This Week's Miscellany (11/24/23)
Pie, Tennyson's Ulysses, Meg Ryan, and the Dump Them Phenomenon
Hi, I’m Haley! Book midwife (editor) and author. Hello to new subscribers and welcome all to another edition of This Week’s Miscellany. TWM is full of my favorite things from around the web, typically trending literary.
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For me, Thanksgiving is about pie-making. Yes, yes, it’s about family and gratitude but that’s all wrapped up in the pie-making.
My mom was the unsung hero of the run-of-the-mill-keep-the-family-sustained-with-nutrients-and-vegetables daily meals. She likes to joke that she’s more of an Erma Bombeck than a Martha Stewart in the kitchen. My dad swooped in for the special occasions and that meant pies, his grandmother’s pies.
Two generations of teen marriages and pregnancies meant that his grandmother was only 35 the year he was born and played a major role in the lives of her daughter’s children (my dad and his sisters). She had cooked professionally at one time (according to family lore, she once cooked for movie star Roy Rogers) and brought her passion for food to family life.
When my dad left the west coast to start a family on the east coast, he brought her pie recipes. He baked chocolate creme, coconut creme, and pumpkin every Thanksgiving while his grandma, mom, and sisters across the country baked the same.
I have memories from only one trip to visit her, but I have memories of baking my great-grandmother’s pies every Thanksgiving with my dad. Then as the early risers in the family, my dad and I would eat the leftovers for breakfast while my unsuspecting mother and older brother slept. Before the sunrise we’d top our slices with excessive servings of whipped cream, and eat over the sink like two giddy criminals enjoying the forbidden fruit of a kitchen heist.
On Thanksgivings I don’t get to share with my dad, I make the pies with my kids—teaching them their great-great-grandmother’s recipes. Then my fifth generation pie-makers and I eat leftover pumpkin or chocolate creme for breakfast in a glorious tradition of early morning rebellious joy.
Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday weekend! Are you eating pie this morning?
Links
My friend Carla Galdo took my breath away with this thoughtful and beautiful piece on Tennyson’s Ulysses and the pull of the horizon versus the duty of the hearth:
Reading Ulysses in Autumn by Carla Galdo for Dappled Things
I’d like to propose that we can remain in the midst of our daily rounds and, “follow knowledge like a sinking star.” We can stand on the hill with Ulysses and make use of the creative tension introduced by the desire to strive and seek, without running off solo into the western sunset via horse, boat, or car, abandoning our duties and our loved ones.
And as a devoted fan of You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle, I loved this one. (I also was slightly devastated that Meg’s new movie has already left theatres when I tried to get tickets last weekend.)
Though she and Ephron got along famously, Meg demanded more of the filmmaker on You’ve Got Mail than she had on Sleepless in Seattle. She insisted that Kathleen Kelly wield a knife at Joe Fox during their book-party encounter. She did deep character work on Kathleen and came up with the idea that her bookish alter ego’s dead mother, the enchanting Cecilia, loved to twirl her mini-me at The Shop Around the Corner.
And continuing the tradition of sharing every Clare Coffey piece I see, this one on prudence is so good. When writing my book Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life I started thinking that prudence is the virtue most lacking in our culture. Coffey argues for the need for prudence in this excellent read:
The Imprudence of ‘Dump Them’ by
And if you take “dump them” as the cure-all our culture increasingly assumes it to be, you will soon run into a problem: There are people worth staying for. There are relationships worth working to preserve, even when it is very costly to us.
And I’m looking forward to writing new installments in this little series about being a writer, publishing, and surviving financially:
Can authors survive financially on book sales? by Yours Truly
Reading
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Hello Beautiful by Ann Napolitano
And heads up, readers, my first two books The Grace of Enough and Jane Austen’s Genius Guide to Life are 30% off with free shipping from my publisher this weekend.
Come to Belgium with Me!
I’ve now traveled with Select International on three pilgrimages and I can’t wait to do it again this summer.
Save the date for December 3rd, the first Sunday of Advent, because we will be doing an informational Zoom with spiritual leader of the trip and dear friend of ours, Fr. Harrison Ayre!
We’re keeping this trip small (we just love the experience of a smaller group of pilgrims) and we’re thrilled that so many pilgrims from last year’s pilgrimages are joining us again!
REGISTRATION NOW LIVE: Heavenly Hops Pilgrimage with Fr. Harrison Ayre to Belgium and Germany.
Feel free to shoot me an email if you have any questions at all about the trip. Let’s go to Belgium!
Wishing you all a wonderful weekend. And a huge thank you to Jennifer, Laura, Stacy, Katelyn, and Arwen for upgrading to a paid subscription. This is a reader-supported newsletter so if you enjoy getting these emails, please consider supporting this Substack by upgrading to a paid subscription with the button below.
Thanks for reading!
Haley
(Editor of Word on Fire Spark, Author, Former Podcaster)
Haley’s Children’s Mystery Series about Mouse Nuns
I hope you'll share your thoughts on Hello Beautiful! As a devotee of Little Women (and I know you are too) I have many of them, and that's all I will say for now 😉
Thanks for the mention! ❤️