A small, deeply disturbed following.

I have to confess that I have never read M.F.K. Fisher. Not a word. I have always meant to, but really, never come close. Don't have a book on my shelf, waiting with the others. Haven't gotten one out from the library and left it untouched until the due date. Nothing.

I don't know why, and I don't know why I think it matters, other than that I love food, I love writing, I love true stories about people and love and life, so this seems like something lacking in my literary experience. Even, lacking in me.

But, I've read every word that Laurie Colwin ever wrote.

If you've read-or even think you've heard of-Laurie Colwin, then we can just frown, nod, and shake our heads in unison. You know what I mean. You and I are among the small, deeply disturbed followers* of a great writer, great food writer, and all around lovely human being, who died way before what anyone would consider her time.

If you've never even heard of her, then please look her up and read one of her books. They are, honestly, all the same to some degree. The same character, wrestling with similarly domestic crises of heart and home. Big, thoughtful heart, and comfortable, but often stilted home.

I say this with all due respect and admiration. Because that is what Laurie Colwin engenders: respect, admiration, loyalty, and deep affection. Both for her characters- flawed as they may be- and herself. She makes you feel that she is writing just for you, giving you kindly but unflinching insights into people you might know, and sometimes, even, yourself.

And her food writing (two volumes of collected essays and pieces written for magazines) elevates to an art form cooking that has perhaps fallen out of fashion in these days of flashy, flash in the pan, celebrity chef vanity books. Food that you and I actually can live with, can cook for our families and our friends, and build a community of love and comfort by sharing-simply-a meal.

Sadly, the lexicon of Laurie Colwin is finite. Some of my favorites: Goodbye Without Leaving. A Big Storm Knocked It Over. Shine On, Bright and Dangerous Object. And, most of all, Family Happiness. I found several at a used book store in Connecticut over Thanksgiving weekend (I once owned all of them but have pressed them onto so many friends over the years that I wound up without any) and bought every one they had there.

So, I'm starting over. I find that I'm such a different person than when I first read them-eighteen years ago!- and so I read them differently. But that somehow, they've grown with me. When I'm done with them this time, I'll need to move on again.

Sounds like a good hint for a Christmas present. Some M.F.K. Fisher would be perfect right about now.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

tt

*Bonus points if you recognize this quote from William Hurt, in The Big Chill.