Joan Bauer's Journal

A New Season

A hydrangea that I thought had died pushes up in my garden.  A vine I thought wasn't going to make it began thriving in the last two weeks.  The age-old lilac tree that we were going to cut down because it never bloomed, flourished this year.  I took a tree class today with my neighbors and we all officially adopted the trees on our street, pledging to care for them.  I do not consider myself a gardener, but I would like to be a real one someday. I wrote a book called Stand Tall where the seasons in a boy's life change as a great white oak in the park near his house changes color, drops its leaves, and fills up lush again in spring.  I was reminded today of the root system of trees and have great guilt that I've not been watering the tree in front of my house.  It seemed so big, you know, and it didn't seem like it needed any help from me, but it does -- twenty gallons of water per week, according to the man who spoke with us.  How I have neglected this tree, but I won't anymore. 

It makes me think of what else I've ignored that's right in front of me.  I've had one of those years when I have focused in tight to a few things and I've not been able really to step back and take in the big picture.  I've had one of those years that sped by and I found myself trying to grab at the things racing past.  I know I missed some of those things -- they were passing by so quickly. 

The black squirrel Zorro runs atop my fence. Zorro doesn't like me; he thinks I killed his brother -- I didn't.  I got home last fall and a black squirrel was lying dead in my garden, but Zorro walks atop my fence glaring at me.  "I'm innocent," I tell this squirrel, but he doesn't buy it.  My dog Max comes out and the squirrel runs off.  Max trots to his place in the garden, in charge.  There is something uniquely joyful about my garden this May.  I'm beginning to understand the soil, beginning to understand what plants won't die, beginning to understand my style.  I will turn a wretched age in July, but I suppose that's really okay.  I feel new dreams coming, old dreams being realized, branches being cut off and pruned, and new life taking hold.  

FOR THOSE IN THE CHICAGO AREA, I was recently awarded the Chicago Tribune's Young Adult Literary Prize.  I will be at the Printers Row Book Festival on Saturday, June 4th.  Please come by and say hi.  

 

 

Eat Your Vegetables

A few weeks ago I learned that I'd won the Chicago Tribune Young Adult LIterary Prize.  Of course, I was delighted, but it went deeper than that.  I'm from Chicago and I'd worked at the Chicago Tribune many, many years ago in their classified advertising department.  But the delight went deeper still, because my first published piece of writing was in the Chicago Tribune Magazine -- on June 3, 1973 I won second prize in their fruit and vegetable poetry contest.  A poem about lettuce won first prize, but mine, based on my most hated vegetable, a vegetable so vile and disturbing, that I refused to eat it (almost), causing my otherwise gentle mother to rise up in its defense and make me sit there until I cleaned my plate. 

So here it is in all it's glory.

 

 "Lima Bean Blues" 

With fork in hand, with tongue in cheek, with eyes projecting hate,

I glower at the lima beans remaining on my plate.

Oh bilious lima, bean obscene, awash in salt and butter,

My stomach turns, my psyche churns with thoughts I dare not utter.

But there they sit, and I must eat, although I feel mistreated.

There's one thing worse than lima beans: that's lima beans reheated.

 

It makes sense that my first novel Squashed was also about a vegetable -- a giant pumpkin named Max. I have not developed my career any further as a vegetable writer, but I'm grateful for those early years, and perhps there's something to say about, you know, broccoli, spinach, kale, etc..  Kale would be a good one since so much rhymes with it -- stale, flail, jail, exhale, impale, hangnail, wholesale, pass-fail.  So when people ask, what has being a writer taught you?  One of the answers is, you just never know where a vegetable might take you.  

If you're in the Chicago area on Saturday June 4th, please stop by the Printers Row Book Festival and say hi.  My program is in the afternoon -- time to be determined. 

 

 

Feathers

My good friend gave me five peacock feathers and I have them in a vase in my office.  I'm always stunned when I look at them because the color and the design of each is distinctive.  I picture a peacock strutting around, tail open wide for all the world to see.  I've always felt these birds get a bad rap for being proud and haughty -- I think they've got healthy self esteem.  They know they've got something beautiful -- and to keep it hidden, I mean, what good is that?  It reminds me of when I was younger and battled crippling self esteem issues to the point where I refused to take part in the high school talent show.  I was asked to give a speech I'd done in speech class that everyone thought was very funny.  But, no, I said, I couldn't.  And the night of the talent show?  I sat in my room kicking myself. 

There's a fine line between pride and confidence.  I make lists constantly and one of the ones I make every now and then is called, THINGS I'M GOOD AT.  I don't have to keep a THINGS I'M BAD AT list, because those are written across my eyeballs.  But when I pay attention to to the things I can do well, I have a much better day and according to my husband, I can be downright adorable.  That's letting my inner peacock come out, just a little, although it irks me that male birds get all the bright plumage. 

I'd feel differently about peacocks if they were constantly preening in front of mirrors and sucking in their stomachs, but actually, the thing of greatest beauty they possess is behind them. That puts things in perspective. So, shake out your feathers, strut your stuff a little, and feel good about your very best parts.  

 

 

The Cupcake Whisperer

The other day I was making coconut cupcakes and they were taking longer to bake than I'd expected. I kept opening the oven, smiling at them, and saying things like, "Hi, guys. How's everybody doing in there?" I admit, it had been a long week, and I want to clearly state that I do not talk to just any kind of food. I have never spoken to meatloaf or pie, although I have grumbled while rolling out pie crust. I've never said a word to pasta or muffins. But there's something exceptionally engaging about a cupcake. My new novel, Close to Famous, hits the stores on February 3rd complete with cupcakes on the cover, so I've been thinking about cupcakes and baking them, lots of them, throughout the last year. I set out on a quest -- not the most important of my life, but a quest nonetheless, of being able to turn out a moist cupcake every time. It was a lofty goal, and I went through lots of dry, unacceptable prototypes before I perfected things. I learned the supremacy of cake flour as opposed to regular flour. I learned that when you are testing cupcake recipes in your kitchen -- recipes that you will share with others -- recipes that your publisher will share with others as well -- you would mislead yourself (as did I) by thinking that you alone could do this. Oh, certainly, you could bake all by yourself, but you cannot be the sole taster. I have attempted this and failed.  Believe me, by the time you've eaten three cupcakes in a row, you are in dense sugar shock and unable to discern any subtleties that might make the recipe better.  

My husband would come home from work and I would be slouched in a chair with an empty bowl of frosting before me, declaring I could not get the recipe right. I tried two different batches! "How many did you eat?" he'd ask and I would round down the number. So eventually, Evan took the cupcakes to his office on Long Island where he instructed his colleagues to be brutally honest about the cupcakes.  I wanted the truth. And I got raves, but I didn't quite believe it. So when my daughter was here over the holidays, she and I worked in the kitchen together and Jean seemed to be able to improve on a recipe without going into emotional apoplexy. The young are strong.   

Two of these recipes are on my website and I can tell you that I killed myself over them and my daughter figured out some lovely distinctions to make them sing.  Yes, they sing.  Cupcakes do remarkable things when you coax them. The world is a mess, the weather has been grotesque in so many places. and here comes a little cupcake to cheer us. Is that possible?  Oh yes. They do that, you know; cheer us up.  It's an important attribute in a baked good.  "So, kids, are you cool yet?" I asked this of the coconut cupcakes. They didn't reply. If they had, believe me, we would be on the talk show circuit. This is a long way of saying, if you'd like to read a story that takes a cupcake further than you ever thought it could go, take a look at my new novel, Close to Famous.

 

Thanks, Mom

I can remember a cupcake materializing in the midst of a rotten day. A candle being lit despite the darkness. A birthday party planned even though it had been too tough a season to really think about that. My mother, sister, and I made Pilgrim dolls and decorated the house one Thanksgiving, even though our father hadn't been seen or heard from for weeks. 

My mother's great gift was knowing how to celebrate life no matter what the circumstances. In my new novel, Close to Famous, I gave that gift to my 12 year-old protagonist, Foster McFee. When I began writing this story, I had, like a good baker, all the ingredients out on the counter:  Fear; danger; humor; celebration; change; resilience; denial; over-coming; vanilla cupcakes; secrets; loss; learning challenges; chocolate chip muffins; raw courage; brown sugar brownies; moist chocolate cupcakes; chocolate malt cupcakes; milk chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting; all out despair; and banana cupcakes with fudge frosting. And I thought, OK, Joan, this time, you've done yourself in. This stuff doesn't go together. But of course it did. That's how I grew up. 

My mom died a year ago.  I have many of her belongings, but the ones I cherish most are her casserole dishes. When I use one, as I did recently to make baked apples, the warmth of her in the kitchen is so real to me. My mother knew that cooking unleashes a special power. She would have loved Foster's great dream to be a famous kid cook on television. 

Close to Famous is the first book I've written that my mother never read. But, the lessons she taught me are baked into the pages. Thanks, Mom. This one's for you.

Close to Famous is available in stores February 3rd.  To learn more, visit joanbauer.com.

You've Got To Be Kidding

I bought them at a large box store that begins with the letter C.  They were by the men's socks -- the kind my husband likes -- near the motor oil and the big book table, which was directly across from the towering cans of tuna fish.  I didn't need them, I didn't even know things like this existed, but the minute I saw them we bonded. So I bought them, this long string of purple grape lights, and I put them up in my office.  Actually, I draped them over my grandmother's old secretary desk, plugged them in, and laughed.  My husband said, what are those?  My dog crawled out of my office.  My friend came over and said, you've got to be kidding, Joan.  So I took them down and forgot about them until I was attempting to clean the basement -- note the word, attempting -- and I found my grape lights in a box.  Right then, I heard the voice of a professional organizer I know say, if you haven't used something in a year, toss it.  Well, I hadn't used these in three years, I didn't even know if they still worked, but I wasn't tossing them.  I brought them back to my office, arranged them over my grandmother's desk, plugged them in, the lights beamed on, and I laughed.   

I'm not sure why these grapes speak to me the way they do.  Perhaps it's because they are just so deeply weird and wonderful.  Perhaps it's because I'm starting a new book and I want it to be bold and a little crazy.  Perhaps it's because grapes have always reminded me of a fruitful harvest.  No matter.  I think everyone needs something equivalent to grape lights that no one will understand but you. So here they are, world.  Love me, love my grape lights. Get something bold and stick it up.  I'm not kidding.

 

 

The Joan Bauer Chicken

Sometimes a chicken just has your name on it.  People like Frank Purdue and Murray Bresky of Murray's organic chickens know this.  But I hadn't known this until recently when I received an email from Wendy Thomas of New Hampshire asking if I would like to have a chicken named after me.  I can say truthfully, I'd never once thought of that.  I've had people name their pets after some of the characters in my books, but this was different.  A few other authors, like Meg Cabot, Judy Blume, Jody Piccault, and Laurie Halse Anderson had chickens named after them.  I was deeply honored and said yes.  Then I began to worry about my chicken because I felt we had, you know, bonded somehow.  I felt guilty that I didn't know much about chickens other than the egg part and the roasting part, and I felt guilty especially when I went to the grocery story and stood by the poultry section.  But the Joan Bauer chicken, I was assured, would never be eaten.  And with that news, I did buy a Murray's organic chicken and threw it into my cart, but I averted my eyes when I sprinkled it with salt, pepper, fresh herbs and olive oil and put it in the oven.   

I began to wonder if my chicken was getting along with the other chickens, because in school I was a bit of a loner.  I wondered how she was doing in gym, because I didn't know I was athletic until I was thirty.  She is, it turns out a bit camera shy, but when she feels like it she lets loose with a serious peep. It's comforting to know there is another Joan Bauer out there waddling through the literary barnyard, doing her best to be a good egg. 

Here's the interview with photos.  Isn't she cute?  I'm so proud. http://simplethrift.wordpress.com/2010/08/24/project-chickens-before-the-eggs-lesson-140-good-egg-interview-with-joan-bauer/

 

 

Vroom

I have a photograph of a baby duck that my daughter took a few years ago.  I was with Jean at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden when she caught the magic moment of a duckling swimming past lily pads, leaving a ripple in the water behind her (I've decided the duck is a girl).  And this is one small, determined duck, clearly on a mission, going where no duck has gone before.  Jean calls the photograph "Vroom" -- an excellent, action word.  Those who vroom do more than move forward or run, they rev their engines and blast off.  And a duck who vrooms is a very special beast.  Ducks speak to me -- metaphorically, that is. Years ago, I ended a book with a duck who entered the last scene and showed what it meant to be a survivor.  

I have put my new book to bed, Close to Famous (available in February 2011), and have begun another novel.  Perhaps that's why I am thinking about the creative path ahead of me.  I keep wanting it to be straight and clear -- it never is.  But, I still must begin with as much power and surety as I can muster. The German poet Goethe wrote, "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."  Power is released when we start something -- it's less about feeling, less about inspiration, it's about getting in the water, stretching our wings, and taking off across the pond.  We've been made for that, you know.

 

From the Heart

I had one of those moments the other day when past and present morph together.  We live in a house built in 1875, and the man who owned it before we did and restored it himself, was driving down our street.  I didn't recognize him at first. He looked at me and I looked at him and then I remembered.  My husband and I invited him in to see the place, and I wish I could describe his face as he was walking up the steps.  I apologized profusely because the house was cluttered, and I explained why it was cluttered, and that I had big plans to do something about it, but he didn't care about that.  And really, I didn't either.  

He stood in the hall and looked up.  "I almost got rid of that molding," he said.  "We had such trouble making this work."  We love it, I told him.  He walked into the living room, shaking his head and grinning: "You wouldn't believe what this room looked like -- we had so much smoke blowing out the window when we were doing the repairs, the fire department came."  He walked to the fireplace and put his hand on the mantel.  In room after room, he told us the story of fixing up the house -- the parts that were easy, the ones that were hard.  He was honest, too -- "I should have done that better," he said in a few places.  It was an emotional time.  He still loved this house -- he'd put his heart into it.  We got to the guest room and that room is always filled with memories of how my friend came and helped me decorate it -- she had her van filled with wonderful things -- what a lovely, long weekend that was.  We talked about our families and what the last seven years have been like since he sold the house to us.  And when he left, I thought, his heart will always be in this place.  Any time we put our heart into something, I think a part of us is carved into the work.  What a colossal difference that makes.

Shade

I have a shady garden and I've groused for years that I want one where I can grow peonies and roses and snapdragons.  You can't do that in the shade.  But there are wonderful plants that can only grow in the shade, like coral impatiens and ruby red begonias. I've learned these last years the power of shade and the lushness that can come from the darkest corners of a garden.

As we head into the week before 9-11, I think shade is a fitting image.  What happened nine years ago cast such shadows; in many places that cloud is still there. My mind is drawn to the contradiction of the aloe plant.  The juice has a bitter taste, but when applied to a bruise, it's healing and gentle.  A rose, as we all know, smells and looks beautiful, but the thorns are the price we pay for growing it and cutting it.  I smile thinking about my daughter's plight -- her favorite flower is the crocus.  So very much can go wrong as a crocus pushes up through the cold ground -- the first flower to come out of winter.  Loving a crocus is a lot of pressure, but Jean feels it's worth the devotion, because that tough, little flower is all about resilience.  This week, may our eyes be open to see what can only grow in the shade, and may the power of that shine brighter than any darkness.