Table of Contents: From Breakfast With Anita Diamant to Dessert With James Patterson - a Generous Helping of Recipes, Writings and Insights From Today's Bestselling Authors (5 page)

Note:
Any kind of ham will work, as long as it's precooked. I like smoked ham myself, but even a canned ham will do.

1
Preheat oven to 325°F.

2 To make the meatballs:
Place all ingredients in a large bowl, and knead with hands until completely combined. Shape into meatballs between the size of a walnut and a ping pong ball. Place in one 9″ × 13″ × 2″ baking dish, and one larger pan, such as a shallow roasting pan or jelly roll pan, leaving a little space between meatballs.

3 To make the sauce:
Place all ingredients in a small bowl. Stir mixture together until sugar is dissolved. Pour over meatballs.

4
Bake 1½ hours. Remove pans from oven and turn meatballs to coat them with the candied sauce. Meatballs will keep a week in the fridge, longer in the freezer. To reheat meatballs, cover with aluminum foil and place in preheated 300°F oven for 15 minutes. Check a meatball to see if interior is warm. If not, continue heating for another few minutes.

Makes 6–8 servings

This is a family recipe provided by my grandmother Luverne's best friend, Adeline. The two ladies were inseparable lifelong friends, so this salad is a staple at family picnics and signifies summer to me. Potato salad appears in
The Stormchasers
as a favorite food of the twins. I will probably be taken out by a Norwegian hit man for confessing this, but the secret is in the sugar.

Note:
The flavors of this salad intensify after 24 hours, so it's best when made a day or two ahead of time.

1
Place potatoes in a large pot, cover with water, and bring to boil over high heat. Add 2 teaspoons of salt, reduce heat to medium, and boil gently for 4–5 minutes, or until potato cubes are just tender. (Check cubes often while cooking by fishing one out and tasting it. As soon as they're tender enough to bite through easily, drain them. The potatoes will continue cooking a bit after being drained, so it's better to err on the side of too firm than risk mushy potatoes.) Drain potatoes, and pour into a large bowl.

2
Whisk together the mayonnaise, mustard, sugar, remaining teaspoon of salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce in a separate bowl. Pour on the warm potatoes, and combine gently with a wooden spoon. Add the diced eggs and onion, and stir to combine. Chill.

3
When ready to serve, arrange the egg rings on top of the salad, and sprinkle with parsley and paprika.

Fred Gerr

SELECTED WOEKS

America, America
(2008)

Carry Me Across the Water
(2001)

For Kings and Planets
(1998)

The Palace Thief
(1993)

Blue River
(1991)

Inspiration
Two things inspire me as a writer. The first is reading. Not just any book, but a book that
makes
me read it, and only one in ten books
makes
me read it. The second is the great fear of not being productive as a human being. I like to make things, work in the garden, cut firewood, or build furniture. The fear of not producing something is a fear of life passing by. I should add that it feels very good to be devoted to something, as well. When you're writing a book, you are utterly devoted to it.

Like many writers and artists, I go from ecstasies to despondencies, and the trick to making a career of writing is to make more shallow the depths of the despondencies and, in some ways, to level out the heights of the ecstasies.

Readers Should Know
I spent a number of years trying to figure out what I find inspiring. I've traveled, lived in the jungle, hitchhiked, put myself in dangerous situations, gambled. But after all that, I've discovered that I write best sitting in my office looking out over a familiar view: a shed in my backyard and some chickens plucking at the grass.

Readers Frequently Ask
Who is the guy at the beginning of
America, America
at the funeral with the cane?

That question has a very specific answer: a character who is identifiable later by that same cane.

People always ask, too, whether
America, America
is based on Ted Kennedy. The plot of the novel obviously derives from certain incidents in Kennedy's life, but the character of the senator was more deeply inspired by Lyndon Johnson, by his public idealism set against his personal ruthlessness.

People wonder what impact teaching has on my writing. I'm lucky because I teach at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and I have fabulous students. Their writing moves and goads and inspires me. To teach good students is a deep delight.

People also ask about my being a doctor and wonder whether I'm ever going to write a medical novel. My strong belief is that if you don't invent everything, you can't invent anything. A novel about medicine would be the last book I'd write.

Influences on My Writing
I can't remember the details of all the books I've loved and been inspired by, only the emotion I had when reading them. I love funny books but I remember sad ones.

The Stories of John Cheever
. This is the book that first made me want to be a writer.

The Deptford Trilogy
, by Robertson Davies. The scope of imagination, both outward and inward, stuns me. One novel in the trilogy, for example, is about the life of circus performers, while another is the transcript of a Jungian analysis.

Open Secrets
, by Alice Munro. This book really expanded my idea of the short story.

Tell Me A Riddle
, by Tillie Olsen. This is not an ornate book, but it certainly is a searing one. As I've grown older as a writer, I've become more interested in content than style. I've come to believe, in fact, that a writer must choose between psychological realism and poetic prose. In my opinion, the two simply cannot fully coexist, for either writer or reader.

Makes 1 (9-inch) pie; 8 servings

The scene that got me started on my most recent novel,
America, America
, is the one that features a strawberry rhubarb pie. Though it did not end up being the first scene in the book, it was the first one I wrote, long before there was a presidential candidate, a love affair, or even a fully formed family story in my mind. Though one is unconscious of this kind of thing when writing, I realize now that the humble, old-fashioned gesture of baking a pie seemed to emphasize the differences between, on the one hand, working-class Corey Sifter and his diligent mother Anna (who actually baked the pie) and, on the other, the wealthy girl who invites Corey sailing. I also must have thought that the combination of something beautiful and luscious — the strawberry — and something lowly, sour, and common — the rhubarb — would work well in a novel that in many other ways juxtaposes opposites.