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Laurie Colwin's writing is a bit like Thanksgiving dinner. It's rich and satisfying, composed of equal parts comfort food and fine delicacies, and it's something you want to share with loved ones. It's easy to devour her novels in one sitting, and really, you should read Happy All the Time once a year, just like you should indulge in turkey and stuffing every November.
Colwin wrote lovely stories, but she was also famous for her food writing. The slim volume Home Cooking (which is finally available in e-book form thanks to Open Road Media) is a collection of her essays from Gourmet and Inside, among other publications. Colwin was an adventurous cook and, somehow, at the same time, a practical one. Her recipes will inspire you to cancel your Sunday plans and spend the day making a meal to enjoy with your friends. That, or eat an entire box of After Eights while spending the rest of the afternoon reading one of her wonderful books.
"One of the delights of life is eating with friends, second to that is talking about eating," Colwin wrote in the foreword to Home Cooking. She was prescient about that, understanding that talking about — and showing pictures of — what we eat now is pretty much a full-time job. And, there may be no better time to eat and talk than Thanksgiving, a day that is dedicated almost entirely to home cooking and spending time with family and friends.
RF Jurjevics, Colwin's child, shared their mother's recipe book with us — and for fans of Colwin's work, flipping through her hand-written recipes is something of a religious experience. Ahead, RF Jurjevics talks with us about their memories of their mother (Colwin died in 1992, when RF Jurjevics was still quite young) and shares three of Colwin's recipes you might just want to try this Thanksgiving. We highly recommend the creamed spinach; it's something of a Colwin classic.
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