For the most part, I succeeded - at least when it came to being resourceful at home, stretching meals and doing housework, while at the same time, investigating education and employment alternatives. I’ve recycled more and grown “greener”, and yeah, that feels good. But I’ve also noticed something more subtle and insistent crop up and it’s been like an itch I cannot scratch, or something dark darting out of the edge of my peripheral vision.

I have had a great deal of upheaval in my life - well, who hasn’t, really? - between multiple moves, school and residences changes numbering in the teens before I was eighteen years old, as well as the many moves during my adult years so far. A divorce, custody battle, new relationship, engagement, and now a new city where I speak the second language, not the first. I cannot imagine a life without so much change and yet I crave stability. Roots. A sense of being anchored. And I am slowly achieving this.

And yet the more the months (and now years) go by where I experience the most potential for stability in my adult life, there is this persistent message that is increasing in volume: to move forward I must rely not so much on inspiration or motivation, but by release of the things that hinder me.

Because I moved so much in my life, I coped with it from a young age by taking the opportunity to try to re-invent myself. Looking back, I realize that the problem I had each time was that I developed an uncanny ability to don characteristics that suited the environment I was going into, and to overcompensate for what did not work in the environment I left behind. It went beyond being adaptable. I became a chameleon, to the point that I simply could not recognize myself anymore.

This was the crisis that finally erupted and left a great crater in Mount St. Renee just over three years ago when my marriage officially blew up. And now, with the time I’ve had to rest, reflect and refocus, I see that even a recovery period such as the one I’ve had over the last few years has come to an end - but I’m having a harder time leaving that than I could have predicted.

Because I believe strongly in the mind-body connection, I decided once again (for the 549th time, I am certain) to lose weight, firm up, carve and sculpt myself as an act of the will, designed specifically to “fix” myself on the inside.

Oh, I was doing great - for a whole three weeks, I ran, I fasted, I tried South Beach, I drank more green tea, I did sit-ups, I grunted through Pilates and Yoga. I became obsessed with my body and with horror I realized that I became obsessed with the bodies of others without seeing it coming. Inevitably I crashed, and for the last month I slid right back into old patterns, both physical and emotional. Negative, obsessive thinking. Eating exactly the opposite of what I know is healthy for me. I’ve slid into a sticky inertia.

Today, I am feeling pretty low physically and my mental and emotional state reflects the same stagnancy. I’m PMS-ing, sure, but this is no small thing while living with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, as well as a clinical diagnosis in 2003 for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Depression (which has wavered between mild, moderate and severe over the last five years).

I’m also fretting somewhat about my impending 39th birthday in a few weeks, a visit from my mother (whom I’ve not seen in two years), consequences of choices for work and school that I made (or didn’t make) 21 years ago, my upcoming wedding in August 2009…it’s all so ripe for me to revert back to a lifelong pattern of well-intentioned but self-defeating mode of thinking.

I haven’t wanted to fully admit it to myself, but the best thing I can do for myself holistically is to release the weight of the burdens I lay on myself - the compulsion to compare myself to everyone else (which always results in me casting myself as inferior), the complaints I have against my ex-husband (emphasis on the “ex” - what’s done is done, already!), the hurts from family and friends that are in no way current. Old, vague and recycled fears about my health and the security of my relationship with my partner, guilt at not being a better mother, concern for my children’s future, and an impending sense of doom at the economy and climate.

I have little momentum, inspiration or motivation right now. I’ve found it more difficult to read or write in recent weeks than I can ever recall. But there is a patient, loving, reliable voice that is more familiar and trustworthy than I have given it credit for - and that voice is telling me to simply be kind to myself, release the hurts and the burdens by simply letting go, and the weight loss, the health, the creativity, the abundance, and the restoration will follow on its own.

That’s an experiment I am willing to try over the next season. A cocoon of kindness in the Holiday season. Who knows what I’ll have to report by the next issue?

I’m tempted to vow and project - but in the spirit of release and of a moving away from compulsive resolution and re-invention, I believe that Hope is most appropriate.

Renée Letros is mother to a teenage daughter and a just-about-to-be-teenage son. She lives in Montréal, Canada, with her best friend, partner and Love, Warren, in an idyllic tree-lined neighborhood surrounded by parks, cafés, bakeries, churches, and an open-air market. She focuses her writing mainly on non-fictional explorations of relationships with lovers, family, friends, co-workers, and community and culture

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While I am, at heart, half California beach baby and half fast-talking Yankee, one of the things I’ve come to appreciate about the South, in general, and Texas, particularly, is the way the women here have mastered the use of snark, and can utter perfectly scathing comments about their neighbors, friends, and relatives while maintaining pleasant smiles and perfect lipstick. One of the expressions I’ve completely fallen in love with is “bless your heart,” because on the surface it’s an expression of concern or sympathy, but with a subtle change in tone it becomes an insult. It’s the sort of thing that’s difficult to relate in text, and must be heard to be truly understood, but let me just say that when your ninth grade English teacher was rattling on about “irony of tone” these women were her poster children.

I confess, I’m not above the occasional catty remark myself, though when I utter such things it’s usually in jest and with a heavy dose of affection. I think this is why I have many more male than female friends, however. I never learned to hide my mischievous manners behind a bubble-gum pink smile. Instead, my snarky or sardonic phrases came from a mouth painted as fuchsia as my hair used to be. (It’s currently sort of indigo.)

Or maybe it’s not that I didn’t learn such artifice; it’s that I just don’t care to hide behind it. You’re either my friend or you’re not – I’m not into situational relationships, and while I love a good argument about national or global politics, I have zero tolerance for political game-playing between neighbors, friends, or family. If I’m mad at you, you won’t find a knife sticking in your back, you’ll know because I’m yelling and making wild gesticulations, just as my Italian-American relatives did, and just as they still do today. I might curse at you, but I don’t hold grudges, and in an hour – or less – I’ll be over it. I’m mercurial that way, even though I was born a Leo.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, according to the dictionary definition, I’m not really very nice. I’m loud, I’m outspoken, and I’m not very patient. I tend to think and act very quickly. I love wordplay, and am not above arguing for the sake of the argument, but I do it for the entertainment, not because I HAVE to be right.

Not that I dislike being right, mind you. It’s just that, put simply: I am a naughty girl.
No, not that kind of naughty.
Look, Dictionary.com defines “naughty” this way:

• disobedient, mischievous (used esp. in speaking to or about children)
• improper, tasteless, indecorous, or indecent
• (Obsolete) wicked, evil

I do have taste, and I’m not all that indecent, but I hate rules, challenge authority, and at the age of 38 have not learned how to sit correctly in a mini-skirt. (I really hate skirts, actually. I’m the sprawling on a pile of pillows type, not the crossed legs and coasters type). My spirit is restless with a capital “R,” and the four years and one month I’ve been in this house in Texas are the longest time I’ve spent anywhere, ever .

And I’ll say almost anything if it’s snarky or funny, and I think I can get away with it.

For the longest time, I thought there was something wrong with me. I mean, my grandmother used to gasp and call me “fresh,” and I’m pretty sure she wasn’t referring to the pleasing smell of my sun-dried laundry or squeaky-clean hair.

Now, I embrace my inner imp, and my bitchy side is a source of power. I’ve learned to temper my mischievous nature with a bit of thought – most of the time – and to channel my dark side into creative projects.

But like Anne Shirley who realized it was possible to be wicked without quite knowing it, I will always be a naughty girl, and I’m fine with that, because naughty is not equal to bad. I know that for a fact, because bad boys and girls get coal in their Christmas stockings, but naughty girls get more presents.

Just ask my mother.

Melissa A. Bartell likes strong coffee, red wine, and dark chocolate. She earns her living writing web-copy for an Internet marketing firm, dabbles fiction on the side. She lives near Dallas, TX with her husband, two dogs, and more computers than anyone really needs. She is the Managing Editor here at All Things Girl. Find out more about her on our About Page, or check out her blog at MissMeliss.com

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Please tell our readers a bit about yourself: I know both from the bio at your website, KatherineNeville.com, and from the fly-leaf on the original copy of The Eight, as well as from various interviews, that you’ve worked at IBM, Bank of America, and with OPEC. How much of you is in Cat Velis, and how is she different from you?
It’s hard to realize, but when you write fiction, you yourself–the author–actually are all of the characters. In my case, even including Napoleon’s grandmother, Lord Byron, and the evil Marat. To make a character come alive, you have to be able to empathize, to put yourself in his shoes and speak from his point of view. It’s like what an actor does but even more so–because you have to imagine what he’d say, as well as say it for him.

As for the characters in The Eight, I’m often asked if I am “really” Cat Velis. Even though she does narrate events in first person, I personally feel that the character who is most like me in The Eight is Ladislaus Nim. He does the things I would do–for instance, I’d try to solve the formula and help humanity, not bury it or destroy it. As for my professional career–though it was a long time ago, I know that I never really thought like an executive. I was more of a high-level computer geek (they called us “technocrats” in those days)–and even today, I still get along really well with people who are up to their elbows in the nitty-gritty of science and technology. In fact–I even live with one! (Dr Karl Pribram, the noted brain scientist.)

A reader noted that the women in The Eight, especially Cat and Lily, were subject to some pretty rampant sexism, and wondered if that was an accurate portrayal of the time and place in which the novel was set? Also, have you been on the receiving end of sexism, in your own career, both before and since becoming a novelist?
Wow! So that’s what they call it now? “Rampant sexism?” In the 1960s and 70s they just called it Business as Usual. Back then, no one had even heard of a “glass ceiling.”

But any young girl who needs a refresher course today should run right out and get grandmaster Susan Polgar’s autobiography, Breaking Through: How the Polgar Sisters changed the Game of Chess. As the first woman in history to receive the male grandmaster title, Susan won her first competition at age four and she and her two younger sisters went on to take the chess world by storm for something like twenty years. She sent me this biography just after I’d finished my new book. I was flabbergasted how close it came to the backstory I’d invented for Lily Rad in The Eight, and also now for Cat and Solarin’s chess-whiz daughter, Xie, in The Fire - that the anti-female chess world that I’d imagined was that much - and then some.

It’s been said that your work “paved the way” for books like The DaVinci Code, and you yourself have been described as a female Umberto Eco. What are your thoughts on such comparisons? Have you read Eco’s work, or Dan Brown’s?
Oh yes–I have to read everyone’s work - mainly to be sure I’m not doing something they’re doing at exactly the same time that I was about to do it. It’s endlessly astonishing to me how often I’ve written something, where I wasn’t really sure whether it was believable enough to use in a novel - and then gone to the movie theatre and seen that Stephen Spielberg had just done exactly the same scene, right up there on the big screen where you just have to believe it.

The same thing with Umberto Eco: his training as a semiotician made him interested in the same things that an emerita computer wizard like me is naturally drawn to. For instance, I’d already written the first half of The Eight when The Name of the Rose came out, and the monastery he described sounded almost word-for-word like my first chapter opening. I actually had to go back and change Montglane Abbey so people wouldn’t think I was copying him!

I can’t say how many times I’ve had to slash and burn material like that, because somebody else got attracted to it simultaneously. But luckily I’m also an information junkie. I’ll never run out of obscure and little-known facts. And having to delve for them - as I had to do repeatedly while writing The Fire - has stretched the boundaries of what I’m writing. So while there are newer writers who are partial to writing this type of puzzle/quest/swashbuckling adventure novel - like Dan Brown, whom you mentioned, or my colleagues Steve Berry, Javier Sierra, David Hewson - I’m really glad that they are! We now have a whole field of the books that I had missed for so long, and that I love to read.

One of the things I liked about The Eight when I read it twenty years ago, was that even though chess was an important theme and there was an actual game one could follow through the novel, knowing how to play chess was not crucial to enjoying the book. Are your chess skills good, or did you have help with the details? Is the new book, The Fire similarly constructed?
I love chess. Like Borges, Nabokov - and so many of my favorite writers of yore - I love the cosmic aspects of “the Game” and the interplay of long-range strategies and short-term tactics. I’ve always regretted that I learned to play chess too late ever to be any good at it.

As for assistance, when I wrote The Eight I had input from a friend who was a female chess competitor, and several International Masters who helped me find the game - from a score of those in international competition - upon which the plot of that very complex book could be based. But now, twenty years later, I’ve met grandmasters in other countries, I’ve been interviewed by chess magazines and asked to write chess stories - and I not only got help from a lot of chess wizards (I thank them all under Acknowledgments in my book) but also from a child chess champion, Alisa Melekhina, who helped me for the several years that I struggled to get inside the mind of my main character in The Fire: Alexandra Solarin.

The men in your novels are all very vibrant characters – Alexander Solarin and Ladislaus Nim, of course, but also Zoltan Tor. Are these men drawn from life, or are they completely fictional? Do you have a favorite among them?
I based all the male protagonists on friends of mine–men I knew really well as “best friends,” or had even dated. When I knew I was about to finish a complete novel, I asked and got permission from all of them to use them in “composite characters.” Obviously it worked really well: women readers love these guys because they are natural-born egalitarians toward women. While men love the fact that the heroines find an intelligent man sexy. Just like real life - right?

My favorite “vibrant character” is definitely the key male protagonist in The Fire, Vartan Azov. I think it’s because Vartan surprised me by yanking the plot out of my hands. He did something three chapters earlier than any of us had been expecting. I phoned my editor Mark Tavani, and I said, “Guess what - Vartan has just taken matters into his own hands.” Mark said, “I love it when characters do that. It makes our job so much easier.”

For readers, twenty years is a long time to wait for a sequel. Had you always planned to revisit the characters from The Eight? What made this year the right time for publication, or was the timing controlled by forces outside yourself?
The timing was controlled by forces outside myself.

I should explain: I have never felt that I was writing my own books - I felt they were writing themselves. I do all the ground work, but if books are not dropping off the library shelves open to the right page, providing the exact fodder I need to advance the plot, it doesn’t matter how much character, material and plot I’ve already accumulated, I know that the book isn’t ready for me to write it.

The most interesting thing to me about The Fire - more than any of the other books I’ve started or finished writing - is that when I first conceived of the book (1992) or when I actually began writing it (1998) the stellar events that were later going to prove absolutely pivotal to the plot and the characters hadn’t happened yet. Each time I would start working on the book something bizarre would happen that would tell me I had to stop - to step back - to pay attention to the larger picture. It wasn’t until I was halfway through writing the book that I realized why:

When The Fire finally got itself under way, the modern part takes place in the single week of 2003 of Cat Velis’s birthday - the original heroine of The Eight. That week also happens to be the week we entered Baghdad. In The Eight, we had learned that the Montglane Service, the chess set that once belonged to Charlemagne, had been created in the eighth century - in the then-brand-new city of Baghdad.

Tell us a bit more about The Fire. Will we be seeing our old favorite characters again? Will we get a “where are they now” kind of thing for those who aren’t active in the story?
Yes, the main characters in The Fire are the children of the earlier characters in The Eight. They don’t have a clue what was going on in the previous book, and some of the earlier characters show up to summarize the backstory for them.

The most important thing in The Fire is that we now see the earlier events from different points of view, depending on who is recounting each story. For instance, Lily Rad has a different perspective on the day that she first met Alexander Solarin at a chess match, along with her pal Cat Velis (his future wife.) And Ladislaus Nim shares intimate details about his own life with his young niece, Alexandra, that he might never have shared with her mother Cat in a thousand years. And Charlot, who was a child prophet in the historic part of the previous book, is now a grown man with a very different take on his two parents: the nun Mireille and the statesman, Talleyrand.

Your work always seems so well-researched. Can you share your process for compiling all the necessary information? Do you begin with a real historical event and move forward, or … what?
I always say “Life is research.” I shouldn’t admit it, but I never compile information. I also confess that I’m a Google virgin, and while librarians help me all the time, I spend more time speaking at library benefits than I do in browsing library call numbers on the web. To do research, I just go places. If you have lived in as many places as I have had to, for my work - and of course, if you are curious about who and what’s around you - then information just sort of sticks to you like chewing gum and it’s hard to get rid of until you scrape it off or write it down.

When it comes to historic events–I’ve been smack in the middle of them, quite by accident, so many times. For instance, I was working in North Africa when the OPEC embargo took place; I was in working in the nuclear field when 3-Mile Island happened, and living in Germany when the Berlin Wall came down. But if later, you’re going to write about it, just being present and accounted for isn’t enough. You have to be curious about how it happened and how it affects the people it happened to. For me to do that (given the stated limitations of my research capabilities) I need to see, touch and smell the actual source documents or materials, taste the food, ski the mountain.

I once heard that the Eskimo have forty words for “snow.” If I had ever spent a week among the Eskimo, I would not only have come back with lists of the forty words–but if I could have managed it, I would have tried to see and taste and feel the differences among the forty kinds of snow.

Take us through a typical day in the life of Katherine Neville?
I get up early in the morning - about sunrise - take a shower, have a healthy drink with fruit and juice - and after that, it’s anybody’s guess. Life just keeps on happening.

Many of our readers are also aspiring writers; what advice would you offer to them?
The advice I always give to young people who want to write, is: Get a job and get a Eurail Pass. That is to say: get out into the world and see things. And experience things. And do things.

As for the rest of us–just one word: write. Maybe they can prevent you from being a published author, but no one can ever stop you from being a writer. You don’t have to come up with “an idea” for a book. All you have to do is write. And not surprisingly - just as with any craft - the more you do it, and the more you study experts who have done it before you, the better you get.

What are you working on now, and what should we expect to see from you in the future?
I was reading my old clippings in preparation for updating my web site for publication of The Fire. And I discovered - in an interview I did with Publishers Weekly, more than twenty years ago - that I was already talking about the book I’m now writing - about painters in the 1600s. But now I’ve already got my industrial-grade easel and paints and brushes out of the cupboard. I think that book is ready to go!

Katherine Neville’s most recent book, The Fire was released on October 16th, 2008, by Random House. You can read our review here. To learn more about Katherine Neville and her books, visit her website at KatherineNeville.com

Melissa A. Bartell likes strong coffee, red wine, and dark chocolate. She earns her living writing web-copy for an Internet marketing firm, dabbles fiction on the side. She lives near Dallas, TX with her husband, two dogs, and more computers than anyone really needs. She is the Managing Editor here at All Things Girl. Find out more about her on our About Page, or check out her blog at MissMeliss.com.

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Tell the readers a little about your background.

Hmmm, how long do you have? I was raised in Jackson, Mississippi and food was the center of life for us. When I heard Julia Child was coming close by for a book signing, I went and when I got up to her, I asked her a question about becoming a chef. She stopped the signing to talk to me and she inspired me so much that I enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America the next day! I continued with apprenticeships in Europe. In 2005 Food Network contacted me and asked if I was interested in being an Iron Chef on their new spin-off show Iron Chef America - how could I turn it down? I’d done some projects with them in the past - including Melting Pot - so they knew what I could offer. Today, I have written two books, started a charity called Chefs for Humanity, and will be opening my first signature restaurant, CCQ before the end of the year. I’m also Executive Chef of Bon Appetit magazine which is a great honor.

What is your first memory of creating something in the kitchen? When did the passion grow to a point that you knew you wanted to be a chef?

I used to do tea parties for my family and make cookies from my little cookie baker. I think I was about 15 when I knew I wanted to have a restaurant. But like all things in life, it takes time to blossom.

In what ways did your childhood and family influence your choice to follow a career in food?

Living in the South and Southern cuisine in a Greek household just about did it. I had relatives who had restaurants as well.

“My family taught me about kindness, hospitality, perseverance and integrity. I grew up with a strong work ethic.”

And overall, as a person? How did your upbringing influence you?

My family taught me about kindness, hospitality, perseverance and integrity. I grew up with a strong work ethic. And if I can give any advice as you start a profession, ALWAYS be on time. When you are late for meetings, interviews, work, anything (unless it is an emergency), it says you don’t care and your time is more important that the other people waiting on you. I am known for being super prompt and that surprises people because of my hectic schedule.

How long had you been working in the food industry when you got the opportunity to be on “Iron Chef”?

About a decade already. It was a long hard road before I became an Iron Chef. But I believe if you work hard for what you love doing and want to do, it will pay off.

How did life change for you when you won?

I am still winning and it feels good! Plus I’m still the only female Iron Chef - I hold my own Kitchen Stadium. We are going into our 8th season.

What is the production schedule for Iron Chef like? What type of personal schedule does that allow you to have?

My personal schedule is my family/kids and work. I shoot Iron Chef twice a year and we shoot a bunch of shows in one month each time. So I basically move to NY for the month.

You are the only woman Iron Chef at this time. Is the Food Industry mostly male-oriented? How hard is it to be a woman in the industry? And to be the “only” woman Iron Chef?

It is not hard being a woman in this day and age, but you have to have confidence and you have to believe in yourself. Having thick skin is true for all professions so when one door closes you go through the next one. My motto is “GO BIG OR GO HOME.”

You’re a beautiful woman. Do you think good looks is an asset to women in business or a detriment to being considered an intelligent and capable woman? Or is it a mixed blessing?

Oh, it is mixed. In the restaurant business, it can be an issue if you let it. I don’t ever believe women should use their looks in working their way to the top, because in the end, you lose. Men won’t see you for your skills first and that is a crucial step in your way to the top. Especially when it comes to the food industry it is inevitably your skills that get you there first in most cases. Then it’s “wow, she has a good look to her too.”

Tell the readers about your organization “Chefs for Humanity”

Chefs for Humanity is an alliance of culinary professionals and educators working in partnership with U.S. and global organizations, providing nutrition education, hunger relief, and emergency and humanitarian aid to reduce hunger across the world. For more info please visit www.chefsforhumanity.org.

Do you feel you are sometimes too accessible to fans or not accessible enough?

I think I balance it well. I have a great team that makes sure to tell me when fans write, want autographs, send emails, etc. When I do an event I make sure I greet each person that took the time to come see me. So, I try to strike a balance. I would never turn away a fan who wants to say hello, take a quick picture or get an autograph.

Thanksgiving – and other holiday gatherings – are just around the corner. What ONE dish is a staple for your holiday meal?

Pecan Pie for sure! Warmed up with vanilla bean ice cream.

It’s a typical Sunday….where do we find Cat Cora?

If I am not on the road, I am always with my family at the beach or having brunch in town and just relaxing and enjoying life.

For more information on Cat, visit her website: Cat Cora Cooks.You can also visit The Food Network’s Iron Chef America page. We’ll talk more with Cat next month…..

Deb Smouse is the Editor in Chief at All Things Girl. In recent month, she edged over the “age forty” line. She loves traveling, words, and dreams of sunny beaches - and meeting a man who can dance. Find out more about Deb on our About Page.

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Mario and I spent an incredibly fast-paced twenty minutes on the phone recently, and this is what he had to say:

First, tell us a bit about yourself: How did you get into food? How does someone from the West Coast end up in New Jersey?
I grew up in Seattle to a half-Italian half-French-Canadian family. We were always into food. Everyone in my entire family: my uncles, my aunts, my cousins, my brother, sister, mom, dad. Everybody I know knew how to cook and was interested in food from the inception of picking something or growing something, picking things wild or harvesting them, or shooting birds or fishing and doing the whole thing.

My grandfather was actually a game guide in British Columbia, and brought home lots of moose and elk and all sorts of weird stuff for us to eat - so it was always part of our lives.

When I was fourteen, my family moved to Madrid, Spain. My dad worked with Boeing, so we had some kind of foreign brat lifestyle over in Madrid, which was delightful. And when it was time to go to college, it would seem to me that it would be easier to get to the east coast than to anywhere else, and I had never been to the east coast, let alone anywhere east of Idaho, for that matter.

Oh, wow. Was there culture shock?
You know what? I fell in love with it immediately. I don’t know that my brother or sister would have been ready for it, but after I spent a year there, my brother came and went to Princeton, just down the street. (I went to Rutgers.) I fell in love with New Jersey. I liked the idea of being close to New York without being in New York at that early age, and I went to school to get a degree in Spanish Theatre of the Golden Age and in finance, or economics.

I did that, but while I was doing it, I worked at a place called “Stuff Yer Face” which is a Stromboli and pizzeria in New Brunswick, and fell in love with the immediacy of a dinner rush and - kind of - my ability to actually react well under pressure and cook very quickly as well as making something delicious, so that’s really the start.

Food was obviously a big part of your family, as you’ve said, and you mentioned growing it as well, which brings me to my next question: The concept of “slow foods” and buying local and eating local is very popular right now. What are your thoughts on that?

“Understanding seasonality is something that is born into Italian people’s mentality, when they’re in Italy.”

Long before it was considered a “carbon footprint massacre” to ship things around the world, I have always been a fan of local produce, and for one reason only – a very selfish reason: it’s easier to make food taste delicious if it hasn’t had to travel very far.

Understanding seasonality is something that is born into Italian people’s mentality, when they’re in Italy. Americans have been able to eat asparagus on Christmas Eve for as long as I’ve been alive, and that’s one of the tragedies of successful commercial farming is that in fact it removes seasonality from things. It also removes the kind of high points that you can get when you eat something that is in season, so I’m all about eating seasonally, eating and buying locally, and supporting farmers whose names you actually know.

And what you’ll capture is: when you’re tasting something in Parma, on a Thursday afternoon in October, and it’s either right in the middle of, or right before or right after the grape harvest and you taste a plate of prosciutto – nothing more, just a simple plate of prosciutto, maybe with some bread on the side – you can smell in the food everything that’s going on around you in the atmosphere. You can smell the way the - kind of - wind smells, and the flavor of the local-ness, and if you can capture that in whatever part of the country that you’re at, then you have done a great job as a cook, and understanding and working with that kind of local flavor is something that is so unique.

What happened a lot of times in the fancy restaurant world of the last twenty years is that a luxury item became the item that everyone wanted to have, so they had caviar and they had fois gras and they had all this stuff that had really nothing to do with the place that you’re at. What I’m looking for – when I go somewhere travelling, what I’m looking for is something that is geo-specific, something that tastes like it could only be had here, and that – in Texas – could be any kind of barbecue; it could be any kind of crazy onion; it could be any kind of good chili. It could be made by anybody and it doesn’t have to be fancy, but what it has to do is represent that local flavor.

You’ve mentioned living in Spain as a teenager. Did that experience have anything to do with the decision to make your current show On the Road Again: Spain airing on PBS right now?
Yes, well. When I started to talk about the producer - about us doing TV - and he said, “Well how about doing something on Spain which is an undiscovered jewel?”

And I said, “Well, that’s a great idea. I would love to go back to all my old stomping grounds,” and as it turns out, I was at a dinner party and Gwyneth [Paltrow] was at it and we’ve been friends for about ten years and I was talking to everyone at the table about this kind of new show idea that we were working on, and she demanded to be let in, and it was - I thought she was just being polite.

About two months later, when she heard it being talked about again by somebody else, and I wasn’t there, she called me and said – to make sure that I didn’t cut her out – and that kind of worked. So she also spent some time in high school as an exchange student in Talavera de la Reina, I think it was, outside of Madrid.

And so, the whole Spanish thing is to go back and see how it’s changed – I lived there when [Generalissimo] Franco just had died – and to see how it has come a thousand miles and become the forefront of molecular gastronomy, in addition to being still very much its traditional –kind of – old world self was an easy layup for me, and travelling around, I think it looks like we’re having fun, because in fact we are having fun.

Let’s talk more about Spain. What typifies the cuisine of Spain, as opposed to other Latin countries? We in America tend to think of Latin food as primarily Mexican.
I would say that when you talk about European food, it isn’t really Latin. I would say it’s Mediterranean at that point, and that kind of adds a component to it. Clearly like a lot of southern French cooking, like a lot of northern African cooking, and like all Italian cooking, it’s really based on the lipid of choice and olive oil, of course: number one.

So you have that kind of olive culture to it, which is, for a lot of people, something that tastes exotic, but for most people that I know, that’s something that almost says “home.” It says you’re where you should be, and the olive oil being kind of pervasive in all of the dishes, if there’s another flavor that I could put my palate on, there’s almost a smoky component to a lot of the things that they cook, and even some of the things that are raw. And they are not afraid to bring things to the edge of nearly burnt or very dark brown and letting that be kind of the extension of its ultimate carmelization.

And when you taste these things, and even - sometimes the ham and sometimes even the wine, or like a soup, a bean soup - it will have just lightly scorched on the bottom and on purpose. I’d say that there’s something almost smoky to it and whenever anything gets in touch with that magnificent paprika they call pimento, then that also becomes a real kind of intensive part of the flavor – kind of – portfolio.

You mentioned the term molecular gastronomy. Can you explain that a little bit?
Ah, well that is where food preparers, cooks, guys like Ferran Adria (perhaps the most famous member of the molecular gastronomist club) – they choose to provoke people by changing the texture or the appearance of food into something that it never was before while still trying to retain its essential flavor.

So you’ll have caviar that’s made of green apples, and it’ll have that same kind of pop-y texture, and what they’ll use to do that is some form of sea algae that they mix into a liquid and then they add a different kind of algae to the original substance – say, you took a puree of beans and you mix it with this one product and then you drop it into a water solution that has another product and it will sphere-ify the actual item – the whatever-you-dropped-in-there and then it will allow it to be stable for twenty-four to thirty-six hours. So then you’ll make like a little – some kind of a soup, and then you’ll put something that looks like a little glass ball in it, and in fact it tastes like another kind of soup. Or it tastes like salmon. Or it tastes like…whatever.

So they mess around with the basic tenet of very simple products, and yet they don’t – they do it in a way that will make you feel more intellectually stimulated by something that was already very physically stimulating.

And if they get lost it’s – sometimes it’s just like it’s too abstract. You know, there’s something that doesn’t have any connection, and because the food wasn’t very well prepared, or wasn’t very good when they got it raw, it’s wrong, but that doesn’t happen in all of these restaurants. Generally they’re pretty smart about it and it’s very…provocative…to eat in some of these restaurants. And it’s very much fun. But that said, sometimes it loses its way.

“I like things to be fun. I like them to be unexpected if possible, but most importantly if the cooks are having fun and making things with really good natural products, odds are possibly with you that it will be delicious and fun to eat as well.”

Fun seems to be an important element for all really successful chefs. Do you think fun is important?
Above all, fun should be important. And childishness is superior to adult-ness. And there’s a certain whimsical-ness that is what makes really good meals taste really good.

Sometimes you’ll sit down in the fanciest of restaurants and they have removed any of the fun from the experience in the name of creating high art, and that is when, suddenly, it’s no longer interesting to eat.

I like things to be fun. I like them to be unexpected if possible, but most importantly if the cooks are having fun and making things with really good natural products, odds are possibly with you that it will be delicious and fun to eat as well.

Do you think that a chef’s joy in what they’re making transfers to the end product, when a stranger is tasting it?
Absolutely. As in all art.

I mean, there are the members of the “tortured artist” school, and they work their world, and they do it, and they can still come up with great things, but certainly if something is loved and enjoyed by the person who is making it - you know – I mean, when you see a great rock ‘n’ roll band play, they are having fun on stage because they’re doing what they’re supposed to do and they really dig it. Like, REM on tour is one of the greatest bands you’ll ever see ’cause they’re great at it, and they know what they’re doing, and they have a blast and it’s that same way in food.

Comedians are often expected to be “funny” on command. Do you find yourself being “volunteered” to cook? Do you mind?
No, I’ll happily – at the drop of a hat, I’ll cook any time, all the time. Being funny’s a little different because you have to have an intellectual component to it. You could cook silently, and still make delicious food, even if you were not necessarily in the mood. The techniques of the purchase, and then the actual heat transfer is something I enjoy all the time.

That said, being funny’s a little harder.

True confessions time: Do you ever resort to having Chinese food delivered in a plain brown bag, after midnight?
Of course I do. My kids love delivery Chinese food. I wouldn’t want to cut them out of an essential part of New York Culture. I believe they had Chinese food here last night. (I wasn’t here, but I think they did, last night). It’s from the local Grand Szechuan. They make these soup dumplings that are to die for.

You have a wonderful television presence, but you don’t fit the conventional “handsome actor” television host model. How did someone like you become one of the coolest chefs on TV?
You know what? Being in front of a camera for a long time only makes you more like what you are naturally. You can’t really practice to become relaxed, it just eventually happens to you, but I think that my reliance on the traditions of the Italian table and the obviousness of it being merely my interpretation gave me a certain platform or a soapbox to talk from, and in the end, I didn’t really have to invent a character. I really just interpreted the great things about the food that I love. And that, I believe, is what makes it evident.

It doesn’t look like I’m trying to be a performer. I’m just doing what I do. And in that way, there’s no kind of strange colored glass that everyone looks at you through because you’re trying to do something that maybe is like trying to memorize someone else’s play, which is what actors do all the time.

I could never do that. I could never remember lines. But if you can give me the idea, I can kind of espouse what that is, and that’s really what I’ve done. I’ve taken really good Italian cooking and just kind of shown people where and how it came from. And my reliance during a show, if I ran out of things to kind of show you, I just talked about the history, which I already knew because I pay attention. I’m a student of that game.

In your career, you’ve been involved with the design of a specific kind of rolling pin. Is there any kitchen gadget that you’d love to re-engineer, or any that you think should be eliminated?
You know, tools are something that are very personal. There’s things in each one that I find I’m very excited about but there’s nothing I would say should be absolutely removed except for the syringe. I don’t think anyone needs a syringe. But that’s – you know – if you need to marinate your turkey and you want to do it that way then you’re going to put it in there, but other than that, I think that all tools are very personal, and once you discover a way to do it, everyone should use whatever they’re comfortable with. There should be no dogma.

Do you have a favorite tool that you use? Are you a knife guy or is it the wooden spoon for you?
I like… you know my favorite tool is, I have this - in my kitchen there’s a giant (well, not giant, it’s probably ten feet by four feet). It is a marble slab. We do our – we live our entire lives on top of this piece of marble. We do homework there, we make pasta there, we roll out dough, we – tonight, for example, there’s a bake sale. My kids are doing a bake sale tomorrow for something called the Imagination Campaign, and everything we’re gonna do from now – they’re just walking in right now, from school – until everyone goes to bed, we will live our lives on our marble counter.

So what’s next for you? Where are you going, and where should we look for you?
I am…we just opened a new restaurant, our first one in kind of the suburbs, in a town called Port Chester, New York. That’s an interesting new movement for us. I’m probably going to do another TV show with the same group – and probably with Gwyneth – either in Italy or in Mexico. I’m working on kind of an Italian pantry and products line that I’m not happy with yet but I probably will be eventually. And I plan on going to Italy four or five times a year to remember what everything is supposed to be about.

Melissa A. Bartell earns her living by writing articles for an SEO marketing firm, and dabbles in essays and fiction on the side. She lives near Dallas, TX with her husband, two dogs, and more computers than anyone really needs. She is the Senior Editor here at All Things Girl. Find out more about her on our About Page. You can also find her at her website and various other places around the ‘net.

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“Passion is an amazing gift to give yourself.”

The person who hired me on my current project jokingly calls me “Polly” (after the classic Porter character Pollyanna). On average, no matter how rotten my day has been, I try to start the next day fresh. This hasn’t always been the case for me. I truly believe that keeping the word “passion” in the forefront of my brain has led me to continue to love the work that I do, which in turn leads me to overall finding something joyful about each day. I guess, for me, it’s easy to start fresh each morning when I can find something in the day to be passionate about. Passion is an amazing gift to give yourself.

My other two words, if you don’t remember, are courage and forgiveness. I put these together because as I realized last December, they go hand and hand. I can say that without a doubt, both courage and forgiveness have providing their gentle guiding influences. No matter how gentle the guiding, though, I’m struggling with forgiveness of myself. It isn’t that I’ve committed heinous acts that require self-flagellation, however, I do still tend to be incredibly hard on myself while being forgiving of others – but the judging is, at least, less harsh. Maybe it’s that Pollyannaish attitude of starting fresh and finding something positive each day. Or maybe it’s because I am embracing “courage” as I deal with the challenges that life has to offer. Dealing with oneself, by the way, can be one of the most challenging relationships we have. Actually dealing with oneself instead of floating through life without purpose is certainly rewarding.

But I digress as I was thinking about the acts of courage I have performed this year. I have expanded my business, explored new business opportunities, made new friends, embraced old friends, networked with strangers, and more. Courage has been present in not only my business world, by the way, but in my personal life as well. Besides the new friends I have been blessed with, there are also some relationships that were growing stale. I even said these words to a dear man-friend of mine as I we had been discussing why I had finally reached my limits on the status of our four-year relationship: “Passion and courage are two of my words this year. It took a lot of both for me to be this honest with you (about how I feel.) I love you. But I love me more.” The guilt is still there, by the way, for daring to be that selfish, but I’ve already begun to forgive myself for allowing the relationship to get to that point. That, my friends, is truly something in the ways of finding peace.

I can say that I do get up each morning happily embrace each day. Life is about passion. Forgiveness is a good friend to have. And courage will lead you into places you never dreamed about. I haven’t yet decided what I will choose in 2009 to guide me, but I know that choosing positive guidance is truly the best way to roll, at least for me. (Your mileage may vary. Taxes not included….)

(Photo: Lorissa Shepstone)

Deb Smouse is the Editor in Chief at All Things Girl. In recent month, she edged over the “age forty” line. She loves traveling, words, and dreams of sunny beaches - and meeting a man who can dance. Find out more about Deb on our About Page.

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Plans to see it with local girlfriends fell through because of a last minute scheduling conflict. That and my insistence on seeing the movie on opening weekend. The end result: I ended up watching a movie all about the importance of women friendships alone.

As I watched the story unfold, each character went through her individual trials supported by her closest girlfriends. I was fully engaged in the movie. Yet, my mind flashed back repeatedly to times in my own life that would have been simply unbearable without the support of my closest girlfriends. Relationship drama. Job drama. Kid drama. We’ve supported each other through all sorts of difficulties.

We’ve also served as the voice of reality for each other. Sometimes that means being “the bad guy” and telling you things that you really don’t want to hear. It’s much easier to get your head out of the clouds and your feet safely on the ground when a girlfriend is there talking you down, as opposed to inevitable crash you’d otherwise experience.

I left the movie a red-eyed mess (one of the reasons I was grateful I went alone). Yes, the tears were because I’d been drawn once again into the ups and downs of Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda’s lives. But, they were more because I realized how important it was to have close girlfriends who live nearby and I missed that.

“But, they were more because I realized how important it was to have close girlfriends who live nearby and I missed that”

My best friend and I have supported each other through so much over the past twenty years - most of it via telephone, email, and instant message. Then there were the occasions when only a visit would do. However, there have been many times when one of us wanted the other to physically hold her hand through family disasters or medical procedures and it simply wasn’t possible.

My best friend of more than 20 years, my closest business allies, and several other women I am quite close to live several states away. Most of my girlfriends that are in Northeast Ohio live a considerable drive away. I’ll admit that I’ve passed on a coffee date or other events that meant driving all the way into the city or to the Eastside burbs. It just didn’t seem worth the time, the effort, and the week’s worth of gas just to have a two-hour lunch. Wouldn’t a phone conversation do? (Wow! That sounds really bad when you say it out loud.)

Since my teary-eyed solo movie date I’ve been thinking a lot about the dynamics of friendships between women. Ever noticed how easy it is to relax when you’re hanging out with a bunch of your girlfriends? You’re not worried about your hair being perfect, whether you’ve got spinach in your teeth (because if you did they’d be rolling on the floor laughing), or being politically correct. You can just be you.

Our circle of girlfriends is our safe haven; perfect for sharing our innermost thoughts, hopes, dreams and fears. Within the safe borders of this close knit group we are able to strip away the brave façade we put on for all of the people in our lives who depend on us: bosses, kids, spouses, parents.

Among our closest girlfriends it’s okay to admit that we’re scared about the future. That we no longer find joy in our job, our relationship, or even life in general. And when we aren’t honest with them (or even with ourselves) our girlfriends have an uncanny ability to cut through the crap. They force us to be honest with ourselves. They listen patiently as we work through our issues. They support us in our decisions.

Girlfriends are invaluable through tough times. But, our best girlfriend memories usually surround happy moments that are as vivid now as the day they occurred – no matter how long ago. We can still hear the laughter shared over lunch, during a birthday celebration, or during a girls’ getaway. When we think of those moments they still make us smile or laugh till we cry. The memories of those special times comfort us and bring us joy even when our world seems to be crumbling around us.

As the job market, the economy, and so many other once stable entities fluctuate around us we can still rely on that core group of girlfriends to be there for us. To help us ride the waves that life sends our way and come out on the other side safely. We may have a few scars, but we’ll also have bragging rights. Best of all, we’ll still have our best girlfriends.

During the months since I sat in that movie theater I’ve been working on being more diligent in connecting with my girlfriends - locally and long-distance. I joined a local book club where I’ve met some wonderful local ladies who love the written word as much as I do. I joined forces with a friend to start the Girlfriends EnTourAge Travel Club - a virtual café where women share past travel experiences and plan women-only events and vacations that will create beautiful memories and lifetime friendships.

We are currently experiencing turbulent times. Many of us are either personally experiencing some kind of difficulties or we are anxious about the state of the economy and the job market in general. The upside to all of the bad news is that many of us are rediscovering what matters most - the people in our lives. So, as you deal with issues that arise in your life, don’t forget to tap into the endless well of support available to you. Draw strength from the power of girlfriends.

Samara Leigh is a Northeast Ohio-based freelance writer, entrepreneur and E-consultant. Her non-fiction and fiction work celebrates the triumphant spirit of women on a journey of self-discovery..

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My 17 year old daughter, who has little understood Epileptic Seizure Disorder of the frontal lobe, went into the hospital. We survived this, as well as unmentionable issues with my youngest daughter AKA ‘Babe Mobile Denter.’ Then, my Yorkie (female) puppy in training ate my second pair of glasses. This evidently was not fulfilling because she also ate papers and notes I took, pens, pencils, crayons, my bedspread, the carpet, and exposed wood corners of furniture legs. As if this wasn’t enough, she ate the cord to my memory disc jump drive.

When she proceeded to devour two of Gloria Steinem’s books I left sitting on her favorite chair in my bedroom, bits of once firm book boards were reduced to speckles of dust.

I told her this was a definite no-no and she kissed me. I accepted my puppy’s apology because I was obviously not paying attention, so it was my fault too.

Besides, I still could write my story, after all I did have my memory. Gloria Steinem, one of the foremost activists on women’s issues, is my hero and has been since the first Ms Magazine I read and then submitted work to.

Steinem taught me that the letter ‘R’ meant – Rejection. I subsequently went to Salem College and wrote my first English paper on a story Steinem wrote - Sex, Lies, and Advertising where I learned that ‘R’ also meant Revision. I like this meaning better and it seems fitting to apply revision to the word feminism, which is the word that best describes “the longest revolution” and is an on-going battle to achieve true equality of the sexes.

If it is true that women comprise more than half the world’s population, including work force, then why are we still not equal? Steinem offers, “Jobs are still valued by the doer, and not by the value of the job.” Ironically, in America, as in many countries, the feminization of poverty and the masculinization of wealth is still the status quo.

“Ironically, in America, as in many countries, the feminization of poverty and the masculinization of wealth is still the status quo.”

Take being a homemaker who is most often female. Then add to this a homemaker’s dual role, because she often must take a job just to help support the family’s income.

But what if, a homemaker could receive a tax break, even though she earns no income from being a caregiver, housekeeper, cook, chauffeur, nurse - you know - the whole gamut that most women unless they are rich and famous, must do in order to raise a family.

The key is in placing a dollar amount on the services a homemaker performs. Can we do this is not a question, but rather would a government anywhere support this? Doubtless as it may seem, there is still an undercurrent of reform that posits this opportunity somewhere in the far off future.

However, this isn’t the only truth behind the fact why women are still going through the longest revolution.

One unfortunate hurdle for women is that most of the powers that be prefer for a female to have a male presence attached to her name.

Even though I was given a loan based on my business proposal, my husband’s name was put on the building I used to secure the loan, but not the loan itself. The business loan only comes in my name and the tax bill on the building, his name. I resent this because the answer the city gave me – “if you are married, we always put the husbands name first, we don’t care that the loan is in your name.”

When I was down-sized prior to this, my former boss told me that I shouldn’t feel sorry for myself, after all I had a husband to support me. Poor CK had a wife who didn’t work and two kids. It didn’t matter that I had a husband and two kids to support.

This is why I am now a recovered corporate executive, though I still have many hurdles in my new life.

I used to be a second wave feminist and only discovered after going back to college that a new third wave feminism slipped into the picture. This new generation of feminists in theory, want women to be seen as intelligent and political beings; judged for their minds and for what they achieve. However, their focus is on gender roles, race, social class, politics and sexuality. There is nothing wrong with this, second wave feminists blazed the trail and was for the same issues, but the third wave tends to downplay the feminist label because of the hold-over connotations and bad press that played upon second wave feminism.

Steinem responds to this intersectionality between the second and third waves by stating, “In my experience we come from the same territory but come on different paths - - - we need to honor each other’s different experiences and then find the commonalities.”

Considering how long it took women to obtain the right to vote, Steinem points out that there is still a long ways to go. Statistics are not encouraging:

• 1 in 4 women are victims of violence yet only ¼ of crimes against women are reported to authorities and 60% of female homicide victims are an intimate partner with the killer.
• From 1980 to 2006, the number of women inmates in state and federal prisons nationwide increased by 400%, double the amount of men.
• Women in government office from local, state, federal, and even other countries have made inroads, but fail substantially. The average is 16% in the US, and far worse in other countries.
• Five states have never sent a women to congress; Delaware, Iowa, Mississippi, New Hampshire and Vermont.
• Women need and use more health care than men do, but lack insurance that covers their needs and have more problems paying for care.
• Funds continue to be cut for student loans, Medicaid, child support enforcement, and educational and training programs that help women move to higher-paying jobs.
• Women are especially dependent on Social Security’s guaranteed, lifetime benefits.
• Single mothers in the workforce have low wages and little support, and many single mothers and their children live in poverty.

There is so much more and the disparity is not just in the US, but painfully worse worldwide. Some women can’t even vote and are considered chattels.

Perhaps the politically correct term for feminism should be gender equality, even human equality. The bottom line is that there is a long road to go. Some arguments by people who don’t understand what the basis for feminism is, suggest that the problems women face are illusory, constructed by the media, and have no reliable evidence.

The evidence is there. Somehow, and someway, women need to have access to and monitor the facts, figures, and data - that is - what is happening to women world-wide. The information will be enlightening and as Gloria Steinem puts it, “The truth will set you free, but first of all, piss you off.”

Bev Hamel is a recovered corporate executive and now owns and operates an antique shop in the tiny Historic and National Landmark town of Bethania, North Carolina. She lives above the shop with her husband, two girls, three cats, a Scottish Terrier, and Yorkie Puppy in training. The shop is actually a front for her writing and teaching endeavors. She is a freelance writer and has published short stories, creative nonfiction, essays, poetry, local newspaper articles and was editor for an area women’s magazine. Bev has just completed her MFA at Goddard College and her first fiction novel Daughter of the Seven Fires and is busily working on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th.

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Our recent excesses of cheap credit, living beyond our means, and treating ourselves to luxuries to assuage a bad day have finally hit us like a cheap champagne hangover. We couldn’t continue on this way, spending money like it was, well, money, without regard for the repercussions of our wastrel ways. And now that the financial world has come to a grinding halt, enter the perfect antidote to the hangover that the years of our gluttony created: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome my friend Tiny!

Tiny, as a philosophy and a physical and aesthetic reality, is a major player in the growing interest in small space living and all things compact. And, I am happy to say, the quest for tiny has always been my guiding force. Whether it’s cars, houses, the quantity of food on my plate, or the size of my footprint—real (size 5 ½) or metaphorical—that I leave on the face of our beleaguered planet, I embrace the diminutive. All right, gutter minds, I know what you’re thinking, so maybe not all things tiny, but stick with me here.

“My life is abundant and these things are plenty.”

Call it what you will, but this feeling, this affection, this predilection for the tiny has been a major force of influence throughout my life. Most of my decisions about housing and transportation have been made with my personal ethos of tiny in mind—A philosophy that I call The Concept of Enough. The Concept of Enough means I live with style in a 600sf casita, I ride a bike or walk when the destination is close, and when I need to drive I take my smart car. My life is abundant and these things are plenty.

And, yes, I realize that small is almost un-American: We of the land of McMansions, SUVs, and 48-roll toilet paper from your local warehouse megastore. Although high gas prices have caused financial discomfort for many, there is an upside to the stratospheric rise in the cost of gas: it has helped to bring about the demise of the SUV, that hulking and dangerous behemoth. Cyclists rejoice!

As for those who are confident that they’ll still be around 48 toilet paper rolls later, more power to them, but I’m a bit too wary for that. I imagine being run down by a Hummer and when my home is searched, my friends and family would find 47 of 48 rolls scattered about in a variety of places owing to the lack of storage in my tiny house. Shudder the thought. But I digress.

Instead of hoarding, I prefer a life of thoughtful consumption based on what I need, and yes, what I want, but a carefully considered and well-edited selection of the latter. When one has a love affair with tiny then the desire for things is quickly tempered by the practicality of actual space for acquisitions. My Concept of Enough keeps me clear-headed and reasonable, most of the time, about the stuff I bring into my life. And less space=less stuff=more time to devote to the pursuits I am truly passionate about.

Ever since I could remember I have always been drawn to the tiny: forts, tree houses, sheds, studio apartments, camping vans, cabins, and tents. The classic Parisian pied-à-terre, that 200 to 300 s.f. abode away from home, just fires my imagination.

And imagination is what it’s all about for me. Living small physically allows me to live large creatively. It allows me to spend a limited amount of time managing my stuff so I can get on with my real life, instead of organizing a bunch of trinket-y land fill. I would rather clean and put my house in order in an hour or two than lose the whole weekend to dusting collectibles. Don’t even get me started about collectibles, that’s a whole ‘nother column.

So, yes, size does matter, but not in the way you may think. Bigger is not always better and tiny deserves a chance as we all ponder ways to streamline and simplify our lives. Now, if I can only figure out how to get my bike in the back of my smart car.

Shanna Trenholm is a writer, animal lover, eater of dark chocolate, and teller of truths. She finds inspiration in the ordinary; magic in the mundane. She likes to take baths and naps (in that order). Send her some bubble bath here: www.shannatrenholm.com

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Obviously the first thing you must do is provide your cat with a scratching post. In my experience, my cats ignore the scratching post and continue right along past it to the couch or chair or carpet or whatever. I take them away from their preferred spot, set them in front of the post, and wait. Typically they give me an annoyed look and turn around and go back to their spot. Even if I put the post in their regular spot, they ignore it. Sometimes I try rubbing their paws on the post in an attempt to show them what they’re supposed to be doing, but they never appreciate that and they look at me like I am crazy. Whenever that happens I turn to one of the following methods to get my point across:

• The dreaded water bottle. This is possibly the best $1 my husband and I ever spent. We got a regular spray bottle from our Dollar General and keep it filled with water so when a naughty cat decides to play at mountain climbing on the back of the sofa, we can just aim and squirt and they take off like we’re firing buckshot. It is effective and highly entertaining. This is my top recommendation for curbing wayward cat scratching.
• The rolled up newspaper. Tried but true. Hardly anyone likes getting whacked on the backside by the news. However, this one requires you to get up and catch your cat’s hindquarters while they are in mid scratch. After the first couple times they will get wise to you and dart away just as you are swinging. My cats have an obnoxious habit of turning it into a game. They wait until I am comfortably settled, go to the chair that is farthest away, and scratch. I have to get the paper, roll it up, and just as I get to them, they run and hide. Some cats may not do that. You may be blessed with a little congenial angel-cat, but in my experience, cats love to be obnoxious, so you can probably count on them doing the scratch and run technique. Also, be warned that some cats can take vengeance to a whole new level. You may encourage some negative behaviors if you decide to go with this route, but it really will depend on the cat.
• Get really tough and ground them. Banish them to the closet or the garage or the bathroom. Someplace they don’t want to go on their own that is away from people and food. Most cats really hate being put somewhere when it is not their idea and they will sit next to the door and wail until they are freed. Note that some cats may take the opportunity to get even by making a mess in whatever room you put them in. Bathroom shelves are a favorite item to upset, in my experience. That’s why I like to use the garage.
• Tinfoil the problem area. Most cats dislike tinfoil and will stay away from it. This is particularly effective when used in conjunction with the water bottle.
• Make double-sided tape your new best friend. My husband and I had a trouble cat we had to break. It seemed like nothing would ever work to get him to stop clawing my favorite chair. We tried water bottles, newspaper spankings, “groundings” to the garage, and yelling (that was mostly me because I was fed up.) He would wait for us to look the other way and then go to town, shredding the upholstery. Finally we tried the double sided tape method. It took less than one week. We’d see him streaking through our bedroom with the tape stuck to his whiskers or paws, panicking because he couldn’t get it off. After that happened a couple times, he never tried clawing our furniture again.
• Trim their claws! They will hate you, but they will do much less damage. You may want to wear battle gear if you attempt this one by yourself. It is probably safer to get your vet to do it or to have your vet show you how to do it.
• Put on the rubber claws. Again, it will be a war to get them on your cat, but once on they will help save your furniture. Also, be care to not leave them on too long. They can become embedded in your cat’s paw, causing much discomfort to the kitty and your pocketbook from vet visits.
• Rub their scratching post with catnip. I have tried this with no success. However I hear that there are some cats out there who prefer this method. It’s something you can try anyway. And the cat(s) will love you for the treat. Mine go crazy for catnip.

You may have noticed that at no time have I offered having your cat declawed as a viable option. That is because declawing your cat is a very traumatic experience for them and can create extremely detrimental behavioral problems and in some cases severe physical trauma, both of which can result in the cat’s death either from complications due to a botched declaw job or the owner’s having the cat put to sleep because of his or her inability to cope with the sometimes violent behavior outbursts that may result. In most of the civilized world it is considered mutilation and is a banned practice. Having worked with felines who suffered from bad declaw jobs and seen the painful outcomes firsthand, I will never recommend to anyone that they have their pet declawed.

If your kitty has trouble adjusting his or her habits to scratching in the appropriate area, just give it time. Cat’s are not fond of change, but if you find the right training method, they will get there.

A.B. Monk is a graduate from the University of Tennessee. She is an avid animal lover and has worked with the University of Tennessee Veterinarian School, the Knoxville Zoological Gardens, and Tiger Haven Big Cat Sanctuary. She is currently working with a nonprofit health care organization to support herself until she has the education and funds to start her own animal sanctuary and green living corporation. You can visit her website at www.spiniffy.com or her pet blog at critter.spiniffy.com. She is a regular columnist here at All Things Girl….

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Please tell our readers a bit about yourself.

My goals are simple: enjoy my time on this planet and leave something behind that’s more significant than a retirement party replete with a gold watch and a meeting room filled with old Polaroid® pictures marking my promotion from junior data entry clerk to intermediate data entry clerk. At the end of the day, it has to mean something. I don’t know precisely what that something is, yet, but I do know I’m not going to find out by driving a cubicle for the rest of my working life. I owe it to my wife and kids to spend my days doing stuff that’s marginally cool, somewhat meaningful and very much worthy of a spirited discussion at the dinner table. Otherwise, why are we here?

I’ve always been the square peg in the round hole, the one who kept my parents awake at night, who forced my teachers to add an extra page on the back of my report card to explain why I was a particularly challenging student to have. With a name like mine, it’s never been easy for anyone who knows me to forget who I am. I guess I chose a line of work that makes sense, then, because conventional has never been part of who I am. I view the world through a somewhat unconventional lens, but I can’t imagine being any other way.

Corporate bios refer to you as both an “analyst” and a “strategic consultant,” while one of the hosts at AM640 Toronto refers to you as a “tech guru,” - can you describe what you actually do?

I’m a journalist by education, but somewhere along the way, I became infected with a form of technological DNA that forced me into the life of an IT geek for a while. By the time I was finished being an IT wonk and decided to go back to writing, I practically fell into this hybrid-like combination of these two apparently disparate disciplines and became a technology journalist with a strong foundation as a research analyst. I have this passionate - some might say pathological - desire to break down the needless complexity that surrounds us, to make it easy enough for my technophobe mother-in-law to understand. I learned early on that having a big vocabulary is useless if no one understands a word that you’re saying. Being able to make geeky stuff seem simple, then, is kind of related.

My original goal was to be a broadcast journalist. And I was well on my way when, during my undergrad years, I got a job in the newsroom of a fairly large radio station. I wrote scripts for the news and public affairs folks, and eventually talked my way into on-air work and an associate producer position. Somewhat oddly, I also seemed to gravitate toward the door anytime a new computer was delivered. I somehow always had the right answer whenever the lucky recipient of said machine had a question. And if something didn’t work, I knew how to make it work. It was weird: I had no formal training in computers, but the same bizarro gift that drove me to write was also pretty useful in making complex technology seem simple.

“I love those eureka moments when you know you’re on your game, and you’ve managed to help someone who, up until you meandered along, was completely locked in place.”

So fast-forward through all the media and IT jobs, and I’ve become something that even I have difficulty explaining some days. I’m a geek who’s worked in the trenches, learned how all those techie doodads work together, and can explain what it all means to anyone who wants to know. I love those eureka moments when you know you’re on your game, and you’ve managed to help someone who, up until you meandered along, was completely locked in place. It makes me feel good to know that I can give back a little as a way of honoring all the mentors who have given me so much since I was a kid.

Tell us about your time at the London Free Press?

Writing an op-ed column was probably the best gig I’ve ever had in my writing career. I had free reign to choose topics that I felt resonated with our audience. Through a very small, 650-word window, I was able to reach out to complete strangers and help them see their community - and their place within it - from a slightly different perspective. I felt connected to my city more closely through that column than I ever had previously - or have since. It cemented my belief that I was destined to churn out words for a living, and I needed to really believe in those words, to make them mine, if this writing thing was going to take off.

Thankfully, it did. And every time I look back at those carefully crafted vignettes, I feel privileged that I had to chance to learn the ropes with a paper that, for a while anyway, understood why local voices like mine needed to be heard.

You’ve also contributed to JPG magazine; which came first, writing or photography?

They actually took root in me around the same time. I got my first real job over the summer between 10th and 11th grade. Where I grew up, you graduated high school after the 11th grade, and I had already signed on to be part of the yearbook staff. My goal: get published any way I could.

I was a lifeguard at a summer camp, and when I got my last paycheck, I knew exactly what I wanted to buy with it. I always wanted my own camera to help me illustrate the poems and short stories I had written. I would read photography magazines and wonder how neat it would be to have my own serious camera, an SLR. I figured I’d learn the ins and outs of photography while building my capabilities as a writer. I brought home a Minolta XG-1, a laughably simple camera by today’s standards. But in those days, it was way beyond a 16-year-old’s abilities.

I stuck with it for years afterward, ruining more rolls of film than I care to remember, eventually upgrading my equipment as I could afford it. The photography always supported the writing, and it kind of evolved in the wake of my words. It came in handy when I was freelancing for local newspapers: I could get the story and the picture while reporters for competing papers were stuck waiting for their photographers. I can’t imagine not having both tools - a pen and a camera - in my hand when I leave the house. Kids have blankies. I have my camera bag with a notebook tucked in the side.

A Google search of your name brings up links to Reuters, Yahoo news, various Canadian television and radio news shows, and your very own page of quotes at ThinkExist.com; did you engineer this, or is it just luck and circumstance that has made your words so widely available?

I don’t think I could have envisioned any of this when I first started out. The media- related work that I’ve done has been beyond anything I ever dreamed. I think the reason I’ve made it onto so many journalists’ lists is because I call them back promptly and I give them what they need. I also treat them with the respect they deserve. It’s simple, really, but so many others in my field have apparently forgotten the lessons we all learned in kindergarten.

When I was working in radio, one of my responsibilities was booking interviews for our noontime news and public affairs show. From the moment I came in at 8 a.m., I had, maybe, a couple of hours to convince total strangers to drive across town and sit in a studio where either I or one of our anchors would relentlessly grill them. Oh, and they wouldn’t get paid, either. As glamorous as that sounds, it still bothered me that so many people didn’t want to talk to me. They either wouldn’t call back, they wouldn’t show at the appointed time, or they’d lie to my face and hope I went away. For a while, I took it personally. Then an amazing thing happened: I got to know a small group of people who really wanted to help me out, who were willing to invest a little time to help me fill that very big hour of radio. I came to rely on my Top 20, and I knew I could call any one of them, any time, any day, and they’d always come through for me.

Fast-forward a few years and I’m now on the other side. I get called by people facing tremendous deadline pressure and bosses who may or may not “get” what they’re trying to do. The right thing to do is quickly give them what they need so they can produce a report, an article, a message that resonates with their audience. I’ve been in their shoes. And by being there for them - and juggling my own accountabilities in the process, I get to pay it forward.

The net result: I get a lot of repeat calls from the same folks. Then they chat with colleagues, so I get more calls. Some days, it’s downright insane as I try to juggle work that pays the bills with inquiries from “journos.” But it’s worth it when I get a call from my parents saying our cousins saw my name in the paper in Mobile, Alabama. Most days, I still have to pinch myself that this is happening. That someone would call me out of the blue and ask me for my opinion on anything is nothing short of a blessing.

In addition to your professional work, you publish a highly popular blog. For someone so techie, blogging seems like a natural evolution, but what drew you to the medium?

I wanted to know what it was like to write for an audience without being surrounded or constrained by the infrastructure of conventional media. Blogging is writing in its purest form: no editors, no limits on what you can or cannot say. Just you, a blank screen and a “publish” button. It’s about as real, as directly connected to a reader, as you can get. The easy back-and-forth between writer and audience is something no newspaper has ever had - or ever will. Sure, I used to get a kick out of the letters to the editor, or the occasional e-mail from a reader so ticked off with something I wrote that he felt compelled to spend half his morning ripping me to shreds in a very long, elaborately worded message. But it’s so much more personal when it’s your own venue, with your own tone, surrounded by your own cast of characters. It’s like sitting around the neighborhood and having a chat with folks you may as well have known forever. It’s a natural kind of interaction that no traditional media can touch.

That said, traditional media are jumping on the blogging bandwagon because, frankly, they have no choice. The way people consume content is changing. They increasingly expect to be part of the process, to drive the conversation, to have their names heard. And they are, thanks to Web 2.0 and the emergence of new generations of social media and networking tools. It’s hard to go a day without feeling privileged that we get to exist now, when all of this is so new and exciting. It’s all potential, and whatever direction it takes is truly up to us. Pretty cool, in my book.

Most writers are also readers. Where do your reading tastes lie? What would we find on your nightstand or in the bookmarks of your browser?

I’m as eclectic a reader as I am a writer. Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald were early and lasting influences on my writing style. They could describe a scene like no one else by using words like so many layers of paint, richly covering the canvas and leaving it up to you to keep track of the colors and patterns in your head. I wanted to write like them when I grew up, to move people with words and write stories - short, long, it almost didn’t matter - that stuck in my readers’ minds long after they had closed the book and placed it back on the shelf.

Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie, is another writer seemingly struck by lightning at birth. No one writes about people better than he does, and his soft touch was a huge influence as I developed my own columnist’s style.

Although I’m not a big sci-fi fan, Ray Bradbury always struck me as particularly resonant because his writing was so relatable to today. I often keep a post-it with the word “poignant” stuck to the wall facing my desk. My words have to be just that. Bradbury’s always have been, even if many of his readers simply viewed his work as sci-fi. It wasn’t, and it isn’t, and I hope my future works also fail to be categorized into established genres.

The explosion of RSS feeds and readers has made it easy for me to keep up with some of the leading columnists on my BlackBerry®. I don’t always have a lot of time to read, but I like being able to grab a moment here and there - even a couple of minutes while walking the dog can often be enough for a quick shot of inspiration. PBS’s Robert Cringely is a technologist who eerily seems to not only have his finger on the pulse of the industry, but on that of society as well. Like the other writers I’ve followed throughout my life, I want to be like him when I grow up. Dan Neil, the Pulitzer-winning automotive columnist for the Los Angeles Times, writes with a frenetic sense of poetry that I can only dream of. It’s hard to finish one of his columns and not be inspired to inject more life into something you’ve already written. Joe Fiorito, who used to write for the Gazette in Montreal, now pens a column about for the Toronto Star. He writes about ordinary people and their ordinary lives, managing to find the extraordinary every time he publishes. I try to read from all over the spectrum, because you never know where you’ll find the words that’ll spark something in you.

Similarly, photographers are often art aficionados, whose work inspires you?

Ansel Adams has been my icon since a 13-year-old me wandered around a summer camp north of Montreal and shot my first roll of black and white film on a laughably ancient camera. To him, it was never about the equipment. He could out-shoot anyone with the simplest box camera. He knew more about composition and graphical storytelling than I can ever dream. His work stands the test of time, and continues to inspire anyone who wants to tell stories in two dimensions.

Read anything he’s ever written and you can easily see how he was always composing scenes in his mind, even if he didn’t have his camera with him. It’s that photographer’s mindset that makes the difference between a picture and a memorable moment.

I know from reading your blog that you are extremely devoted to your family, but also that you travel a lot. How do you balance the two?

With great difficulty. Travel is one of the tools I use to build my career. A strong career builds a future for my family. So by definition, travel is an investment in my family’s future. My wife and kids know that, and they know that my being away always - or at least hopefully - opens doors that will allow us to do more in future. I try to use my travels to teach my kids that sometimes, you need to get out of your comfort zone if you want to move to that next level. I’ve learned to never settle for the same old. By extension, they’re learning, too.

The gifts I bring home from the road help smooth things over as well.

I heard you talk about the concept of Tikkun Olam on BlogTalkRadio. Can you tell us more about what that means, generally, and what it means for you?

The phrase, Tikkun Olam, literally means “repair the world” in Hebrew. A few years back, it was the year-long theme at our children’s school, and it resonated strongly with me. It teaches us that we are all responsible for improving the world around us. It doesn’t have to be a major or obvious act. Something as simple as holding the door for someone or helping a stranger cross the street is more than enough. Our world has become so frenetically multitasked and inner-focused that we often forget the little niceties that defined life barely a generation ago. Tikkun Olam is the kind of mindset I want baked into our kids’ DNA so that, perhaps, those around them will learn by their example. It seems overly simple, even trite. But it’s the kind of rooted empathy that’s so often lacking in children today. Indeed, it’s often lacking in their parents, too, which is kind of the root of the problem.

“Our world has become so frenetically multitasked and inner-focused that we often forget the little niceties that defined life barely a generation ago.”

The fixing process, then, has to start somewhere. May as well be with me and my family.

You’re both Jewish and Canadian. Do either of these things make you feel like a minority among bloggers? Does it matter?

I’ve never wanted to be part of the majority or to be part of the so-called “in” crowd. I have no interest in fading into the mainstream, so being Jewish and Canadian has very much defined who I am and how my life has evolved. Growing up as a Jew barely a generation after the Holocaust allowed me to learn the lessons of this terrible time directly from those who survived it. From a very young age, I’ve heard their refrain, “Never again,” over and over, in countless forms. It’s been instrumental in forming my sense of righteous indignation at the core of my work as a journalist and as a blogger. I write to shed light on issues that matter, to ask questions and seek answers, to teach others and to help those around look at the world from a different perspective. I rather like rooting for the underdog because it has so much more meaning than simply going along for the ride with the popular kids. I don’t think I’d have been as passionate with a pen if I hadn’t been a Jew.

I recognize that wearing my ethnicity on my sleeve has come with its own costs along the way. I’m certain I’ve lost out on jobs because I was perceived as the Jewish Journalist. From some of the comments I’ve received on my blog and letters I’ve received while I was a columnist, I know there are people out there who would rather I keep my religious and cultural background deeply buried. My perspective? Tough. I’m proud of who I am, and I’m not about to suppress it because some people aren’t comfortable with my Jewishness. I relish the opportunity to learn about others and can’t imagine telling anyone to keep it inside. Silence is what’s gotten us into trouble so often in the past, and I have no intention of repeating that old mistake.

Being Canadian has similarly helped me carve out a bit of a different writer’s persona. We’re a very small population spread out over a huge land mass, immediately adjacent to the overwhelming cultural influence of the U.S. Our geography challenges us to reach out and connect because, let’s face it, the winters here can be long, cold and lonely. We’re a kinder, gentler nation, it seems, and we look out for those who may not be able to look out for themselves. Blogging fits that national psyche. It builds a sense of virtual community that, I suspect, isn’t taken for granted on our side of the border. I often feel like I’m sitting in the stands, watching the show. I don’t think I’d feel the same way if I weren’t Canadian. Sometimes, it’s a good thing to be at the edge of the story looking in.

You’ve been interviewed by various podcasters. Do you listen to podcasts? If so, which ones?

I’m a sucker for anything newsy or geeky. I’ve watched PBS’s NOVA since I was a kid, so I was thrilled when I realized the franchise had its own podcast, too. I’ve started watching podcasts of interview-based shows like NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS’s 60 Minutes because I can never remember when to catch them live on television. I believe interviews are an art form, and podcasts let me slow things down and learn a bit more about what works and what doesn’t.

On the geek side, This Week in Tech is a regular download, though I still can’t get past the twitty short-form! I don’t listen to or watch as many podcasts as I suppose I should because I’m more likely to read something while on the go than I am to listen to or watch it. I suppose if I drove more, I’d probably skew more toward listening to podcasts in the car. But around here, cycling with headphones is a no-no. I guess the written word really is my drug of choice.

Words and images are obviously key elements of your life, but what about music? What’s cranking out of your iPod or radio as you work?

I rarely share my playlists because I don’t want to frighten the children. When I write, I need just the right kind of music to set the tone and allow me to focus on the task at hand. If I pick the wrong music, I’m in trouble. So I tend to stick with tunes that bring me comfort. Then I listen to them over and over for months at a stretch.

I’m a huge fan of trip hop bands like Hooverphonic and Massive Attack. It’s the kind of music that paces me when I’m deep into a writing project and facing a heavy deadline. Trance music by acts such as Delerium, Brian Transeau and Above & Beyond and also helps get me into a writing groove. Movie soundtracks are another weakness of mine - and it’s never the obvious movies, either: The Truman Show (Philip Glass), Friday Night Lights (Explosions in the Sky), and Great Expectations (Tori Amos) are regular visitors to my ears. Canada seems to grow female singer-songwriters on trees, so I’ll often listen to artists like Sarah Harmer, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sarah McLachlan, Nelly Furtado and Jann Arden when I need to brainstorm or walk off some stress. I’ve been a huge Tom Cochrane fan since I was a teenager. He was a journalist before he became one of Canada’s top musicians, and he’s built his life around giving back to the musical community. He’s been named to the Order of Canada - our country’s highest honor - and in doing so has become yet another source of inspiration.

I’m particularly proud that I’ve gotten my kids to like New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Moby and Green Day. Once we realized that they had mercifully outgrown Barney and the Wiggles, we seized the opportunity to introduce them to music even my parents don’t get. I like that they’ve begun to explore their own tastes in music and are asking the kinds of questions about musicians and styles that I had never even imagined when I was their age. It won’t be long before they’re introducing me to new styles.

Corporate analyst. Tech strategist. Radio expert. Photographer. Journalist. What haven’t you done, and what can we expect from you in the future?

I haven’t published my own book. Yet. I published a best practices methodology for my former employer, a technology research firm, in 2004. But that wasn’t exactly the kind of read that’ll be studied in high school classes for generations or reviewed at book clubs. I’m already deep into at least two projects that will be ready for shopping around in 2009. If anybody knows an agent or a publisher, I’m all ears.

More than anything, I haven’t grown up. I’ve never wanted to lose the sense of wonder that I had when I was a child. Too many people seem to forget what it felt like when they were kids, when everything was new and cool and just a little bit mysterious. We asked a lot of questions then and never seemed to be satisfied with the answers that came back. Life seems to beat the innocence out of us as we fight to hold onto our jobs, pay the bills and keep all those adult-like balls in the air. I’m often laughed at for being silly, irreverent or just plain immature. I’m OK with that. I don’t much worry about what others think of me. As long as my wife and kids get me - and I know they do - then everything else is pretty immaterial. It’s a comfortable, happy place to be, and I’m lucky to be here.

You can interact with Carmi Levy via his blog, Written Inc, his Twitter feed, or most Friday evenings on AM640 Toronto.

Melissa A. Bartell earns her living by writing articles for an SEO marketing firm, and dabbles in essays and fiction on the side. She lives near Dallas, TX with her husband, two dogs, and more computers than anyone really needs. She is the Senior Editor here at All Things Girl. Find out more about her on our About Page. You can also find her at her website and various other places around the ‘net.

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