Nancy Rommelmann

Vacations We Did Not Take

October 1998: Din moves to Los Angeles, to live with Tafv and me. It is her ninth birthday. We have five girls over for a slumber party. Add cake, plus all the juice and candy they can find in the house. Add pre-teen shrieking. Add Disney movies played for nostalgic reasons and Gigapets and Aaron Carter videos and more shrieking. Add neighbor backing into and over Din's motorcycle. See Din hibernate in upstairs bedroom. See me thinking, oh shit... right before or after one little girl steps on a piece of broken glass and bleeds all over the living room. Find Din in the dark. Say, we are going to take a vacation, somewhere, anywhere. We don't.

September 2003: Din and I get married. We think, we should take a honeymoon. But we've just bought a house, in another city; we both uproot our working lives. Maybe, we think, we could afford to go to Hawaii? We can't.

September 2010: We decide to take a honeymoon -- in Italy! Din's never been to Europe and it's been a good year for Ristretto. We're going to do it! We get scads of advice, the best and most comprehensive from Heather John, who gives us her honeymoon itinerary -- Lake Como! Venice! Rome! We know where we will stay, where we will eat; where we will detour. It's on... No, it's not. We pansy out, or commit to opening another place, or something. We go to Hawaii instead. It rains.

January 2011: Goddammit, we are taking a vacation, and we are not going to be idiots about it. (Didn't I make a new year's goal to be a better traveler? Yes, I did.) Not too adventurous; we don't have a lot of time or dough, what with the third Ristretto, and my new book. Let's make it an easy flight, Hawaii or Mexico... kind of a lot of terrain, let me spend 29 hours online until my eyeballs feel like parchment, let me narrow it down to Maui... or Mexico? Mexico. Let's spend the next two nights in bed with two laptops and their attendant cords and one iPad, looking at resorts; let's agree that we have spent more time looking up this vacation than actually taking it. Let us say thank you, to Ryan Cross and Dave Allen and Heather James, for their time and suggestions on our behalf. We are not going.

Books, Books, Books, Ice Cream

Read Patti Smith's "Just Kids" while in El Salvador. Loved loved loved. Get it.

My review of Daphne Kalotay's "Russian Winter," from this past Sunday's Oregonian.

And my novel, "The Bad Mother," in on Amazon, in paperback and Kindle. I would love if you buy it BUT not yet: I saw some glitches in the first edition which, in the brave new world that is digital publishing, can be fixed rather quickly. I'll give the sign when we're good to go.

Until then, a few shots from El Sal. Yes, we were there for the coffee, but here we are eating ice cream, first, Leticia and I in Ahuachupan, and second Din, outside of Metapan.

 

 

Travel, Book, Christmas Thanks

It has been a whirlwind month, and looks to continue. First bit of news: on Tuesday, Din and I fly to San Salvador, to meet our great friends Joel and Leticia Pollack, owners of Panther Coffee, in Miami. For a week, we will visit and stay on coffee farms in El Salvador and Honduras. I am going to document the trip pretty tight, so look for photos here.

Second bit of news: my novel, "The Bad Mother," is being published. It takes place in Hollywood. I have the finished proof beside me. Will be available on Amazon, both paperback and Kindle, probably within the week. I realize this is sort of a quiet announcement -- there will be additional blaring in the coming months.

Merry Christmas to all! Thank you for being here xx

 

What Went Down in New York

 
Tavie in my mom's kitchen

 
Morning of September 11

 
Anne Breza, my brother Chris's girlfriend, and Chris, just before he did a swim across the East River

 
Chris, who later said of the swim, "It was fun and easy."

 
Din walking the Brooklyn Bridge

 
John's Pizza, midnight

 
Gelato on Bleeker Street, 12:45

 
View from penthouse of Gansevoort Hotel, wrap party for "Arthur"

 
Tavie and star of "Arthur" Russell Brand. He is telling her, "You make me feel very unusual."

 
Bon voyage cheese blintzes at Teresa's

Panama

 

 

What I'm Reading/Where I've Been

Wow, am I behind. There are reasons! Will be heading to New York this week for the third time in a month, also smashed in ten days in Panama, and a wound about which the less said the better, so we'll leave it at: I had a tube hanging out of me for five days. All better now, but for the Chloroquine I am still taking once a week to ward off malaria. I don't like this drug; it makes you nauseous, but worse -- and I only figured this out eight days in -- it gives you nightmares. I have, in the past ten days, dreamed of being raped, murdering a child, having to save my child from a horrific fate, and -- over and over -- having to save people from the apocalypse and/or various untenable and terrifying to life and limb situations. There are also the little annoyances, like dreaming of my husband telling me, he's just signed on with Match.com. Suffice to say, each night is fraught; I need some sleep.

But sleeplessness does give one time to read, and much of it has been very, very good. A lovely new discovery, via my friend Kate Coe, is Charles McCarry, whose "The Miernik Dossier" is espionage at its best and much more. I am so very tempted to print here the section titled, "66. From Miernik's Diary," to show you not merely tremendous writing but tremendous thinking, but it needs context. I highly recommend the book.

Also just catching up with Michael Totten's two-part interview with Christopher Hitchens, a lunch I also attended. Hitchens asked me a question, regarding the book I am writing, that proved valuable, which was, "Did she think the children would be going to heaven?"

Back from Panama

And almost in one piece! Lots to report -- the death-defying cross-country driving; the tropical storms; the howler monkeys; the injury I flew home with. But those are a teaser. Will report in full when I have some digital photos at my disposal, hundreds of which Heather James happily snapped, while I took zero.

A good trip, and good to be back x

Gourmet Magazine, RIP

Just received an email from a friend who works at a Conde Nast publication, saying, "I had to read this three times to make sure I was still employed," referring to the memo, released this morning, saying the company is ceasing three of its publications, including Gourmet.

I will wager everyone over a certain age who cooks has a Gourmet story. Here's mine: I started subscribing to the magazine at age 12, thinking it so beautiful, so sophisticated; all these articles and beautiful photos from places like Gstaad and Vienna. It wasn't that I dreamed of going to these places, but of being the sort of person who went to these places. In the meantime, I baked from the magazine's recipes. Yes, at age 12, I was making a 12-layer Dobosh Torte.

I kept my subscription for 20 years, keeping years worth of the magazines shelved in the guest bathroom of the very first home my daughter and I lived in alone. I thought it a beautiful touch. A year later, I was contacted by Bon Appetit, to begin writing for them. They sent me on ski trips and cruises; I ate in cities all over, swam in three seas, for articles with beautiful photos. I had become that person I dreamed of, which astounded me.

Bon Appetit (whom I continue to write for) and Gourmet are both published by Conde Nast, and today, there is no more Gourmet. The wedge cut this makes in my day-to-day life will not be visible (for now), but psychically, something direct has been taken. When I metaphorically close my eyes, I see a road once traveled by a few writers and editors who were moving on by choice, or because they were not suited to the work, now increasingly crowded, moving briskly, but in which direction?

Summer 2009

So far!

My beautiful mom and me, on the house porch, Menemsha

Din: Can we brush our hair first?
Nancy: Smile!

With my best friend from college, Liz Robbins, in Harvard Square

With me in Harvard Square, not looking as happy as with Liz

Necklace in Cambridge I really, really wanted, and went back to try on, twice, and tried to justify buying, several times, but at $1500... could not. [Note for all you jewelry makers out there: smoky quartz, with a chain of silver alloy with green gold plating. I'll pay you to make it!]

Happy 4th, and, Later!

Enjoy and prize Independence Day, my friends. I'm on deadline and so, inside. But tonight, we get on a plane and fly away, nine blessed days in Martha's Vineyard. No blogging, no tweeting, no She Writes, no Facebook. If you want to reach me, I'll be sitting on the porch at the Chilmark Store.