fun to meet people that I already feel like I know!

Tracy, who comments here often, showed up at Fountainhead Books in Waynesville; Carole of  Writer's Porch, surprised me at City Lights in Sylva;  Terry, whose great, great grandfather Benjamin Franklin Freeman I've written about was at Accent on Books, as was fellow dog lover Brenda, of A Scratch Behind the Ears.

Jim, aka Wayfarin' Stranger, was at Malaprops, en route home to Tennessee, and Nancy, who has so generously shared her aunts Inez and Odessa with me was there too. 

 And yesterday at Blue Ridge Books, as I started in on my book talk, I kept noticing a pretty, smiling young woman who was noticeably pregnant and somehow familiar but I couldn't make a connection (I'm appalling bad at recognizing people -- ask my family.) During the question and answer period, I found out that, lo and behold, it was  Nicole of Rare Bird.  

Nicole is in the middle of a high-risk pregnancy -- her little girl was very premature --two pounds -- so Nicole is on bed rest -- only allowed up four hours a day.

And she came to see me -- I am so honored and so touched...

Writing hasn't made me rich in money -- but it's enriched my life with experiences and friends like these -- and like you . . .  I treasure you all.