Yaddo and an Awesome Christmas Present

I have a friend who lives in Saratoga Springs (New York), a very good friend whom I cherish. Even though we live less than half an hour away from each other, our Christmas gift exchange was somewhat delayed this year due to the usual life stuff. We have a lot in common, among them our names, year of birth, and a place called Yaddo.

Yaddo is located in Saratoga Springs, maybe a mile down the road from the world famous Saratoga Race Course on Union Avenue. It is an artists' retreat founded by Spencer and Katrina Trask in 1990. Katrina herself was a writer, and lived a life that was tinged with sadness. The story goes that Yaddo was named after a young daughter's mis-pronunciation of the word 'shadow'.

The entrance to Yaddo is enticing; two lightpost-topped stone pillars guarding a long road into the woods (picture borrowed from here for now, will replace with my own soon). 

As far back as I can remember, long winding roads into the woods have always tugged at me. Very rarely was I able to make that turn and see where it went, but that was not the case with Yaddo. My parents knew about Yaddo, a not-so-hidden gem in an area full of diamonds. I never thought to ask why. At the time my mom was home raising what would be six children, and my dad taught college-level biology to nursing students. I will never know why, but what I do know is that my parents took that turn through theYaddo gates and introduced their young daughter to what she thought was a magical fairyland.

I never forgot Yaddo. I dreamt about Yaddo often, strangely scary dreams in which I was locked inside the gates after dark and watched the statues come alive in the moonlight. The dreams stuck with me, and when I was in junior college I wrote a poem about the dreams that became my first 'published' work, appearing in a college publication. It also got recorded for a dial-a-poem line that existed way back then. I don't remember much about it, only that when you called you heard a random poem read to you over the phone (previously recorded). I tried to call the line for awhile to hear my poem read, but I was never successful.

One day I decided to revisit Yaddo, and made a pilgrimage up the Northway to see if the place that stayed in my head was still the same. I made the turn through the gates and held my breath as I drove slowly down the narrow road deeper into the woods that surrounded the grand mansion on the hill. The woods sparkled, just as they had in my memories.

I parked my car and walked across the great lawn, past the goldfish pond and somber mansion on the hill, through the gates into the rose garden. The statues were like old friends, standing watch over the carefully tended beds of multi-colored roses.

It felt good to be back.

The story does not end here, there will be more forthcoming.

My friend is drawn to Yaddo as much as I am, and volunteers there during the summer to soak in the energy of the grounds. As for the awesome Christmas present, she presented me with an original edition of a book written by Katrina Trask published in 1915.

To be continued ...

Pretty Cool Places

'Pretty Cool Places' are places I've been to and will eventually blog about. Many of them are places that were (and still are because been there done that is just not good enough for any of them as far as I am concerned) on my bucket list.

I even have pictures!

To be continued ...

Good Stuff

On New Year's Eve I had a most excellent meal. Probably one of the best meals I have ever had dining out in a restaurant. (I have to qualify that statement because my mom and grandmother were two of the best home cooks I have ever encountered on my travels, no offense to anyone near and dear to my heart who still feeds me.)  I have eaten in many retaurants over the years (and I have the hips to prove it), in big cities such as Paris, London, Las Vegas, New York City, and San Francisco. I have had great meals in each of these cities, some with a famous chef behind them and sometimes just a small local establishment with good food and a lovely staff that treated me as if I were family. 

To be totally honest, I am not completely unbiased when it comes to this place. But I am a fairly picky eater and often have to settle on sides and appetizers when dining out with family and friends because they choose restuarants that do not serve anything I would eat. I am definitely not what they call a foodie. But on New Year's Eve I found myself in culinary heaven, in the lovely dining room of the Cella Bistro. Dinner was a four course meal with a champagne toast. Each course had a variety of selections. 

I started with house made potato gnocchi with buerre fondue, crispy sage and pecorino romano. Now, I have no idea what buerre fondue is, but the gnocchi was so tasty that I lusted after more and almost forked my husband's hand when he tried to sneak some. (I did relent and let him taste it.) Next up was potato leek soup, something I fell in love with on one of my visits to London many years ago when I stumbled upon a place called the West End Kitchen. My love was amplified a thousand times when the first spoonful of the Cella Bistro version hit my lips. Corny but true. The main course was Gramma Cella’s lasagna, made with spinach, onions and mascarpone sauce layered with parmeggiano reggiano and hand rolled pasta baked with san marzano tomato sauce. This awesome dish melts in your mouth and the tomato sauce cannot be described except to say, yummy. At this point I was pretty stuffed but when I watched my dessert choice walk by to another table I broke down and undid the top button of my jeans. Warm chocolate bundt cake with vanilla bean ice cream and melba sauce. I did my best but sadly had to leave almost half of it behind. 

The reason I mention my New Year's Eve dinner now is because the Cella Bistro was recently featured in an article titled 'Fine Dining 2012' in the print and online editions of The Business Review for the Capital District (the Albany, New York area). To quote the article:

"This week's edition of The Business Review is devoted to the Capital Region's fine dining sector and the ways in which those restaurants and others like them are luring customers in this recession." (Sadly you cannot read the entire article without subscribing, but please feel free to do so!)

The article is complete with pictures:

Meet the Chefs - Cella Bistro images 5 and 6

See the Dishes - Cella Bistro images 5, 6 and 7

I am very glad to see the Cella Bistro getting such awesome exposure, it truly deserves it. And a very big hello to Chef Michael, his lovely wife Julia, chef-in-training Anthony (hey, you never know!), and of course Jim and Cheryl.  

P.S. Rumor has it that Gordon Ramsay will be in our neck of woods this week. If he's hungry, he should stop in for a bite at the Bistro and taste some of the best our area has to offer.

Happy Birthday Alex!

Since today is my nephew's birthday, it seems appropriate that I write something about R.L. Stine. I have had the good fortune of meeting Mr. Stine in person several times and listening to him talk about his travels on the road to becoming a much loved and pretty fabulous children's author. My nephew and I share the love of a good scare, especially one found between the pages of a book. He is a big R.L. Stine fan while I have graduated to more 'age-appropriate' scary book writers such as Joe Hill, Dean Koontz, Stephen King, Peter Straub, and many others . (Okay, I admit to possessing and reading a variety of Goosebumps books even now.) His Wikipedia page is a cornucopia of output.

I first met Mr. Stine at one of the ThrillerFests I've attended since they began holding it in Manhattan (more about ThrillerFest in a future post). Someday I too would love to write scary stories for children, so when I first saw Mr. Stine listed as a participant on a panel discussion about writing for children I was eager to listen.

I was enchanted. He was funny, charming and inspirational. I saw him at subsequent ThrillerFests over the years, on various panel discussions or passing in the hallway or signing in the ThrillerFest bookstore.

Mr. Stine has won multiple awards for his works, both on the page and in the community. In 2007 Mr. Stine was honored by the International Thriller Writers (ITW) organization with their Silver Bullet Award, created (shamelessly stealing text from the ITW website) in conjunction with Reading is Fundamental (or RIF, an excellent organization, check them out) to recognize outstanding and meritorious achievement in the pursuit of literacy and the love of reading. In 2011 Mr. Stine was again honored by ITW as their ThrillerMaster, an award given to authors in recognition of their outstanding contributions to the thriller genre.   

I would like to recognize Mr. Stine as well. Last summer at a book signing event he graciously signed 14 of his Goosebumps books for my nephew, which were to be his birthday present. (No worries, I waited until everyone in line had gotten their books signed before I approached him!) He personalized every one of them to Alex with a smile, and the smiles they put on my nephew's face made me appreciate wonderful authors like R.L. Stine one hundred fold.

Cheers!

And Happy 11th Birthday Alex!

About Me

I'm always crushed to discover that there is never a magical portal to another world in the back of any closet I peek inside of. I blame this devastating disappointment on C.S. Lewis. I also blame C.S. Lewis for planting the seeds of creating new worlds in my soul, worlds that only existed in my imagination and some day a book, maybe two.

I don't blame him that it took me so long to get around to it. That is the fault of life and a healthy dose of my procrastination.

I read every single book in the Chronicles of Narnia more times than I can remember, not only at the small private church school I attended from kindergarten through sixth grade, but many more times over the years. Aslan, the Beavers, Lucy, Edmund, Susan, Peter, Bree, Digory, Eustace, Puddleglum, even Puzzle the Donkey were among my friends. I secretly wanted to change my name to Aravis, and I waited patiently for one of my horses to talk to me.

I was convinced that someday I was going to create the kind of magic that C.S. Lewis had.

And I grew up, my thirst for magical words taking the form of voracious reading. I was never without paper and pencil however, the only remnants of a childhood dream for many years. When I grew older I would walk into a bookstore and recall that dream of wanting to see a book I had written on the display showcasing new authors, a little twinge tugging at my insides. Maybe I just didn't want it bad enough.

When I went to college I applied to take creative writing classes, but I was not accepted. The professors told me that I did not have enough life experience to be a writer. Perhaps that stuck in my subconscious for more years than I cared to count. Only later did I question why the University would offer undergrad creative writing courses to undergrads only to deny them because of a lack of life experience. Either they expected to populate the classes with older-than-average undergrads or they were too kind to tell me my writing samples were sorely lacking.

But then again, it may have been the trauma I experienced when my first piece of writing was published.

I dabbled in poetry as a young girl (and well into high school, mainly to hone my skills as a lyricist for Paul McCartney and Elton John). In sixth grade a younger sister came to me in a panic. She had an assignment to write a poem, and after many failed attempts was desperate for help. Awesome big sister that I was, I offered to help her out, and quickly composed something she could turn in. (Yes, I know it was cheating, but what are big sisters for?) 

I should mention that my sister and I are two of six siblings, the first five of which are girls. My father and baby brother were severely outnumbered.

To her surprise (and mine as well I admit), her teacher was so impressed with the poem that it got passed around the faculty and heaped full of praise. This was followed by a printing in the school bulletin and an invitation to read the poem out loud at a school function to which we were all dragged.

She basked in the glow of the attention. I stewed in the unfairness of it all, unable to say anything because, well, we all know why. Punishment for doing the wrong thing, no matter how well intended, can take many forms. I was scarred for life.

And for many years she continued to take credit for writing the poem every time my parents would brag about it. We were in our thirties when she finally admitted that I had really written it. No one cared. The moment had long passed.

About five years ago my mom came across a folded piece of lined notebook paper, upon which was the original poem, meticulously copied by my sister from my work. She'd signed her name to it, middle initial included, and sometime over the years my mom had added "By' over her name.

Someone else had added something over the years. In very light pencil, at the very bottom, it says: "This poem was not penned by <sister's name withheld to protect the not-so-innocent> - ask her!"

I am sure you can figure out who added that note.

Here is the poem, recreated in its original form:

Hair, hair is everywhere,

In the sink, down the drain,

On the floors, and window panes,

In the brushes, in the combs,

Every place in our big home,

In the vacuum, In the hall,

Even sticking to the walls,

And of course, it's more than,

Dad can bear,

Cause he's the only one with

Short hair

P.S. (He always gets stuck
          Cleaning the hair up.)

Just to show there were no hard feelings, I framed the lined piece of notebook paper containing the poem for my sister and gave to her for her birthday a few years ago.

And now that I am finally over that trauma, I have once again picked up paper and pencil (and laptop) in earnest. 

Wish me luck. After all, the world is ending soon.

The End of the World and Hi Mom!

It is 2012, and according to some folks the beginning of the end. So just in case the Mayans had the inside scoop, I thought I'd better make an attempt to get this blog populated with stuff.

But first, I'd like to say hello to my mom, wherever she may be. One year ago today my mom passed away, and I would like to believe that she is still around keeping an eye on me.

Hi Mom!

Miss you . . .