Table of Contents: From Breakfast With Anita Diamant to Dessert With James Patterson - a Generous Helping of Recipes, Writings and Insights From Today's Bestselling Authors (7 page)

My mother made this recipe for a very festive dinner party in my honor after I gave a reading near her house in Woodstock, New York. It was absolutely delicious.

Note:
You may purchase cooked or uncooked shrimp for this recipe. You will need about 1½ pounds shrimp cooked in shell, or about 2 pounds uncooked in shell. To prepare uncooked shrimp: boil shrimp for 5 minutes exactly, then plunge into ice water (and peel if necessary).

1
In a medium saucepan, melt butter on medium heat. Blend in flour, salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg with a wire whisk. Cook, stirring, for about 1 minute. Gradually add half-and-half and sherry; stirring constantly with the whisk to keep the sauce smooth. Cook sauce until thickened and smooth, about 5 minutes.

2
Stir about 1/3 of the hot sauce into the egg yolks, and then pour the egg yolk-sauce mixture into the remaining sauce in the saucepan. Add shrimp and heat through, stirring constantly. Serve over white rice.

Arnold Mesches

SELECTED WOEKS

Heroic Measures
(2009)

The Tattoo Artist
(2005)

Teeth of the Dog
(1999)

Half a Life
(1996)

The Law of Falling Bodies
(1993)

Inspiration
Lost dog and cat flyers invariably catch my attention, and I make a special effort to look out for those missing pets. I remember one such flyer — a lost gray cat — adhered to a lamppost in my old neighborhood, the East Village in New York City. The next day was 9/11 and in the aftermath, flyers for missing persons — photographs, which tower, what floor — began to share the lamppost. At first, nobody covered the lost cat poster, but eventually it was plastered over: the human tragedy consumed the animal's plight. If a novel can be reduced to a single image of conception, then the lost cat poster is responsible for
Heroic Measures
.

The novel takes place in a fraught, post 9/11 New York on panic alert. An aging couple, Alex and Ruth, must sell their East Village walk-up at the same time their beloved dachshund, the emotional center of their childless marriage, is hospitalized and fighting for her life.

The dachshund's paralysis and miraculous recovery were borrowed from my late dog Sadie, a seven-pound dachshund whose medical file weighed more than she did.

The old couple is entirely imaginary except for the collage series based on Alex and Ruth's old FBI files. The artwork was borrowed from my husband Arnold Mesches' series,
The FBI Files
.

The five-flight staircase leading up to the apartment, however, is real. Over the eighteen years I climbed it I was always aware that there were elderly all over the city, as marooned in their walk-ups as shipwrecked sailors on desert islands.

Third Draft's the Charm
My novels generally evolve over three separate drafts; I call it the Jane Goodall writing process. I'm in a jungle during my first draft; it's hot and I'm terrified, following these beasts around just writing down everything that they do. Then, my second draft takes place back at the shack; I've taken a shower, made some tea, and considered what I witnessed in the jungle. I start to think about motivation. I basically ask, “Why did one chimpanzee hit the other chimpanzee over the head?” After that, I put the manuscript away until the story transforms itself into memory. My third draft is written as if I'm an old lady looking back at the drama, knowing the whole of my chimp's stories, from birth to death.

Readers Frequently Ask
How did you get into the mindset of a little dog? I found it interesting in writing from a dog's point of view that the animal's reactions felt flat until I invented a specific dog: a hypochondriac, gourmand, twelve-year-old dachshund named Dorothy, a soul as complex and emotional as any of my human characters. In other words, I had to allow myself to be as surprised by her individual quirks as any other fictional character. Anyone who lives with a dog, as I do, comes to understand the uniqueness of their dog's spirit and nature.

The Author Who Has Most Influenced My Writing
Chekhov. He is mentioned throughout
Heroic Measures
since Ruth, one of the protagonists, is reading his short stories. I chose Chekhov because he is the most humane writer I know. He does this extraordinary thing that only great fiction writers can do — he gives us access to another person's consciousness. Fiction is the only art in which you can spy on the way another person thinks. It's what I strive to do: write books that allow other people to see that the human character is tricky and selfish, but also really compassionate and highly complex.

Makes 1 drink

Like me, Ruth from
Heroic Measures
may not cook or bake, but we both make a fabulous cocktail. What better drink to sip while reading about New York than a Manhattan?

Pour whiskey, vermouth, and bitters into a large mixing glass with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a cherry.

Makes 18 muffins

Heroic Measures
is set in Manhattan; my characters, Alex and Ruth, and their dachshund, Dorothy, are all quintessential New Yorkers. Like many New Yorkers, myself included, Ruth and Alex don't cook, but love to eat.

In one of the novel's pivotal scenes, Alex and Ruth stop for a quick breakfast at a Lower East Side bakery on their way to the animal hospital to visit their beloved Dorothy. I have Alex order a bran muffin because I wanted him to taste and be sated by the most earthly of flavors. “Alex yanks down his muffin's wax-paper skirt and takes a big bite. He's stunned at how good it tastes. It's as saturated with flavors as the air is with scents.”

Note:
Wheat bran is available at natural food stores. It is also available in supermarkets in boxes labeled Quaker Unprocessed Bran.

You can add almost any fruit to these muffins, as long as it's unsweetened and fairly dry (no citrus or pineapple). Blueberries, raspberries, apples, and bananas, or any combination of these fruits, work well. You can use either fresh or frozen berries. For apples, core, peel, and dice the fruit. For bananas, peel and dice.

1
Preheat oven to 425°F. Coat 18 muffin cups (in 2 12-cup muffin tins) with butter or vegetable cooking spray.

2
Mix buttermilk, eggs, and oil in a medium bowl. In a separate large bowl, combine wheat bran, flour, baking powder, baking soda, brown sugar, and salt.

3
Pour wet mixture into dry mixture. Mix just until combined.

4
Place about 2 tablespoons of batter into each muffin cup (the batter will expand to fill about 1/3 of cup). Place a generous flat layer of fruit (about 2 heaping teaspoons) into each cup. Measure 2 teaspoons of the granulated sugar into a small bowl. Taking pinches with your fingers, sprinkle the sugar over the fruit. Divide remaining batter evenly among the muffin cups. Place remaining 2 teaspoons of sugar into bowl, and pinch and sprinkle the sugar over tops.

5
Bake for 5 minutes. Rotate muffin tins from front to back to ensure even cooking, and bake another 11–13 minutes, until test toothpick comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs sticking to it. Do not overbake. Allow to cool on wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove muffins from tin. Serve warm.

Makes approximately 1 baking sheet of biscuits, assorted sizes

Alex isn't the only character in
Heroic Measures
who enjoys his food. Dorothy, the dachshund, is a gourmand as well. After her surgery, when her first bowl of dog food is set before her, she eats with relish. “The circumference of her bowl might as well be the whole globe … while she's eating, nothing else is real.”

Note:
Wheat bran is available at natural food stores. It is also available in supermarkets in boxes labeled Quaker Unprocessed Bran.