Hellooooo! Is anyone out there?!? It's me! I'm back! Helloooo!
And, dearest, darlingest, bestest readers in the universe, I have the most amazing news ever. Ever. EVER EVER EVER.
My Berlin Kitchen is a bestseller!!! On the LA Times nonfiction hardcover list for the week of October 14, it popped on at number 8. Number 8! Number 8! Can you believe it? I cannot. You could have knocked me over with a feather, in fact you still could. Ohhh, and let me tell you, I have only all of you to thank for that, for going out and buying the book, for telling your friends, for showing up. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
We got back to Germany two weeks ago and went straight down to my mother's in Italy to recuperate. At first I was all, pshaw, who needs to recuperate? I need more book signings, more cities, that's what I need! And then Hugo was all, woman you must be out of our mind, I have had enough, take me to Nonna's. So we went and lo, it turned out I did need to unwind, just a little. The first several nights, I did nothing else than replay everything that had happened on the tour over and over in my head, like the very best movie I'd ever seen. Other than that, we did nothing. Besides take one hike, sit in front of the fireplace every night and eat homemade gnocchi at Gabriella's for lunch one day. (Now you know who Gabriella is! Ha! I love it.)
For those of you who wanted to hear the Leonard Lopate interview I did in New York: here you go.
Here's an interview I did with the lovely Amy Scattergood of LA Weekly, before the first event in LA.
While in Portland, I was on the local morning television network KATU: have a look.
The questions in this interview with Popmatters were really great.
Oh, and remember when, this summer in Italy, I said I had a recipe for pickled eggplant for you? Here it is.
I took these photos the day after we arrived on the West Coast, exactly one month ago. We rented a car and drove to the Santa Monica beach, where we walked down the pier and gazed out over the Pacific Ocean. Just a day earlier, we'd been in gray Germany. Now there was a wide expanse of blue ahead of us, a huge beach behind us and a pelican sitting in repose beside us. We stood there quietly, snapping pictures, both of us a little nervous about the trip that loomed ahead still. Hugo slept in his stroller and I thought about how funny it was that he had traveled so far already and yet didn't have a clue about where he was, how far from home he was. All that mattered to him was that Max and I were right there next to him. We were his home. We are his home. I like that, so much.
