The Way Life Should Be (30 page)

2 pounds lean ground pork (or 1 pound pork and 1 pound lean ground beef)

1½ cups dry white wine

2 cups beef stock (can be made from bouillon cubes)

½ cup whipping cream

1 pound rigatoni pasta

Freshly grated Parmesan cheese

Sprinkle of nutmeg (optional)

Sauté onions in olive oil over medium heat; add garlic and cook until translucent. Add parsley, carrots, celery, and parsley. When soft, add wild mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes.

Add ground meat and cook until any traces of red are gone. Add white wine and then beef stock, raising the heat to evaporate the liquid. When the sauce reduces, after 10 or 15 minutes, pour in a stream of cream until the color is golden brown. Add a sprinkle of nutmeg, if desired. Simmer for 15 to 30 minutes more to thicken the sauce.

After cooking the rigatoni al dente, or firm to the bite, drain it, reserving a cup or so of the starchy water to add if the Bolognese sauce is too thick. Pour the pasta back in the cooking pot, then ladle the sauce onto the pasta in scoops, stirring to blend it through until the rigatoni is coated. Pour into a bowl and serve hot with grated Parmesan and freshly ground pepper.

I want to thank Amanda Hesser, whose 2002
New York Times Magazine
article on white Bolognese inspired me to search for the origins of this dish in southern Italy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank Cynthia Baker, Anne Burt, Alice Elliott Dark, Judy Goldman, Meredith Maran, Pamela Redmond Satran, and John Veague, all of whom read parts of the book in process. My parents, Bill and Tina Baker, who live on Mount Desert Island, read each page and provided astute counsel. Thanks also to Catherine Baker, Clara Baker, Jerry Bauer, Patricia Chao, Liza Cohn, Maureen Connolly, Jillian DiGiacomo, Allison Gilbert, Reva Jaffe-Walter, Carole Kline, Benilde Little, Virginia Middlemiss, Frida Persson, and Karen Sacks. The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts provided me with all that a woman writer needs—a room of my own and some grant money to go with it.

Kenny Mahon, chef and owner of the fine Italian-American restaurant American Bistro, in Nutley, New Jersey, allowed me to shadow him in the kitchen on a number of occasions, ask dozens of questions, and take notes as he worked his magic. The authentic Italian restaurant Osteria Giotto in Montclair also provided inspiration. My Italian-American muses and fellow writers, Louise DeSalvo and Laura Schenone, gave advice at every step. A number of books guided my research. In particular:
Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen
, by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich;
La Cucina di Lidia: Recipes and Memories from Italy’s Adriatic Coast
,
by Lidia Bastianich and Jay Jacobs;
Crazy in the Kitchen: Food, Feuds, and Forgiveness in an Italian American Family
, by Louise DeSalvo;
Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration
, by Hasia R. Diner;
In Nonna’s Kitchen: Recipes and Traditions from Italy’s Grandmothers
, by Carol Field;
Essentials of Classic Italian Dishes
, by Marcella Hazan;
Were You Always an Italian? Ancestors and Other Icons of Italian America
, by Maria Laurino;
Italy for the Gourmet Traveler
, by Fred Plotkin; and
A Thousand Years over a Hot Stove
, by Laura Schenone.

I wrote this book with my own grandmothers in mind, Ethel Baker and Christina Looper, both strong and opinionated women and, not incidentally, wonderful cooks. I was also inspired by my mother, a fabulous cook in her own right, who set me loose in the kitchen at an early age, tolerating my disasters and celebrating my occasional successes.

Many thanks to my brilliant and gracious editor, Katherine Nintzel, who read the manuscript more times than anyone should; my agent, Beth Vesel, who shepherded this book through several incarnations; my husband, David Kline, who—as always—provided support and encouragement of every kind; and, finally, my three boys, Hayden, Will, and Eli, who endured my occasional absences and more-than-occasional absentmindedness with good humor and grace.

A Conversation with Christina Baker Kline

This conversation is adapted from several sources,
primarily an interview at WriterAdvice.com.

What people or events inspired
The Way Life Should Be?
Where did your idea for the novel start and how did it grow?

There are several threads to this novel. One involves the creation of my central character, thirty-three-year-old Italian-Irish-American Angela Russo, who grew up in New Jersey and learned to cook from her Italian grandmother. Another is about life on Mount Desert Island, the largest island off the coast of Maine.

When I moved to Montclair, New Jersey, from New York City ten years ago, I hadn’t explored much of the state outside of my town, a diverse community of thirty-seven thousand people, with good schools, cinemas playing independent films, and dozens of restaurants. For several years my experience of New Jersey was mostly limited to this cultural island, but slowly I began to venture out. Montclair is surrounded on all sides by “real” New Jersey: working-class immigrant communities with long-standing histories and traditions. Despite some pervasive cultural stereotypes, I hadn’t realized how heavily Italian-American northern New Jersey is until I began paying attention to life beyond Montclair.

The day that a rave review appeared in the
New York Times
for an improbably named Italian-American restaurant in Nutley, New Jersey, called American Bistro, my husband and I hopped into the car to find it. Decorated in old-world Italian-American style—a big brass bar; pink tablecloths; heavy, padded menus—the restaurant seemed straight out of central casting, with interesting characters planted at one end of the bar and a large Italian-American family next to us boisterously celebrating an anniversary.

As we sat at our table, the waitress—as it turned out, an actress who grew up in Maine—brought over a complimentary antipasto platter, a mouthwatering array of fresh mozzarella, glistening roasted red pepper,
soppressata
and pepperoni, cured olives and sweet and hot peppers, and a basket of fresh bread and garlic toast. We were hooked. We started bringing friends, and eventually we got to know the chef and owner, Kenny Mahon, a friendly half-Italian-half-Irish-American who had learned to cook at his grandmother’s elbow. The more I learned, the more I realized that I had the beginnings of a novel in my head. (Later, while researching the book, I spent time shadowing him in the kitchen, observing and taking notes.)

At about the same time, I had fallen in love with Mount Desert Island. Though I grew up in Bangor, Maine, and often went to MDI as an in-state tourist, it wasn’t until ten years ago, when my parents bought a ramshackle Victorian house in Bass Harbor, on the “quiet” side, that I began to have any real understanding of what the island was truly like. One of my sisters, tired of city life, soon moved to MDI from New York. Eventually, all three of my sisters bought houses there. I spend every summer now on the island with my children and extended family. It is, like Manhattan, a place that people come to from elsewhere and never want to leave.

What prepared you to write

The Way Life Should Be? For me, the process of writing a novel begins months or even years before I put pen to paper. It evolves from pieces of my own past, stories I’ve heard, things I’m curious about, emotional journeys that interest me, unexpected ideas, unresolved questions. Most of this development of a central idea isn’t even conscious. Over the years I’ve learned to trust this process, slow and circuitous as it may be.

My time spent living in New York, my move to New Jersey, and summers on Mount Desert Island provided much of the background inspiration for this novel. Now that I think of it, geographic location is important in all of my novels. My parents are both from the South, and we lived in Tennessee when I was young; my first novel,
Sweet Water
, takes places in a small town in that state.
Desire Lines
, my second novel, is set in Bangor, Maine.

In
The Way Life Should Be
, my main character, Angela, is an event planner. I was intrigued by the world of event planning and thought it would be an interesting profession to write about. I met some event planners and plied them with drinks to get them to tell me their war stories. I also asked them to talk about their biggest nightmares: What could possibly happen at an event that would not only get you fired but completely ruin your reputation and make it impossible to work in that profession again? They had a good time answering that one.

How did Angela change and grow from your original idea of her? Do you think you’ll write about her again?

Though novel-writing is hard, Angela was actually a fairly easy character to write. She leapt off the page. As soon as I began writing scenes with her in them, I found that she had a mind of her own. A strong character, she approached problems with
equanimity and a sense of humor. Unlike the protagonists of my other novels, Angela is not depressed—she may wallow in misery for a few days after a particularly disastrous turn of events, but she doesn’t stay in that place. I think that’s why so many readers tell me they like her; she is pretty fearless. (I believe the old-fashioned word is “plucky.”) People identify with her and root for her. I’m often asked if I’ll write a sequel, and I just don’t know yet. Right now I’m finishing another novel that is completely different—so we’ll see how I feel when this one is done.

What are the difficulties of writing about love?

The hardest thing is that everything there is to say about love has been said before. It’s very difficult to avoid clichés and make relationships in novels surprising and fresh. But therein also lies the fun; it’s exciting to write about characters who live and breathe and interact with each other spontaneously and with deep feeling. I believe that if a novelist can capture what intrigues two characters about each other, readers will be intrigued, too.

What was your writing schedule and how much did you accomplish each day?

My goal was to write twenty new pages a week. I wrote the manuscript longhand (as I always do) and often went to coffee shops and cafes—Starbucks, Panera, Whole Foods, anywhere I would be left alone, where I could stay as long as I wish—and sat there until I’d written four or five pages. I like ambient noise; it quiets that pesky editor in my head. Then I took all my manuscript pages (which my husband eventually photocopied—I made him nervous carrying that pile of paper around) to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where I spent two weeks hammering out a second draft on my laptop. Then I revised it all again.

What did you focus on as you edited
The Way Life Should Be?

Language, primarily. Pacing, cadence. I sharpened the dialogue, removing more and more as I went, taking out anything that seemed extraneous. When I started the book, I found myself writing pages and pages about Angela’s life and misadventures in New York. I had so much to say about that—but ultimately it didn’t belong in this book, and I cut many of those sections. I eventually added fifty pages to the last half, fleshing out the characters in Maine and strengthening Angela’s ties to that place. The real story, as it turned out, took place in Maine.

“The Way Life Should Be” is such a curious idea. It is at once aspirational and judgmental, implying that there is a right way and a wrong way to live. How did you come up with the title?

“The Way Life Should Be” is actually the Maine state slogan—it greets you when you cross the border from New Hampshire; it’s what tourists hear when they come for the summer. I grew up in Maine, so I was already familiar with the slogan when I started working on the book. Although many people associate Maine with only the coastal towns that so many tourists visit during the summer, it’s actually a big state, with many different facets, so to say that the whole state exemplifies “the way life should be” is to acknowledge that Maine is as much a state of mind as a place. In giving Angela that talismanic postcard of Maine that she keeps tacked to her bulletin board at work, I wanted to convey that Maine represents a way of life that many people aspire to. But I always thought “the way life should be” was a curious slogan—if you live there, of course, Maine is just the way life is.

It’s also such a deceptively simple phrase; you think you know what it means, but every person has a different idea of “the way life should be.” In my novel, Angela has an idea of what she’s heading into when she moves to Maine, but the life
she ends up building for herself is ultimately very different from what she originally envisioned. As I wrote the book, I thought a lot about Angela’s confronting the psychological and philosophical limitations and possibilities inherent in the idea of “the way life should be.” The title embodies my character’s quest; no other title would have worked for this story.

Why did you include recipes in the novel?

The central character, Angela, learns to cook from her Italian grandmother and eventually teaches a cooking class on Mount Desert Island. She also makes muffins and scones for a local coffee shop. The recipes are culled from my own collection of favorites as well as traditional Italian dishes I discovered while researching the book. I also wrote instructions for some wonderful dishes at American Bistro—the chef doesn’t generally use recipes.