It’s not like I was really ever in danger of falling out of love, but Smitten Kitchen has officially earned a permanent place in my heart with a post from a year and a half ago, which I just discovered.
The recipe, Beef, Leek, and Barley Soup, is a great one–easy and luscious and happens to be simmering on my stove as we speak. But it isn’t the recipe itself that brought tears to my eyes when I saw it–it’s where that recipe came from: Laurie Colwin’s Home Cooking.
(Longtime friends, I have to apologize in advance for getting all mushy. You know where this is going.)
Oh, Laurie Colwin, how I love and miss thee! I often wonder what you would think of the internet and about a million and one other things that have entered the world since you left it way too soon. Nobody has been able to top her, in my book, at writing about food. Laurie Colwin is to food writing what Elizabeth Zimmerman is to knitting writing: friendly, funny, wise, and inspiring. With the rise of the food blog, I’ve seen Colwin’s name coming up more often. Bloggers are (re)discovering her simple recipes and the food philosophy she advocated long before it was hip: local, fresh, and simple.
Not so many people seem to be talking about the fact that Laurie Colwin wrote short fiction and novels. Wonderful, slender little gems about love and loss and New York City. For a Midwesterner like me, this was exotic stuff, even when I was living in New York City in 2002. I never was able to find Laurie Colwin’s New York (or Woody Allen’s or Nora Ephron’s, for that matter. Tony Soprano’s, maybe.).
The other Kelly and I have had many long talks about which LC book is our favorite. What an exercise in futility! If I absolutely had to choose, I’d say Happy All the Time, Family Happiness, and A Big Storm Knocked It Over.
This wonderful article about Colwin from a few years ago only confirms what I suspected to be the reasons for my adoration:
1. Laurie Colwin had impeccable manners and so do her characters. It makes her stories feel old-fashioned, in a good way.
2. She never had very much money but she loved the fantasy of a life with the finer things. If her books had suddenly become bestsellers, she wouldn’t have wasted a cent on ridiculous things. She probably would have gone on just as she was (with more frequent champagne and organic chickens).
3. She loved to have dinner parties. Oh, to have been a guest!
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Oh sigh. Just sigh!
“Only the good die young..” Billy Joel
Today was a wonderful, magical day! Because today I found and bought a copy of Home Cooking at a flea market, and from the very moment I opened the book and began reading her warm, delightful, and oh so funny stories, I felt I had found a true treasure!
Susan, I’m so pleased you picked it up! Wait until you read her novels!
Kelly,
Thank you for reminding me of Laurie Colwin. I’m a big fan, but had let her slip into the distance. I remember reading “Home Cooking” and “More Home Cooking” while riding on the El in Chicago. I laughed and laughed and the other passengers probably thought I was insane. I especially remember a chapter on what to cook for yourself after you come home from a dinner party where the food was inedible, and how to make a Christmas cake that you start six months in advance and keep in the back of a dark closet. Her novels are priceless too.
How wonderful to be reminded of Laurie Colwin. I read all of her books in the 90s. I think I will now return to her writings after reading your blog.
Enjoy them all over again!