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 (28 page)

And P.S. If you must know, we still indulge in those triple carmel something-iattos when on tour. So if you see us slurping in O'Hare, don't judge; we've put in our time.

Note:
The total time to prepare this recipe is 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Italian prune plums are small and egg-shaped, and their firm texture holds up well when baked. They're available for a few weeks each year, starting in early September. When Italian plums are not in season, you can use any pit fruit, including cherries, larger plums, and peaches. For larger plums and peaches, use about 5 pieces of ripe fruit, and cut each into 6 pieces. One 10-ounce bag of flash frozen berries placed on top of the batter works well, too. Whichever fruit you use, don't be shy; make sure to push the fruit gently into the batter so as to fit in as much as possible.

1
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease sides only of an 8″, 9″, or 10″ springform pan.

2
Cream sugar and butter in bowl of an electric mixer on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 1 minute. Add flour, baking powder, salt, and eggs, and beat well.

3
Spoon the batter into prepared pan, and spread to evenly cover the bottom (a frosting spreader works well). Place the plum halves skin side up on top of the batter (see note). Combine ½ teaspoon sugar (or more, depending on the sweetness of the fruit) and cinnamon in a small dish. Sprinkle mixture over top of batter.

4
Bake for 40–50 minutes, until dough is golden brown. Remove to wire rack and cool for 10 minutes. Remove sides of pan, cool to lukewarm, and serve (the torte stays on the springform base through serving). Or, refrigerate or freeze if desired. To freeze, double wrap the torte in foil after cooling, place in a plastic bag, and seal. To serve a torte that has been frozen, defrost and reheat it briefly at 300°F.

Liane R. Harrison

SELECTED WOEKS

The Girl Who Had No Face
(2011)

No Time to Wave Goodbye
(2009)

Still Summer
(2007)

Cage of Stars
(2006)

The Deep End of the Ocean
(1996)

The Power of Stories
The world is filled with stories, and these stories are the way we explain ourselves to ourselves, to others, to history. They're the way we tell our children: this is how you came to be born; or this is how your grandmother looked … you never met her but she loved to sing the song “Always” to me, just as I sing it to you. In our family, stories told around a table were the way to have power. If you could make someone laugh or cry with a story, that was power. Now, ever since I got hold of a few books when I was a very young girl, maybe twelve, I went nuts over the power of writing them down. These were books like
Gone With the Wind, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Marjorie Morningstar
, and (my mother didn't know I found this one)
Another Country
, by James Baldwin. I wanted to write for more than my family. I do this for my living because that response from people, the one I had as a twelve-year-old, is as much power as a human being can have. More than beauty or money or political clout.

If I Wasn't a Writer …
If I could have been what I truly wanted to be, I'd have been a singer. My son Martin is a singer and when I hear him sing I think, my goodness, what I do is so pale compared with this. So, to get in the mood to write, I can spend a whole day in the kitchen, baking for the college kids, making a year's worth of spaghetti sauce and applesauce because I won't be coming back to that once I start a novel, and listening to everything from Dusty Springfield to Mirella Freni. And while I'm doing that, I'm talking to the people who will help me shape the authenticity of my story: for this upcoming book, these are a firefighter, a surgeon, a medical illustrator, a feature film maker, and so on. Finally, I turn off the music and, in the silence, write the first sentence:“She was born lucky.” (That's the one this next time).

Readers Frequently Ask

Q:
Is this book going to be made into a movie like
The Deep End of the Ocean?

A:
I sure hope so!

Q:
Why have you written so many books if your first one was so successful?

A:
Ummm, see me later for a discussion of college tuition and obsession.

Q:
Is it fun to be able to stay home with your kids and make a living too?

A:
Fun?

Q:
Does writing just flow for you?

A:
It does not. I am not a natural.

Influences on My Writing

In Cold Blood
by Truman Capote. There have never been more elegant sentences. Some were a tad overwrought, but most of them were perfect. Capote found the right word, instead of the right ten words. “Literary” writers of this era need to listen up: just because you can do something does not mean you should do it over and over on the same page.

Charlotte's Web
by E. B. White
.
This is how a story should be structured, exactly this way. This is how emotion should arise naturally from event and how primary and secondary characters come to life through the movement of the tale.

Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy. In its time, it was considered a silly piece of romance. Oh, my gosh. Like a few other books, like
Rebecca
by Daphne du Maurier, it was one that nobody (except Dostoyevsky) got, in terms of how amazing a story this was. This is exquisite drama, huge ambition and sweep and, in the way all stories should be, social commentary of the highest order only through the events of the story — not as an exercise in polemic. It's dumb, for my money, to set out to write about “political futility” or “human redemption.” It's my belief that stories should teach lessons by accident, not by design. Readers get more from a story that entertains them and moves them and later provokes them to think about their beliefs than from a story that's heavy with symbolism. For example, Bernard Malamud wrote many short stories that were HEAVILY about the human condition. He also wrote the beautiful short novel
The Natural
which was made into a movie with Robert Redford — and which said more about defeat, hope, and redemption than all his other work. Bernard Malamud was at his best writing
The Natural
, not
The Letter
.

Makes 4 servings

I've never baked Proust's madeleine or even tried any of the recipes from Nora Ephron's
Heartburn
, but one of the happy lessons that the Cappadoras learn early is to guard a great recipe. In
No Time to Wave Goodbye
, Vincent compares Grandma Rosie's recipe for “gravy,” which is what Italians call pasta sauce, to such secrets as the recipe for Coca-Cola and Van Gogh's ineffable way of creating the color yellow. In my family, a good recipe needs to be easy, inexpensive, and evoke passionate reactions of joy. My children beg me not to forget the Sierra Secrets or the Tutu cookies at Christmas; my eldest took jars of my spaghetti “gravy” to college; my thirteen-year-old daughter has actually eaten so much of my mustard-and-ketchup meatloaf that she had to lie down for three hours. I created this recipe so that I could make a huge pot of rice for stir-fry one night and have enough left over to make rice pudding chilled for dessert or warm for a cold-weather breakfast the next day.