Read Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times Online
Authors: Suzan Colón
Tags: #Self-Help, #Motivational & Inspirational
Cherries in Winter: My Family's Recipe for Hope in Hard Times
Cherries in Winter
Suzan Colón has written for
O, The Oprah Magazine
,
Marie Claire
,
Harper’s Bazaar
,
Jane
,
Rolling Stone
, and other magazines. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, Nathan.
FIRST ANCHOR BOOKS EDITION, OCTOBER 2010
Copyright © 2009, 2010 by Suzan Colón
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Anchor Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in slightly different form by Doubleday, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2009.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:
The Estate of Jan Struther: “Advice to My Future Grand-daughter” from
Betsinda Dances and Other Poems
by Jan Struther (London: Oxford University Press, 1931). Reprinted by permission of Ysenda Maxtone-Graham and Robert Maxtone-Graham, on behalf of the Estate of Jan Struther.
New York Daily News
: “$5 Daily for Favorite Recipe—Chicken Roman” from
New York Daily News
, copyright © by New York Daily News, L.P. Reprinted by permission of
New York Daily News
.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Doubleday edition as follows:
Colón, Suzan.
Cherries in winter : my family’s recipe for hope in hard times / Suzan Colón.—1st ed.
p. cm.
1. Colón, Suzan. 2. Colón, Suzan—Family—Anecdotes. 3. Food habits—United States—Anecdotes. 4. Food habits—Economic aspects—United States—Anecdotes. I. Title.
CT275.C7323A3 2009
394.1’20973—dc22
2009022378
eISBN: 978-0-385-53258-7
v3.1
For Mom, Dad, and Nathan
Found among Matilda’s recipe file and personal papers:
Advice to My Future Grand-daughter
While I am young and have not yet forsworn
Valor for comfort, truth for compromise
I write these words to you, the unknown, unborn
Child of the child that in this cradle lies:
“Live, then, as now I live; love as I love
With body and heart and mind, the tangled three
,
Sell peace for beauty’s sake, and set above
All other things—ecstasy, ecstasy.”
—
JAN STRUTHER
Confession
Without my illusions
I should die
Coward, I
,
Who cannot face things
As they really are
But always seek
The shooting star
,
The Christmas Tree
And only see
What I want to see
.
—MATILDA KALLAHER
FAMILY TREEPeter and Matilde Guibe
THEIR CHILDREN:
Carrie, Katie, Willie, Freddie, Nettie
,
Sophie, Artie, Richie, and Madeline
Carrie Guibe Riordan and William Riordan
THEIR CHILDREN:
Matilda, Catherine, Jack, Claire
,
and Billy
Matilda Riordan and Charles Kallaher
THEIR CHILD:
Carolyn
Carolyn Kallaher and E. Colón
(divorced; Carolyn later married David Granger)
CAROLYN’S CHILD:
Suzan
Suzan and Nathan
Note:
The tree is pared down to the immediate family members mentioned in the story.
JANUARY 2009
HUDSON COUNTY, NEW JERSEY
“You know what you have to do now,” my mother tells me. “You have to put up soup.”
Put up soup; that’s what my family says when times get tough. Some people batten down the hatches, others go to the mattresses—whatever your family’s code phrase is, it means bracing yourself and doing whatever will sustain you through rough going until things get better. In my family, we put up soup.