Esther M Friesner - How to Make Unicorn Pie, Angielskie [EN](4)(2)
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Esther M. Friesner
How To Make Unicorn Pie
Building up a high fluted rim, prepare in a 9-inch pie pan, baked flaky pastry
crust. Whisk in thoroughly
1 smallNew Englandtown
2 searching hearts
1 astute observer
3 possibly-mythical animals
Fold in Esther Friesner's distinctive sense of humor, let simmer. Read at
leisure and enjoy. Delicious!
I LIVE IN THE TOWN OF Bowman's Ridge,Vermont, founded 1746, the same year if
not the same universe asPrincetonUniversity. But wherePrincetonhas employed
the intervening centuries to pour forth a bounteous-if-bombastic stream of
English majors, Bowman's Ridge has employed the same time to produce people who
are actually, well, employable.
Bowman's Ridge is populated exclusively by three major ethnic groups, the two
most numerous of which are Natives and Transients. I've lived here for
twenty-five years, in one of the smaller authentic Colonial Era houses onMain
Street. It has white clapboard siding, conservatively painted dark green
shutters, the original eighteenth-century well, a floral clock, a flourishing
herb garden, a rockery, and a paid-up mortgage. Local tradition claims that
Ethan Alien once threw up here.
I'm still just a Transient. That's how the Natives would have it, anyway. On the
other hand, at least I'm a Transient that they can trust, or perhaps the word I
want is tolerate. Just as long as I don't bring up the unfortunate subject of
how I earn my living, everything is roses.
You see (and here I ought to turn my face aside and drop my voice to the
requisite hoarse whisper reserved for all such disgraceful confessions),
I...write.
UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!
Someone get a firm hold on the carriage horses lest they stampede and make sure
that no pregnant women cross my path. I wouldn't like to be held responsible for
the consequences.
No, I am not taking on unnecessarily. I've seen the looks I get on the street
and in the stores. I've heard the whispers: "There goes Babs Barclay. She
writes." (Uttered in the same deliciously scandalized tone once applied to prim
old maids with a secret addiction to overdosing on Lydia Pinkham's elixir,
cooking sherry, vanilla extract, and hair tonic.)
To the good folk of Bowman's Ridge, having a writer in their midst is rather
like having a toothless, declawed cat in the chicken coop. The beastie may look
harmless, logic may insist that in its present state sans fang and talon it is
by fiat harmless, but the biddies still huddle together, clucking nervously,
because... You never know.
I know what they are afraid of. It's the same fear that's always plagued small
towns condemned to harbor the Pen Pushers from Planet Verbiage. It's the
ultimate terror, which I first saw voiced by a secondary character in one of the
Anne of Green Gables books when the heroine began to garner some small success
as an author: What ii she puts us in one o/her stories? Not a direct quote, but
it'll do.
Forget what you think you know about fame. Not everyone wants his or her
allotted fifteen minutes' worth. The people of Bowman's Ridge want it even less
than the people of Avonlea, orPeyton Place, or any other small town that had
the poor judgment to allow writers to burrow into the wainscotting and nest for
the winter. They are simple, honest, hardworking folk, who will take a simple,
honest tire iron to your head if you so much as hint that you're going to make
the outside world aware of their existence. (I think that the surplus of
deferred fame-bites gets funneled into an offshore account where Donald Trump's
ego, Michael Jackson's manhood, and Madonna's uterus spend much too much time
making withdrawals. I could be wrong.)
It doesn't do me a lick of good to explain to my friends and neighbors that
their fears are for naught. I write romances. Historical romances. Books with
titles like Druid's Desire and Millard Filmore, My Love. The only way I'd write
about anyone from Bowman's Ridge is if they were romantic, famous, and dead.
Why, they could no more get into one of my books than a taxman into heaven, a
linebacker into leotards, or a small, sharp sliver of unicorn horn into a nice
big slice of Greta Marie Bowman's apple pie.
"Ow!"
It was a snoozy afternoon in mid-November and I was seated at the counter in the
coffee shop when it happened. The coffee shop in Bowman's Ridge is the nexus for
all manner of social interaction, from personal to political. I'm afraid my
Transient heart doesn't get all revved up over the Planning and Zoning
Commission's latest bureaucratic brouhahaha or the Women's Club's plans for yet
another authentic Colonial weekend to honor the memory of our own Captain James
Resurrection Bowman C1717-1778). I go there because the coffee is good but the
apple pie is downright fabulous.
Or so I thought, until I found the figurative needle in the Northern Spies.
Carefully I put three fingers into my mouth and drew out the thing that had
stung me, tongue and palate. I pulled it between my lips to clean off any
adhering fragments of cooked apple and flaky crust. I have no idea why I went to
the trouble. Would it make any difference to my throbbing mouth if I got the
barb clean before seeing what it was?
I might as well have saved myself the effort and simply spit it out. Even clean
and wiped dry on a paper napkin, it was nothing I could put a name to. About as
long as the first joint of my little finger and one-quarter as wide, it caught
the light from the coffee shop overheads and shimmered like the inside of an
abalone shell.
"Something wrong, dear?" Muriel's shadow fell over the object of my attention.
Muriel and her husband Hal own and run the Bowman's Ridge coffee shop. I like to
think that they belong to some mystic fraternal order of interior decorators --
the Harmonic Knights of the Cosmic Balance, Fabric Swatch and Chowder Society --
for the way they keep the place charming without being cloying. Anyone who's
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Esther M. Friesner
How To Make Unicorn Pie
Building up a high fluted rim, prepare in a 9-inch pie pan, baked flaky pastry
crust. Whisk in thoroughly
1 smallNew Englandtown
2 searching hearts
1 astute observer
3 possibly-mythical animals
Fold in Esther Friesner's distinctive sense of humor, let simmer. Read at
leisure and enjoy. Delicious!
I LIVE IN THE TOWN OF Bowman's Ridge,Vermont, founded 1746, the same year if
not the same universe asPrincetonUniversity. But wherePrincetonhas employed
the intervening centuries to pour forth a bounteous-if-bombastic stream of
English majors, Bowman's Ridge has employed the same time to produce people who
are actually, well, employable.
Bowman's Ridge is populated exclusively by three major ethnic groups, the two
most numerous of which are Natives and Transients. I've lived here for
twenty-five years, in one of the smaller authentic Colonial Era houses onMain
Street. It has white clapboard siding, conservatively painted dark green
shutters, the original eighteenth-century well, a floral clock, a flourishing
herb garden, a rockery, and a paid-up mortgage. Local tradition claims that
Ethan Alien once threw up here.
I'm still just a Transient. That's how the Natives would have it, anyway. On the
other hand, at least I'm a Transient that they can trust, or perhaps the word I
want is tolerate. Just as long as I don't bring up the unfortunate subject of
how I earn my living, everything is roses.
You see (and here I ought to turn my face aside and drop my voice to the
requisite hoarse whisper reserved for all such disgraceful confessions),
I...write.
UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!
Someone get a firm hold on the carriage horses lest they stampede and make sure
that no pregnant women cross my path. I wouldn't like to be held responsible for
the consequences.
No, I am not taking on unnecessarily. I've seen the looks I get on the street
and in the stores. I've heard the whispers: "There goes Babs Barclay. She
writes." (Uttered in the same deliciously scandalized tone once applied to prim
old maids with a secret addiction to overdosing on Lydia Pinkham's elixir,
cooking sherry, vanilla extract, and hair tonic.)
To the good folk of Bowman's Ridge, having a writer in their midst is rather
like having a toothless, declawed cat in the chicken coop. The beastie may look
harmless, logic may insist that in its present state sans fang and talon it is
by fiat harmless, but the biddies still huddle together, clucking nervously,
because... You never know.
I know what they are afraid of. It's the same fear that's always plagued small
towns condemned to harbor the Pen Pushers from Planet Verbiage. It's the
ultimate terror, which I first saw voiced by a secondary character in one of the
Anne of Green Gables books when the heroine began to garner some small success
as an author: What ii she puts us in one o/her stories? Not a direct quote, but
it'll do.
Forget what you think you know about fame. Not everyone wants his or her
allotted fifteen minutes' worth. The people of Bowman's Ridge want it even less
than the people of Avonlea, orPeyton Place, or any other small town that had
the poor judgment to allow writers to burrow into the wainscotting and nest for
the winter. They are simple, honest, hardworking folk, who will take a simple,
honest tire iron to your head if you so much as hint that you're going to make
the outside world aware of their existence. (I think that the surplus of
deferred fame-bites gets funneled into an offshore account where Donald Trump's
ego, Michael Jackson's manhood, and Madonna's uterus spend much too much time
making withdrawals. I could be wrong.)
It doesn't do me a lick of good to explain to my friends and neighbors that
their fears are for naught. I write romances. Historical romances. Books with
titles like Druid's Desire and Millard Filmore, My Love. The only way I'd write
about anyone from Bowman's Ridge is if they were romantic, famous, and dead.
Why, they could no more get into one of my books than a taxman into heaven, a
linebacker into leotards, or a small, sharp sliver of unicorn horn into a nice
big slice of Greta Marie Bowman's apple pie.
"Ow!"
It was a snoozy afternoon in mid-November and I was seated at the counter in the
coffee shop when it happened. The coffee shop in Bowman's Ridge is the nexus for
all manner of social interaction, from personal to political. I'm afraid my
Transient heart doesn't get all revved up over the Planning and Zoning
Commission's latest bureaucratic brouhahaha or the Women's Club's plans for yet
another authentic Colonial weekend to honor the memory of our own Captain James
Resurrection Bowman C1717-1778). I go there because the coffee is good but the
apple pie is downright fabulous.
Or so I thought, until I found the figurative needle in the Northern Spies.
Carefully I put three fingers into my mouth and drew out the thing that had
stung me, tongue and palate. I pulled it between my lips to clean off any
adhering fragments of cooked apple and flaky crust. I have no idea why I went to
the trouble. Would it make any difference to my throbbing mouth if I got the
barb clean before seeing what it was?
I might as well have saved myself the effort and simply spit it out. Even clean
and wiped dry on a paper napkin, it was nothing I could put a name to. About as
long as the first joint of my little finger and one-quarter as wide, it caught
the light from the coffee shop overheads and shimmered like the inside of an
abalone shell.
"Something wrong, dear?" Muriel's shadow fell over the object of my attention.
Muriel and her husband Hal own and run the Bowman's Ridge coffee shop. I like to
think that they belong to some mystic fraternal order of interior decorators --
the Harmonic Knights of the Cosmic Balance, Fabric Swatch and Chowder Society --
for the way they keep the place charming without being cloying. Anyone who's
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]