Ann S. Epstein writes novels, short stories, memoir, essays, and poems. Please use the links or site menu to go to the HOME PAGE; learn about her NOVELS, SHORT STORIES, MEMOIR, ESSAYS, and POEMS; find interesting facts in BEHIND THE STORY; read REFLECTIONS on writing; check NEWS for updates on publications and related events; see REVIEWS; learn about her END-OF-LIFE DOULA credentials and services; and CONTACT US to send webmail.
“Antisemitism in our town began when Romania became part of Hungary. We were marched from the ghetto through the cemetery. I stopped at my father’s grave to tell him we were being deported. At the railway station, our former neighbors cheered.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
“I was smuggled out of the Warsaw Ghetto as an infant and handed to a Christian woman, who was later sent to a labor camp. Somehow we got separated and I was left at the train station, knowing only my first name and age: 2 ½ years.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
After WW2, Congress refused to allow Germans in Displaced Persons (DP) camps to immigrate to the U.S., except for several thousand Nazi collaborators and scientists whose expertise could help us fight the cold war against the Soviets. The secret intelligence program was dubbed “Operation Paperclip.” History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
My Goodreads and Amazon review of We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman (Rating 5) – A Gift to Dying. We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman is the story of the lifelong friendship between two women, Ash and Edi, the latter now in hospice. As Edi moves towards death, Ash surrounds her with love and assembles a community of other family members, friends, and hospice workers to accompany her on this journey. The finality is painful, but the long days and dwindling hours are also filled with humor and outright joy for life’s gifts. Newman’s novel is a gift to dying. While aspects of the tale are somewhat idealized — the women’s friendship, their respective families, and the residential hospice facility itself — the bodily humiliation and emotional grief of death are portrayed with honesty. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m impressed by the authenticity of Newman’s characters, especially the self-absorbed but self-aware Ash. As a certified end-of-life doula, I appreciate the realistic depiction of dying. It’s messy and draining, but also a time to tie up loose ends and magnify love. Edi is faced and graced with it all. Don’t we all deserve the “good death” that Newman portrays?
Today, March 14 (3/14), is Pi Day, an annual event first celebrated in 1988 because 3, 1, and 4 are the first three digits of the mathematical constant Pi. It is traditional to eat “pie” of every variety on this day, from the one- or two-crust pastry dough with a sweet or savory filling, to the thin- or thick-crust pizza pie topped with whatever sauce, cheese, meat, vegetables, and/or other ingredients one can stomach. Curious about the “storied” history of pie?
The first documented use of the English word “pie” appears in the 1303 records of a Yorkshire priory, possibly related to magpie, a bird that collects assorted things in its nest. However, pie’s origins are ancient. A written recipe for chicken pie from before 2000 BCE was discovered on a Sumerian tablet. Images of early pies, called galettes (flat, free-form crusty cakes of grain mixed with honey), are on the walls of the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1304 to 1237 BCE. Greeks invented pie “pastry” in the 5th century CE by adding fat to a flour-water mix. Rome’s innovation was “covered” pie to retain the juices of the meat or fish used to stuff it.
The Roman Empire spread pies throughout Northern Europe, where they became a dietary staple of working people. Custard and fruit pies began to appear in the 15th century. Pilgrims brought their pie recipes to North America, adapting them to local game and produce. When Native Americans taught them how to boil down maple syrup, maple became a popular pie sweetener. Successive waves of immigrants brought their own variations — Scandinavian cheese and cream in the Midwest — as did enslaved peoples — molasses from the Caribbean and sweet potatoes from Africa in the South. Pies — notably pigeon and venison — appear often in the novels of Jane Austen. In fact they are the only food mentioned in the Christmas feasts she describes.
Pizza pie has its own history, a long one dating to the flat breads of ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. However, the modern pizza pie was born in Naples, Italy. Legend has it that when King Umberto I and Queen Margherita visited Naples in 1889, they were bored with French haute cuisine and asked for an assortment of pizzas from the city’s century-old pizzeria. The variety the queen enjoyed most was topped with soft white cheese, red tomatoes, and green basil, coincidentally the colors of the Italian flag. Thenceforth, that combination was named the Margherita. But pizza pie wasn’t well known outside Italy until the 1940s, when Neapolitan immigrants brought it to the United States. The simple and adaptable aromatic treat soon became a hit in New York and other American cities. Who can forget John Travolta, as Tony Manero, slapping two slices together as he strides through Brooklyn’s pulsing streets?
If you like your pie encrusted in historical fiction, please continue to savor my website. See NOVELS and SHORT STORIES to read about the culinary traditions brought to America by immigrants. Leave a comment. Share your family’s pie and other food favorites.
“Before we were deported, soldiers put tags with SS insignia on all our belongings . They owned everything now, down to the last toothpick.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Holocaust deniers are no longer a fringe group. They’ve been given space, room to grow, and positive media coverage by some national leaders. History shows America failed to end WW2 sooner or admit those fleeing Nazi persecution. Read about a German Jewish family who tries to escape to the U.S. in the novel One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
Although 2023 is not a Leap Year, I was curious about literary references to this quadrennial event. A search turned up surprisingly few. Here’s a calendrical listing of what I found. Can you cite more?
“For leap year comes naething but ance in the four.” (Robert Shennan, “Leap Year,” Tales, Songs, and Miscellaneous Poems, Descriptive of Rural Scenes and Manners, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 1831)
“This being Leap Year the signs of the Zodiak are all on the rampage. There is no cause for alarm. Once in four years this frolic occurs, and is said by the doctors to be necessary for their health.” (Josh Billings, Farmers’ Almanac, 1872)
“In Leap Year the weather always changes on a Friday.” (Belgian proverb quoted in Rev. Charles Swainson, A Handbook of Weather Folk-Lore, 1873)
The while you clasp me closer,
The while I press you deeper,
As safe we chuckle,—under breath,
Yet all the slyer, the jocoser,—
“So, life can boast its day, like leap-year,
Stolen from death!”
(Robert Browning, “St. Martin’s Summer,” Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper, 1876)
“So it was that on the twenty-ninth day of February, at the beginning of the thaw, this singular person fell out of infinity into Iping Village.” (H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man, 1897)
“Surely this was a sign on Leap Year night! It’s the 29th. Go in and win. Don’t be afraid.” (A. A. Milne, Lovers in London, 1905 )
“For jaywalkers every year is leap year.” (Bill Holman, “Auto Suggestions,” The Travelers Insurance Company, Thou Shalt Not Kill!, 1935)
Hobbits observe twelve 30-day months every year, including Solmath, equivalent to February. Five days are added to make 365 per annum. (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, 1937)
Leap Year: A Novel by Steve Erickson (1989)
Leap Year: A Comic Novel by Peter Cameron (1990)
Other Leap Year Trivia
People born on leap year are called leaplings.
The first arrest warrants in the Salem witchcraft trials were issued on February 29, 1692.
Sweden and Finland added an extra Leap Day to February in 1712 to synchronize their outdated Julian calendar with the new Gregorian calendar.
British-born James Milne Wilson, who became the 8th premiere of Tasmania, was born on Leap Day 1812 and died on Leap Day 1880, his “17th” birthday. The rarity of the date aside, it’s not unusual for people to die on their birthday.
In 1928, bartender Harry Craddock invented a Leap Day Cocktail at London’s Savoy Hotel:
1 dash lemon juice
2/3 gin
1/6 Grand Marnier
1/6 sweet vermouth
Shake and serve, garnished with lemon peel
Cheers leaplings. Next year is yours!
My Goodreads and Amazon review of Black Licorice by Elaina Battista-Parsons (Rating 5) – The Soundtrack of Friendship. Tune into Black Licorice by Elaina Battista-Parsons and listen to Freddi, whose flute-playing talents are prodigious. She also excels as the creator of the Black Licorice blog. Alas, Freddi’s skills at friendship are zilch. She’s made one friend at ARTS high school — Court, a viola prodigy — but her confidence is shaken when he disappears without reason or further contact. Freddi is at a loss to figure out what she did to drive him away. Reeling from that broken friendship, and sent to an ordinary high school as “punishment” for an angry outburst, Freddi stumbles onto the treacherous path of a potential new relationship. Her parents and peers warn her that this new friend, Lorna, is not suitable given her own (unspecified) “bad girl” behavior. Freddi pursues the friendship anyway, but every (mis)step threatens to sabotage her progress. The book is aimed at a YA audience, but even readers and writers of adult fiction, including myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), will admire Battista-Parsons’s ability to get inside the head of her adolescent protagonist and explore the complexities of friendship at any age with empathy, insight, and humor. Freddi keeps getting knocked down but readers root for her to get up, pick up her flute, and play on.
“The Swedes were very generous, considering that their own food and clothing were strictly rationed. Women could receive only one dress, one pair of shoes, and two pairs of stockings a year. No bra. One day the Swedish flag was stolen from the flagpole. The crime was solved when blue and yellow bras appeared on the camp’s clothesline.” Read about two Holocaust survivors, German Jewish newlyweds sent to America by their parents to have children to “save our people,” in One Person’s Loss. Learn more about the book in NOVELS.
