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ellenkushnerThanks to everyone who braved the teeming rains (and incipient travel or entertaining fest) to come to Delia's Freedom Maze launch party last night! I apologize here and now to everyone I grinned at, hugged, started a conversation with and then ran off to make sure the cake was being cut or people knew where to put their coats or . . . . Every party I throw, I swear I will not do this. I always think, "If we had enough help so I didn't feel personally responsible for the dip and the carrots and keeping the glasses full, then I will be free to be just hostess-y and talk to my friends...."
But the truth is, I just don't have it in me. I'm a fusser. And easily distracted. (And, to be fair, my parties tend to be elaborate.) Because we did have enough help last night, and then some! The divine Liz Clark did a huge amount of the cooking - and brought her whole family (in for the holiday) to help serve; her partner the divine Carlos Hernandez looked at my 1950s punch recipes (from Charleston Junior League), my stack of bottles, and said, "Here, let's try this!" - I wish I had photos of him emptying rum into the punch bowl with elan! My wonderful nephew AJ (fresh from his first post-college gig as ass't props man on an indie film . . . and looking for more work in NYC, ahem!) washed knives, ran up & down stairs for plastic spoons for the Chex Mix, moved furniture, arranged crayons aesthetically - and then turns out to have to loveliest tenor, and to know all the 1960s activist songs and much Stephen Foster - or else he sightreads better than anyone should be able to - our pianist, Michael Hicks, did Chopin and gospel and everything in between. Anne Bobby supervised the cake-baking contest (mostly by showing our illustrious judges, Barbara Rosenblat, Doug Shapiro & Ellen Datlow, how to cut the remarkable variety of cakes) - won by Alaya Dawn Johnson, Carol Burrell & J. Elizabeth Clark. And our housekeeper, Mariana Szoke, drove & schlepped & watched the punchbowl like a hawk..... Delia read beautifully (Barbara Rosenblat even complimented her! and said she'd like to do the Audiobook!!!) - and got about 2 minutes of applause! Possibly for her cheese straws & deviled eggs as much as her book - oh, naw.
Thanks, also, to you for your responses to my last post, about Auctions. I wasn't quite clear that it was a question of when to *launch* something we hope will go very viral, rather than about when people are most likely to bid - but, hey: I actually learned quite a lot. We will be putting all this to good use - you'll see when we make the Big Announcement soon.
This morning, we got up too early to go to the lawyer's office to close on our newly-renegotiated crazylow mortgage. Tomorrow, we pack & get on the train for Darkovercon - can't wait to see some of you there! Drop by if you're in the area; I think there are 1-day passes. On Monday, I've got a big interview up on Fantasy Magazine, along with a reprint of "The Swordsman Whose Name was Not Death" - and on Tuesday, Audible.com/ACX/Neil Gaiman Presents the Swordspoint audiobook!
I am now going to put on my flannel nighty and go back to bed.
Have a wonderful holiday, full of food and love. And try to get some rest!
But the truth is, I just don't have it in me. I'm a fusser. And easily distracted. (And, to be fair, my parties tend to be elaborate.) Because we did have enough help last night, and then some! The divine Liz Clark did a huge amount of the cooking - and brought her whole family (in for the holiday) to help serve; her partner the divine Carlos Hernandez looked at my 1950s punch recipes (from Charleston Junior League), my stack of bottles, and said, "Here, let's try this!" - I wish I had photos of him emptying rum into the punch bowl with elan! My wonderful nephew AJ (fresh from his first post-college gig as ass't props man on an indie film . . . and looking for more work in NYC, ahem!) washed knives, ran up & down stairs for plastic spoons for the Chex Mix, moved furniture, arranged crayons aesthetically - and then turns out to have to loveliest tenor, and to know all the 1960s activist songs and much Stephen Foster - or else he sightreads better than anyone should be able to - our pianist, Michael Hicks, did Chopin and gospel and everything in between. Anne Bobby supervised the cake-baking contest (mostly by showing our illustrious judges, Barbara Rosenblat, Doug Shapiro & Ellen Datlow, how to cut the remarkable variety of cakes) - won by Alaya Dawn Johnson, Carol Burrell & J. Elizabeth Clark. And our housekeeper, Mariana Szoke, drove & schlepped & watched the punchbowl like a hawk..... Delia read beautifully (Barbara Rosenblat even complimented her! and said she'd like to do the Audiobook!!!) - and got about 2 minutes of applause! Possibly for her cheese straws & deviled eggs as much as her book - oh, naw.
Thanks, also, to you for your responses to my last post, about Auctions. I wasn't quite clear that it was a question of when to *launch* something we hope will go very viral, rather than about when people are most likely to bid - but, hey: I actually learned quite a lot. We will be putting all this to good use - you'll see when we make the Big Announcement soon.
This morning, we got up too early to go to the lawyer's office to close on our newly-renegotiated crazylow mortgage. Tomorrow, we pack & get on the train for Darkovercon - can't wait to see some of you there! Drop by if you're in the area; I think there are 1-day passes. On Monday, I've got a big interview up on Fantasy Magazine, along with a reprint of "The Swordsman Whose Name was Not Death" - and on Tuesday, Audible.com/ACX/Neil Gaiman Presents the Swordspoint audiobook!
I am now going to put on my flannel nighty and go back to bed.
Have a wonderful holiday, full of food and love. And try to get some rest!
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no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 10:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-23 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-24 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-24 04:41 am (UTC)Now listening to final edits of Swordspoint audiobook! Egad.
Darling, bon-est of voyages to you & your mom! Travel well & happily, with a sweet arrival everywhere you roam.
no subject
Date: 2011-11-24 05:41 pm (UTC)See you on the other side!
I leave tomorrow!!!
no subject
Date: 2011-11-25 12:25 am (UTC)P.S. I will have photos to share with Delia and you soon. . .
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Lossing surpass is indubitably tolerable
Date: 2011-11-26 11:02 am (UTC)Re: Lossing surpass is indubitably tolerable
Date: 2011-11-26 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-28 05:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-28 09:57 pm (UTC)http://www.discovercharleston.com/cuisine/cookbook-bestseller.htm
http://www.jlcharleston.org/?nd=cookbook
http://cookingwiththejuniorleague.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/week-1-about-charleston-receipts/
I love it because it was done in 1950, so the fathers, grandmothers & "servants" the recipes came from included a whole lot of people who would have been alive in the 1860s, or at least the 19c. It's redolent of a particular time & place - and mindset. History in a binder!
no subject
Date: 2011-11-28 09:59 pm (UTC)http://cookingwiththejuniorleague.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/week-1-about-charleston-receipts/
no subject
Date: 2011-11-28 11:06 pm (UTC)I first made the acquaintance of that cookbook when Mr. Ford showed it to me when he was house-sitting down in Charleston and I went to visit him.
(Edited to clear up confusion I made between post and comment, and also to say that alas, they did not mention benne wafers. And now I want some.)