Month: May 2011

Palace of the Blue Butterfly | Episode 10. Early spring on the ranch has come and gone. This year my Yellow Butterflies magnolia bloomed for the first time since I planted it three years ago, and of course, the tulips, the forsythia, the heavenly daphne rewarded all my hard work. It’s a charmed time of year, a time when I can relax on the porch, all the stooping and planting of last fall forgotten.

The east-facing front porch is my . . .

Palace of the Blue Butterfly | Episode 9. Today I’m going to show you a little you tube movie of the famous chef and — what can I call her? — the great food historian Diana Kennedy. You’ll be reading a lot about her. She was just given the James Beard Award for the best cookbook of the year for Oaxaca al Gusto.

The You Tube is in Spanish and is an interview for the, I guess, Mexican version of the AARP. It would be too tedious for you to read a whole word for word translation, so I’m just going to give you the gist.

I’m showing the Spanish language interview because the production values are the best. In it you can see Diana Kennedy in all her glorious 88 years at her home in Zitacuaro, Mexico. It is there that she gives . . .

Palace of the Blue Butterfly | Episode 8. Okay, so I’m a romantic. I admit it. Maybe because I’m from the South, but I love the Gothic. I love crumbling buildings draped with vines, overgrown gardens with a bit of wildness in them, anything scented and sultry and dark.

Sometimes Mexico seems more southern to me than the south, more gothic, more brooding and, yes, more romantic, like this hacienda . . .

Palace of the Blue Butterfly | Episode 7. Why did I choose Mexico as a setting for my book? Two reasons: When I was seventeen, my mother and I took off for Mexico City in her huge Buick Elektra. It was a road trip moment, really exciting, a bit dangerous, with great scenery as a backdrop. Anyway, I fell in love with Mexico. It’s that simple, early imprinting and all that.

The second reason? Well, that has to do with the craft of writing, with the essential element of conflict, and one of my all-time favorite types of conflict involves a woman trying to negotiate a life in a foreign country.

Once I had the setting for my book, I had the conflict. Given all the tension and danger in Mexico now, what was my character doing there? Whom would she meet? Where would she go? And I wanted to . . .