Kate McMullan

THE COLD

2011-01-31T11:46:00.000-05:00

TOBY IN THE SNOW

I,Pinkie, do not like the cold. I'm sitting on my nice warm bed with my best friend Toby looking out of the window. It's all white.

I remember the warm days, when I was on the walkway eating worms, now there is a great memory. How about when Kate took us to the beach and Toby and I got away? Great Fun! Toby was bound and determined to swim. Hey,Toby you sink like a stone, dude!
Ah, memories of spring and summer.

Today it will be more of the same: looking out of the window, sleeping, eating, and the occasional dash outside to....you know. Sometimes the sun comes out and totally fools me. I think, its warm again, but no, its not. My only inspiration is my food. Once I eat, all inspiration is gone. Back to bed and the window and the white, to sleep, perchance to dream of warm days and nights.

-- Brought to you by Pinkie's b.f.f. and guest blogger, Eileen Hurley!

HIBERNATION

2010-11-29T14:03:00.000-05:00

For the past few months, I've practically typed my paws off. You should see my nails. Frightful! And look at my face! See the bags under my eyes? See the new wrinkles? Tell you what -- this bulldog needs some time off from the keyboard, so I'm going to take a winter break. Okay, officially the winter solstice is a couple weeks off, but you know what I mean. It's chilly! Cold, even. Time for me to spend my days basking in patches of sunlight and snuggling up to the radiator, dreaming of spring.
   Before I curl up for some zzzz's, I'd like to thank my amanuensis -- her word, not mine -- Karen, who seemed to know what I was going to say before I even said it.
  Also, thanks to my Auntie Eileen, who always took the time to comment. And to Scarlett, who took this picture of me when she came to visit with her sister, Orly.
  Okay! Here I go. It's me, Pinkie saying TTFN -- tah-tah for now!

PINKIE SPEAKS

2010-04-12T09:43:00.001-04:00

Help! My dog ate my blog!

Go directly to pinkie1.com and sign up to follow the bulldog!

SPRING BREAK

2010-03-23T10:10:00.001-04:00

Jim and I are having a little spring break in NYC. It felt like spring had sprung last night, walking down Hudson Street in the rain.

I'm also taking a little blogging break. Spring seems a good time to rethink, reflect, reconsider and see what blossoms. In a few weeks, you can check my Web site, katemcmullan.com, and see if I've reappeared. Happy spring!

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

2010-03-21T23:33:00.000-04:00

Watching C-SPAN, with no filter of a news anchor, you can see how our government works. The cast of reappearing characters, with their comb-overs, weird tans, and botoxed expressions, is real reality TV. I can't tear myself away.
As I type, the process is working. So-called Obama Care is passing. Best line of the evening came from Wisconsin Democrat, Dave Obey, as acting speaker: "Both sides would do well to remember the dignity of the house."

THE UPSIDE OF INSOMNIA

2010-03-20T10:44:00.003-04:00

OUR HOUSE IS A VERY, VERY, VERY...

2010-03-19T19:23:00.006-04:00

BIG MESS.
We blame it on the wild wind-and-rain storm we had last weekend, and it can be summed up in two little words: septic tank.

As author and illustrator of...

...we have discovered an unfortunate new level of meaning in our title.

The guys.

Crews of great guys have here all week helping us out, pulling up the plumbing, sawing off deck boards, digging, and, well, you know.
It was 70 degrees and sunny today, so Jim and I ate lunch sitting outside on his studio steps, as far away from the action as possible. The dogs sat with us, disgruntled because this is not where we eat lunch, ever.
When the guys left today, the problem was solved.
Thanks, guys!
Whew.

SPRING'S HERE!

2010-03-17T12:53:00.011-04:00

The vernal equinox may be a week away, but spring has arrived between the covers of the new volume of Canal House Cooking. My friend Shirley, a world-class cooking goddess, gave me a subscription for Christmas, and it was a thrill to bring in the mail last week and find a cookbook filled with recipes for the coming season.

The authors are Christopher Hirsheimer, a photographer, writer, and a founder of Saveur magazine, and Melissa Hamilton, a chef and former food editor at Saveur. Currently, these two ladies meet at an old red-brick warehouse near a canal in rural New Jersey, cook their hearts out, and write down their recipes for lucky us. I can't wait to try "Watercress Soup," "Steamed Fish with Buttery Sorrel Sauce," and "Chicken with Scallion Dumplings." No doubt Shirley will be preparing meatier fare: "Confit of Duck Legs," "Cassoulet," and "Red Stew," made with pork shoulder.
Some of the recipes include personal anecdotes, making them all the richer, and the pages of the book are filled with luscious photographs of the food, table settings, and goings-on in and around Canal House that will make you want to be Melissa and Christopher.
If you'd like to peruse a sampling of the recipes or purchase a copy, you can do it by going to thecanalhouse.com.
The spring volume makes great fireside reading on a chilly evening while waiting for the season to appear. Before you curl up on the couch, though, check out the chapter offerings in "It's Always Five O'Clock Somewhere." Then, cocktail in hand, toast my pal Shirley for her generousity and good taste. Enjoy!

CHICKS WITH CHICKS

2010-03-16T08:00:00.017-04:00

I am not alone. Women all over the country are evidently wanting to keep -- or are keeping -- chickens.
According to Peggy Orenstein's "The Femivore's Dilemma," in this week's NY Times Magazine, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/14/magazine/14fob-wwln-t.html?scp=1&sq=women%20raising%20chickens&st=cse, an increasing number of today's young moms are turning their backs on our buy, buy, buy culture and attempting to make their homes into self-sustaining centers of family life.
"All of these gals—" writes Orenstein, "these chicks with chicks — are stay-at-home moms, highly educated women who left the work force to care for kith and kin. I don’t think that’s a coincidence: the omnivore’s dilemma has provided an unexpected out from the feminist predicament, a way for women to embrace homemaking without becoming Betty Draper."
Betty Draper embraces homemaking? I must have missed that episode.
Still, I like to imagine that if I were in my twenties or thirties, and raising young children, I'd be growing organic vegetables for them to eat and keeping chickens for the eggs. When I told this to Jim, he said that if I were raising kale or keeping even one chicken, it would be as a single mom, so my vision of the pastoral life paled somewhat.
In any case, I'm glad about this Michael Pollen-inspired movement, and I wish all the new chicken-keepers the best of luck with their flocks.

My flock: watercolor chicks by Jim McMullan

THE CHICKEN'S A NATURAL

2010-03-13T14:31:00.001-05:00

My friend Claudia just sent this one.

GROW SOMETHING

2010-03-12T22:33:00.002-05:00

On this chilly grey morning, my friend Lorraine and I went to Quail Hill Farm in search of veggies. The chickens were frisky -- Is there anything more charming than a bunch of chickens sprinting straight at you? -- and the greens in the greenhouse looked vigorous. A hint of spring is in the air. It makes me feel like planting something.
This is the theme of a poster Jim has just finished for The Greenhorns, a "land-based non-profit serving young farmers across America." The hope is that the poster will encourage aspiring young farmers, and possibly urban kids who might like farming as well. Take a look at their very cool blog: thegreenhorns.wordpress.com. It'll make you feel like planting something, too.

CHICKEN CONNECTION

2010-03-10T18:36:00.001-05:00

Jim and I drove over to Fairview Farm today to see Harry Ludlow about a chicken. (I don't eat much meat, but I'm not yet vegetarian enough to feed dinner guests veggie pot pie.)

Fairview Farm

Heading up the driveway on this sunny day, I felt incredibly lucky to be coming to get chickens from a local family farm run by Harry and Barbara Ludlow, and their children, Nathan and Meredith -- totally beats rolling a shopping cart down the aisle of a supermarket.

Jim and I chatted with Harry for a while about a new type of chicken he's thinking of raising this summer, and then followed him inside to the freezer to pick out a couple of his birds.

Harry and two of his girls

I like knowing that these chickens ran around outside and ate corn and grass and bugs, and were slaughtered humanely, with respect. If I were one of Harry's chickens, I'd never cross the road.
Harry's chickens are a pleasure to prepare -- clean and firm to the touch. They cook more quickly than store-bought chickens, and come out of the oven tender and delicious. They aren't cheap, but why should they be? With chickens, as with most things in life, you get what you pay for.
Thanks for doing what you do, Harry. We'll be back!

SCHOOL VISIT, CORAM, NY

2010-03-09T21:13:00.002-05:00

Hopped into the Mini this morning and an hour later arrived at Corem Elementary, where I talked about books and reading with kids in kindergarten through fourth grade.
The sponsor of the visit was PARP, which stands for Parents As Reading Partners, a terrific program which encourages parents and kids to read together.
My parent contact at the school was Wendy Johnson. She's a children's librarian at a nearby school, so we had a lot to talk about. With temperatures in the 60's, Wendy and the PARP chair, Yvonne Leippert, had a pizza lunch outside in a sunny courtyard garden filled with statues of readers -- the perfect spot! I enjoyed meeting all the enthusiastic readers and writers at Corem Elementary.

FIVE....WHAT?

2010-03-08T13:34:00.000-05:00

Pearl, the bossy bunny, and Wagner, the ADD mouse, have some laughs in One Funny Day.

They fight and make up in Two Good Friends.

In Three Secrets, they discover that sometimes it's better not to know.

And in Four Eyes, coming out this spring, Pearl and Wagner team up to defeat a couple of name-calling bullies.

cover art by the one-and-only R.W. Alley

So what's next for our grade-school duo?

Five Not-So-Easy Pieces?

Five Comes After Four?

Five-Finger Discount?

Hmmmm -- got any ideas?

THE MAN WHO ATE HIS BOOTS

2010-03-07T14:19:00.003-05:00

Canio's Books, the literary heart of Sag Harbor, hosted Anthony Brandt last night reading from his acclaimed new book, The Man Who Ate His Boots:The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage.
Brandt began with a quick summary of British attempts to find a shortcut to the Orient via an ice-bound sea-route through northern Canada, then he read passages from his book, bringing to life an amazing cast of intrepid explorers carrying 90-pound packs over deep snow, swimming across icy rivers with ropes tied to their waists, and enduring starvation that they survived by eating moss, lichen, and, ultimately, their footwear.

After the reading, a questioner asked -- What's the key to surviving under brutal, inhuman conditions? Brandt replied, "Keeping your head." Then he added, "And carrying your Swiss Army Knife."

I'm loving this book. It's like Lewis and Clark, only it's Brits, and the weather is about a thousand times colder. Maybe you'd like it, too.

Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm, had this to say about The Man Who Ate His Boots: "Tony Brandt is a superb and profound writer who leads us through a tale of such hardship you feel as if you've been aboard ship with them. It's no small feat to use a bit of history to illuminate the future, but Brandt pulls it off. This is narrative history at it's absolute gripping best."

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT TO MARRY A GOOD SPELLER

2010-03-06T06:30:00.001-05:00

This just in from my friend Micky.

SCHOOL VISIT, SOUTHAMPTON, NY

2010-03-03T09:24:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Jim and I visited kindergarten and first-grade classes as part of Southampton Elementary School's Author & Illustrator Day. As always, the kids were wowed by Jim's amazing ability to draw a garbage truck.

He can draw dinosaurs, too!

BIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE

2010-03-02T06:05:00.001-05:00

Marie Blair, the librarian from OLS, took me to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (bcri.org/index.html) after I visited her school, and when my flight home was cancelled due to yet another snowstorm in the northeast and I found myself with an extra day in Birmingham, I went back for another look around.

Photo copyrighted by Bob Reardon

The building itself is well designed so that the spaces inside feel intimate, and viewing the exhibits, which are painful and shocking, seems personal. I was most affected by actual news footage from the times, shown on an array of vintage TV sets from the fifties and sixties, which seemed to take me back in time as I watched angry mobs attacking demonstrators and so-called law enforcement officers releasing attack dogs on peaceful marchers and blasting them with high-power hoses.
Hats off to the city of Birmingham for providing this close look at the horrific events from its past. The final footage shows an enormous crowd cheering Martin Luther King, Jr. as he delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech, and so ends on a note of hope.

Leaders of the civil rights movement came into focus as I moved through the exhibits, none more powerful than the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. He was beaten and jailed, his house and church were bombed, but nothing stopped him from continuing the fight for civil rights for all citizens of this country. Fittingly, a statue of Fred Shuttlesworth stands outside the Institute, and when I finally did head for home, my flight took off from the Shuttlesworth Airport.

SCHOOL VISIT, HOMEWOOD, AL

2010-02-26T21:21:00.000-05:00

I spent today at Edgewood School with Fran Woodruff, who is not only the current school librarian, but is also a former Edgewood student. I'd gotten a good vibe from Fran when she'd first contacted me two years ago about a school visit, and when I stepped into her library, I understood why. Observe an art object hanging on the wall:

We had a delicious Authors' Lunch in the library provided by able PTO moms, with a literary bouquet of spring flowers on the table, and I had the opportunity to talk with several talented fifth-grade Edgewood authors. I believe that some of them will have their own published books on the shelves of the Edgewood Library one of these days.

There's never a dull moment at Edgewood School. Author Day happened to coincide with Pajama Day, and all the kids looked really comfortable wearing pjs, robes, and fuzzy slippers. I wish someone had thought to tell me -- I have a lovely pair of blue pajamas I could have worn.

SCHOOL VISIT, HOMEWOOD, AL

2010-02-26T21:18:00.001-05:00

If this is Thursday, I must be at Hall-Kent School in the excellent company of librarian Emily Strickland. At our first assembly, we had 1st graders, kindergartners, and Pre-K kids, who listened attentively for nearly an hour. Amazing!
Emily arranged a terrific luncheon in the library with the school principal, Carol Lord, the guidance counselor, faculty members and a PTO mom. They are caring, nurturing people, one and all, and it was a privilege to get to hear what they had to say about educating children.
Emily told me that since Birmingham has no river traffic, her students never see tugboats, so she found footage on YouTube to show them how gigantic ships are pushed and pulled by little tugs like the one in I'M MIGHTY!

She also found some seriously gooey YouTube footage of a garbage truck compacting trash. Librarians are amazingly resourceful! Thank you Emily, Carol, and Melanie for a wonderful day.

SCHOOL VISIT, HOMEWOOD, AL

2010-02-25T18:41:00.004-05:00

I was about a block away from Shades Cahaba School when I saw the owl on the rooftop. It leaned slightly forward as if to keep an eye on those entering its portals. Sue Grogan, the principal, told me that the wise old bird is five-feet tall and has stood guard over Shades-Cahaba School for all of its ninety-one years.
I spent a fantastic day at Shades-Cahaba under the wing of librarian, Susan Robie. She had prepped her students for my visit so thoroughly that we hit the ground running, talking like old friends about I STINK!, I'M BAD!, and the Dragon Slayer Academy series. The kids were wonderfully engaged during the assemblies and asked thoughtful, original questions.

I kept hearing that one of the students looked exactly like Wiglaf, the protagonist of the DSA books, and when I met him, I thought so, too. Thanks to Susan and Adele for a terrific day!

SCHOOL VISIT, HOMEWOOD, AL

2010-02-24T20:16:00.024-05:00

Marie Blair, the librarian at Our Lady of Sorrows School picked me up at my hotel yesterday morning with daffodils springing from the cup holder of her car, freshly picked from her yard -- the first sign of spring for this New Yorker.

We had two morning assemblies for grades K-5, and in the afternoon, a group of writers in grades 6-8 gathered in the library where they wrote monologs giving voice to usually voiceless objects and animals, such as an unwanted puppy, a shark, a train, a football, a soccer ball, a drooling basset hound and an ipod with attitude. OLS is filled with great readers and writers! Many thanks to Trisha, Barbara and Marie for a great day.

Photos by Beth Tighe;
Garbage truck art by Wendy Spratley

BIRMINGHAM EATS

2010-02-23T22:27:00.001-05:00

So far: collard greens, black-eyed peas, and grits, all delicious. I've been informed that I need to specify cheese grits, so will have to order grits again.

A NIGHT IN THE CITY

2010-02-22T17:21:00.005-05:00

I stayed over in NYC last night to catch an early flight this morning, and dined with my daughter at Counter, (counternyc.com) a vegetarian nirvana and wine bar in the East Village.
The wine was listed on the menu as organic, sustainable or biodynamic. Our waitress explained that biodynamic is a way of growing crops that honors the connection to the soil. She added that the planting of the grape vines takes place during certain phases of the moon, and something about a grower placing a manure-filled cow's horn just so in the earth. Whatever it was, my pinot noir seemed livelier than the usual.
After dinner, we stopped at a Japanese market that could have been in the middle of Tokyo to pick up some green tea.
A night like this reminds me how much I love New York City.
Why do you love NYC?

ALABAMA BOUND

2010-02-22T16:46:00.002-05:00

I'm off for a week of school visits in Birmingham, Alabama. My pal Sally Cook advises me to say Roll Tide! and mention Bear Bryant whenever possible.
Sally knows from Alabama. She was there often when she and Gene Stallings, legendary coach of the Alabama football team, collaborated on writing Another Season, a moving story about the Coach raising, loving, and learning from his son, Johnny, who had Downs Syndrome. I can't say enough good things about this book, which made me cry and laugh and fall in love with Johnny Stallings.
I know you'd love Another Season, too.

(You'll have to go to Amazon to look inside.)

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR DINOSAUR?

2010-02-19T14:50:00.004-05:00

Jim and I have collaborated on two dinosaur books, I'M BIG!, due out in the fall, and I'M BAD! As we work, the subject of dinosaur color inevitably comes up. Were they a muddy crocodilian green? Or polka-dotted, like the yellow spotted night lizard?
When opened the NY Times a couple weeks ago, I was pleased to find that paleontologists are making progress on finding the answers, at least for feathered dinosaurs. (Evidence Builds on Color of Dinosaurs)

At the base of fossil feathers, scientists have found small sacs filled with pigments. The shape and the arrangement of these sacs provide information about the color and pattens of dinosaur feathers. A model dinosaur created from the findings looks remarkably like a cross between a chicken and a woodpecker.

Never one to let science intrude on his color sense, Jim selected mauve with electric blue highlights for our gigantic Sauropod, and a green-blue with hints of gold for our T. rex.

EVOLUTION OF A COVER

2010-02-16T09:58:00.001-05:00

WHO DECIDED?

2010-02-15T17:37:00.004-05:00

What?
What carpet?
Where?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Really, I have no idea.

Go outside, Pinkie!
Come on! Go outside!

Do you know how cold it is out there?
In the snow?
You don't go outside.
The cat doesn't go outside.
So who decided that dogs had to go outside?
I'll tell you one thing --
it wasn't a dog.

HAPPY V-DAY

2010-02-14T14:01:00.001-05:00

HOMER & LANGLEY

2010-02-13T15:13:00.001-05:00

"I'm Homer, the blind brother. I didn't lose my sight all at once, it was like the movies, a slow fade-out."

So begins the latest work of fiction from E.L. Doctorow, part-time Sag Harbor resident and full-time great man of letters. The novel was inspired in part by the famously reclusive, newspaper-hoarding Collyer brothers, and we see the story through the blind brother's eyes -- an amazing feat of fiction in itself -- as Homer weaves a spell-binding time-travel Odyssey with denizens of Twentieth Century America every bit as mysterious as Circe and the Cyclopes. A Japanese-American couple hoping to avoid internment camp, hippies from an anti-Vietnam war rally, a cartoonist with an Art Crumb drawing style, among others, sail through the brothers' increasingly labyrinthine and booby-trapped mansion. In the telling of the tale, Doctorow manages to turn the urban-legend Collyer brothers into understandable human beings with whom we can empathize. It's a great ride of a read, and a perfect story for this moment in history with the fate of newspapers up in the air, and when many of us feel oppressed by all the "stuff" we accumulate.

Book jacket: Nick Castle Design
Jacket photograph: copyright Samuel H. Gottscho, Everett Collection/Rex Features

DYLAN AT THE WHITE HOUSE

2010-02-12T14:38:00.002-05:00

PBS broadcast last night's concert at the White House featuring an amazing roster of stars singing songs of the civil rights era. President Obama introduced the event by saying that it was occurring on the eve of Abraham Lincoln's 201st birthday. Can't think of a better way of saying, "Happy birthday, Abe."
Bob Dylan's performance really knocked me out. Maybe you'll like it, too.

WARM HANDS

2010-02-10T09:01:00.002-05:00

The blizzard is blizzing, but you won't freeze your digits if you're wearing a pair of Nancy's amazingly warm two-of-a- kind mittens.
Nancy finds cool old sweaters at thrift shops and flea markets. She shrinks them down to tighten the weave, cuts them out in mitten shapes, and stitches them together. She makes her mittens at home, in the company of her 83-year-old father and her cat, who pulls the thread out of her sewing machine when she feels neglected. Inside, the mittens are so soft -- you won't want to take them off.
Maybe you'd like a pair. Email Nancy at nancyanne2@roadrunner.com. Tell her colors you love (and colors to avoid) and she'll make you a pair to suit your style.
If only I could figure out how to type in 'em!

AT THE SAG HARBOR LIBRARY

2010-02-07T12:06:00.005-05:00

The first director of Sag Harbor's John Jermain Memorial Library, Olive Pratt Young, pictured here in a 1910 photo, initiated a lecture series featuring "authors and other kindred topics."
This early 20th Century tradition has been revived by the library's Martha Potter in Thursday Night Writes, evenings where local writers take turns musing on aspects of their craft for the enlightenment of fellow villagers.
This past Thursday, Jim and I found ourselves climbing the stairs to the library's second floor to hear Catherine Creedon, author, award-winning essayist, and current Director of the library. (She sits at Olive Pratt Young's very desk!) Creedon gave an amusing, decidedly 21st Century Power-Point assisted presentation titled "Needle in a Haystack."
"Research makes my heart sing," she announced, and she shared with the capacity crowd (mostly writers) her secrets and little-known strategies for finding what you want when you want it using search-engine techniques, reliable reference sites and databases. (We Sag-Harbor-in-February writers swore an oath not to share her secrets with Sag Harbor writers wintering in Key West.)
At the top of a hand-out she gave us was a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "A democratic society depends upon an informed and educated citizenry."
Creedon certainly did her best to help us become informed. Her final word of advice for researchers who hit a dead end on the internet?
Ask a librarian.

CARDINALS!

2010-02-06T18:48:00.006-05:00

I braved icy winds this morning to fill the feeders and am rewarded with a pair of young cardinals. The sight of these red birds on a bleak winter day always thrills me -- maybe because I'm still a St. Louis girl at heart.

Cardinals have a lifespan of about fifteen years. Both males and females vocalize and have over a dozen songs, but probably the most familiar is that sharp chip-chip-chip. With male Cardinals, the redder the better for attracting a mate. Once babies are in the nest, both parents feed them.

FLUFFY'S VALENTINE

2010-02-03T10:06:00.017-05:00

Yesterday's mail brought a big brown envelope, and inside was a copy of Fluffy's Valentine's Day in Braille. The editor sent it so I can take it to schools when I visit and show kids what a Braille book looks like. Each page is plain white with patterns of small, raised bumps. I hope all Fluffy's new readers will get some laughs out of his adventures.

And Fluffy?

He is one proud pig.

Fluffy art by Mavis Smith

LUMBERJACK LOOK

2010-01-31T17:16:00.011-05:00

The lumberjack look?
Is that what we're going for here?
Sadly, not all of us are built for wearing big, bold plaids.
It's the latest style on the streets of New York City?
Give me a break!
All I have to do is make it to the bushes and back.

Video Library Player: On the Street | Mad Plaid

COLD AWAY

2010-01-31T10:12:00.006-05:00

The temperature is in the teens. People at the gym are coughing. A dinner guest cancelled last night because she felt something coming on.
That's why I'm drinking a morning cup of my daughter's tonic for staving off The Cold. Maybe you'd like a cup.

Squeeze the juice of one lemon into a cup. Pour boiling water over it, stir in honey, add a pinch of sea salt. The salt is the kicker. A daily cup and a little luck and we'll make it to spring.

SO LONG, MR. SALINGER

2010-01-29T06:45:00.002-05:00

I heard on the news last night that J.D. Salinger had died. Pundits were speculating -- had he been writing all these years? Did he have a pile of unpublished manuscripts locked in a safe? I found it didn't matter to me one way or the other.
I'm contented to reread The Catcher in the Rye now and again, in a dog-eared paperback edition with phone numbers scrawled on the back cover. The physical book transports me straight back to high school, when I opened it and read, "If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth."
It killed me. Still does.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOZART

2010-01-27T10:17:00.003-05:00

If human beings were immortal, Mozart would be turning 254 today.
Of course, Mozart is immortal. Listen.

SCHOOLYARD GARDENS

2010-01-25T06:33:00.038-05:00

For nearly thirty years, I've been a visiting author at schools around the country. Sometimes students who are especially interested in writing bring their cafeteria trays into the library and we eat together -- an Authors' Lunch. (Full disclosure: I have a take-out salad.) This past fall, I sat next to a boy eating chicken nuggets, tatter tots, potato chips, and butterscotch pudding. The girl on my other side had cheese pizza and potato chips. All their food was beige! When I tried to talk up fruits and vegetables, I got blank stares. It was as though they'd never given any thought to the food they were eating.
So I was happy to read in the NY Times this week about P.S. 216, an elementary school in Brooklyn, tearing up a parking lot and constructing a garden. This project is part of the Edible Schoolyard program started by Alice Waters, chef and founder of the restaurant, Chez Panisse, and advocate of local, sustainable agriculture. School Adds Weeding to Reading and Writing. In addition to a vegetable garden, the school will build an outdoor pizza oven and a chicken coop, and there are plans for a solar-powered kitchen/classroom so kids can prepare the food they harvest and enjoy eating it together. The garden and kitchen will become a part of the school's curriculum for teaching math, history, science, and art.

Sounds like heaven to me. (Chickens!!) These kids will have an opportunity to learn where their food comes from, and to eat fresh veggies and eggs. So what could be bad?

Almost everything, according to Caitlin Flanagan in an article in The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201001/school-yard-garden

Flanagan writes, "If this patronizing agenda were promulgated in the Jim Crow South by a white man who was espousing a sharecropping curriculum for African American students, we would see it for what it is: a way of bestowing field work and low expectations on a giant population of students who might become troublesome if they actually got an education."

Sharecropping? Puhleeeese! Flanagan is big on sit-at-your-desk test-taking and not-so-big on hands-on learning experiences. Her argument comes down to this: "Here is the essential question we must ask about the school gardens," she writes. "What evidence do we have that participation...improves a child's chances of doing well on the state tests that will determine his or her future...and passing Algebra I, which is becoming the make-or-break class for California high-school students?"

Here's an essential question: what about the health and well-being of these kids? The heavily processed foods they're being served day after day in school cafeterias is making them sick. Kids deserve to eat fresh, nutritious food. They need to learn to think critically about the food choices they make, and how these choices will affect their health and the environment. Kids also need to learn algebra -- absolutely. But the choice isn't algebra vs. gardens as Flanagan makes it out to be. There's room for both in the curriculum, and it's my guess that a well-nourished child will be more likely than a poorly-nourished one to make sense of 5(-3x - 2) - (x - 3) = -4(4x + 5) + 13.

Let the schoolyard gardens bloom! Maybe next time I'm at an Authors' Lunch, I'll see some color on the kids' plates.

QUOTE DU JOUR

2010-01-22T11:08:00.007-05:00

This just in from my philosopher friend, David Richardson:

"Much indeed to be regretted, party disputes are now carried to such a length, and truth is so enveloped in mist and false representation, that it is extremely difficult to know through what channel to seek it. This difficulty to one, who is of no party, and whose sole wish is to pursue with undeviating steps a path which would lead this country to respectability, wealth, and happiness, is exceedingly to be lamented. But such, for wise purposes, it is presumed, is the turbulence of human passions in party disputes, when victory more than truth is the palm contended for."

- George Washington, in a letter to Timothy

Pickering, July 27, 1795

Give that man a monument!

FROM MY OFFICE WINDOW

2010-01-21T11:08:00.004-05:00

When we live in the city, I looked out at water towers and bricks.

They didn't change much.

Here in Sag Harbor, I look out at Upper Cove.
Every day, it's different. Monday, ice and geese.

Today, the Buffleheads are back, those small
black-and-white ducks that look like floating saddle oxfords.

WHAT'S FOR SUPPER?

2010-01-18T05:57:00.006-05:00

I check the fridge. Eggs, leeks, cabbage, lettuce, fennel.
I go to Food 52 -- http://www.food52.com -- a cooking site my daughter likes, and maybe you'd like it, too. Here's my answer: Frittata with Leeks, Sundried Tomatoes, and Parm, cooked in a cast iron skillet. I have sundried tomatoes from Bette and Dale's farm -- a little taste of summer. I'll make a green & fennel salad. Jim will like it because I don't trust him to wash my cast iron skillet, so he gets a night off from doing dishes.

I'll think about the cabbage tomorrow.

EVOLUTION OF A COVER

2010-01-17T16:08:00.006-05:00

Art by James McMullan

VEHICLE FANS ALERT!

2010-01-17T14:52:00.005-05:00

If you live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, you're in luck. The West Side YMCA has a yearly fundraiser called "Touch-a-Truck." All kinds of big vehicles are parked on West 63rd Street, which is closed off to traffic for the day. Kids -- and grown-ups, too -- can climb into the cabs, grab the steering wheels, and vrrrrrrrrrrm! Okay, you can't actually drive the trucks, but hey, you can honk the horn. BEEEEEEEEEEEEP!

Signed copies of I STINK! and I'M DIRTY! with original garbage truck and backhoe loader drawings by Jim will be auctioned off to benefit the YMCA.

Saturday, May 22nd is "Touch-a-Truck Day." Put it on your calendars!

Here's a link to photos from last year's event.

http://wsytouchatruck2009photos.shutterfly.com/

password: may30

HOW I MET JIM McMULLAN

2010-01-17T14:41:00.008-05:00

When I first moved to NYC in the early '70's, my illustrator friend Doug called me up.

Doug: You know who has the studio across the street from me?

Me: Who?

Doug: James McMullan!!!!

Me: Who's that?

Doug: You are soooo ignorant.

Sound of phone slamming down.

Naturally, I wanted to meet this James McMullan.

I met him.
I discovered he was a famous illustrator.

I married him.

It took me twelve years to convince him to illustrate one of my children's books.

To date, we've collaborated on eleven books. The twelfth, I'M BIG! is coming out in the fall of 2010.

Art by James McMullan
To view more of Jim's art, visit his Web site, www.jamesmcmullan.com.

Next up? I'M FAST!

TOOOOOOO-OO TOOOOOO!

EXTRAORDINARY CHICKENS

2010-01-17T13:57:00.007-05:00

Stephen Green-Armytage's Extraordinary Chickens is an extraordinary book. Green-Armytage writes gracefully about his photographic process working with the birds, and gives a colorful history of exotic chickens. I'm crazy about this book, and maybe you'd like it, too.

The cover boy is a Polish White Rooster, and inside you'll find pictures of chickens with beards and whiskers, and roosters with combs that look like owl's ears and reindeer antlers -- witness the Sicilian Buttercup below.

When I visited his Web site,www.stephengreenarmytage.com, I discovered that he has a more recent book called Extra Extraordinary Chickens. But how can you get more extraordinary than Buttercup?

Photo credits: Stephen Green-Armytage

CHICKEN LOVE

2010-01-17T10:01:00.017-05:00

After more than three decades living in New York City, Jim and I moved to Sag Harbor, and I discovered I needed grass, trees, and...chickens. When I explained this last bit to Jim, he muttered something unprintable which I took to mean Over my dead body.
So I find my chickens where I may. Yesterday, I drove to Quail Hill Farm, a C.S.A (community supported agriculture) not far from where we live to visit the resident flock. Gorgeous!

I have a Winter Harvest Share, and can pick fresh, organic vegetables and greens all winter long. (Fashion note: jacket by J. Crew circa 1993, originally worn by daughter in 8th grade.)

Later that day, I went into NYC to shop the shoe sales. Feathers are in style everywhere.

Photo of Kate snipping greens
by Lorraine Dusky

GEORGE BOOTH DOG

2010-01-17T07:50:00.005-05:00

My Aunt Elva subscribed to The New Yorker. This was unusual in 1960's St. Louis when I was growing up, and I used to sneak into her den and read the magazine cover to cover. Okay, I only read the cartoons, but that's where I discovered George Booth. His drawings featured old couples with uncountable numbers of cats and sometimes a pointy-eared, small-eyed dog with a bulbous body and grotesquely splayed toes. I fell in love with that dog.

I couldn't have imagined back then that one day I'd not only meet the fabled artist of that dog, but also create a book with him. SCHOOL! is due out in July 2010.

The first time I met George, I asked him if he'd ever kept company with a bull terrier or any sort of bulldog. Nope, he said. He'd made the dog up entirely. He told me he's always surprised when people send him pictures of their George Booth dogs. I guess I wasn't the only one who fell in love with that dog.