Thank you. Retreat pics. And a last-minute recipe

....with footnotes. Because it's me.

Giving thanks. We are currently staying in the lake house of some friends, about an hour outside NYC. This is their pillow, and knowing them I suspect they commissioned the text. It applies so perfectly to Delia & me that I am adopting it for today.

Wow. I didn’t realize I’d get so many responses to my questions in my last Letter. Thank you so much. It makes me feel . . . loved. And wanted. Like a novel, a newsletter is a giant shout out to the void. You never really know how it’s being received. Thanks to your Comments, I have a much better idea, now: confirmation that you’re actually reading it, and a better grasp on what you’ll enjoy (and when!). It really made a difference.

Undisclosed Writing Retreat Location is in the Pretty part of New Jersey. Near Lake Mohawk, if you must know.

Delia & I are currently “retreating to advance” (as our friend Sean Elliott so trenchantly put it in his comment to my last letter) : We’re back in the friends’ lake house in New Jersey where I came solo last month, planning a blissful week of writing and cooking. I’m so close to finishing this draft of City Year, Part I! And Delia needs endless time & patience to do the serious research for The Absinthe Drinker, set during the Siege of Paris and the subsequent doomed Paris Commune, trying scrupulously to pair the true events of each dramatic day (yes, including the weather! because she’s like that) to a novel’s demands for a well-paced, interesting forward momentum in the lives of her two protagonists. It’s not a job for the faint-hearted.

Fortunately, we are both buoyed by the beautiful views and amazing light we have here! (Our NYC apartment, charming as it is, is quite dark, especially in winter . . . and we do love light. It may be one of the reasons we travel so much.)

Believe it or not, this is the view from the bathroom. I find it very inspiring.

I got up the first morning to find Delia already at the keyboard:

Mind you, I can’t swear she isn’t checking her e-mail. But at least she’s up and dressed.

Me, I can’t quite disappear into the Writing Fugue I usually aim for on these Retreats: the window for promoting my new book, The Golden Dreidel, is narrow, because it is a Chanukah-themed book - and while I am eager for it to be read by anyone at any time, let’s be real: the biggest sales will probably be from Chanukah presents. ¹ As the holiday of Chanukah (also spelled Hanukkah and probably some other ways) begins on Sunday, 28 November, and concludes on December 5th, you see my problem.

So this is an advance warning that you’ll be getting another Letter from me as early as tomorrow, with some Shopping Suggestions. They’re not ALL about PLEASE BUY MY BOOK . . . but, well, a few of them are.

What book, you ask? Why, it’s:

Shopping early? There are links for buying The Golden Dreidel on either Amazon & Indiebound here on my website.

ALSO

After our fun musical Zoom event last week for Brookline Booksmith, I signed a bunch of book stickers for them. So you might still be able to get an autographed copy from Brookline Booksmith. They ship! So do my friends at Book Moon in Easthampton, MA, which is where this photo was taken in September, of me holding the very first copy of the new book that I had seen anywhere.

More reading & a last-minute recipe

My friend Kelly Cogswell (aka Fally Dogswell aka K. Lee Cvetchwell aka what will she think of next) moved to Paris from the East Village. Her Substack, A Dyke a Broad, is fierce and philosophical and gorgeously written and comforting and incendiary. She recently posted this quote:

"Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again." ~ André Gide

And this recipe:

Turkey Recipe

Want to impress your guests? Try this turkey recipe. (Works with any size bird.)

1. Marinate a bird overnight in your fridge in a mix of olive oil, soy sauce, citrus juice (I use a combination of both lemon and orange juice—fresh squeezed juices are best), citrus zest, Dijon mustard prepared from grains harvested on a full moon, an assortment of chives, sage, parsley and thyme, several handfuls of minced garlic, a salt, pepper, smoked paprika, sweet paprika, 1 pint bourbon, 1 liter of super-unleaded.

2. Ten minutes after your guests arrive, remove the bird from marinade and stuff the inside with an assortment of Roman candles and ground spinners.

3. Take the dirty bird outside.

4. Light a match, a very long match.

5. Set fire to the thing and run.

Here’s my question for you this time:

I hope you are having the holiday you want to have, whatever it may be. And if it’s a bit difficult, I leave you with this extremely useful chart.

Because in my opinion, your life’s journey breeds miracles. Now let’s dance!

Which one is you? Or someone you love? Or someone you wish you could say this to?

And that’s a good place to stop.

Your thankful pal,

Ellen

1. A brief note on Chanukah (or Hanukkah, or what you will) gifts: Traditionally, kids were given Chanukah gelt - Yiddish for money. And big ticket items like nuts, raisins and - gasp! - fresh fruit! Nowadays, that’s usually chocolate coins, wrapped in gold foil stamped to look like coins. Very cool. I believe that giving actual presents - whether one for every night, as some families do (mine didn’t!) or at a family holiday party - is so that Jewish kids won’t feel so left out when they hear all about their friends’ considerable Christmas hauls! In fact, I kinda wrote a book about Christmas Envy….. For more info, this is good.

OK, a not so brief note, because I found this interesting factoid: “By the end of the 1800s, the [Yiddish] author Sholem Aleichem [whose stories about Tevye the Dairyman were the source of the musical Fiddler on the Roof] was writing about gelt as an established tradition. In fact, he describes a pair of brothers going from house to house collecting Hanukkah gelt in much the same way that contemporary American children collect candy during Halloween.” —or Irish kids on St Stephen’s Day for money to “bury the wren.” Or English kids begging for soul cakes… Well, hey, it gets them out of the house.