Drove from Indianapolis to the Windy City for a long weekend with my aunt & uncle, Gay and John Stanek, and my mom, who joined us from Dallas. Chicago is a dangerous place to go for a stroll when the weather’s nice due to all the fabulous (and fabulously expensive) stores clustered together along Michigan Avenue: Max Mara, Stuart Weitzman, Chanel, Saks, Vuitton, etc. etc. etc. Safer to go to Millenium Park and enjoy the art and architecture, as Gay, Mother and I did on Sunday.

Sunday afternoon I did a signing at yet another wonderful indie bookstore, The Book Stall at Chestnut Court in Winnetka, then had dinner that night with dear friend and playwright Lisa Dillman. We put our literary talents to dubious use, composing bawdy limericks using the words “Kaczynski” and “Lewinski.” (Don’t ask.)

Monday I gave a luncheon talk at Chicago’s famed Arts Club, which has hosted everyone from Marc Chagall and Jackson Pollack to Martha Graham and William Butler Yeats. Talk about being in good company! That night Gay and John had a splendid soirée for me at the club, attended by about 70 of their friends and family. My friend, artist Sherri Wood, who among other things makes the most gorgeous quilts you’ve ever seen, happened to be in town and was able to stop by. A marvelous time was had by all.

Chicago really is one of my favorite cities in the world. I would seriously consider living there if it weren’t for the cold and the wind — and the accents, which are almost as dreadful. Oh, you betcha.

Spoke to my largest audience ever — 950 ladies who lunch — at the annual Christamore House Author Luncheon and Benefit in Indianapolis. Christamore House is an agency that supports needy families in the community. We were given a tour of the facility the day before the benefit, and they do marvelous work there. They provide preschool, counseling, food, emergency clothing, senior activities, dental care, you name it, to people in need. A worthy place to send a few extra bucks, if you have them. Every city could use a half-dozen centers just like it.

One of the main ways Christamore House raises money is the annual Author Luncheon, which is organized by a Guild of volunteers. This year the Guild hosted me and four other authors, all way more distinguished than myself: Peter Carey, Australia’s most celebrated novelist, author of Booker Prize winners Oscar and Lucinda and The True History of the Kelly Gang and, most recently, His Illegal Self; Sue Miller, author of ten acclaimed books including the recent bestseller The Senator’s Wife; T. Jefferson Parker, two-time Edgar award winning mystery writer; and journalist Cokie Roberts, author of Founding Mothers and Ladies of Liberty, about the undersung women who shaped the birth of our nation. The night before the benefit, all of us authors (with the exception of Cokie, who hadn’t yet arrived) hung out late at the hotel over a couple of bottles of wine, swapping tour stories and talking about this crazy, solitary, maddening, wonderful thing that we all feel compelled to do. They were a lovely, funny and generous bunch, and it was truly an honor for me, as a first-time novelist, to be in their company.

At around 5:30 the next morning, I was awakened by a mighty rumbling and shaking, the hotel swaying and groaning around me. It felt a lot like the earthquakes I’d experienced when I used to live in LA. Nah, I thought, they don’t have earthquakes in Indiana. Must be a train. Or a dream. Or the wine. And I promptly rolled over and went back to sleep. Turns out they do have earthquakes in Indiana. This one was a 5.4 on the Richter scale. Jeff Parker took credit for bringing it from San Diego. Said it made him feel right at home.

After that, speaking to 950 people was pretty anti-climactic. I was seated with the other authors and the event chairwomen on a dais on a stage overlooking this gigantic room full of ladies. It was odd, eating in front of so many people; I was grateful they hadn’t served ribs or spaghetti Bolognese. The best part was that I got to sit next to Cokie Roberts and chat with her a bit. She is exactly as you’d expect: smart, witty, kind, and down-to-earth to boot. A class act in every sense.

Many thanks to the Christamore House Guild for inviting me to participate and to Kim Hardin, my minder, for shepherding me around Indianapolis.

A very belated blog about my wonderful time in Mississippi. The MDLT, whose mission is to “experience the place, the people, the food, and the music that inspired Mississippi writers,” hosted me and fellow writers Marion Barnwell, Dorothy Shawhan, W. Kenneth Holditch, and native artist Bill Dunlap for a lovely few days of outstanding food, company and literary talk. They put us up at the luxurious Alluvian Hotel in Greenville (a vast improvement over the grimy airport Radisson at which I stayed the night before, when I missed my connection in Memphis). Gracious staff, lovely accommodations and, as an added bonus, Harry Belafonte was at breakfast my first morning. Still looking impossibly handsome by the way, and — it must be said — going straight for the cheese grits, just like I was. The two young women working the breakfast room didn’t seem to recognize him, and I wondered whether that was a relief to him or a sadness. Impossible to know.

Monday were readings by Dorothy and me at Turnrow Book Company in Greenwood. Turnrow is that rare thing, a NEW independent bookstore (so many of the indies have been put out of the business by amazon and the big chains). Opened two years ago by owners Jamie & Kelly Kornegay, it’s a beautiful space, reminiscent of old European libraries. A terrific place to read and browse. And yet another reminder to us all to buy books from our local independent bookstores! If we don’t, we won’t have any, and that would be a real tragedy.

The following day we traveled to Greenville for a series of talks and readings at McCormick Book Inn. Owners High and Mary Dale McCormick are self-described “deltalogists” who specialize in all things Deltan. That night, we feasted on gigantic bloody porterhouse steaks and hot tamales at Doe’s Eat Place, one of the most famous restaurants in the South. Doe’s began as a strictly black honky-tonk in 1941. The food was so good that whites began coming to the back door for take-out, in an ironic reversal of segregation. Before long there was a white restaurant in back as well. Eventually the honky tonk was closed and Big Doe concentrated on the eat place — to the benefit of everyone. What a meal! We were all groaning when we left the table. I ended the evening playing cutthroat till 1:30 in the morning at the bar next door with charming tour coordinators Jimmy Thomas and Odie Lindsey. An extremely fun night, well worth the ensuing sore head.

I think there’s probably nothing on a book tour that beats reading in the town(s) where you grew up — in my case, Dallas and Muskogee, OK, where my father and stepmonster live, as well as my great-aunt Wanda, a passel of cousins and my mother’s partner’s family. Muskogee is more affectionately known among my family as Damnright, OK, because nearly any question you ask about it— “Jeez, does everybody in this town have a gunrack in their pickup truck?” — can be answered with the reply, “Damn right!”

I did a fun signing at Hastings. My dad stood in front of the table beaming, greeting everyone who came in and bragging shamelessly about His Daughter, The Author. All sorts of people turned up: old friends, family, old friends of my mom’s, parents of people I went to school with. We had such a good crowd we ran out of books.

Afterwards Dad and Jaque threw a bash for me at their house. My three best friends from elementary school came: Jeff Payton, Kathy Rogers Keeling (with adorable son Kaleb) and Karen Milam Flusche. Jeff, who is a judge, is actually my oldest friend on the planet. We were born the same day of the same year, and have known each other since we were about a year old. We sledded, caught lightning bugs, wrassled, made snow angels, played doctor — all the fun stuff.

Others in attendance were: my brother Jared; the Turner clan, led by my step-grandfather Tom; Robert Gaddy and Jennifer McCutcheon; Tom and Martha Alford; Robin and Alice Adair; Jimmy and Jean Kay; Norman and Cheryl Thuygeson; and Paula Sexton. A wonderful time was had by all. And did some of us have headaches the next day? Damn right!

(reprinted from powells.com)

Thou shalt not overcook thy meat. This is, as I was saying in my last epistle, one of the most fundamental commandments of the Barbecue God, and probably the one that man in his ignorance and imperfection has broken most often. When you’re a guest at a barbecue, and your host asks you how you would like your steak cooked, do not answer, “Medium,” “Medium well,” or, God forbid, “Well done.” This is blasphemy, pure and simple. The meet and right response is: “Medium rare, of course,” or, “Bloody, please.” And if you are the host and one of your guests asks you to overcook his steak, do not compound blasphemy with heresy by acceding to his request. Simply follow the time-honored example of master chefs the world over and serve the steak medium rare.

The question of how long to cook other meats is a thornier one, particularly with respect to poultry. It saddens me to think how much of the chicken I’ve eaten in my life has been overcooked. The desire to avoid hospitalization for salmonella poisoning, while understandable, is no excuse for heresy. Get an electronic meat thermometer with a transmitter that allows you to monitor the chicken’s progress. Stick the thermometer in the meaty part of the thigh, making sure it’s not touching the bone. A whole chicken will need to cook between two and three hours, depending on the temperature inside and outside the cooker; pieces vary and will need to be closely watched. Which brings me to another commandment: Thou shalt remove the chicken 5 degrees before it reaches its indicated doneness. Have faith and resist the temptation to cook it longer — it will keep cooking after you take it off the grill, and it will be perfectly done when you serve it. This commandment applies not just to chicken, but to all meats.

Think of the meat as the sacrament. This will guide you in many ways, beginning with your trip to the grocery store or butcher. Whenever possible, buy all-natural or organic meats. The difference in quality, and the absence of mystery hormones and antibiotics floating around in the temple of your body, is well worth the higher price. One of the blessings of barbecue is that you can make cheaper cuts — e.g., beef brisket — taste ambrosial by slow-cooking and smoking them.

There are a multitude of different sacraments in the Church of Barbecue and infinite ways to prepare them. Here, I will briefly touch on the holy trinity of smoked brisket, pork ribs and chicken.

Let us begin with brisket, which is surely one of the greatest gifts the Barbecue God has seen fit to bestow on us. You will know it by its fattiness, by the way the meat seems to dissolve in your mouth and by the ecstatic cries it produces in your guests. When purchasing it, ask your butcher for a packer’s brisket, untrimmed. It will weigh on average about 13 pounds. Trim it yourself at home, removing only the very hard fat and any shiny connective tissue. Be warned: if you cut off too much of the fat, your brisket will be dry and tasteless. Rub it generously with kosher salt and coarse pepper and leave it in the fridge for 24 hours. Smoke fat side down for 8 hours with pecan wood, at the lowest possible temperature, making sure the meat is shielded from the heat source. Then put it in a tightly sealed aluminum roasting pan and bake at 170 degrees overnight. Chop with a cleaver and serve on white bread or, as I like to do, fresh tortillas. Do not desecrate the sacrament with sauce of any kind; it is perfect as it is. If someone asks for sauce, forgive them, for they know not what they do.

Pork ribs are the second of our church’s great wonders. Some people prefer baby backs, but I like spare ribs; they’re juicier and have more meat on them. Whichever you choose, always buy ribs in racks. Get thee away from pre-cut “country style” ribs and especially boneless ribs, those mutilated remnants of their former glory. Gnawing on the bone is an act of worship, pleasing in the Barbecue God’s sight. Like brisket, ribs should be smoked slowly at low temperatures. I rub mine with Lawry’s Season Salt and pepper, then smoke them for three hours in pecan or apple wood, meat side up. I then baste them with a mixture of 2 parts honey and 1 part soy sauce, wait 15 minutes, then baste again and cook 15 more minutes, for a total cooking time of 3 1/2 hours.

Finally we come to whole smoked chicken, otherwise known as the Rapture. I prepare for it by peppering the cavity and the exterior. From there, there are many paths to glory. The cavity can be stuffed with onion or fruit. Pears are especially tasty, and if you have pear wood for smoking, all the better. The exterior can be rubbed with kosher salt, Lawry’s, Tony Cachere’s, or other spice mixtures. The chicken can be glazed at the end with everything from mango sauce to maple syrup, or left unadorned. Our God delights in many forms of worship.

May His blessings be upon you, and His divine light shine always upon your patio. And now I say unto thee: Go forth and barbecue! Do I hear a hallelujah?