Betty Savage invited me to a luncheon meeting of The Page
Turners book club in her home Thursday 15 November. She served Sangria and hors
d’oeuvres before we adjourned to the dining room for a repast of turkey and
mango sauce, squash stuffed with spinach, black bean cakes, baked sweet
potatoes and apples, greens with citrus vinaigrette, and warm date-nut cake
with vanilla bean ice cream. Martha Stewart ought to take culinary lessons from
Betty.
In advance I emailed a list of potential discussion
questions for Paper Woman. The group used some of those questions and came up
with several savvy questions of their own. For example, they asked me about 18th-century
social customs in comparison to 21st-century customs. Betty read The
Blacksmith’s Daughter and just finished re-reading Paper Woman before the
meeting and recommended The Blacksmith’s Daughter to everyone. Her second time
through Paper Woman, she was more attuned to the relationship between Sophie
and Mathias. During her first reading, she had been focused on learning about
the American Revolution from my fiction — specifically aspects of the American
Revolution that aren’t taught in high school history texts.
Everyone at the meeting commented some variation of, “What
you taught me about the Revolutionary War is so different from what I learned
in high school history.” Most American history classes don’t emphasize the
interests of the Native Americans, Spaniards, and Dutch in the War of Independence.
Texts also don’t discuss the impact of neutrals, who comprised almost half the
population in America at the time of the war. Instead, the war looks like a
static portrait of patriots squared off with redcoats with a few French here
and there. This black-and-white view obscures the fact that our “revolution”
was just one small part of a global war. Britain was stretched all over the
world, growing its empire. Other entities or countries had interests in halting
or aiding the spread of that empire. Put in perspective, Britain didn’t lose
the American War. It pulled out, divested itself of what was, at the time, a
huge drain of money, so it could focus on the empire.
The Page Turners complimented me on my ability to make the time
period and the characters come alive and interest them. One of my goals for
this series is to interest readers enough that they’ll research on
their own and discover the fascinating stories that have been
omitted from high school history, details that add so much dimension to our understanding
of the war.
Friends of the Library have incorporated “Tea With the
Author” once a month into the programming at the Chapel Hill Library. Starbucks
donates coffee and tea, served on china, and the addition of Pepperidge Farm
specialty cookies makes for a relaxing, civilized afternoon. Almost never do I
pass up a cup of well-brewed afternoon tea! It was my pleasure to speak before
library patrons on Friday 16 November.
These folks wanted to know all about reenacting — for
example, what reenactors cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner when they’re on
site for the weekend. The object of living history is to create the appearance
of a moment in the past, so you select foods that would have been available
during that time. Many reenactors include foods such as bacon, grits,
johnnycakes, and drop biscuits for breakfast. Lunch and dinner look similar:
stew or bean soup with root veggies, perhaps, or a roasted chicken or ham, with
fruit, cheese, and bread or rice. (Check out the von Bose lunch menu in my
previous entry.) Beverages include coffee, hot chocolate, tea, water, wine,
beer, and other spirits. Plates, bowls, and mugs are usually made of wood,
ceramic, or pewter-look metal. Reenactors are creative at hiding or
camouflaging candy bars, sodas, tin cans, plastic, and coolers.
Grasshopper is grateful to Betty Savage for the invitation
to lunch with The Page Turners, and also to Eunice Brock and the Friends of the
Library at Chapel Hill.
Next up: holiday booksignings at Books a Million in
Wilmington, NC.