Archives - Weekly Update

My husband, Tom, knew I was a reader from the moment he met me. Seriously. We met in Crested Butte, Colorado, 35 years ago (yesterday was the actual date). He had seen me from the chairlift; I was wearing a lavender ski jacket, which at the time was pretty unusual. Later he saw me in the ski lodge bar. I was reading THE CARDINAL SINS by Andrew Greeley, which had a pretty risqué cover. I was trying to hide the cover as I was sitting there waiting for a friend who was driving up from Gunnison to have dinner with me. Tom was with a friend from Columbus, Ohio.

In the “life is not dull” category, one morning this week I got a text from my next-door neighbor that read, “There is a bear running in the woods behind your house.” I jumped out of bed tossing my book aside to throw open the drapes to see if I could catch a glimpse of him, but she later told me that she screamed so loudly he took off in a full sprint. When I texted my son, Cory, that this had happened, he asked if there was a piglet, a tiger and a rabbit with him. Loved the book tie-in!

It’s confession time. Though my last name is Fitzgerald, I am not one bit Irish. And my husband Tom, well, he is something like 1/4 Irish and the rest German. That said, we are cooking corned beef and cabbage (which I know from our readers of true Irish heritage is not an authentic Irish meal, but then again we are imposters, so I can see why we are making an imposter meal). We agree with Mary Kay Andrews that boiled potatoes are rather boring with corned beef. Thus, after seeing her Facebook Live event the other night, I am making the Scalloped Potatoes from her BEACH HOUSE COOKBOOK that will be in stores on May 2nd. Here’s the recipe, and you can watch MKA whip up this recipe here.

It snowed again today while yesterday’s temperature got up to 60 degrees; the weather is all over the place this winter. And if the weather was not confusing you enough, don’t forget to turn your clocks ahead one hour on Sunday. I will feel like I have jet lag next week without even leaving town, and yes, I am whining about this. I know, I hear your argument that it will be light out for an extra hour each evening, but this time of year 6pm in New York is just bright enough for me! For me, every hour in every day is accounted for; I do not need less of them, even one day of the year.

This week felt like it was spring, then summer, then winter. I drive into the city every day and keep an assortment of coats in the back seat of my car. In the past week I've worn no coat, a sweater coat, a down vest and a down coat, each on a different consecutive day. I knit scarves for a couple of friends, and as I went to mail them, the temperature rose. I thought perhaps my knitting was linked to global warming! Luckily it's cold and windy again now so they can wear them; for a while I feared they would have to wait for next winter.