You meet an author

You hear an author's voice in
her writing. That's what I've done
in Home Cooking and More Home
Cooking by Laurie Colwin.
Any of my friends will tell
you that what inspires me comes
into conversation. Laurie's books
about cooking at home and making
dinners simple and good have spilled
over into many of my friend's ears.
I just googled her name to find out
she had an early death. She just didn't
wake up one morning at the age of 48.
This from an article in the Washington
Post . She passed away in 1992.

Similarly, most of the writers she loved had been around for a while; indeed, her own most direct literary ancestor was Jane Austen, as is made charmingly clear by a brief passage from the title story of "The Lone Pilgrim":

"Oh, domesticity! The wonder of dinner plates and cream pitchers. You know your friends by their ornaments. You want everything. If Mrs. A. has her mama's old jelly mold, you want one too, and everything else that goes with it -- the family, the tradition, the years of having jelly molded in it. We domestic sensualists live in a state of longing, no matter how comfortable our own places are."

Family, marriage, chattels, tradition -- it is Austen to the core.

Now to find this last line: A Collection of
her letters is now in the works.

Laurie Colwin
1944-1992