Table of Contents: From Breakfast With Anita Diamant to Dessert With James Patterson - a Generous Helping of Recipes, Writings and Insights From Today's Bestselling Authors (26 page)

2
Cut fruit into wedges (about ½-inch). Melt butter in a large skillet and sauté the fruit over medium heat until soft but not broken up, 10–12 minutes. Sprinkle with lemon juice and ½ cup of sugar. As soon as sugar has dissolved, remove from heat and stir in flour.

3
Remove dough from refrigerator. With a slotted spoon, arrange fruit as attractively as your skills allow in the center of the dough, leaving most of the excess liquid in the skillet. Leave a 1½-inch border around the edges. Sprinkle with remaining ½ cup sugar.

4
Gently fold the border of the pastry over the fruit, leaving the center of the tart uncovered, pleating it to make an edge.

5
Bake for 20–25 minutes. Slide tart from cookie sheet (or remove with foil). Cool before serving. Serve with whipped cream.

1
Place flour, sugar, and salt in food processor. Pulse a few times to combine. Add butter. Pulse 15 times, or until butter pieces are pea-sized.

2
With motor running, add 1/8 cup ice water all at once through the feed tube. Process for about 15–20 seconds, or as soon as dough comes together. Add additional water as needed.

3
Turn dough out onto a well-floured board, roll into a ball, and press into a flat disk. Wrap disk in plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour in the refrigerator before using. Remove dough from refrigerator and allow to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before rolling. The dough may be refrigerated for up to 2 days, or frozen for up to 2 weeks.

Makes 1 sandwich

Frankly, Miss Elphaba Thropp was not inclined to answer our request to supply a recipe. She has bigger fish to fry, though not literally she hastens to point out. Who knows if any individual fish might open its mouth and remonstrate against the situation in which it finds itself, browning in unsalted butter on a medium-high flame? Downright undignified.

However, spies who like to keep an eye on Elphaba have found the following in the extensive files kept on her in the archives of the Emerald City. They are not sure if there is any deep meaning or seditious intent in this recipe. Specialists from the “There's No Place like Homeland Security” bureau are still studying it, and believe they will be able to file a report within the decade.

1
Spread cheese on one slice of bread.

2
Sprinkle green matter thereupon. If to your taste, add a light ozdusting of ground green peppercorns.

3
Clamp second slice of bread firmly atop the spread.

4
Serve in the freshest wax paper … never mind, you're not that hungry.

Makes about 30 2½-inch cookies (number varies with size of cookie cutter) and 1 cup of frosting

Madame Morrible, notable figure around Shiz University though with Friends in High Places, likes to welcome the students at her seminars and poetry recitals with plates of her favorite treat. She calls them Madame Morrible's Adorable Storables, for with an extra flick and flourish of her wand she can not only whip up several dozen in an instant, she can store them in airtight cannikins where they keep for days and days.

For those less naturally gifted in the magical Arts of Baking, she supplies a traditional recipe below. An extra note: she herself enjoys using cookie cutters with this recipe, as the more regularized the shape, the easier to store — in a box or a sock or something. Her favorite cookie cutter is the one in the shape of a flying monkey. Should you not be able to locate one for your own use, either in an emporium of cookie cutters or borrowed from some better-heeled neighbor, she recommends you take a pair of secateurs, a length of industrial-strength tin, a small but strong hammer, and an image of the flying monkeys from the 1900 edition of
The Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum with illustrations by W. W. Denslow. You can knock out your own homemade cookie cutter almost as easily as you can follow the recipe below. Assignments due on Thursday, no excuses.

Note:
To make this a stiffer frosting, which is preferable for piped designs, add more confectioners' sugar. To thin the frosting, add a few drops of water.

To tint the frosting, use paste food color (available at party supply stores) rather than liquid food color as liquid will thin the frosting. Use the tip of a wooden toothpick to add small amounts of the paste, blend, and add more if necessary to achieve desired tint.

1 To make the cookies:
In a small bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt.

2
In an electric mixers' large bowl, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until fluffy. Add egg, milk, and vanilla extract, and beat well. Gradually add flour mixture and beat until well blended. Cover and chill dough for about 1 hour.

3
Preheat oven to 375°F. Divide dough in half. Roll out half of the dough on a lightly floured surface to about ¼-inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters or knife, rerolling dough as necessary. Transfer cookies to ungreased cookie sheets.

4
Bake for 8–10 minutes or until cookies are light brown around edges. Remove cookies to a wire rack and let cool completely.

5 To make the frosting:
In a small mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add about half of the confectioners' sugar, beating well.

6
Beat in milk and vanilla. Gradually beat in the remaining sugar, and then beat in additional milk, if necessary, to make frosting spreadable.

Note:
This entry in its entirety is copyright © 2011 by Gregory Maguire.

John Gillooly

SELECTED WOEKS

Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life
(2010)

A Year in the World: Journeys of a Passionate Traveller
(2006)

In Tuscany
(2000)

Bella Tuscany: The Sweet Life in Italy
(1999)

Under the Tuscan Sun
(1996)

Inspiration
Italy inspires my recent writing, but in my long life reading for me is the most immediate and joyous inspiration. Good books make me want to write and have done so since I was about eight. The two pleasures are completely intertwined.

On Writing
I think of myself as an image-based writer. I love the tactile, visual, auditory world and find my ideas work best when I can recreate a sensuous image. I first learned this from Keats, then later from one of my all time favorite writers, Colette.

Readers Frequently Ask
“How did you first start writing about Italy?” The answer? I just settled into a house that was at home in the landscape. I thought if I lived there I could be at home, too. Turns out, that was the right instinct. The place itself gave me the five books I have written there. I spontaneously changed from writing poetry to writing memoir. The new life seemed to demand it. I simply could not break off my lines and I soon had to buy a bigger notebook. There's a
plenitude
that I experience living in Tuscany and I think my genre had to accommodate that in a new way.

Influences on My Writing
As mentioned, Keats and Colette for their profound grasp of image. Collectively, all the southern writers seeped into my psyche early on. Thomas Wolfe, Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty, James Agee, Carson McCullers, William Faulkner, Conrad Aiken, Margaret Mitchell - they all knew that place is fate, that is,
who
you are is
where
you are.

Makes 6–8 servings

This recipe travels happily between my kitchens in Tuscany and North Carolina. I think it's more Southern than Tuscan, but any summer table will definitely be graced by its presence. I prefer wild-caught shrimp. This can be a main course event, served with toothpicks as an hors d'oeuvre, or as a first course. Leftovers can reappear in a frittata or be stirred at the last minute into risotto.

Note:
The shrimp must marinate for 24 hours.

1
Mix all marinade ingredients in a medium bowl. Set aside.

2 To prepare the shrimp:
In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic cloves and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add shrimp and sauté until no longer gray — sunrise pink! — about 3 minutes.

3
Use a slotted spoon to transfer shrimp to marinade bowl, and combine well. Cover and marinate, chilled, for 24 hours.

4
Before serving, stir the parsley into the marinating shrimp. Spoon shrimp over a platter of arugula, reserving the marinade. Arrange avocado and mango slices around the sides of the platter, drizzle them with a little of the marinade, and add the lemon wedges. Pass the remaining marinade around on the side.