4 cups ¾-inch watermelon chunks (about 3 pounds with rind)
2 cups (1 pint) fresh blueberries, washed
2 cups perfectly ripe sliced plums (½ inch thick at curved end) (2–3 plums)
¼ cup fresh lime juice (2–3 limes)
1 teaspoon honey
3 tablespoons minced fresh mint leaves
Whipped cream (optional)
1 Place the watermelon chunks, blueberries, and plums in a large bowl. Mix gently with a wooden spoon.
2 In a measuring cup, whisk together the lime juice, honey, and mint leaves. Pour the dressing over the fruit salad and toss. Serve right away or chill first. Add whipped cream if you like.
HUGO'S NEIGHBORLY VISIT SHRIMP NEWBURG
Makes 4–6 servings
Adapted from About.com: Southern Food
In The Epicure's Lament, Hugo, a hermit who is determined to smoke himself to death and cook as many meals as he can along the way, spontaneously cooks the following dish for his sister-in-law, Marie, and her au pair, Louisa, on a bucolic evening. He shows up at Marie's house one night when he knows his brother has the kids. He arrives with groceries and wine, finds the two women sitting outside in the grass, and goes inside and gets right to work in the kitchen.
Hugo uses canned shrimp, but please feel free to use fresh. He serves this Newburg on white rice with a side of buttered green beans.
My mother made this recipe for a very festive dinner party in my honor after I gave a reading near her house in Woodstock, New York. It was absolutely delicious.
Note: You may purchase cooked or uncooked shrimp for this recipe. You will need about 1½ pounds shrimp cooked in shell, or about 2 pounds uncooked in shell. To prepare uncooked shrimp: boil shrimp for 5 minutes exactly, then plunge into ice water (and peel if necessary).
¼ cup (½ stick) butter
2½ tablespoons all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon salt
1 pinch ground cayenne pepper
1 dash nutmeg
1¾ cups half-and-half
3 tablespoons dry sherry
2 egg yolks, lightly beaten
3 cups (about 1 pound) cooked and peeled large shrimp (see note)
Steamed white rice, for serving
1 In a medium saucepan, melt butter on medium heat. Blend in flour, salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg with a wire whisk. Cook, stirring, for about 1 minute. Gradually add half-and-half and sherry; stirring constantly with the whisk to keep the sauce smooth. Cook sauce until thickened and smooth, about 5 minutes.
2 Stir about 1/3 of the hot sauce into the egg yolks, and then pour the egg yolk-sauce mixture into the remaining sauce in the saucepan. Add shrimp and heat through, stirring constantly. Serve over white rice.
Jill Ciment
Arnold Mesches
SELECTED WOEKS
Heroic Measures (2009)
The Tattoo Artist (2005)
Teeth of the Dog (1999)
Half a Life (1996)
The Law of Falling Bodies (1993)
Inspiration Lost dog and cat flyers invariably catch my attention, and I make a special effort to look out for those missing pets. I remember one such flyer — a lost gray cat — adhered to a lamppost in my old neighborhood, the East Village in New York City. The next day was 9/11 and in the aftermath, flyers for missing persons — photographs, which tower, what floor — began to share the lamppost. At first, nobody covered the lost cat poster, but eventually it was plastered over: the human tragedy consumed the animal's plight. If a novel can be reduced to a single image of conception, then the lost cat poster is responsible for Heroic Measures.
The novel takes place in a fraught, post 9/11 New York on panic alert. An aging couple, Alex and Ruth, must sell their East Village walk-up at the same time their beloved dachshund, the emotional center of their childless marriage, is hospitalized and fighting for her life.
The dachshund's paralysis and miraculous recovery were borrowed from my late dog Sadie, a seven-pound dachshund whose medical file weighed more than she did.
The old couple is entirely imaginary except for the collage series based on Alex and Ruth's old FBI files. The artwork was borrowed from my husband Arnold Mesches' series, The FBI Files.
The five-flight staircase leading up to the apartment, however, is real. Over the eighteen years I climbed it I was always aware that there were elderly all over the city, as marooned in their walk-ups as shipwrecked sailors on desert islands.
Third Draft's the Charm My novels generally evolve over three separate drafts; I call it the Jane Goodall writing process. I'm in a jungle during my first draft; it's hot and I'm terrified, following these beasts around just writing down everything that they do. Then, my second draft takes place back at the shack; I've taken a shower, made some tea, and considered what I witnessed in the jungle. I start to think about motivation. I basically ask, “Why did one chimpanzee hit the other chimpanzee over the head?” After that, I put the manuscript away until the story transforms itself into memory. My third draft is written as if I'm an old lady looking back at the drama, knowing the whole of my chimp's stories, from birth to death.
Readers Frequently Ask How did you get into the mindset of a little dog? I found it interesting in writing from a dog's point of view that the animal's reactions felt flat until I invented a specific dog: a hypochondriac, gourmand, twelve-year-old dachshund named Dorothy, a soul as complex and emotional as any of my human characters. In other words, I had to allow myself to be as surprised by her individual quirks as any other fictional character. Anyone who lives with a dog, as I do, comes to understand the uniqueness of their dog's spirit and nature.
The Author Who Has Most Influenced My Writing Chekhov. He is mentioned throughout Heroic Measures since Ruth, one of the protagonists, is reading his short stories. I chose Chekhov because he is the most humane writer I know. He does this extraordinary thing that only great fiction writers can do — he gives us access to another person's consciousness. Fiction is the only art in which you can spy on the way another person thinks. It's what I strive to do: write books that allow other people to see that the human character is tricky and selfish, but also really compassionate and highly complex.
RAINBOW ROOM's MANHATTAN
Makes 1 drink
From New York Cookbook by Molly O'Neill (Workman, 1992)
Like me, Ruth from Heroic Measures may not cook or bake, but we both make a fabulous cocktail. What better drink to sip while reading about New York than a Manhattan?
1½ ounces blended whiskey
½ ounce sweet vermouth
Dash of aromatic bitters
1 maraschino cherry
Pour whiskey, vermouth, and bitters into a large mixing glass with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.
BLUE SKY BAKERY'S BRAN MUFFINS
Makes 18 muffins
Recipe courtesy of Blue Sky Bakery in Brooklyn, New York, owned and managed by Erik Goetze and George Mason
Heroic Measures is set in Manhattan; my characters, Alex and Ruth, and their dachshund, Dorothy, are all quintessential New Yorkers. Like many New Yorkers, myself included, Ruth and Alex don't cook, but love to eat.
In one of the novel's pivotal scenes, Alex and Ruth stop for a quick breakfast at a Lower East Side bakery on their way to the animal hospital to visit their beloved Dorothy. I have Alex order a bran muffin because I wanted him to taste and be sated by the most earthly of flavors. “Alex yanks down his muffin's wax-paper skirt and takes a big bite. He's stunned at how good it tastes. It's as saturated with flavors as the air is with scents.”
Note: Wheat bran is available at natural food stores. It is also available in supermarkets in boxes labeled Quaker Unprocessed Bran.
You can add almost any fruit to these muffins, as long as it's unsweetened and fairly dry (no citrus or pineapple). Blueberries, raspberries, apples, and bananas, or any combination of these fruits, work well. You can use either fresh or frozen berries. For app
les, core, peel, and dice the fruit. For bananas, peel and dice.
2 2/3 cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
3 cups wheat bran (see note)
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
½ cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
½ teaspoon salt
1½–2 cups fruit (see note)
4 teaspoons granulated sugar, divided
1 Preheat oven to 425°F. Coat 18 muffin cups (in 2 12-cup muffin tins) with butter or vegetable cooking spray.
2 Mix buttermilk, eggs, and oil in a medium bowl. In a separate large bowl, combine wheat bran, flour, baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, and salt.
3 Pour wet mixture into dry mixture. Mix just until combined.
4 Place about 2 tablespoons of batter into each muffin cup (the batter will expand to fill about 1/3 of cup). Place a generous flat layer of fruit (about 2 heaping teaspoons) into each cup. Measure 2 teaspoons of the granulated sugar into a small bowl. Taking pinches with your fingers, sprinkle the sugar over the fruit. Divide remaining batter evenly among the muffin cups. Place remaining 2 teaspoons of sugar into bowl, and pinch and sprinkle the sugar over tops.
5 Bake for 5 minutes. Rotate muffin tins from front to back to ensure even cooking, and bake another 11–13 minutes, until test toothpick comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Do not overbake. Allow to cool on wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove muffins from tin. Serve warm.
BLUE SKY BAKERY'S CHICKEN GARLIC DOG BISCUITS
Makes approximately 1 baking sheet of biscuits, assorted sizes
Recipe courtesy of Blue Sky Bakery in Brooklyn, New York, owned and managed by Erik Goetze and George Mason
Alex isn't the only character in Heroic Measures who enjoys his food. Dorothy, the dachshund, is a gourmand as well. After her surgery, when her first bowl of dog food is set before her, she eats with relish. “The circumference of her bowl might as well be the whole globe … while she's eating, nothing else is real.”
Note: Wheat bran is available at natural food stores. It is also available in supermarkets in boxes labeled Quaker Unprocessed Bran.
Nutritional yeast is an inactive yeast with a nutty, cheesy flavor. It is popular with vegans because of its similarity to cheese when added to food, and because it's a reliable source of protein and vitamin B12. Nutritional yeast is available at natural food stores and online.
FOR THE BISCUITS
1¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
2/3 cup wheat bran (see note)
1¼ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon nutritional yeast (see note)
1 cup chicken or turkey stock, or 1 small chicken bouillon cube dissolved in 1 cup hot water
FOR THE EGG WASH
1 egg
¼ cup milk
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2 To make the biscuits: In a large bowl, combine both flours, cornmeal, wheat bran, salt, and yeast. Add 2/3 cup of the chicken or turkey stock (or dissolved bouillon). Mix, and continue to add stock, one or two tablespoons at a time, until the batter forms a ball with the consistency of bread dough.
3 Roll out dough to ¼-inch thickness on a lightly floured board. Use a knife or cookie cutter to cut out shapes. (Bone shapes, about 3½ inches long, work well.) Place shapes on baking sheet.
4 To make the egg wash: Whisk together the egg and milk. Stir in garlic powder. Brush egg wash on shapes.
5 Bake for 40–45 minutes until shiny and golden brown. Turn off heat, and leave baking tray in oven for 6 hours (or overnight) to allow biscuits to harden.
Chris Cleave
Niall McDiarmid
SELECTED WOEKS
Little Bee (2009)
Incendiary (2005)
Inspiration Real events, often communicated to me by friends who are reporters, inspire my writing. I write fiction about real themes in contemporary life. My belief is that real life is exciting and engaging, and that it is an admission of defeat to turn from it to fantasy or escapist genre. I try to go out with a reporter's eyes or, failing that, to borrow a reporter's eyes and find what I feel is the biggest story in town. Then I try to tell that story in the most unexpected way for the most adventurous readers. I like to write in the first person and to use quite intimate narration of ordinary people living through extraordinary events.
Readers Should Know I think readers should know that I have two sides to my writing. My main work is the novels, but I have a lighter side too, which comes out on Fridays when I write a comedy column about my family for The Guardian newspaper. You can check it out on my website at www.chriscleave.com. I also write stories for my kids, just to make them laugh, and one day I might publish some of them. Writing novels is a very committed and serious undertaking, and I find that having the lighter side too helps keep me happy and sane. I also ride my bike and swim a lot, because you go mad very quickly as a writer if you don't get physical exercise every day.
Readers Frequently Ask The question I'm asked most often is how and why, as a man, I write from the point of view of female characters. There are many ways of answering the question. Sometimes I pretend that I lived as a woman until my early twenties. Other times I try to get closer to the truth, although in all honesty what writer can ever know the reasons for the stories that come out of him? I think I have always really liked women and found them good company, and because of that I've had the kind of conversations with women that have given me things to write about. Men don't talk so easily, so they're more of a closed book to me. That isn't to say that men aren't just as interesting, or just as complex. I simply haven't worked out a way to write about men yet.
Avoiding Influence With the work of other writers (as with drugs and alcohol), I try never to work under the influence. Of course there are writers whose work I hugely admire. If I am to list just three books then I would choose Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Germinal by Émile Zola, and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. Dickens because he used entertaining fiction to examine uncomfortable emotional truths in the make-up of the society he lived in; Zola for the same reason, and also because of his fanatical commitment to his project; and Stevenson because he knew how to tell a yarn in such a way that one's own brain endlessly chews over the story, filling in all the details and imagining plots, subplots and backstories within his narrative.
POST-COLONIAL PIE
Makes 6 servings
A recipe by my wife Clémence Cleave-Doyard, CookingwithClem.blogspot.com
When different cultures meet, their cuisines, like their stories, join. Little Bee is the story of the friendship between a Nigerian girl, the eponymous Little Bee, and an English woman, Sarah. My wife, who is a chef, created this recipe to celebrate that friendship.
Fish pie is a traditional and comforting British dish. Since Britain now has a thriving and successful Nigerian community, the traditional recipe is revisited here to give it a Nigerian twist, replacing the potato with yam, using tilapia for fish, seasoning it with lots of pepper, and livening it up with a hint of chile.
Here is how Little Bee and Sarah would cook it:
Note: Wear plastic or rubber gloves while handling chiles to protect your skin from the oil in them. Avoid direct contact with your eyes and wash your hands thoroughly after handling.
3 cups milk
1 small onion, quartered
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 celery stalk, roughly chopped in 4-inch chunks
1 bay leaf
1 bunch parsley
10 peppercorns
1 1/3 pounds tilapia fillet (or other firm white fish such as cod or haddock)
1/3 pound smoked undyed haddock or cod fillet (if unable to find the smoked fish, you may use skinned s
almon steak)
1 large yam, approximately 2 pounds
Pinch of salt
11 tablespoons butter, divided, plus extra for buttering dish and topping
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 fresh red or jalapeño chile, finely chopped
1 In a large shallow sauce pan combine the milk, onion, carrot, celery, bay leaf, a few parsley stalks, and the peppercorns.
2 Place the pan on low heat and add both types of fish fillets. When the milk begins to simmer, turn off the heat and leave the fish to poach gently for 2 minutes. With a slotted spoon, remove the fish from the milk. Strain the fish milk, saving the milk for the béchamel sauce. Discard the vegetables and herbs.
3 Peel the yam and cut it into even, small chunks. Place in a large pot, cover with water, add a pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Once boiling, cook for roughly 10 minutes until tender. Drain the water. Return to the pan and mash the yam adding 5½ tablespoons butter in cubes and pouring in a bit of the strained fish milk in order to get a nice textured mash. Season generously with lots of freshly ground pepper to taste. Set the mash aside.
4 Preheat the oven to 400°F. Make the béchamel sauce: In a large saucepan, on medium heat, melt the remaining 5½ tablespoons butter. Add the flour and stir well, leaving it to cook for a couple of minutes when starting to bubble. Pour in the fish milk, whisking constantly, reduce the heat and cook for 5 minutes until it thickens into a creamy sauce. Season with freshly ground pepper and a bit of salt. Roughly chop the remaining parsley. Add parsley and chile pepper to the béchamel.
5 Check for bones in the fillets and place the big chunks of fish into the béchamel, stirring them in gently so the fish doesn't break up too much.
6 Butter an ovenproof dish. Pour the fish and béchamel sauce into the dish and cover with spoonfuls of yam mash, gently spreading mash on top. Sprinkle a few cubes of butter on top. Place the dish in the oven, and cook for 20–30 minutes until it has a nice golden color and is bubbling.
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