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 (33 page)

Marion Ettlinger

SELECTED WOEKS

Cost
(2008)

A Perfect Stranger: And Other Stories
(2005)

Sweetwater
(2003)

This is My Daughter
(1998)

Georgia O'Keeffe: A Life
(1989)

The Inspiration for Stories versus Novels
I usually begin to write when I find something that disturbs or interests me, something that intrudes on my mind.

I write stories and novels differently. I write stories because of a scene or an exchange, some moment I've seen or heard of, that strikes me as very powerful. I write the story toward that moment. It comes toward the end of a story, and if you read my work you will know it when you reach it, though something else usually happens after it. But that moment is what drives the story.

I write novels differently; I'm not writing toward a moment, and I don't know at all what will happen. I start a novel because of a conflict or a problem that I find compelling. I explore the idea of the conflict, I find the people who are involved in it, I get to know them well, and then I let them deal with the problem. In doing so, they create the narrative. It's a slow, organic process, one that has its own sort of life and direction.

Readers Should Know
My most recent novel,
Cost
, is about three generations of a family going through a crisis. I'm interested in the way families respond to each other. I think of the family as being an organic unit, whole and living. I think of it as being like a mobile, a sculpture, delicately balanced, carefully interconnected. Any movement on the part of anyone will have an effect on all the others. One person in crisis sets the whole system into silent, swaying motion.

Readers Frequently Ask
Most people ask how I know what it's like to be the characters I write about. One woman called me at home, said she was the main character in my last book, and asked if I'd been stalking her.

It's a hard question to answer; it's hard to say exactly how I get to know my characters. I spend a lot of time with them, in their worlds. And the better I know them, the more I enter their worlds and feel I understand them. Their worlds sort of become mine, particularly toward the end of the process. Then I start living more in their lives than in my own. When it's over I feel sad to let them all go; I'll never live with them again, and I feel a kind of loss.

Influences on My Writing
To the Lighthouse
by Virginia Woolf has probably been the biggest influence on my work. She showed us it was possible to make a small domestic narrative into great literature. She writes about the family: how the members reflect each others' needs and conflicts, about what it's like to be alive, and how it feels and how it looks. Reading her beautiful sentences, you think over and over, Yes! Yes, that's how it is!

Other great favorites include
The Rabbit Quartet
by John Updike. His sublimely elegant language delivers all the mess and complications of real life, and it's driven by deep understanding and compassion. Updike is truly engaged with his characters; he understands them, he sees their flaws and he forgives them. He's a compassionate writer, and for me, compassion is hugely important.

Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy is a wonderful, wonderful book delivered so simply, in such small, heartbreaking scenes, each one so beautifully rendered. Plus, it has all the glamorous splendor of prerevolutionary Russia: the balls, the furs, the sleighs, the villa in Italy. The spectacle is mesmerizing. I was put off by it for years because the book is so thick! It's so heavy! It's so Russian! But once I finally began it I realized — it's so easy to read!And it's so riveting, so hypnotizingly engaging. Now I've read it twice, and look forward to reading it many times again. It's like an old friend you know and trust and love.

Makes 3–4 servings

Julia, from my novel Cost, is an artist who spends as much time as possible in her studio. Time in her studio is lost time, and she will forget whatever else is going on. This is very bad for cooking. It means she'll forget whatever is on the stove and let it burn, or forget to even turn it on. When she's alone she hardly cooks at all, though she might make a big batch of lentil soup and eat it for several days. When her family is with her in Maine, she likes making slow-cooked dishes that produce a rich stew of flavors and textures. She can't deal with a lot of last minute steps that involve finishing sauces, but she likes a meal that includes grace notes: fresh chopped herbs scattered on the top of a dish, warm crusty baguettes passed hand to hand, and on the table, a vase of flowers from the meadow.

Here's something she would make. It's a recipe she made up, though it probably has its roots in the cooking of southwestern France, which she admires because it's rich and slow. Serve this dish with a mesclun salad (see recipe) with walnuts and more chopped tarragon sprinkled through it, a warm baguette, and sweet butter. For dessert, another baguette (this one not warmed), some good cheeses, and whatever fruit looked good that day at the market.

1
In a big iron skillet, melt the butter over low heat. Add onions, cover with tight-fitting lid, and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally. When they have become translucent (this will take 10–15 minutes, during which time you can run out to the meadow and pick some flowers for the table), remove the onions and set aside.

2
Turn heat to medium, add the chicken pieces, and brown in the skillet. (The browning will also take 10 minutes or so, during which time you can set the table, pour a pitcher of ice water, and make a platter of cheeses for dessert.) You should be nearby during this, so you'll hear and smell if they start to burn.

3
When the chicken is all nicely browned, add the onions, pour in the rice, and stir to coat it with butter. Then add the chicken broth and the chopped parsley, and stir it all. Cover the skillet with a heavy lid, turn the heat down to medium-low, and let it simmer until the rice is soft and the liquid is mostly absorbed, while you take a shower. This will be about 20–30 minutes. Keep checking whenever you can to make sure the heat's not too high or too low. When it's finished, add salt and pepper to taste, and sprinkle the fresh tarragon over it before the last stir.

Makes 4 servings

Note:
Both walnuts and pine nuts taste good with the mesclun; both are kind of oily and offer a good contrasting crunchy texture to the lettuce, but the walnuts are more visible and so you are more aware of them.

If you're using fresh tarragon, you can either add it to the dressing or sprinkle it on the salad. If you're using dried tarragon, just put it in the dressing. (Dried herbs in salad are scratchy and dry.)

1
Wash and drain the lettuce, and spin it dry. Set lettuce in a salad bowl with the nuts on top, in a casual cluster.

2 To make the dressing:
In an empty glass jar, combine balsamic vinegar, mustard, olive oil, and tarragon. Whisk together gently with a fork. (Don't whip the dressing or shake the jar, because the dressing will thicken and become viscous. Stir it gently, and try to keep it liquid.)