Let us give thanks...for family...and lotsa turkey

Yes, as some friends have pointed out, I've been a bad blogger of late. It's not that I've been any busier than any of you, it's just that I don't have anything exceptional to write about. So...You want mundane? We can do mundane. Mundane is waaay better than disastrous. As soon as I got back from my writer's retreat in Weymouth I plunged into Thanksgiving plans. This year we had dinner at my sister-in-law Jeanne's house. After catching Martha Stewart demonstrating her method on the Today show, my husband decided to do a Martha turkey. We brined the bird for 24 hours in a soak of water, kosher salt, white wine and herbs, then on Thanksgiving morning, he draped the turkey with cheesecloth soaked in melted butter and more white wine. I made a stuffing of cubed French bread, onions, celery, diced Granny Smith apples, dried cherries and pecans. The turkey was a vision to behold, and once the pan was clear of said bird, I made the gravy. Only trouble was the briny pan drippings were horribly salty. After a moment of panic, I looked up the solution on the internet--drop a whole peeled raw potato in the gravy. It totally worked! In addition, I made pecan and pumpkin pies and sweet potato casserole with crunchy pecan brown sugar topping. This recipe was my late father's favorite. Dinner at Jeanne's was a festive occasion, and Tom and his brother Bob, who is also a fantastic cook, had duelling turkeys.

From left, Katy Munger, Alex Sokoloff, Diane Chamberlain, Margaret Maron, Sarah Shaber and moi.

Back when my husband and I first moved to Raleigh six years ago, I was a woman adrift. For the first time in my adult life I was geographically cut off from friends of twenty years and more. As a novelist who works in solitude, I found it hard to find and make new connections. Luckily for me, North Carolina is a state virtually crammed with writers, and my old friend Margaret Maron lived only half an hour away from our house in Raleigh. Margaret introduced me to some of her other mystery writer buddies, Katy Munger, Brynn Bonner and Sarah Shaber. We started going to lunch to talk about our work and gossip about the book biz. After a year or so of these lunches, we decided to make a writer's retreat at one of Brynn's relative's homes at Holden Beach, NC. I think four of us went on that first retreat. It was winter, the winds outside were howling, but inside our creative fires were burning. We met in the mornings for coffee (Diet Coke for you know who) and to set writing goals for the day. I became the self-appointed warden and wrote down our goals on a yellow legal pad, posting said goals by taping them onto the kitchen cabinets. Then we went off to our separate hidey-holes to pound the keyboards. We met again at lunch to chat about the work and brainstorm, then it was back to work again. After communal dinner we did more brainstorming and checked off any goals we'd achieved. And so went our week. We were all amazed by how much we accomplished at that first retreat. So we met again. And again. Eventually our little group grew. Diane Chamberlain moved to the triangle, and joined up. She and Margaret knew about a place--the Weymouth Center for the Arts and Humanities, in Southern Pines. Weymouth is set in a meandering 9,000-square foot 1904 mansion in the horse and hound country of the Carolina Sandhills. It was the home of historical novelist James Boyd, heir to a Pennsylvania coal fortune who spurned the family business to become a writer. In the 1920s and 30s, Boyd's home became a gathering place for such jazz age literary figures as Thomas Wolfe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson and Maxwell Perkins. Today the house and grounds are part of a foundation dedicated to fostering the arts in North Carolina. And in the library, which was once James Boyd's study, the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame houses portraits, biographies and the works of the state's most accomplished authors. But this is a place for living, working contemporary scribes too. Writers with North Carolina connections can apply for spots as writers-in-residence, for up to two weeks each year. And no, you don't have to be published. Just serious about getting published.

Around the time of our group's first retreat at Weymouth, my husband and I moved back to Atlanta, but the writer's group was joined by Alex Sokoloff, another newcomer to the Triangle area. So here we are again, in 2009, the week before Thanksgiving. Three of us arrived this past Wednesday, and slowly, the others have drifted in. We're missing an important member of the group, our friend Brynn Bonner, who couldn't make it this time. But we're working away, and the pages are piling up, and we're doing lots of problem-solving. In the evenings, after the work stuff is out of the way, we sit in the library, surrounded by the likes of Thomas Wolfe, Lee Smith, Reynolds Price and Louis Rubin, not to mention our late friend Elizabeth Squires. We sip wine and play word games, Balderdash being one of our favorites. Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've played Balderdash with a bunch of cutthroat writers. Last night's words included such plums as prickmadam, sonk, snudge and zarp. Yes, really. We burn the midnight oil, and then the next morning, it's back to the keyboards. When I leave here this Tuesday, I hope to have the first part of SUMMER RENTAL totally revised, and be ready to start work on Part 2. And as I head south, out of Southern Pines and Weymouth, home for Thanksgiving and family, I know I'll be thankful for these few days at Weymouth, not to mention good work, good friends and good writing.

Big trouble in Little Chinatown
Tuesday morning, several of us took the cable car down to Fisherman's Wharf. Then we loaded up our rental van and headed to Sonoma County and Healdsburg, where we'd rented a house on the Russian River. For our first wine tasting of the week, we went to Domaine Carneros for a tasting that had been arranged by Nancy's wine club friend. We tasted several yummy champagnes and pinots, and flirted outrageously with Jean Claude, our sexy French wine guy. Highly recommend Carneros champagne, and not just because of Jean Claude, either. While at Carneros, we met several women who talked us into joining them for a tasting at Artessa, which was just across the road. Good times! Finally, we toddled over to our house on the river and fixed a gourmet dinner of grilled salmon and roasted veggies.

On Wednesday, we travelled over to the Martinelli Vineyard. Debra, the Parisian member of our posse, had a connection who lined us up with a very very special tasting with Julianna Martinelli, who is the fifth generation of this wine-making family. For two hours we tasted the luscious wines of Martinelli, and Julianna told us the history and philosophy of each one. Afterwards, Julie's dad and brothers dropped by the winery as we were leaving, so we were able to snap a family photo with them. That's Julie on the right back row, standing next to her unbelievably youthful Paul Newman look-alike dad. From Martinelli, we went to Iron Horse, which has an outside tasting room, so we were able to enjoy another gorgeous crisp California afternoon while we tasted that winery's pinots, zinfandels and sparkling wines. We had dinner in Healdsburg that evening, then went back to our house for a dip in the hot tub.


Salud from the double nickel divas

Thursday we designated as spa day. But of course we had to detour to the Montelena Winery in Calistoga to taste their famous chardonnay and other goodies. The winery is set in an 1800s chateau and sits amidst beautiful Japanese tea gardens, as well as the vineyards themselves. If you're a movie buff, maybe you remember that Montalena's founder Jim Barrett and his son Bo were portrayed in the movie BOTTLE SHOCK, part of which was filmed at Montalena and in and around Calistoga. We actually bought the movie--and some very nice wine. Then it was off to the Golden Haven spa in Calistoga for our mud baths and massages. We were fascinated with the number of spas in and around Calistoga, many of which are located in little old-timey motels. My friend Linda and I used a discount "couples" coupon we found in a magazine, which lead the spa people to conclude that we were an actual couple. Which lead to some funny moments. After our soaks and massages, we paddled around in the hot mineral pools to unwind for an hour or so. Heavenly!