Ann's Blog

Chaguaramas, Trinidad:
July 2, 2011
spicenecklace.com wins an
Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award

1. Thank the person who gave me the award. (Well, that’s a no-brainer.)
2. Tell you 7 things about myself.
3. Pass this award on to some new bloggers.

So, first: Thank you, Alysson. Alysson was one of the first people to set eyes on The Spice Necklace – she copy-edited the Canadian edition two summers ago. In a couple of weeks, we’ll be meeting face to face for the first time, when she interviews me for her website, which is devoted to “Memoir Writing and More.” (I’ll post a link to the interview once it’s posted.)

Now, 7 things about me:

1. Steve and I met playing softball for the Canadian Opera Company team. At the time, recruits were asked three questions: Do you work for the Opera Company? Do you like opera? Can you spell opera? One yes was enough to get you on the team. A mediocre player on my best days, a serious team detriment on my bad, I was usually tucked away in right field, where opposing batters rarely hit. Steve managed to spell opera; he got to play first base.

2. I was a cheerleader at Vailsburg High School in Newark, NJ. This was in the late 60s, when cheerleading was exactly what the word suggested. It did not include music, dancing, or Lycra. My uniform consisted of a pleated purple-and-white skirt, matching vest with a varsity letter on the front, bobby socks, and purple-and-white saddle shoes. No, I’m not posting a photo.

3. I come from a family that likes to fish. My mother never baited her own hook, however, and I saw no reason not to continue this tradition into the next generation.

4. On one of our early dates, Steve took me trout fishing at the stream on his uncle’s farm. (Yes, he baited my hook.) I was the newbie, he had fished the stream since childhood and knew all the secret spots where the trout hid. But I caught the first fish of the morning. He took this blow to his fishing prowess in stride, and even rebaited my hook for me. He cooked the fish that evening, too – a simple sauté in butter with the barest squeeze of lemon – and served it with fresh fiddleheads picked on the banks of the stream. Clearly this one’s a keeper, I told myself.

5. Decades later, I’m still not as good a fish cook as Steve. He’s better than I am when it comes to taking it off the stove (or grill) at just the right moment. Long-simmered or pressure-cooked seafood dishes, however, get left to me. Except for octopus – Steve does a fantastic creole octopus.

6. When I was in graduate school (University of Delaware) studying art history and museum studies, I got a summer internship at the Newark Museum. At the time, the museum had a mini-zoo – it was closed a year or so ago – and one of the intern’s jobs was to visit urban summer programs for kids, toting a selection of live critters. The most troublesome of my traveling menagerie were (a) the odiferous ferret and (b) the obstinate boa constrictor. I always presented the back two-thirds of the snake for the kids to stroke (to demonstrate that snakes aren’t slimy), but one day a show-off went for the boa’s head. Upset, the snake stuck his head inside a desk and, no matter how hard I pulled, wouldn’t come out. Is it any wonder I gave up museums for books and magazines?

7. I’m addicted to calorie-free cola. I’ll drink any brand in a pinch, but my favorite is Coke Zero. (I limit myself to one a day.) Don’t tell.

The third “requirement” of the award is tough for me: I’m not in a good position to discover new bloggers, or even follow old ones. Wifi on Receta is often slow and spotty – sometimes non-existent. Anchored in Guadeloupe’s Islands of the Saints in May, we discovered the service we were using shut down daily at 5 pm and didn’t start up again till 9ish the next morning (and sometimes down for the 3-hour French lunches). In underpopulated, off-the-beaten-track Barbuda, we had no Internet access at all. This makes it challenging to accomplish even the essentials online. Which means blogs (including sometimes my own) unfortunately get short shrift. So the list that follows is short, and even then I’m stretching the rules: Two of my three picks aren’t exactly new…

1. womenandcruising.com
In the Women and Cruising Blog at womenandcruising.com, women cruisers share their lives on the water. More than just enjoyable reading, it has a strong service hook: full of practical info, ranging from how to earn money while cruising to how to equip your galley. For me, it’s fun to check out who’s posting and compare their experiences and recommendations with mine. (Bias alert: I’ve been a contributor to the site.) For those who are considering living aboard their boats or just starting to cruise, I’d call it essential reading.

2. orangette.blogspot.com
I’m certainly not the first person to big up this well-established food blog: It appears regularly on lists of the best in its field. Molly Wizenberg is a beautiful writer (she also takes lovely photos), and Orangette is my guilty pleasure – right up there with Coke Zero (and a whole lot better for me). Molly – her blog makes you feel you’re allowed to call her by her first name – makes me smile, she makes me nostalgic, she makes me hungry, she makes me want to hug my dad, she makes me want to write and, most of all, she makes me want to run to the galley and cook.

3. thebreweryintern.com
This blog – “for good shit on beer, brewing, business and books” – is the only one of my picks that is indeed brand-new. Besides hoping I’ll pick up a thing or two about the finer points of beer and new ones worth trying, I’ve been visiting this site regularly since it started a month or so ago because (major bias alert) the blogger is my 21-year-old nephew. I enjoy his writing (“it pours a 2-finger high, dark khaki head…[that] leaves a sticky ring of lacing on the glass,” he writes in his review of Allagash Black, and I can picture it even before I see the photo), and the fact that he’s tasting and researching, not just blathering. But beyond that, I admire the effortless way he’s using social media, and how he’s already got an easy conversation going with his readers. He’s got a lot to teach us old coots, and not just about beer.

And, finally, I’m using the Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award as an excuse to post three irresistibly sweet photos that I haven’t had a reason to use in any of my other blogs.

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