Joan Bauer's Journal

The Project Girls

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, with so much devastation, with complexity and struggle, with a supremely mean election churning toward the finish line, with people wondering whom they can trust, with money short, with credit high, with angst and discouragement and depression and anger all around, I want to tell you about an email I received recently from two girls.  The subject line read: 

HELP US!!! 

They had just read my novel Close to Famous, about a girl named Foster who is a serious baker and struggles terribly with reading. Foster has a green apron with a shooting star -- trust me, that's important (see below).  But let them tell you in their words (I've deleted their names and did get their permission to share their correspondence)...they are The Project Girls.

 HEY Joan I loved your book close to famous it was amazing i read it in a day.Well you see i am in reading competition with my friend and that is where i found your book she read it and she told me so much about it thats all she talked about for a week! A WHOLE WEEk!!! Then she said to me that i need to read the book so i read it and OMG are you an amazing WRITER and me and her are doing a project for YOUR book we decided for our class project were going to make the cupcakes in the back of the book and were doing a powerpoint about your book and I thought it would be cool to do a slide all about YOU so thats why im emailing you im sorry i dont know what to say ive never liked a book enough to contact an author your my first one i would love if you would email me back i would be so happy! just tell me all about you things nobody knows that you wont mind sharing one question id really like you to answer is why did you write this book was it something that happened in your life i would love to put you in my powerpoint Joan so PLEASE email back i would like it real soon our deadlines coming up by the way were in 8th grade!!

Yours truly...

 

It's impossible not to answer an email like this, and you must respond right away.  So I gave them some places on my website to get info and I wrote:

Hi guys -- So glad you liked the book!  How cool is that?  I'll give you one quick thing that NOBODY KNOWS.  And it just happened yesterday.  Before yesterday, my three favorite cupcakes were coconut, maple pecan, and chocolate.  I just had lunch with my daughter in Providence and we went to this insanely significant cupcake place called the Duck and Bunny and now my number one favorite cupcake is Banana Nutella, number two is Red Velvet, and number three is coconut.

Okay, use this information wisely and get a terrific grade. 

Joan Bauer

A week later, I got this...

 

It's us, the project girls!

Dear Joan, do you remember us? We sent you an email pretty fast back and told us your favorite kind of cupcakes!  We did a PowerPoint about you. We wanted to tell you about our project so far its due on the 25th now... Well the PowerPoint is done and we were making cupcakes the night before but we decided we needed Foster Aprons so we went to Walmart and got a pack of aprons coloring dye a shooting star stencil and some yellow paint for the star and also sparkling red grape wine don't worry were 13 and 14 its non alcoholic. We were following directions for the aprons and it said to fill your sink with 2 gallons of water and SALT (it smelled really bad) then to put the packet in (it was like a powder you added) well Sierra dropped it in the sink had to get the packet out of the water out and got our fingers green. (we definitely had a green thumb) well after like an hour of splashing green on ourselves we had to put it in the washing machine it was haaarrrd work we decided to drink our red grape drink and we toasted to you and our green fingers. wish us good luck cleaning up well keep you up on the status of our project.

Yours Truly...

 

I give a standing ovation to these girls for guts and initiative.  I applaud their teacher for giving this assignment.  I salute their parents for being such good eggs, and I so hope the green dye didn't destroy the sink or permanently stain hands, etc., truly I do.    

And in case you were wondering how to get someone's attention, let The Project Girls inspire you.  In my book they get an A+ and major points for extra credit.  Nobody gets better mail than those of us who write for kids.  

 

 

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.