Marshall Field and Company

 

The iconic clock on the Marshall Field & Co. flagship store
Corner of State Street and Washington Street, Chicago

Sandwiches for supper turned into a trip down memory lane for me. It wasn’t just any sandwich—it was a classic Marshall Field Turkey Sandwich that actually resembles “classic” sandwiches served in many places. I remember having something similar at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth. An open-faced sandwich with rye topped by turkey, Swiss cheese, and Thousand Island dressing and decorated with tomato, sliced egg, bacon and olive—shh! don’t tell Christian because I didn’t offer him an olive, which he loves.

Anyway, the sandwich started me thinking about my many ties and trips to the flagship Marshall Field store in downtown Chicago. Those excursions started when I was very young. My father, an osteopathic physician, had an office on the seventeenth floor of the Marshall Field Annex, and Mom would end shopping trips by taking me to the bargain basement where, hidden away in a corner, was a snack bar that far as I can remember only served hot dogs and frozen malts. I loved it. Then, nearby, was a secret door (I just thought it was a secret—it really wasn’t) that opened to a staircase. Go up one floor and through the door and, like magic, we were in the lobby of the annex without having to go out of the building and cross the downtown street. We’d take the elevator to the seventeenth floor. That was in the day when there was a white-gloved, uniformed operator in every elevator.

By the time I was old enough to be turned loose in the store, I knew every inch of every floor.  I could take you to household goods or teen clothes. I knew we came in by the glove counter, and on that pillared first floor were the hosiery and jewelry counters. On the sixth floor you could choose from several restaurants. The Walnut Room, a bit staid and dignified, was the main dining area, but Mom and I always liked The Verandah, decorated as though it were part of a southern mansion. In fact, I bet I had the classic sandwich there. And I know at least once, when Mom was nowhere around, my friend Eleanor Lee and I rode up the down escalator and down the up, to the consternation of store employees no doubt. Today I’m uncertain of my footing on escalators and avoid them when I can, so I look back on that adventure with awe.

Eventually I could go downtown by myself, riding the IC or Illinois Central commuter train. And mostly I went to Marshall Field’s though I did give a bit of business to rival Carson, Pirie & Scott just a block down State Street. I remember once paying twenty dollars for a blouse and thinking I was terribly extravagant. By then, Dad had closed his downtown office and was full time president of the Chicago College of Osteopathy and administrator of the adjacent hospital, so I had no downtown refuge.

The last time I was at Field’s was in the nineties, when I visited with a Texas friend who had grown up in a northwest Chicago suburb. We had lunch in the Walnut Room, and it was a bit shabby. We both felt the magic we remembered from our childhood was gone. But my connection to Field’s doesn’t end there.

I can’t remember which came first—the book I read or the one I wrote. The one I read was What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age, by Renée Rosen, which perhaps inspired both the title and subject of my The Gilded Cage: A Novel of Chicago. My novel focused on Bertha (Cissy) Palmer, wife of hotelier Potter Palmer who built the Palmer House. Marshall Field played a large part in that story, for he and Potter Palmer were prominent among Chicago’s Robber Barons, along with Gustavus Swift, Philip Armour, George Pullman and others. Cissy Palmer interested me because she was the first (or one of them) woman philanthropist and most probably the first marred to a Robber Baron. The fictionalized version of her life covers Chicago history from the 1840s through the 1893 Columbian Exposition, including the Great Fire, labor troubles, the Civil War, and the Haymarket Riot. You can read a bit more about Cissy and her world here: The Gilded Cage: A Novel of Chicago - Kindle edition by Alter, Judy. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. (That’s called blatant self promoton or BSP.)

Last night, Christian liked the Marshall Field sandwich so much he voted to keep it on the rotation of dishes we frequently have. I agreed, because not only did I like it, it brought back happy memories. There has never been another store like Field’s—not even Neiman Marcus—and I miss it. At least you can still get their much-praised Frango Mints online.

 

What’s on your bucket list?

The view from Stirling Castle in the Scottish Highlands,
with the Wallace memorial seen in the middle

Before I get to bucket lists, I want to say that National Dog Day will certainly tell you who your friends are, although I’m not sure whether it is Sophie or me that has so many friends. But in haste I threw up a handy picture of me holding Sophie—it’s really not a flattering picture of either of us. Sophie was recovering coat after being shaved at the vet, and one skinny leg, all bone, is sticking up with a tuff of fur at the end like a booty. Otherwise, her coat looks like it never met a brush or comb. Sideways from the left is definitely not my best look—so much jowl I look worse than my dear dad. But 124 of you have liked it—and still counting. Sophie and I are both flattered and grateful.

Now about the bucket list. I saw a suggestion that we replace a bucket list with a “cut it” list, so I got to thinking about my list. It’s short. I think of bucket lists as mainly listing travel destinations, and at my age and given the fact that I’m not an easy traveler—don’t like to fly although I will—and I’m now mobility challenged, I have already put several things on a cut-it list. Still on my bucket list: a return to Scotland, where I left my heart in the Highlands, and a return to Chicago, my hometown. It’s no coincidence that I want to go to places I love and find comfortable. I missed the gene that wants to explore every exotic location on the globe. Machu Picchu is simply not for me.

I suppose a few things besides travel destinations go on a bucket list, so there are a couple of new restaurants in Fort Worth I want to go to—Le Margot (French) and Walloon’s (southern seafood). But I really don’t need them on a list.  I’ll get there sooner or later.

That made me think about what I’d do if “The Millionaire” arrived at my front door. My first instinct was that I would donate the money, probably to my church. But then I thought about the various projects we’d like to do around the house. Christian wants to create a master suite in the attic and an ensuite bedroom for me downstairs (no, I’m not ready to leave the cottage). And I am itching to do extensive landscaping, turning our lawn into one big bed of wildflowers. I realize the end of the hottest, driest summer in years is not the time to think about that. Besdies, back in the day when “The Millionaire” was popular, a million would go pretty far. I’m not so sure about today.

So much for dreaming about a bucket list and sudden wealth. What have I already put on my cut-it list? A cruise through the inner passage in Alaska—sure, I’d like to visit Denali and I think Ketchikan would be fun, but Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks aren’t calling my name. I get pretty good salmon at home. I’d also probably like a trip to New England to see the fall foliage and eat fresh lobster. I know the lobster we get in Texas pales before what I’d eat at the shore, but I’ll settle for it. A cruise that we reluctantly cancelled a few years ago should still be on my bucket list—the Great Lakes from Chicago to Toronto. I’m fascinated by the Great Lakes, probably due to my Chicago upbringing. In Oakville, a suburb of Toronto, my grandmother’s house was a block from Lake Ontario. So both ends of the trip appealed, but the summer we were to go I was seriously ill and lost any enthusiasm for travel. I got my health back, but not the travel enthusiasm.

I suppose all our bucket lists reflect who we are, but I find mine shows that I like the familiar and the comfortable. I am not all that interested in exploring new places. Even Paris, London, and Rome don’t call to me. I am most happy in my cottage and at my desk. But my limited list, even my cut-it list, reflects my interest in food. Maybe bucket lists—and cut-it lists—are the new personality indicators.

What’s on your bucket list? Your cut-it list?

Keeping the Sabbath

 

I definitely do not mean to turn this blog into, “Look what I had for dinner tonight!” but I can’t resist. Our dinner tonight was so good and so lovely to look at—a Mediterranean chopped salad with marinated steak. Christian knows how to tenderize even the cheapest cut—tonight was skirt steak, and it was delicious, served with a bit of marinade to go over it. Grilled red bell pepper and onion, and fresh grape tomatoes, sliced baby cucumbers, feta, and pita chips, all drizzled with the marinade which was heavy in lemon zest. A delightful dinner, and as Christian pointed out, healthy.

Tonight there were just the three of us, Jacob being at camp. But the dinner was a bit fancier and a bit more work than any of us do during the week. That’s because we try to keep the tradition of Sunday dinner. When my kids were in high school, I often had fifteen or more at my Sunday dinner table—my kids, some of their friends, assorted friends of mine including the family of my goddaughter, and always, my brother and his two children. I sometimes ran out of menu ideas but occasionally splurged on leg of lamb or turkey roulades. Other times, it was a casserole, but I tried to make it special.

The sermon at my church this morning, delivered by my favorite minister and good friend Renee Hoke, was about keeping the sabbath. Renee began with her childhood memories—rushing to be on time for church, sitting through Sunday school, the ritual of the service, and then rushing home for the roast beef dinner that was in the oven all morning. My memories are a bit different.

On Chicago’s changing South Side in the forties and fifties, we attended St. James Methodist at 46^th and Ellis, because in the twenties my father, in osteopathic school, lived in a fraternity house at 48^th and Ellis. And, a preacher’s kid, he was a loyal attendee. When my brother was old enough to drive, his job was to deliver both of us to Sunday school and then go back home to get Mom and Dad for the eleven o’clock service. Truth is he dropped me off, went cruising (having sworn me to secrecy), and then got our parents for church. I never ratted on him.

But by the fifties, the face of the neighborhood and the church was changing. Neighborhoods in Chicago were segregated along fairly defined lines, and 47^th Street marked the division between black and white. North of 47^th was Bronzeville, a flourishing Black business and residential district. As kids, we knew not to go there—except for church. Our church was increasingly Black and, sad to say, increasingly hostile to the remaining white population. One Sunday Mom heard someone preach about the white man as enemy. She went home with a migraine and vowed never to go back.

I meantime had made friends with several girls who went to the United Church of Hyde Park,

United Church of Hyde Park

safely on 53^rd Street in the middle of the Hyde Park neighborhood, even then a bastion for intellectuals and a diverse population. I began going to Brownies and then gradually to Sunday school and the evening teen group, called for some unknown reason Tuxus. That group and those friends were the core of my high school life, and to this day I remain grateful for that group and that church. Many of my church friends are now gone, but I remain in touch with at least one. It was, quite simply, a marvelous teenage experience.

Meanwhile, back at home, we didn’t have the traditional roast beef—we’d probably been eating it all week. On Sundays Mom would fix “supper” instead of “dinner”—a spinach souffle (my favorite) or a cheese strata or even Welsh rarebit. In winter, she’d roll the tea table into the living room in front of the fireplace, and we’d have our supper there. Fond memories.

Today, all the Sundays of my life come back to me. I am a faithful churchgoer, albeit on my computer, though I keep vowing to attend in person (that takes family cooperation). And I feel the need to make Sunday dinner special—the Burtons feel it too, though not quite as fervently as I do. Yet today was a good example of how I keep the Sabbath—the eleven o’clock service in the morning, a nap in the afternoon, and Sunday dinner in the evening. And somehow, indefinably, Sunday always feels different to me than the weekdays. I think I take to heart the idea of rest, which I think is part of what Rev. Hoke was saying this morning when she talked about detaching—detaching from feeling we need to be in control, to worry about everything. Instead, she suggested delight—watching a hummingbird (that brought memories of my mom), watching a child’s delight (I have a whole warehouse of those memories). I am going to watchful now for sabbath delights—and just maybe tonight’s dinner was one of them.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Am I a Texan or a Chicagoan

 

I’ve lived in Texas since the summer of 1965—that’s a whopping fifty-eight years, well over two thirds of my life. That first summer saw the flourishing of the “Born in Texas” movement, and shopping malls, which we frequented then, had kiosks with T-shirts bearing that slogan and others, like, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could.” You could buy certificates that certified that you were a native Texan, although of course it would have been easy to cheat. In a few years, by the time I had children and wanted T-shirts for them, the craze was over.

People in Texas thought I talked funny with my Chicago flat speech, but after a year, when I went home or talked to a relative back home, they all laughed at my southern accent. To this day, my kids say my accent depends on what I’m talking about—If I am, as I frequently have in the past, talking about author Elmer Kelton, one of my heroes, they say I get a cowboy twang.

Much of my career—as an author, as director of the TCU Press—revolved around Texas, and over the years I began to feel like a native Texan, even if it was a bit of a lie. Still folklorist Joyce Roach and I had a dog-and-pony show we took to meetings and other places—once even performing for an elite group of big donors at TCU. Joyce talked about the glories of being a fifth-generation Texan. My talk was titled, “Notes from an outsider.” I knew my place.

Not every book I’ve written has been about Texas, but a high percentage of them have. I’ve been best known for writing about women of the American West—Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Jessie Benton Frémont, cowgirl Lucille Mulhall, and Etta Parker of the Hole in the Wall Gang. But there were lots of Texas titles—a book about Elmer Kelton, books about Texas food from chili to great chefs, and most recently, three mystery series set in Texas. Yes, I claimed my credentials as a Texas writer.

But in the last ten years, a feeling for Chicago—I’m not sure how to describe it, but perhaps affection is a good word—has increasingly taken a place in my thinking. Years ago I wrote a y/a novel, I Wish I Lived at Eleanor Lee’s House, about something that really happened when I was a teen. I was then published by a small Texas press, and the publisher had no market for a Chicago title, so I put it aside. I’ve recently gotten it out and reread it with some interest.

But it was The Gilded Cage, a fat historical about Bertha Honore (Cissy) Palmer, wife of hotelier and robber baron Potter Palmer, that first renewed my interest in Chicago. I loved exploring the complex history of the city in the late nineteenth century, from the Great Fire to the Columbian Exposition, with the Civil War, the Haymarket Riot, Pullmantown, and a myriad of fascinating subjects.

None of that, though, explains why I set a new series of mysteries in Chicago. What may have sparked my more intense identification with the Windy City is a trip there with all four of my children. We toured the neighborhood where I grew up and the University of Chicago where I went to school, gazed at the lake, ate in fine restaurants, and took the historical tour at the Palmer House. I fell in love with the city all over again.

That may be behind the Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries though I cannot tell you where the characters came from. They were just there one day: Irene, the domineering, demanding faux French chef who claims a Cordon Bleu background she does not have, and Henny James, her apprentice, who tells the stories in a slightly snarky tone of voice.

Now, suddenly or so it seems to me, there are four Irene mysteries—Saving Irene, Irene in Danger, Finding Florence, and Irene Deep in Texas Trouble. They haven’t set the bestseller lists on fire, but they’ve earned respectable stars on Amazon and enough people have commented that I think someone out there enjoys Irene’s shenanigans.

A couple of months ago, I started a new Irene book—Missing Irene—and then for reasons unknown to me I set it aside, tried to write a bit on a memoir, fiddled and procrastinated and didn’t know what I was doing. Tonight I went back and read what I have of that new manuscript, and guess what? I rather liked it. Maybe I’m getting bolder but it will revolve around a case of incest. I think for the time being I’ll go back to it. I hope you’ll read it one day.

What happened to my childhood friends?

 

Promontory Point on Chicago's South Side
Scene of much high school fun

These days, girls have lots of BFFs (best friends forever). I had two from my school days. I may have mentioned Barbara, my best friend in high school who has lived almost all of her adult life in or around Jackson MS. Over the years, we’ve seen each other occasionally and we keep in regular touch through email and Facebook. It’s stll a close and treasured relationship.

But the story is different with Eleanor Lee, my first BFF. We met in a Brownie troop at the church where her mother was secretary. How I happened to go to that troop is a puzzle, because it was not my church. But it was a fortunate puzzle, since I ended up active in that church all during high school (my parents church had no strong teen program, a different and long story).

Yesterday, Eleanor Lee’s older sister, Liz Helman, sent me two thick envelopes. One contained the memorial I had written a few years ago when Eleanor Lee died. The other had obituaries and a farewell letter written by the husband of one of our close high school friends. I was maid of honor at their wedding, though now I can’t remember where it was held, except not in the church of our youth and not even, I don’t think, in Chicago. I had not kept in touch with Allan after Bernice’s death, but I do remember visiting them a couple of times, once when I was in Portland for a meeting and they traveled up from somewhere in Oregon to take me to spend a day at their home. Makes me wish memories were clearer or that I had paid more attention to the moment when it was happening. I think I have spent too much of my life anticipating the next thing to the detriment of my enjoyment of the moment. Better late than never, I also think I am better at that these days. Stay in the moment, is my mantra—or one of them

But it was the memorial tribute to Eleanor Lee that brought tears of both laughter and sadness. When I first started to read it, I thought it was from another friend—Eleanor Lee’s other BFF. But one sentence in, I recognized I had written it, recounting all the adventures of our young lives. I used to spend the night at Eleanor Lee’s a lot, and I still remember the first night my dad took me there. Her great-grandmother, Mamie, then in her eighties at least, spent a lot of time telling Dad how safe and sturdy the house was—and I’m sure it was, because it was one of those duplexes built in the 1890s. Dad must have believed her, because he left me. That house became the center of my social life, even through high school when there were long evenings of pizza and chess with a crowd of teenagers. And in the dark of night, an army of cockroaches came out in the kitchen. Eleanor Lee thought it was funny and named them. I was appalled.

We had other adventures, from summer vacations at my family’s cottage in the Indiana Dunes to weekends sunbathing with our crowd at Promontory Point and dipping my toes in Lake Michigan. Others swam in the rocky, deep water, but I was too cautious.

Eleanor Lee graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Illinois College and promptly married a boy we had all known, one who probably didn’t finish high school. We drifted apart, the distance heightened when Frank And Eleanor moved to Escondido. Eventually our communication was down to Christmas cards, and her messages were always recitations of tragic events—a divorce, the death of a relative, a problem with a child.

I visited them once when I was at a meeting in San Diego and had Jamie and Jordan, then quite young, with me. I remember a dinner on a wharf and a trip to the famous hotel, Del Coronado on Coronado Island. It’s another moment which I wish I could recall more clearly. Now, her sister, Liz, who had always been one of the “older” kids, seems to have taken on the job of keeping me in touch with the past, and I am grateful. Shortly after Eleanor Lee died, I heard several times from her daughter, also named Eleanor. Now I only get an occasional phone call.

It's been said that when a person disappears or drops out of your life, it means their part in your story is over. Makes me sad, makes me think if I had paid more attention, if I had been a better friend and not so wrapped up in my own life. But then again, perhaps there is no need for guilt. Maybe it is what it is.

“The moving finger having writ, moves on …” (The Ráibiyát by Omar Khayyam)

Chicago longings, a cooking weekend, and some good visits

 

J

View from Chicago's Lower Wacker Drive
How can I, who dislikes skyscrapers, be homesick for those tall buildings?
But I am.

Jordan Elisabeth Alter Burton (you know how when you’re angry you call kids by their full name? That’s what I’m doing here!)—that girl! Is besieging me with pictures of Chicago. Today it was several, including at least two of her enjoying drinks, apparently taken along lower Wacker Drive by the Chicago River. When I lived there, I never went anywhere near the river, but when my kids and I went for a visit six years ago, we had a hilarious time on Lower Wacker Drive, including a picture of me in front of Trump Tower (Colin tricked me into it) and the river architecture tour. Even worse, she sent me a video of what she called “my lake” in one of its better moods, with the water a deep blue and fairly gentle waves splashing against the shoreline rocks. That naughty child knows she’s making me homesick for my hometown.

I know all I have to do is damp down my dislike of flying, and I could be in Chicago for a long weekend. Any or all of my four kids and maybe some others would go with me. We’d stay at the Palmer House and drive by my childhood home, which Jordan apparently didn’t get to do this time. We’d take the transport chair, so walking wouldn’t be a challenge for me—though when we were there before, my sons took turns in seeing who could push me up and down ramps the fastest. But it’s doable, and I am tempted, and Jordan Elisabeth Alter Burton is tempting me all the more. She knows it too.

As is often the case, this was a cooking weekend for me. Friday night, Jean came, and I made Salade Niçoise with smoked salmon. I set it on a bed of spring mix greens and dressed it with sour cream diluted with lemon. I loved the salad ingredients, especially the smoked salmon, but the dressing didn’t work for me. Too thick, too hard to spread. Last night, Christian and I were home for supper, and I made a pot of spaghetti sauce that I’d been craving—good but heavy. I still have leftovers in the fridge.

Tonight, a friend had to cancel our dinner plans because of serious illness in her family, so I fixed part of what I would have fixed her—the turkey tonnato, but without the baked spinach casserole and broiled tomato I had planned. Instead, I fixed myself a salad of lettuce and avocado, dressed with Newman’s Own Vinaigrette and grated pecorino cheese. A good meal, but I was glad I hadn’t served it to a guest. I requested quarter inch slices of turkey from Central Market and got paper thin slices that are hard to deal with. It wasn’t the dish I’d envisioned. Tonnato sauce basically combines mayonnaise, tuna in olive oil, a bit of anchovy, some lemon juice and some capers—whir it in the processor. It’s good but a strong flavor, and you either like it or you don’t. I do.

But it was lovely to have visitors over the weekend. Jean and I had a good, catch-up visit on Friday night, and I think next weekend she’s going to force me out of my cottage to go to dinner. I’m looking forward to it, though I have a bad habit of backing out at the last minute. Not this time, I tell myself.

Saturday night, Jaimie and Greg walked up for happy hour, bringing granddaughter Ophelia. I had purchased a Beto yard sign; then I gave him some money—that $37 which is the mysterious figure he’s arrived at that will put him over the top—and he sent me another sign. So, I offered it to Jaimie, who was glad to have it. They came to get the sign…and stayed to visit. Ophelia was appropriately shy in a house she didn’t know with an adult she doesn’t know (thanks to Facebook, I know her a lot better than she knows me). When I asked if she liked pre-K or days with Grammy better, she said, “Both.” That child is a diplomat. Jaimie thinks of all kinds of creative activities for her, like cooking their way through the alphabet. Ophelia is also one of those children who early on looks like she understands the secrets of the universe in a way that most of us mere mortals never will. I had a child like that, and I recognize it.

So it’s been a pleasant weekend, hot but not too hot, good food, good company, some writing done, but I didn’t beat myself up about it. I am ready for Jordan to come home, but this coming week is shaping up to be busy. And that’s a good thing.

How does your week look?

The adventures of Irene, the diva chef

Balancing this week of sad news and heavy worries, I have good news—at least from my point of view. I spent the week proofreading Finding Florence, the third Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery. And I’m glad to report that Irene will be back in Chicago July 5^th, providing Chance’s jet brings her as planned. I may be delighted to report this, but Henny is frantic. Here’s a taste of what Irene’s up to this time:

Irene is obsessed. And Henny’s life is a mess.

Irene has flown to Chicago from France in high style – the private jet owned by her longtime, on again-off again-on again amour, the handsome but mysterious billionaire Chance Charpentier. Her infamous “voices” have told her that something is horribly amiss with a person dear to her.  When she arrives, she learns that a death notice for Florence Sherman, her sometime friend, previous neighbor, and member of an historic Chicago family, has been published in the Sun-Times. Once Irene discovers her friend’s body is missing, the diva chef refuses to leave Chicago until she solves the mysterious disappearance. But, with Irene in Chicago, Henny’s successful “From My Mother’s Kitchen” TV cooking show and her precious time with Patrick, husband of her dreams, are seriously compromised by Irene’s insistence that finding Florence trumps any other concerns. So Henny struggles to balance Irene’s demands with the rest of her life and to find Florence, dead or alive, so Irene will go back to France.

Irene’s certainty that the past holds the key to Florence’s disappearance brings in a bit of Chicago history, and food references season the text. An appendix of recipes from both Irene and Henny’s mom is attached.

 I’ve had a lot of fun with Irene, Henny, and their friends and lovers. In these difficult times, they provide a real contrast, letting me escape to an easier world. In fact, they let me escape to the neighborhood of my childhood—Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side, where everything is different from my days there but in many way still the same. Henny’s world is contemporary but pre-pandemic and politics just isn’t a subject.

Food is a big subject, ranging from Irene’s faux French (she does cook French dishes, but she just doesn’t have the Cordon Bleu background she claims) to Henny’s recipes from her mom’s Texas kitchen. With the latest book, you can cook anything from Coq au Vin to King Ranch Casserole.

Love is a big subject too. After two installments, this third book finds Henny deliriously happily married to the man of her dreams. Patrick not only loves her, he curbs what are sometimes her wildest instincts and her even wilder tongue. And Irene? The domineering diva is a woman in love—just look at her on the cover. The object of her affections is Chance Charpentier, the billionaire with whom she had a daughter twenty years earlier. Like Patrick, Chance is a balance for Irene. You’ll fall in love with him, as I have.

Cooking as a career is front and center in Irene’s stories, as told by Henny. Irene now runs a small café in a small French town near Aix-en-Provence. It is the kind of place where the old men go to drink wine, eat a hearty gibbolet with duck, and tell tales—until Irene calls their wives to come get them. Henny, on the other hand, has a TV show with a national network, “Recipes from my mom’s kitchen.” She works hard and sees her star rising—until Irene comes into town and demands her attention.

The Irene/Henny adventures, which Henny tells in her own, slightly snarky, slightly insecure voice, began in Saving Irene, when Henny was gofer for Irene’s cooking show—and ended, with Patrick, saving Irene’s spoiled daughter, Gabrielle, from a kidnapper. Irene subsequently decamped for France, but in Irene in Danger, she came back to Chicago for Henny and Patrick’s wedding—and nearly caused the cancellation of the wedding by getting involved with some unsavory characters.

I had so much fun with these stories that I already know the fourth one—Irene simply has to go to Texas. Can’t you see the clash of cultures? And the cover art? Irene in a Stetson! That’s another thing—I love the cover art of these books. For the first one, I knew what I wanted—Irene front and center, in a toque, with a background of typical apartment dwellings in Hyde Park. Having Irene as a central figure worked so well that we put her against the gilt of the Palmer House Hotel in the second book. And now for the third—don’t you think she looks like a woman in love? And of course that’s the wonderful skyline of Chicago’s North Shore. Thanks to designer Amy Balamut for the covers and the formatting.

Watch for Finding Florence July 5^th on Amazon!

The amaryllis story continues—and a bit of cabin fever

 

My amaryllis today
on my messy desk

My amaryllis is glorious today and a great source of cheer during this snap of winter in Texas, although today was sunny and bright. Subie’s amaryllis story is not so happy, although I understand she has a second plant. Jordan and I gave her one for Christmas (she is hard because her birthday is just before Christmas, and I am sometimes stretched to choose two imaginative gifts). So we saw amaryllis on sale in November, and I thought it was perfect for one or the other of those occasions.

Subie's amaryllis

Recently she told me when she opened it, it had already bloomed—in the box. There were stubs at the stalk where the blooms had been and died. I was embarrassed to say the least, but she saw the bright side—the plant was growing a new plant. She plans to leave it in the pot and see what it does. I’ve never heard of one doing that before.

And on the subject of plants, the orchid Subie brought me went into the house today to what I consider Christian’s orchid hospital. He has a remarkable record of getting them to bloom a second and third time. This one had a lovely striated cream-colored petal with a dark purple center. The thing is I sometimes have to remind him that a certain plant that is reblooming needs to come back to the cottage. The main house has two west-facing greenhouse windows in the kitchen, and orchids love it there.

Cabin fever got me yesterday. These are the things I did not do: write my daily quota on my work-in-progress; get dressed; make my bed; cook my supper; do my exercises. These are the things I did do: spent the day in the clothes I slept in (Jordan would frown); took a long nap; reheated frozen leftovers for my supper; spent way too much time on Facebook; started reading a new mystery, the eighteenth Coffee House Mystery by the husband/wife team who write as Cleo Coyle. (Reading for an author can always be justified as continuing education.)

Today is a much better day. As twilight sets in, I have gotten dressed and made my bed, fixed a good lunch, and planned dinner for all of us—we’re still quarantining, so we’ll transport part of it from cottage to the house. I’ve written a bit more than my thousand words for the day and am writing my blog earlier than usual, and I’ve put away clean linen and done some other household chores, including watering my plants.

The world outside this evening reminds me of Chicago or Missouri—the snow is melting, so what’s left is dirty, gray, sparse. My patio looks like a swamp, awash with dirty water. But because we are north-facing my front steps are still iced, and there’s a patch of ice on the driveway and snow outside my desk window. My mom used to complain long and loud about the gray snow in Chicago, because when I was young so many households, including ours, heated with coal. And it’s true—clean white snow was dirty gray almost as soon as it fell.

I remember the same when I was in school in northeast Missouri. I was in a relatively small town, Kirksville (12,000 population not counting students at the two colleges in town). Most people heated with coal, and snow stayed on the ground forever. They don’t call that northeast corner of the state an icebox for no reason. I remember getting up morning after morning and seeing a dirty gray world. And I drove a VW bug which didn’t fit the ruts in the roads, so getting to and from school and work was an adventure. I really longed for spring. The nice thing about Texas (except last year) is that we are pretty sure the snow will disappear in a day or two.

A friend said to me today she doesn’t understand how I can stay in the cottage day after day, because she was stir-crazy being in for two days. I think one reason is that, with my walker and because I no longer drive, getting out is a bit more complicated. And when Covid was new and a much bigger threat, I got used to staying in. In fact, I kind of liked it, and most days I still do. I have lots to do and a comfortable pattern to my days. When it’s six and I pour myself a glass of wine, I think, “Well, there goes another day.” That’s a bit of a mixed bag, because at my age I don’t want to wish the days away, but on the other hand it’s good to come to the end of a day and feel satisfied about it. Can you tell I’m feeling a bit defensive?

How to write a mystery

 

Now available in paperback, digital, and audio editions
You're bound to love Henny and laugh at Irene

The other night I started a blog on how to write a mystery, because I’d discovered a new and unorthodox method. Since it seems to be going well, I’ll try again and hope I don’t erase it. I well know that a whole bookstore could be stocked with nothing but “How to write books.” Too many would-be novelists read book after book as a way to dodge getting to the actual writing. But they need to search no more: I have come up with the formula.

The backstory: way before pandemic and quarantine, I idly started a mystery about a second-tier TV chef in Chicago. Just playing with ideas, I told the story from the viewpoint of her assistant or “gofer,” a young transplant from Texas. Chicago is my hometown, and Henny, the narrator, settled in the Hyde Park neighborhood, where I grew up. Lots of fun to revisit the scenes of my childhood, but also fun to research the many changes in the long years since. But after about twenty thousand words, I was distracted by nonfiction assignments that actually came with advance money. I labeled the fragment “Saving Irene,” and put it aside.

Fast forward a year to the middle of quarantine. I had finished my nonfiction assignments and was at loose ends, so I reread “Saving Irene.” To my surprise I liked the tone, the story, the way it was headed. Long story short, it was an indie publication in September 2020 and got really good reader comments.

More nonfiction and then loose ends again. Several people wanted more of Henny and Irene, and I had committed to name a character for someone who contributed to MysteryLovesGeorgia. So I started, “Irene in Danger.” This time, I quit at sixteen thousand words. An early reader liked it, but I wasn’t sure.

During all this for at least a year, I was delving into the life and cooking of Helen Corbitt, leading light of food service at Neiman Marcus stores. Her fascinates me because she came to prominence in the late fifties—after Poppy Cannon advocated for convenience foods but before both Julia Child and Betty Freidan who exerted polar opposite influences on American cooks. I had hoped my nonfiction publisher would be equally enthralled, but the new editor wrote that she didn’t think a cook in an upscale department store was worth a book. Her loss. I have now sent a formal proposal to an academic publisher and been assured they would give it careful consideration. Which means I’m back at loose ends until I hear from them, which may be a while.

I wrote profiles for the Handbook of Texas Online, the most recent of a husband-and-wife team who were instrumental in saving the history of Fort Worth’s Stockyards district from Disney-like commercialization. A light dawned: I could bring Kelly O’Connell, heroine of eight mysteries, back in a Stockyards setting. The first ten pages went well and after that, crickets. Sound familiar?

I went back to “Irene in Danger,” decided l like the tone, the story, the characters. And this time around the dialog flowed naturally. I’m back to writing it. I make no promises, because as you can see I’ve abandoned manuscripts before. But I’m trying my old formula of a thousand words a day. Slow but steady going. Still not quite to twenty thousand. We’ll see what happens.

I have once again been distracted, this time for page proofs of The Most Land, the Best Cattle: The Waggoners of Texas. Due in September.

Retirement is such fun!

 

 

Texas, Chicago, and Me

 

The house of my growing years

Last night I was reading the opening of Jacqueline Winspear’s memoir, This Time Next Year We’ll Be Laughing, when I came across the passage where she talks of the land of our growing and how it is filled with meaning for each of us. Place, she writes, gives our lives meaning. For me, the place of my growing was Chicago, and for many years I thought I’d put it behind me. After all, I reasoned, everyone I knew there had either left or died. But it turns out I had not put it away from me.

I have lived in Texas fifty-six years, long enough I always feel to be considered a native. My careers as author and publisher have been inextricably entwined with Texas, and yet real Texas natives, those born on the soil, have not-so-subtle ways of reminding one that you are an outsider. In the seventies, there was a Born in Texas movement. You could sign up at booths in shopping malls and, for a fee, get a certificate and a T-shirt. While registering my four children, I felt a pang of jealousy. And there were other T-shirts that said, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could.” Folklorist and award-winning author Joyce Gibson Roach and I used to do a dog-and-pony show where she talked about how being a fifth-generation Texan impacted her work, and I followed with “Notes from a Newcomer.” I wish today I had those notes, but they are buried in an archive somewhere.

Aside from fleeting thoughts, Chicago only came into my consciousness a few years ago. After five or more years writing and rewriting, I published a longish historical novel, The Gilded Cage, about Cissie Palmer (wife of hotelier Potter Palmer) who was one of if not the first woman to combine great wealth with philanthropy. The subject came to me first as an assignment for a children’s book. As I wrote, Chicago’s colorful history of the late nineteenth century came tumbling back into my mind—the Great Fire, the Civil War, the Haymarket Riot, Marshall Field and his store, the stockyards and the meat packers, Pullmantown, and, of course, the Columbian Exposition. I was wrapped again in my love for and familiarity with Chicago’s South Side.

And then, in 2016, my four grown children and I spent several days in the city so that I could show them where I grew up. Their reaction filled my heart with love—they exclaimed over my childhood home (sort of a red-brick brownstone that they, expecting poverty, estimated at over a million in worth), the elegant nineteenth-century houses of Hyde Park, the gray grandeur of Rockefeller Chapel and the other buildings of the University of Chicago. We dined at Berghoff’s and Rick Steves’ La Fontera, took the historical tour of the Palmer House, stayed in a suite overlooking Lake Michigan and the North Shore—I could gaze at the lake and fill something inside me that had too long missed that lake. It was, though short, perhaps the most memorable trip of my life.

In 2019, some unknown spark prompted me to move beyond Texas and write about Chicago in an entirely different vein—a contemporary cozy mystery set in Hyde Park, the neighborhood of my growing. And now I am, slowly, working on a sequel to Saving Irene, to be titled Irene in Danger. And I know, though a Texan most of the time, a part of me never left Chicago, and I carry that magnificent city in my heart.

Maybe Winspear’s insight will spur me to get serious about that memoir that I keep in the back of my mind. “Memories,” she wrote, “appear in flashes of light,” and I think that is what my memoir would be—not a connected, continuous narrative, but flashes of memory as they came to me.

Some thoughts on frugality

 

A post on the New York Times Cooking Community this morning got to me to thinking about frugality. A woman wrote that she had cooked an Asian meal and, presumably for the first time, used water chestnuts. But she had half a can left over—not, she said, enough to freeze (do they freeze?). She asked what to do with them. Well, I could have told her: pitch them! It’s taken me years to get that attitude.

I inherited frugality from my mother, who lived through two world wars and the Depression. She saved bits of string and aluminum foil; she had a special cubbyhole right under her sink where she stored used—yes, used—paper towels. If she used one to wipe a counter spill, it went into the cubby; if there was a floor spill, she used her knee to open that cubby and re-used the paper towel. When we moved her out of her home, my brother was astounded at the number of tiny jars in the back of the refrigerator, many of them growing mold. She hated to throw away food—leftovers went into a soup pot.

When I was feeding a family of six plus Mom, leftovers had to be pretty generous before they were worth saving. Mom would ask what I wanted to do with such and such as we cleaned up after supper, and before I could answer, she’d say, “I know, I know. Pitch it.”

It took me years to get over the compulsion to boil the turkey carcass after the holidays (I did it again this year and was so grateful for the rich broth). I still save leftovers and, yes, I have a soup-pot container in my freezer. And bread—I must have a hundred different varieties, from breakfast breads to sandwich rye and dinner rolls. You never know when you’ll want to make croutons or need some fresh breadcrumbs. Panko? It’s just a fancy way of spending money when you can make your own crumbs.

But I will never be as frugal as my mom, and my kids are helping me see that I don’t need to. My oldest son, Colin, is a CPA, and I discuss financial things with him. Some twenty years ago, he and I were driving in Dallas, and I remarked on how much I’d like to have another VW bug. “Mom,” he said, “if it would make you happy, you should have it.” And I bought a bright blue Bug that some may remember.

When my four kids and I planned a nostalgia trip to Chicago so that I could show them the house and neighborhood where I grew up, I said there was a Best Western Motel nearby. They would have none of it, and the five of us stayed in a suite at the Drake Hotel which, all my growing-up years, was a symbol of luxury to me. We ate in fine restaurants, including the Palmer House, and we Ubered around the city like we were millionaires. That trip is one of the highlights of my life.

They buy me better clothes than I would buy for myself and they send generous gifts of flowers and chocolate. Colin keeps telling me I can afford a few things that I want, and sometimes I draw up a bucket list. Maybe it was the NYTimes thread but my bucket list often has to do with food—with pandemic and not going anywhere, I don’t need new clothes.

But I want to make gravlax from scratch (salmon cured with sugar, salt, and dill) and I want to waltz into Central Market and buy a whole leg of lamb. I already use real butter and whole milk, and I would like chocolate mousse with my dinner every night, please. I want to try my hand at Beef Wellington—and Salmon Wellington is pretty intriguing too. A bit of caviar? Of course, with cream cheese and capers. And lobster. Always lobster.

Maybe food and frugality are forever linked in my mind, but I’m trying. And I count my blessings every day. Thanks, Mom.

The Writer’s Ego

 

Any honest writer will tell you that feedback matters. We crave praise for our work, kind words from readers. We want to know not only that you’ve heard of our books but that you’ve read and enjoyed them. I consider myself a slightly shy and retiring person, but I freely admit to that ego Getting feedback often requires that we put shyness aside and boldly ask readers to write a review on Amazon or Goodreads, and I do that, along with other things to stroke my ego

Some of the best compliments I’ve gotten about my mysteries include the reader who swore she saw Kelly O’Connell, the star of her own mystery series, going into a very real restaurant that figures in the Kelly O’Connell books—my fictional character had become that real to her. Or there was the reader who praised my characters as being just like people you’d meet in the grocery store. Both those remarks made me glow for days.

But it’s the unexpected bit of recognition that truly brings delight. Recently I heard from an old friend, someone I worked with at TCU years ago (no, for both our sakes, I won’t say how many years). She and her daughter, on a daytrip to Chicago, visited the American Writers’ Museum on Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. It’s a place I wanted to visit on my last trip to Chicago, but then, in 2016, it had not yet formally opened. The museum idea was first considered in 2009, and years of planning, developing support, and fund-raising preceded its 2017 formal opening, as did some trial online exhibits.

Carla Good and her daughter tried an interactive display—the museum required social distancing and masks and gave gloves and a stylus for the interactive displays. The one they tried encouraged visitors to search for their favorite authors and then create a bookmark. It should be noted that Carla is an avid reader and her daughter, Colleen, is reference librarian in a small Indiana town. Carla searched for several authors with no result—until she keyed in Judy Alter. She sent photos, which I’m attaching, along with a note saying she just wanted me to know that I’m remembered in my hometown.

To me, the recognition is more than that. The museum does not celebrate primarily Chicago authors. It celebrates all American authors, presumably living or dead. I have no idea of the number of authors this country has produced, but I bet it’s astounding. To think that I am included in that number and others are not gives me pause—and a needed bit of humility. So I’m grateful to the American Writers Museum for including me and to Carla Good for telling me about. The museum is a definite stop on my next trip to Chicago. Since I seem to be writing fiction set there, a trip is not out of the question.

But for the sake of my ego, should I write and offer them cover art for those they apparently don't have? Surely they too can snatch pictures from Amazon, but who knows. Maybe I'll bring that up on my visit there.

An anecdotal comment on the Alter theme: when my ex and I lived in rural Missouri, he labeled our mailbox with “Alter’s Ego.” One of his professors from medical school, supposedly an educated man, said, “I get the Alter part, but what is the e-g-o?” Today, I use Alter’s Ego as the name of my imprint for my independently published books. So here’s a nod of thanks to that man I married all those years ago.

And here’s another stroke for my ego: I will be on a panel Friday for Bouchercon, the annual and large international mystery con which is going virtual for the first time, due to the pandemic. One of the other panelists sent a graphic about it, and I’m pleased to share it here. (Okay, I admit it's an older picture and belies my age!)

 

Going way back in time and memory

Photo by Marc Monaghan

A great blast of nostalgia hit me when I read my email this morning. One message from the Hyde Park (Chicago) Historical Society contained an article about Promontory Point, the scene of many of my happiest high-school memories, although in retrospect they are tinged with a bit of adolescent awkwardness.

Better known as just “the Point,” it is a finger of land that juts out into Lake Michigan from about 55^th Street on Chicago’s South Side. Daniel Burnham, the architect behind the city’s recovery from the Great Fire and the man still, all these years later, responsible for much of Chicago’s architecture, envisioned a city park in a thin strip along miles of the waterfront. The 40-acre Point made entirely of landfill and completed in the 1930s, long after Burnham’s death, was the southern most part of what became Daniel Burnham Park.

Aerial view 1940

Chicago Public Library

Along with an abundance of native trees, two things mark the Point in my mind. One is the pavilion, partly open shelter and partly one large enclosed room. Sometimes our church youth group reserved the pavilion for a picnic supper or some such, and I think maybe I went there with the Girl Scouts. I know we all used the smelly restrooms (I hope today that feature has seen improvement.)

The other feature emblazoned are my memory are the revetments or retaining walls of huge blocks of stone that kept the Point from dissolving back into the lake. When I was in high school, my friends and I rode our bikes to the Point where we spread our blankets and unpacked our snacks, radios, and suntan lotion on the grass above those rocks. If you wanted to swim, you jumped in off the rocks, watching carefully for those that were submerged. The water was cold and deep.

I was probably as good a swimmer as any of the others, but I had learned to swim on the sandy beaches of the Indiana dunes where the caution was always, “Be sure your foot can touch the bottom. Never get out over your head.” The big fear was the undertow which could drag you out too far to swim back. So I swam, always parallel to the shore, always touching my foot down. No way I was going in that deep water with nothing to hold on to but slippery, moss-covered rocks. I was always afraid the other kids would think I was chicken—and they would be right.

A family on the stone revetments

photo by March Monaghan

The kids I met at the Point mostly came from my church youth group, but my friend Eleanor Lee and I were kind of the hangers-on with the group, most of whom were older. We knew them all well because frequently when they weren’t at the Point, they gathered at Eleanor Lee’s house, thanks to her older sister Elizabeth. Neither a raving beauty nor an accomplished flirt, I felt like a bit of an ugly duckling and longed to be “cool” enough to be casual with those kids, probably high school seniors.

Years later, when I actually dated one of those older boys fairly regularly, we must have outgrown the Point. I don’t recall that we ever went there. I think too by then it was less safe than in our day, when there were people spread all over it on weekends. I think by today it has been reclaimed and residents feel free to go there, stare at the lake, sit on the stone benches.

It is such a place of strong memory for me that I managed to work it into my new mystery, Saving Irene. Henny and her next-door, good-looking, not-interested-in-girls neighbor, Patrick, ride bikes to the Point and picnic.

This morning it was like magic to see those scenes again. I hope you’ll like these pictures from the Point.

Labor Day Blues

If you are social distancing and masked, as I hope you are, this is a different kind of Labor Day. No community picnics with speeches by politicians, no concerts, maybe some fireworks on television. Annual parades across the country have been cancelled due to the pandemic. Maybe you’re shopping the sales online. However you’re marking this day, please stay safe.

Labor Day began back in the 1880s to honor working people—the first parade was in New York City in 1887, and the day became a Federal holiday in 1894. The last quarter of the 19^th century was a time marked by clashes, often violent, between labor and the robber barons who thought they ruled the world during the Gilded Age. It was also the era of the rise of labor unions, designed to protect laborers by stabilizing wages, limiting working hours, guaranteeing days off, and other measures so that men, women, and children had more to their lives than dawn-to-dusk work in sweatshops, factories, and the like. In some ways, those clashes of values are reflected again in our society today—we haven’t come as far as we thought or else we’ve slid backwards.

Perhaps the most notorious labor riot was the Haymarket which occurred in Chicago in 1886 after bombing disrupted a peaceful labor rally at the McCormick Reaper Works in support of the eight-hour day. Police killed one laborer and injured several others as they tried to disperse the demonstrators. Someone threw a bomb, and between that and the resulting gunfire seven police and at least four civilians were killed. Dozens others were injured.

A German immigrant, August Spies, was so angered at the police brutality that he rushed to the offices of an anarchist newspaper, Arbeiter-Zeitung, and issued a call to arms for workingmen. A second rally as held in Haymarket Square. Spies spoke, followed by his colleague Albert Parsons, a former Confederate soldier turned anarchist. The mayor of Chicago was even on hand to ensure that things remained peaceful—but he decided all was well and went home too early. Police tried to disperse the crowd, another bomb was thrown, and gunfire and chaos followed. Several police and civilians were killed.

The riot set off a nation-wide wave of violence, and police rounded up foreign-born protestors and labor organizers. In Chicago, seven men were sentenced to death—ultimately four were hanged, including Spies and Parsons, one committed suicide, and the remaining three were pardoned. It was not a pretty episode in the country’s history.

My research for the historical novel, The Gilded Cage, led me deep into the conflict surrounding the Haymarket Riot and indeed into the whole labor movement era in Chicago. Spies, Parsons, and their families became minor characters in the book. The Gilded Cage was published in the spring of 2016. At the time I had no idea how relevant that history would be to us in 2020, but today that bit of history speaks to me as an object lesson.

So today, if you’re having a family-only barbecue in the back yard or—as I will be doing, eating leftovers, raise a glad to the working men and women of the late nineteenth century who fought so hard to secure protections for those who work in nine-to-five jobs, often physical hard jobs.

And I hope you find some fireworks on TV because, well, there just ought to be fireworks!