Influences on My Writing I consider both Toni Morrison and Cormac McCarthy major influences. I discovered Morrison's Beloved when I was in my early twenties. I was in awe of her lyrical prose, and the novel's magic realism spoke to me as a native of Appalachia, where there's a rich culture of mysticism and folklore. All the Pretty Horses by McCarthy is another inspiring book for me. I was enamored with the way he wrote dialogue that rang so true to a fellow native Appalachian from Knoxville.
APPALACHIAN CATHEAD BISCUITS
Makes 6 large biscuits
Adapted from Smokehouse Ham, Spoon Bread, & Scuppernong Wine by Joseph E. Dabney (Cumberland House, 1998)
In Southern Appalachia, where I grew up and still live, there's a rich tradition of coming together around the kitchen table. Homecomings and church picnics and Sunday dinners are a big part of our culture, with good food serving as a catalyst for fellowship and family togetherness. In Bloodroot, Myra tells how she appeased her cruel husband by feeding him well: “I served him steaming plates heaped with meatloaf, okra, pork chops, soup beans, pickled beets, country fried steak and cathead biscuits. I stuffed him with banana pudding and coffee cake and cobbler, all the things Granny had taught me to make.” Later, Myra's children first sense her troubled state of mind when they wake up without the smell of breakfast, and Johnny tries to make biscuits to comfort his twin sister Laura. For me, of all the home-cooked meals I grew up loving, cathead biscuits and white gravy are the most symbolic of warmth and safety and home. Each Saturday morning of my childhood I woke to the smell of my mother's biscuits and gravy waiting for me on the table, just as my mother walked into that same kitchen to eat her own mother's cooking when she was a girl. The love and skill of home cooking has been handed down through generations of the women in my family, making these recipes almost like genetic traits, as much my ancestral inheritance as the color of my eyes. I like to think that I'm sharing a piece of my history by passing them on, and a little taste of what home is to me.
Note: Light, fluffy biscuits require a low-protein, low-gluten flour, such as White Lily all-purpose flour, long a staple of southern baking. White Lily flour can be difficult to find outside the South. Use 2 cups of White Lily all-purpose flour if you can. If not, the best substitute is a combination of a lower-gluten “northern” all-purpose flour, such as Pillsbury, and cake flour.
These biscuits are best served hot, straight from the oven. My mom makes the gravy while the biscuits are baking.
1 cup all-purpose flour (see note)
1 cup cake flour (see note)
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
5 tablespoons unsalted butter or solid vegetable shortening, chilled
¾ cup cold buttermilk, plus an additional 1–2 tablespoons if needed
1 Preheat oven to 450°F.
2 Mix both flours, salt, baking soda, and baking powder together in a medium-sized mixing bowl.
3 Add the butter or shortening in small amounts, then mix it into the dry mixture thoroughly with a pastry cutter, two butter knives slicing in a scissor fashion, or your fingertips. The finished mixture should have the consistency of course-ground cornmeal, with a few larger lumps of butter remaining.
4 Add the buttermilk all at once. Stir quickly with a fork until mixture forms into a soft ball, about 30 seconds. If dough feels firm and dry bits are not gathering into a ball, sprinkle with an additional tablespoon of buttermilk. Do not overmix. Using your hands (you might want to coat them lightly with flour), gently knead the dough in the bowl about 3 times.
5 Divide dough in half. To make cathead biscuits (so called because they are large, about the size of a cat's head), simply pinch dough into thirds and shape pieces into thick patties. Place the shaped dough on an ungreased cookie sheet or in a large cast iron skillet (it's fine if the biscuits are slightly crowded). Bake for 15 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits are a light golden brown.
6 Serve immediately with butter, jam, honey, or white gravy (see recipe). If serving with white gravy, open the biscuit and smother with gravy.
WHITE GRAVY
Makes 1 cup
This recipe comes from a falling-apart Watkins recipe book from the 1940s, passed down from my great-grandfather, who sold Watkins products back then. It was difficult to reach stores at that time in rural Appalachia, so families relied on traveling salesmen from the Watkins Company, offering everything from vitamins to pie filling, for the supplies they needed.
Note: We eat sausage or bacon with our meal of gravy and biscuits, usually with fried eggs and a slice of fresh tomato from the garden on the side.
Any kind of milk is fine, but use whole milk if you like your gravy rich, or cream if you like it extra rich.
About ½ pound sausage or bacon, for frying (or as much as you wish) (see note)
2 generous tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup milk or cream (see note)
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 In a skillet, fry sausage or bacon. Place 2 tablespoons of drippings (or more if you plan to double or triple the recipe) in a medium saucepan. If there aren't enough drippings, add oil or solid vegetable shortening.
2 Whisk flour into the hot drippings over low heat. Raise heat to medium and stir constantly until the mixture bubbles and turns light brown.
3 Slowly whisk in milk or cream. Continue to cook and stir mixture constantly to keep it from getting lumpy, until it thickens and becomes smooth, 2–3 minutes. Season to taste with salt, and sprinkle generously with pepper. If mixture gets too thick, add a little milk or cream to reach desired consistency.
Philippa Gregory
James Stewart
SELECTED WOEKS
The Red Queen (2010)
The White Queen (2009)
The Other Queen (2008)
The Boleyn Inheritance (2006)
The Other Boleyn Girl (2001)
My Writing Process My writing always starts with the discovery of a character or, sometimes, an event that seems to me so extraordinary that it releases a train of thought. I then research for more than a year on the topic before I even think of writing, then I have the intense pleasure of letting the research suffuse my thinking until I get to the point where I can visualize everything and even hear the voices of the characters in my head. Then I am ready to write.
Readers Should Know I am so excited that The White Queen is the start of a six-book series that will span the period of the Wars of the Roses. They were called the Cousins' War at the time, so that's the title of the series. The joy of the series is that each book stands quite alone and can be read in isolation, and each book is from the point of view of one of the key players — all of them women — at the heart of the warring world of England.
Readers Frequently Ask Many people ask me about my writing routine and my technique and I tell them that I have very little routine except to always reread or write something every day. This way I keep in touch with the novel and with the creative flow. But it can be any time of day, and it can be anywhere! I carry my laptop with me everywhere I go and I can write wherever I am; I don't need quiet or a lovely view (though that is a pleasure). Only when I am starting the writing process do I need to be surrounded with reference material; later on it is better if the novel does not read as if it was written in an old library!
Writers I Love The first books I loved were the children's classics by Beatrix Potter; I loved the attention to detail and the passion for the countryside. She was a writer who lived in the north of England in the country, as I do now, and the landscapes in her book are like the one outside my window. I am influenced, as every English novelist must be, by Jane Austen. I think she created an austere, spare, cool narrative voice which has the merit of being very analytical and very, very funny. Her understanding of female rivalry and snobbery is supreme. Another great novelist (and there are so many) would be E.M. Forster. He has such comp
assion and underwrites drama with such a deft light touch, but the pathos that he can wring from a little scene! He's another lover of the countryside, and I like that too.
MEDIEVAL GINGERBREAD
Makes 3 dozen (2-inch) shapes, or 30 balls
Adapted from a Medieval recipe (see below)
First let me say that being able to cook is not, in my view, an intrinsic part of female nature and being unable to cook is not a symptom of gender crisis. It is unreasonable to expect all women to cook, unreasonable to expect them to cook well, and absolutely out of the question that they should have to clear and wash up too. That having been said, and observing that I would rather read a book than cook a meal (sometimes even though I am hungry), I offer you this gingerbread recipe.
Gingerbread was one of the great treats of the medieval feast. First it was spiced with ginger, an incredibly expensive and rare taste that was imported from the Mediterranean countries and from the cuisine of Islam. Perhaps the Crusaders got the taste for it and brought it home to their castles, along with the other spices and herbs that helped sweeten and spice the bland cooking of the northern countries. The spices helped to hide the taste of meat which was “on the turn,” or going bad, in the days before refrigeration, as well as add flavor to drinks, scent to rooms, and contribute to perfume. As such, ginger-bread was a real treat.
Its appearance was enhanced at times of special celebration by being cut into special shapes: stars and moons, perhaps even crafted into little models like the gingerbread house of the fairytale. The medieval and Tudor diners loved when food was presented extravagantly. Gingerbread was often gilded, sometimes with real gold leaf, sometimes with sprinkles of sugar.
My mother used to eat gingerbread spread with butter as a tea time treat, and it was recommended to me as a cure for nausea in pregnancy. I have to say that it didn't work at all, but it was an interesting experiment. In less extreme circumstances, you might try it while reading my series of books set in medieval times, The Cousins' War, with hot sweetened wine.
This is a recipe for gingerbread as it appears in a fifteenth-century cookery-book, Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430).
Gyngerbrede. Take a quart of hony, & sethe it, & skeme it clene; take Safroun, pouder Pepir, & þprow ther-on; take gratyd Brede, & make it so chargeaunt þat it wol be y-leched; þen take pouder Canelle, & straw þer-on y-now; þen make yt square, lyke as þou wolt leche it; take when þou lechyst hNyt, an caste Box leaves a-bouyn, y-stkyd þer-on, on clowys. And if þou wolt haue it Red, coloure it with Saunderys y-now.
Note: The flavor of medieval gingerbread resembles that of traditional gingerbread, but its consistency is quite different. It's more like dense, rich, chewy candy, but with a little kick.
Because honey is a main ingredient, the type you use will affect the flavor of the gingerbread. Use a high-quality flavored honey, such as orange blossom, or organic honey, if possible.
Gingerbread was traditionally molded into shapes, but it's also delicious served in balls coated with ground cloves and sugar. During the Middle Ages, gingerbread was sometimes decorated with whole cloves and box leaves (the leaves of boxwood hedges). You can use candied leaves, boxwood, or another nontoxic shrub with tiny leaves, as decoration.
1 pound plain white sandwich bread, sliced
1 pound (1¼ cups) honey, preferably flavored or organic (see note)
1¼ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground white pepper
Few drops red food coloring (optional)
FOR DECORATION
5 teaspoons sugar
Pinch ground cloves
Small leaves, real or candy (optional) (see note)
Whole cloves (optional)
1 To make the bread crumbs: Set oven to lowest heat setting. Lay bread slices on oven rack and leave door slightly ajar. Allow bread to dry completely but not toast, 45 minutes to 1 hour (thin-sliced bread will go faster.) Place dried bread slices in bowl of food processor fitted with a metal blade, and process into very fine crumbs. (You may have to process batches several times to get the crumbs fine enough. Make sure no clumps remain.)
2 In a large, heavy-bottomed pot, place the honey, spices, and red food coloring, “if thou wolt have it Red.” Bring to a boil over high heat while stirring occasionally, then immediately reduce heat to low and simmer for 2–3 minutes, or until mixture reaches 240°F.
3 Add 2½ cups bread crumbs and stir quickly, adding more bread crumbs as needed, until mixture becomes stiff and difficult to stir. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes.
4 You can either roll out the dough and cut into shapes, or roll into balls (see note). To make shapes: Using a rolling pin, roll dough between two sheets of wax paper or parchment, into a ¼-inch thick rectangle. Remove one sheet of paper, flip dough onto a lightly greased baking sheet (you can use cooking spray), and remove rest of paper. Set aside for an hour or two to let the flavors mingle. Then, use a sharp knife to cut gingerbread into small squares (or diamonds, hearts, leaf shapes, etc.). Sprinkle the tops with the sugar and cloves and, if desired, decorate each piece with small nontoxic leaves attached with a clove. To make balls: Combine sugar and ground cloves in a small plate. Roll dough into bite-size balls, and coat with the sugar-clove mixture. Set aside for an hour or two to let the flavors mingle.
Sara Gruen
Jerry Bauer
SELECTED WOEKS
Ape House (2010)
Water for Elephants (2006)
Flying Changes (2004)
Riding Lessons (2004)
Inspiration I draw inspiration from everywhere: all the books I've read over the course of my lifetime, snippets of conversation I overhear in restaurants or on the street, things I see on the news or read about in magazines, and, of course, things I've experienced personally. My fiction is a crazy quilt of everything I've encountered in life magnified through the lens of an overactive imagination.
Readers Should Know I wrote half of Water for Elephants in a walk-in closet. I had stalled out about halfway through writing the book and realized I was employing all my favorite writing-avoidance techniques. I painted the walls of our family room five times and was spending altogether too much time on eBay. I didn't have a wireless Inter-net connection at the time, so I asked my husband to move my desk into our unwired closet and went in there each morning with my laptop, the dog, and a cup of tea. I opened my file on the theory that if I stared at it long enough without any other distractions, something would happen. Fortunately, I was right, and I staggered forth with a finished book four-and-a-half months later.
Readers Frequently Ask People often ask how I manage to write with three children. The answer is that I make the most of school hours, have a very helpful husband, and a high tolerance for mess.
Influences on My Writing — Too Many to Count! Every book I've ever loved. Every short story I've ever loved. Margaret Atwood, Ernest Hemingway, James Herriot, Anna Sewell, E. L. Doctorow, Alice Munro, Elizabeth Strout, Jane Austen, all of the Brontës (except the no-good brother), Yann Martel, and Jonathan Franzen; I could go on for days.
The novelist in my novel Ape House, Amanda Thigpen, taught herself how to cook after accidentally giving herself and her husband food poisoning through improvisations with canned soup. Amanda is passionate about cooking, and her novel, Recipe For Disaster, prominently features the preparation and consumption of food. Because of her unfortunate last name, Amanda is forced by her (fictional) editor to publish under the pseudonym Amanda LaRue.
AMANDA THIGPEN'S SALMON EN CROûTE
Makes 4–5 servings
While my own method of administering food poisoning involved summer squash (I'm still not sure how I achieved that), I taught myself to cook the same way Amanda did, by joining the Church of Julia (Child). I pored over her books and followed every direction, even if it involved peeling broccoli. This foundation gave me the courage to adapt and experiment, and I now carry a notepad with me at all times so
I can deconstruct and record new and unusual combinations of flavors I encounter at restaurants. The following recipe for salmon is inspired by recipes for vegetarian strudel, Jacques Pepin's sautéed salmon, and, of course, Julia Child's Hollandaise.
This is a perennial family favorite, and definitely not diet food. Leftovers can be brought back to life using 40–60 percent power in the microwave, but we rarely have any.
Note: To switch things up, use puff pastry instead of filo (if you do, skip the sesame seeds and instead decorate with carved and scored pastry leaves, using an egg white as glue and glaze).
The fat-free, high-heat method of sautéing the salmon is adapted from one of Jacque Pepin's recipes. Make sure the skin has been scaled and use salmon skin (cracklings) as a garnish, if you have any left. Ours almost never make it to the table.
To prepare ahead of time, you can sauté the capers and fish, and steam the spinach earlier in the day.
Serve with a mixture of white long grain and wild rice (see recipe) and steamed asparagus, or fiddleheads, if you're lucky enough to find them (both of which present another opportunity to enjoy the hollandaise). Or serve with a simple and lightly dressed mesclun mix salad.
12 ounces prewashed baby spinach
Sea salt, for sprinkling
1 pound side of salmon, preferably wild, skin on and scaled (see note)
½ cup (1 stick) melted butter (melt more as needed)
Approximately ¼ pound filo dough (thawed for a few hours at room temperature, or in the refrigerator overnight)
1½ tablespoons sesame seeds, for sprinkling
¼ cup drained capers
Hollandaise Sauce (see recipe)
1 Steam the spinach lightly, using as little water as possible. I do it in a Pyrex dish sealed with plastic wrap in the microwave, adding about a teaspoon of water, for approximately 3–5 minutes. If cooking on the stove, sauté spinach in a small amount of butter on medium for 4–5 minutes or until wilted. Line a colander with paper towels and turn the spinach into it. Spread it out and pat the top with other paper towels, drying the spinach as much as possible. While you're making the rest of the dish, periodically flip and daub the spinach, replacing the paper towels as necessary.
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