This week I am changing up Wednesday Writers Write by posting Ian McEwan talking about writing June's Book Club Extraordinaire selection Sweet Tooth. 

Margi is so kind to share her delicious Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler from our last book club meeting. 


STRAWBERRY RHUBARB COBBLER

FRUIT

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
• 11/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 2 1/2 cups diced rhubarb (from about 1/2 pound trimmed stalks)
• 3 cups ripe strawberries, hulled and quartered

TOPPING

• 1 cup flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup yellow cornmeal (not stone-ground)
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• Zest of one medium lemon
• 3 tablespoons cold butter, diced
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 400F. Lightly butter a 9-inch deep-dish pie plate.

In a small bowl, whisk together sugar, flour, and cinnamon- set aside.

Place rhubarb in a medium bowl and toss with above flour mixture. Add strawberries and mix gently to combine. Spoon fruit mixture into prepared pie dish. Set aside

Combine flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon zest in a medium bowl. Add diced butter and cut into flour with a pastry blender or the tips of your fingers until a coarse meal is formed. Add buttermilk and stir gently with a fork to moisten. 
Do not over mix! Evenly spoon topping over fruit.

Set pie dish in oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until topping is golden and fruit is bubbly.

Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla or cinnamon ice cream, or a dollop of lightly whipped cream.

Makes 8-10 servings

Last night, Book Club Extraordinaire discussed Michael Chabon’s novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Chabon’s incredibly innovative novel piqued my interest into where he finds inspiration. In an interview with Bryon Cahilll in 2005 for Writing, he says: "Reading a book that is just so wonderful that it makes me want to write a book as wonderful — that is the time when I'm most aware of being inspired."

The article goes on to tell how Chabon gets into the groove.  "When you are writing, you're so caught up in the world you're creating that everything else seems to fade away," Chabon answered. "Fiction and stories are one of the only ways we have of getting a sense of what it might be like to be somebody that we're not. This is something that we can really never know, but in fiction it becomes possible. And that is a kind of escape. You're escaping from your own self."

Chabon knew he wanted to be a writer since he was 10 years old after writing a short story about Sherlock Holmes. This was a turning point that convinced him he wanted to write. "I thought to myself, That's it. That's what I want to do. I can do this. And I never had any second thoughts or doubts."

Michael Chabon: A writer with many faces.Cahill, Bryon, Writing, Apr/May 2005 

After finishing David Grossman’s moving novel To the End of The Land, about the anguish of a mother over the possible death of her son written as Grossman grieved the loss of his son during an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, I began thinking about other writers who used the writing process to help make sense of their loss.

Chilean writer, Isabel Allende, author of The House of the Spirits (1985) and Daughter of Fortune (1999), is one who came to mind. Her anguished letters written at her daughter’s hospital bedside became the memoir, Paula (1994). The loss of a child is the most significant and traumatic death of a family member, the most personal loss any individual can face. Paula Frias, 26, falls ill and lapses into a coma, and ultimately dies at age 28. Allende finds solace in the letters she writes to her daughter. Her letters tell the story of her family history she plans to share with her daughter when she awakens. These letters become the basis for her memoir, it begins with, “Listen Paula, I am going to tell you a story so that when you wake up you will not feel so lost.”

The process of writing helped her move from the depths of grief to a celebration of her daughter’s life. She explained: “I had a choice…Was I going to commit suicide? Sue the hospital? Or was I going to write a book that would heal me?” (Hornblower) The act of writing became an act of hope to combat her feelings of anger, guilt, fear and despair.

In honor of her daughter, Allende started the Isabel Allende Foundation. Read more about their story at http://www.isabelallendefoundation.org/iaf.php.

Maier, Linda. “Mourning Becomes Paula: The Writing Process as Therapy for Isabel Allende.” Hispania, Vol. 86, No. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 237-243

Hornblower, Margot. “Grief and Rebirth.” Rev. of Paula, by Isabel Allende. Time 10, July 1995: 65