a lit­tle sum­mer read­ing (and a lot of seafood)

Let’s see. Both Avery and I have book sug­ges­tions for you. And I must say that these par­tic­u­lar choic­es quite beau­ti­ful­ly under­line the com­plex, dare I say fas­ci­nat­ing breadth of our per­son­al­i­ties. Let me explain.

I was shop­ping at KMart for, I think, dish­es to put left­overs in, or maybe a sprin­kler. Or wasp and hor­net hex juice. In any case, I saun­tered past the book sec­tion (who knew KMart had a book sec­tion? maybe Sears insist­ed), and this book cov­er popped out at me. I do in fact judge a book by, well you know. As does Avery, and nei­ther of us apol­o­gizes for it. Life is too short either to read a book whose cov­er does not appeal to you, or to take your­self to task for these lit­tle foibles. In any case, “Whistling in the Dark” is a won­der­ful nov­el. It reads like a mem­oir, in a major way, as did one of my all-time favorites, A Girl Named Zip­py. Inter­est­ing­ly, both are accounts of grow­ing up in the Mid­west, and I feel seri­ous­ly deprived that my child­hood spent in much the same local­i­ty was not, appar­ent­ly, suf­fi­cient­ly messed up to pro­vide me fod­der for a read­able mem­oir, just enough to send me to the odd (believe me, very much so) ther­a­pist in this or that decade of my life.

No, these ladies, Les­ley Kagan and Haven Kim­mel, par­lay their bizarre and some­times heart­break­ing child­hood expe­ri­ences into beau­ti­ful­ly detailed anec­dotes about sib­ling rela­tion­ships, acute­ly observed parental dis­tress and may­hem, and hilar­i­ous­ly real dia­logue. Kagan’s account (billed as a nov­el, and fair enough, maybe she changed all the names, but it still sounds very real) is at times quite dark and sin­is­ter (for this rea­son I would­n’t rec­om­mend it for even pre­co­cious chil­dren inter­est­ed in their par­ents’ upbring­ings), but lump-in-the-throat touch­ing, as well, and very, very fun­ny. You will enjoy it, espe­cial­ly if you have chil­dren or ever were a child your­self. These are, I feel, the book’s nat­ur­al audi­ences. Buy two copies and give one to your sis­ter. Except, oops, I did­n’t buy an extra to give to my per­fect­ly deserv­ing sis­ter. I still can.

Then, yes­ter­day found me unex­pect­ed­ly at the most charm­ing book­store I think I’ve ever encoun­tered. We were dri­ving through dis­mal, cold and raw rain toward my sis­ter’s house in West Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut, to see my par­ents and broth­er who have flown in for my mum­my’s birth­day tomor­row, when the light­ed win­dows of a book­store beck­oned out of the gray­ness. Brick Walk Books and Fine Art (be patient with this link, as it seems to be only to the inte­gral art gallery, but it pro­vides all the right con­tact info), a lit­tle slip of a shop in a row of undis­tin­guished oth­er shops, with love­ly small paint­ings in the win­dow. Avery and I crept in while John tried to find a place to buy a throw­away watch, his real watch hav­ing died in the night. And there we found, well, count­less things we want­ed. Cru­el­ly, the shop leads with its chil­dren’s sec­tion, so I’m afraid we were suck­ers from the very start. Many first edi­tions, and lots of oth­er old but pris­tine edi­tions, fine­ly illus­trat­ed, and most right around $25, which is a lot of mon­ey until you con­sid­er that a per­fect­ly for­get­table hard­cov­er book from KMart will run you near­ly $28 and for what? Some­thing you’ll read once and then nev­er think of again. But a fine copy of “Bed­Knob and Broom­stick”? That is worth tak­ing home.

I myself fell vic­tim to a first-edi­tion of my new absolute favorite book: Eat­ing Togeth­er: Rec­ol­lec­tions and Recipes, by Lil­lian Hell­man and Peter Feible­man. Oh, my, it is end­less­ly won­der­ful. All my favorite things in a book: there’s mem­o­ry and anec­dote from what was undoubt­ed­ly a fas­ci­nat­ing life (liv­ing with Dashiell Ham­mett can­not have been pleas­ant, but it was cer­tain­ly not bor­ing), food descrip­tions and recipes, and a lit­tle heart-tug­ging friend­ship along the way. The book clev­er­ly chron­i­cles Hell­man’s friend­ship with this much-younger man, through accounts of their bick­er­ing over food, recipes, din­ner par­ties and poten­tial guests (like Mike Nichols, Dorothy Park­er or Leonard Bern­stein, to name a few). And won­der­ful recipes. You’ll love it. It reminds me of all my favorite food writ­ers: Lau­rie Col­win, Vir­ginia Rich, Ruth Reichl, Nigel Slater, and the incom­pa­ra­ble Eliz­a­beth Ryan and her Lord Peter Wim­sey Cook­book. It does­n’t get ANY bet­ter than that.

The book­store itself is just a joy, and I wish there were more peo­ple in the world like its pro­pri­etor, Kevin G. Rita. Doing what he loves best in the world, I’d bet, sequestered but by no means lim­it­ed by his desk over­flow­ing with the tools of his trade, eager to get to know his cus­tomers, full of enthu­si­asm for his wares. He even took down a French edi­tion of “Rebec­ca”, opened its pre­sen­ta­tion box, showed me all its delights, and… had no idea how much it might cost! Just want­ed to share the joy. What a love­ly man, and a gor­geous shop. He does a mean inter­net busi­ness, too, so get in touch with all your wishes.

Avery’s also huge­ly enjoy­ing Oscar Wilde’s Epi­grams, addict­ed as she is to “The Impor­tance of Being Earnest.” Kevin was so enchant­ed by this choice that he gave it to her! “My daugh­ter, Phoebe, who’s about your age, finds books to be… let’s see, what was her exact descrip­tion, LAME. It breaks my heart.” Phoebe has, how­ev­er, her own sec­tion of the book­store, all her own choic­es, for which she gets the pro­ceeds. “Oh,” I said, “then she does care, a lit­tle,” and he said, “Oh, no, it’s pure­ly the cap­i­tal­ist in her.”

Then, when I went back to the Brick Walk Book­store this morn­ing to tell Kevin how hap­py we were with our acqui­si­tions, he was so hap­py that he said, “Was­n’t there some­thing else your daugh­ter was look­ing at? Such a self-pos­sessed young lady… Yes, here it is! I have to love a girl who reads both Wilde and Trol­lope.” And out came an ele­gant leather-bound copy of “The Way We Live Now,” which Avery got hooked on after watch­ing the fab­u­lous minis­eries on the BBC star­ring, of course, my crush Matthew Mac­fadyen.

Then Avery would tell you that every­one needs to read Cor­nelia and the Auda­cious Escapades of the Som­er­set Sis­ters, by Les­ley M.M. Blume, a very touch­ing account of a girl about Avery’s age (near­ly 11) who pro­tects her­self from her famous pianist moth­er and their unhap­py home life by using the most dif­fi­cult words she can find. Until, that is, she meets her new next-door neigh­bor, an elder­ly lady who takes Cor­nelia in and enter­tains and com­forts her with anec­dotes from her unbe­liev­ably glam­orous past. It’s by turns fun­ny, edu­ca­tion­al (lots of long words!) and sad. Avery espe­cial­ly enjoyed the accounts of adven­tures in Paris and Moroc­co, as we’ve trav­eled to both in the last year, plus of course there’s some action in Lon­don which is our back­yard dur­ing the school year.

Well, that’s what we’ve been read­ing. Maybe it will keep you all out of trou­ble for what remains of this glo­ri­ous summer.

And food, can I tell you? For some rea­son we’ve been on a seafood kick. Lemon sole sauteed in plen­ty of but­ter, noth­ing wrong with that. My favorite scal­lops in pars­ley and gar­lic? Love it. But then there’s the peren­ni­al favorite: steamed lob­ster. From a quirky, unap­peal­ing-look­ing fish truck plonked uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly down in a park­ing lot on Wood­bury, up the road, descend­ed from Maine every Thurs­day. I’m not mak­ing this up. Give him a try, should you be in Woodbury.

Then, one sad after­noon came with the Maine guy ran out of lob­ster by the time we got there, but nev­er mind, he had salmon.

Then, night before last I prac­ti­cal­ly blew our heads off with a spicy shrimp dish that I’ve told you about before (be patient and scroll down! some­day I’ll orga­nize these recipes, I promise). But some­how, this time, the only chili sauce I had in my fridge was UBER hot! We could hard­ly eat it. But we man­aged to put away near­ly a pound of the lit­tle guys. I’d high­ly rec­om­mend the sauce, from Huy Fong, if you can bear to blow your lit­tle spicy mind.

Well, oth­er than eat­ing and read­ing, we’ve been play­ing ten­nis (I don’t know why I have missed ten­nis until now! I love it), Avery’s found a new rid­ing instruc­tor, Deb who runs Bounc­ing Pony Farm out of near­by Red Horse Sta­bles in South­bury, and my fam­i­ly have arrived! Tomor­row’s the big birth­day par­ty for my mum, so stayed tuned. Watch this space for all par­ty reports! But in the mean­time, I’ll get my broth­er in law to give me the fab­u­lous recipes he cooked for us last night: parme­san chick­en and toma­to risot­to. Yum yum… You’ll have them when I do.