Bon Appetit!

 Ahhh...the depths of winter in Minnesota. It gives one plenty of time to read, write and reflect on the world. And so that's what I've been doing lately.

Reading- I've read several good books lately. My go-to books are history or biography- always have been. I'm drawn to them. But then I started to become a writer, so I began reading more fiction to become better at the craft of writing.

"Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann is about a series of murders of Osage Native Americans in Oklahoma in the 1920s. A fascinating look into greed, racism, and the birth of the FBI. 

"The Keeper of Lost Things" by Ruth Hogan is a newer, fiction book. It's about an author who finds lost things and tried to reunite them with their original owners. When he dies, his assistant and friends take up the cause along with the rest of their life issues. I confess, I struggled a bit to get into it, but by the end, I enjoyed it quite a bit. Favorite book ever? No. Worst book ever? Also no.

"My Life in France" is Julia Child's autobiography, written with her nephew, Alex Proud'homme. Very fun read! It details her, you guessed it, life in France as she lived with her husband, Paul (a diplomat), and learned to love France and French cooking. Later she co-wrote the granddaddy of all cookbooks and created the first real TV cooking show. My favorite line from the book is, "Our kitchen had enough knives to fill a pirate ship." If that doesn't give you a vision of her kitchen...

A couple of things she wrote about blew me away. Take in mind, she's writing about France in the 1950s & 1960s primarily. But she wrote about gluten in baking, charcuterie boards, and how sweet tasting all of the food in America is. Honestly, it was only within the last ten years that I first heard of any of those! And, by the end, how the art of cooking, even in France, was truly disappearing with the pace of life.

Writing- I have been working on my new (yet to be named) series. My main characters, Gus and Greta Brodin, are coming to life in my head, which means I can bring them (I hope) to life on the page. It's been fun working with new characters and a new story idea. The American Revolution books took the better part of five years to create, so it's nice to try something new. "At its best, the Caribbean is beautiful beyond description. At its worst, it's a storm ravaged bit of hell that created the Bermuda Triangle. Seasoned sailors did not take its passage lightly."

Reflecting- I am feeling so many thoughts about the American Revolution books! From pride in myself for writing them to regret over mistakes a newbie writer made, I'm all over the place. Honestly, if I could do it all over again, I'd do a lot of things differently. But that's what learning is all about, right? Right?! I know I can't go back and change things, but I can think about ways to do them better. I hope to use what I've learned to make the next book(s) that much better. 

'''Oh, I've also done plenty of cooking and binge eating over the winter. So, in the words of French folks and Julia Child, bon appetit!