This week whirled by in a warm green blur. I'm still working on the second Teeny book, A Teeny Bit of Trouble, and I wonder if it will ever end. Time seems to stop and speed up, all at once, and I am lost in a teeny dream. It's a wonderful thing, actually, because I'm not writing--I'm inhabiting the book.
The days are long and hot, and I find myself thinking of last spring, peony season.
It was a time when I had a bit of spare time and pink ruffled things grew in my garden.
I took a moment for myself to nourish the belly and the spirit.
A Peony Picnic
What You Need:
Peonies (or any flower that makes you happy)
Table and floral tablecloth
Mismatched pottery
Compote and pitcher
Cherries
Strawberries and cream
Berry Tarts
Solitude
Peace
Crisp spring air
(Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.com. (c) Galina Kochergina, one of my favorite photographers)
Thank you for visiting this week's Foodie Friday. If you are contributing a recipe, please click on the blue frog (below) and add your permalink. Follow Inlinkz's instructions to select a thumbnail image. A tutorial is available on the sidebar (click on the white cupcakes).
The winner of the Designs by Gollum/Teeny Templeton/Acquainted With the Night Kindle contest is: Judy at Fajdich Times. Congratulations! Please email me with mailing instructions! I am also hosting another Kindle giveaway at http://www.betweennapsontheporch.blogspot.com/, so be sure to visit Susan's wonderful blog and leave her a comment to enter the giveaway.
The winner of the goodie-stuffed beach basket will be announced next week. I'm on Deadline, haven't left my house in weeks, living in chaos, but hope to be blogging regularly soon.
If you are contributing to this week's Foodie Friday, click on the blue Inlinkz frog and add your permalink. Follow Inlinkz's instructions to choose your image. Thanks to everyone for being a part of Foodie Friday--you don't know how much your food and friendship keep me going.
I'm having technical troubles (Internet fading in/out; my laptop ate 99% of my pictures; and Blogger won't let me comment, even on my own blog/s) today, so I'm posting early and drinking strawberry lemonade.
I'd appreciate your help this Foodie Friday. If you'd like to give input about a few book videos, keep reading. Because of the laptop glitch and the loss of photos and videos, I'm trying to decide which ones to buy (again), so if you watch the videos, I'd appreciate your vote on the images--and your reactions to the videos in general. They've got a long way to go (but I've got several months to work on them).
A little background info about writing and Teeny Templeton. Food and music always collide in my books. I'm partial to songs that mention food: Brown Sugar, (Put the) Lime in the Coconut, Wild Honey, The Lemonade Song, etc.
Gone With A Handsomer Man has its share of wacky recipes, such as "You'll Get Yours Peach Icing" and "Skewer Your Ex Kabobs," but a dark streak ripples beneath the surface:
child abuse, abandonment, alcoholism, and mental illness.
Sometimes I make up stuff, and sometimes I deliberately add my own experiences.
Like the time my family was dining at the officer's club in Pensacola, and we bragged and bragged about the gumbo, and my mother got furious and threatened to swing from a chandelier (Consuming Passions).
I didn't try to mask the crippling grief after my daddy died; I tried to use words as a healing force (American Pie) and prayed they would rise from the book and help someone else.
From the first moment I "met" Teeny Templeton, I knew she was different--a buoyant, forgiving, resilient soul. No matter what I did to this woman, she refused to sink.
It's just easier if Teeny explains:
Mama ran off when I was eight years old, and for a long time, I blamed myself. I was a sickly child, stricken with allergies and asthma. Mama blamed my troubles on the year I was born, 1980, when Mount Saint Helen’s erupted and John Lennon got shot.
When Mama got to drinking, she believed Elvis was alive and the aliens had landed. In her lighter moments she matched Bible verses to songs and recipes, such as Leviticus 7:12, key lime cake, and “MacArthur Park.”
Mama never hit me, but she called me names like “possum head” and “the little preacher.”
“I’m the Mouth of the South,” she’d say.
It was true. Once she got started talking, she couldn’t stop.
Aunt Bluette tried to help. She’d make Mama pull weeds, make peach jam, or string beans. But my mama was like a caged bird. If you opened the door for a second, the bird would escape, darting from room to room, smashing against windows, searching for a way through the clear glass, wanting nothing more than to fly up into the blue.
Lord knows where I would have ended up if Aunt Bluette hadn’t raised me. Her method was kindness, cooking, the Holy Scriptures, and peaches. She was right fond of quoting politicians, such as "Believe but verify" (Ronald Regan) and "Carry a big stick" (Roosevelt).
After Mama left, I'd get the shakes, and my aunt would hold my hands and wait until I calmed down. Thanks to her unconditional love, I finally realized that Mama was sick, but she'd loved me.
The Bible says to forgive those who hurt us. I’ll be honest—forgiving Mama was the easy part. If she walked in the door right now, I’d put my arms around her and tell her I loved her, and I’d cut her a huge piece of red velvet cake.
When it came to forgiving myself, I resisted. I wanted to wallow in post mortems and if-onlys. Oh, how lovely it would be if self-forgiveness was one of man’s basic needs, something we did automatically.
Like breathing.
I'm testing book videos and would love your reactions. Right now, I haven't added text--I'm experimenting with images and music. If you like/dislike something or feel confused, could you let me know? Your comments will be a tremendous help when I start working on the final videos.
Video #1:
Video #2
Video #3:
There's still time to enter the Kindle and beach bag giveaways. Your name will be added THREE times if you leave a message about your reaction to one or more of the videos. I'll look forward to your comments.
A Note on the Music: If you like the song in the video, it's available on iTunes and Pond5. The title is “Falling Through Water” by Jonathan Slatter from the album "Oceans and Dreams." Excerpts from two novels, Gone With A Handsomer Man and A Teeny Bit of Trouble.
If you are contributing to this week's Foodie Friday, add your permalink here:
A fun mix of truth and fiction: the Templeton family scrapbook includes vintage photographs from my own family). I love looking at old photos. They take me right back to Mississippi, and I'm a girl again, surrounded by my kinfolk.
My Mimi with her sisters.
Names are cloaked, of course, to respect my family's privacy. Here's the "most beautiful aunt" with my second cousin, "Sunshine."
Circa 1978, Christmas Dinner.
(No, I'm not protecting His Lordship. The bearded dude is Dr. Big. I've got a pixie hair-do.)
It's no accident that my novels contain food metaphors. I grew up in a wild clan of Southern cooks who compared men to vegetables.
from Gone With A Handsomer Man:
Love is complex and has more than one layer. It's like an onion. You can chop it, dice it, and pulverize it, but the flavor is still be there, even if it stings your eyes.
I pulled the sheet over my head and tried to think of a soothing imaginary recipe. What I really needed was Smother Your Love gravy, poured over Forget Him pork chops, with a heaping side dish of He's Better Off With Another Girl pie. Whipped cream would be a nice touch. However, it's fragile and requires a stabilizer--once whipped cream falls apart, you can't put it back together.
But sometimes, I leave food out of the equation and add a country song:
I'm pleasedto announce a new feature at Foodie Friday -- Foodie Friday Movies.
Participants will be chosen at random and their photographs will be included in a series of short films. If you're interested, be sure to add a link to next week's FF and add a short comment (small print will be fine or you can email me), granting me one-time only permission to use your images in the films.
Do you need dessert ideas? Here's a 52-second movie that features rising stars in the cupcake world.
Are you stressed?
Do you need to kick back and spend a few minutes with nature?
Many bloggers took the time from their busy schedules to cook and photograph recipes from Gone With a Handsomer Man. Teeny is evermore grateful, and she requests permission to add one of your images to her sidebar. If it's not too much trouble, she needs the permalink to your post.
Is the heat getting to you? Do you need a design fix? Tour the fabulous (but fictional) Spencer-Jackson House
on Charleston's Rainbow Row.
Teeny's Weekly Menus Teeny Templeton is excited to be a contributor to this week's edition of On the Menu Monday at Stone Gable. Here's a sneak peak video tour of Teeny's menu:
