Capers

Aeolian Capers

They are as big as South Sea Pearls, plump and juicy, the pickled bud — before it blossoms into the gorgeous white and purple spiny flower. On Salina in June I saw them everywhere, the caper bush flourishing in the dry, black volcanic soil of the Aeolian Islands. I was struck by their beauty and size, learning that they have many special powers, able to create appetite, lower blood pressure and cholesterol, fight toothaches, ignite libido, and even to magically transform into another fruit. After the bud flowers from the flower come the cucunci. Filled with the tiniest seeds, which give it texture, they are delicious too — some people even think they’re tastier than capers. (In the first picture above, the cucunci hangs next to the caper on the end of one of the flower’s purple tentacles.)

Halibut with capers

(Or any white fish — branzino (Italian seabass), orata (gilthead seabream)

Roast very simply at 400 for about 10 minutes, depending on the thickness of the fish, with a little olive oil, big capers, cherry tomatoes cut in half, a sprinkle of salt. Serve immediately with a wedge of lemon to spritz over the fish.

I would pair with a summer orzo and a light salad.

Explore

jennymcphee.com

Jenny’s fantastic new website

My Brilliant Bombshell Of A Sister

Jenny, my sister, is now reviewing for Bookslut, the brilliant book review site. She has a column called The Bombshell. Read it and enjoy. Also be aware: she’s about to launch her own site any day now: jennymcphee.com.

At the end of Lyndall Gordon’s Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds, the biographer describes the source of the poet’s genius as: “…a hidden life like a ‘Bomb’ in her bosom. The poetry it fueled,” she advises, “must be seen in terms of New England individualism, the Emersonian ethos of self-reliance which in its fullest bloom eludes classification. It’s more radical and quirky than anything in Europe, more awkward and less loveable than English eccentricity; in fact, dangerous.”

It gives me enormous pleasure to inaugurate my Bookslut column, which I have entitled The Bombshell (bomb-shell: a shattering or devastating act, event, etc.; a fair-haired person, esp. a woman, of startling vitality or physique. -OED), with Gordon’s bombshell of a book about one of literature’s greatest bombshells, who also happened to be a flaming redhead.

click here for more

eMUSIC Q&A: By Jami Attenberg

eMUSIC Q&A: MARTHA MCPHEE

By Jami Attenberg

The fair citizens of New York City are obsessed with many things: art, music, books, food, movies, fashion, sports and extremely tall buildings. But hovering at the top of that list, perhaps because, for better or worse, it makes all of the other things go round, is money. And with that obsession comes a whole mess of emotions — and we’ll spare you that list, because it’s not just New Yorkers that lay claim to that funny illness; it is a universal disease, the money sickness.

Which is why novelist Martha McPhee’s fourth novel, Dear Money, manages to be so relevant to such a vast readership — even though it is set in New York, with its novelists and mortgage traders and Met parties and artist lofts in Williamsburg. Let us not forget also the quaint Maine summer home, which the book’s narrator, the mid-list novelist India Palmer, covets from the very beginning of the book, just before she meets Win Johns, the Wall Street trader, who offers her a chance to join his firm and change her life forever. Which, to everyone’s great surprise, she does.

THANK YOU, JAMI ATTENBERG

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Summer

Popham Beach, Maine

Thank You Dallas Morning News

Book review: ‘Dear Money’ by Martha McPhee

By ANNE MORRIS / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

A book that begins in July on a beach in Maine certainly sounds like a summer beach read. Dear Money is more than that. Martha McPhee’s entertaining fourth novel asks serious questions about what people live for. As the title hints, money is one answer.

Click here for full review

Fog: They Vanished Then Returned

A Most Astonishing Review: Thank You Stuart Mitchner and The Town Topics

Deep Down, It’s All About Writing — Martha McPhee’s Excellent Adventure

Stuart Mitchner

Click here to visit Cindy Sherman’s site

Martha McPhee’s new novel is not what it appears to be.

According to the jacket copy, Dear Money (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt $25) is a “Pygmalion tale of a novelist turned bond trader …. a raucous ride to the top of the income chain.” True enough, except that when a real-life bond trader came along and “propositioned” Martha McPhee in 2004 (“If you give me 18 months, I’ll turn you into a star trader.”), she behaved like a real-life writer. She saw a story in that proposition, explored the idea, researched it, and wrote a book that in its most inspired and accomplished pages has more to do with the joy of making literary art than it does with the art of making money….

Click here to read full review of Dear Money and to understand what Cindy Sherman has to do with it.