Suzanne Beecher

Dear Reader,

Isn't it great when you find a new recipe you and your family love? Thanks to everyone who has shared recipes, they’re a hit!

(Reader emails)

“Boy have I used these wonderful summer recipes! We had my son's birthday party on Sunday where we started with the Texas Caviar. Dinner was served and included the Watermelon Feta Salad, the Real Good Potato Salad and those cheesy potatoes in the crock pot. There were a few other things as well. Dessert included the family favorite lemon blueberry cake AND the oatmeal raisin cookie recipe made into the bars. Thank you all for sharing those delicious recipes!!” – Sue F.

“On Saturday I tried the recipe you shared for Ann Curry's Pasta Puttanesca. It’s been so hot this summer, I decided it was a good idea to put all that heat to good use. [By putting the covered sauce in a bowl and letting it sit in the sun.] My family loved it–the sauce with the pasta and for just dipping bread into it. Thanks so much for sharing the recipe and for Marilyn M. for sending it to you.” – Vicki D.

“I love this Watermelon salad! I don’t put the onions or the mint. I just made some for my friend and I and brought it to the beach to share with her and she loved it! I also want to thank you for your daily book emails. I look forward to them every morning. Keep reading and enjoy your summer!” – Jan G.

“Suzanne, I made the slow-cooker potatoes for a family picnic last weekend, they were a huge hit–gone in minutes! I made them in the slow cooker at home and then just plugged it in at my sister’s house, about as easy as it gets. Thanks for sharing the recipe.” –Audrey K.

“Suzanne once again my husband has made your Skunk Beans. It has been one of his favorite recipes ever since I showed it to him in your column some years back. Thank you for starting each morning off for me with a truly good book review.“ – Patricia H.

“I like that you include summer recipes in your newsletter. I live in Arizona and it has been over 110 the last few weeks. No one feels like cooking inside or out. Hope you have a great day and stay cool!” – Jackie

If you missed one of these recipes and would like to see it, drop me a line and I will send it to you.

Thanks for reading with me. It’s so good to read with friends.

* Congratulations to Debra G. the winner of the Wacky Giveaway. The 17-inch waving mini-tube man is on his way!

Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@firstlookbookclub.com

P. S. Congratulations to the winners of last week's book giveaway: Sandi W., Marianne S., Deborah S., Ola N., Melissa S., Deborah R., Melissa B., Alisa S., Nancy R., Christine T. You could be a winner, too, but you have to enter for your chance!

(continued from Wednesday)

"Walk," he urged me, "walk. So I can look at you. Please."

We were just fooling around. I'd walk to the edge of the platform and back, once or twice, depending on how long it took the train to come.

That memory rose up on my way to Amersfoort, and it seemed so off- kilter, so far removed from the life we had shared.

At Amersfoort I boarded the train to Amsterdam. I switched cars three times before finally planting myself in front of a young mother and her two sons, who fell silent and eyed me warily for a few moments before sinking back into their world. They ate apple slices from a bag and talked in muted voices, holding each other's gaze.

I smiled at the children. The mother smiled at me. To her I was just a nice lady on a night train.

"How old are they?" I asked, and upon her answer added, "adorable."

We exchanged a few more pleasantries. I mentioned my surprise at the number of passengers traveling so late at night and at the overly lit car, which dashed any hope of sleeping. Then I left them alone and they let me be.

5.

Two weeks before my thirty-first birthday, at the end of an extended maternity leave, I resumed my work at the university's graphic design studio. It took me a few days to stop hunting for hesitant gazes. The months of my pregnancy had left me with murky dregs of discomfort, and returning to the studio, I couldn't tell how much of me had leaked out into the world, whether my face betrayed the struggle in my soul. Everything seemed to be in order; the graphic designers, my manager, everyone remembered who I had been all those years, and ascribed the plights of my pregnancy to some other force. Biological, hormonal. Something transient. I was welcomed back with open arms. Everyone wanted to hear about and see photos of Leah, and I realized right away that I would have to make mention of the difficulties—the stitches and exhaustion and nightly saga of nursing and crying—realized what I would have to say and how to temper the joy in my stories.

"It's good to be back," I said. "To get dressed, put on makeup,

be around adults."

Back then, eight-month-old Leah was already spending her days at a day care run by a woman with arms like doughy sink-holes who made a point of picking her up in my presence, kissing and sniffing and handing her to me as if against her will, as if saying, I can't bear to part with her. I wasn't altogether well in those weeks. It was that unsettling period of first goodbyes. I didn't know how to prepare for it, how to miss my daughter in peace, couldn't bring her to day care in the morning with the conviction that I would later get her back. I'd walk out of the day care center as if I'd forgotten her there, as if only dumb luck could make up for the mistake I was making over and over again, every morning, day after day.

"We have to take you out some evening," my friends at the studio said. All but one were already mothers, and every few weeks they'd go out together for drinks and compete over who valued the night off most.

"Sure," I said, "it'll be good to get out of the house for a bit, take a break."

I wasn't worried. I knew it wouldn't be hard to worm my way out of it when the time came.

A few days after my return to work, my mother invited me out to dinner. Meir and Leah would be staying home alone for the first time. "Go," Meir said. "Go and have fun." When I arrived at the restaurant, my mother was already waiting for me, all smiles and high spirits; she too was buoyed by Leah's birth. I blew her a kiss from across the table and took my seat. Getting a head start on my upcoming birthday, she had bought me a beautiful coat I'd been coveting, a silk scarf, and a book. I had decided to stop viewing the books she bought me as lengthy letters addressed to me from her subconscious and, over the following days, heartily immersed myself in the new book, even underlining sentences I thought I might one day wish to revisit. 'Through photographs, each family con-' 'structs a portrait-chronicle of itself—a portable kit of images that bears witness to its connectedness.' Now, every time I photographed Leah, with every cunning click of the camera, it struck me that I was choosing one version of reality among many. It would take me years to shed that feeling.

6.

I lay out Leah's diaper bag and lunch box and my handbag side by side on the couch. Carefully lowering her onto the carpet, I peel off her clothes and change her diaper. Dressing Leah like me is merely one more way of loving her. Tiny jeans. Sweaters. I've always been averse to primary colors, and keep Leah away from them too. I put her brown booties on and button her light-blue coat. We're about to head out, get in the car and drive to the big shopping mall across town. Ora, our next-door neighbor, will be tagging along for the ride. Ever since the deadly attack on the number 5 bus line, Ora has stopped taking public transportation, and since she doesn't have a driver's license, and taxis are too expensive, the neighbors help her get wherever she wants to go.

(continued on Friday)

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