Making use of neighbourhood trees, cheerful robins, and bulb-hunting squirrels, as an urban dweller Ann Tudor--through her essays and poetry--works at staying in tune with what really counts: the sustaining beauty of the natural world.
Ann Tudor shares with us the farmhouse-style Thanksgiving Day feast of her childhood-a groaning board attended by cousins, aunts, uncles, and one gruff grandfather. The food--and the unique family recipes Ann reveals--is what really counts!
From plum slice to washing dishes, from gluttony to floor-mopping, Ann Tudor examines the joy and the sorrow, the guilt and the satisfaction of domestic life, all of it related in her usual wry voice.
Follow author and narrator Ann Tudor as she moves from one stage of life to the next, looking for the lesson as well as for the beauty of the moment. Her stories are informed by the varied experiences of her life: she has been teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, copy editor, fibre artist, practitioner of the healing arts, pianist, aspiring cellist, and, underlying it all, observer/writer.
Here's a woman with an eye for babies! Ann Tudor tells stories about babies and toddlers, whether grandchildren or met-by-chance little ones out in the world, along with a few memories from her own childhood. Always sensitive to the child's point of view, these stories are sometimes amusing, sometimes heartbreaking, but always intriguing.
With wry, dry humor, Ann Tudor explores the physical and mental phenomena of aging, chronicling the incremental changes that assail us on our way to the Land of Old. Beneath it all is a deep awareness of the possibility of spiritual development as we move toward the inevitable end.
Eileen, my mother (we called her Eileen instead of "mother"), always seemed a bit bemused to find herself raising six lively children in in a small Midwestern town. Our father used to say they had three before they knew what was causing it. Nevertheless, when life sent her down this unexpected path, Eileen faced the challenges of bringing up six rowdy kids with humour, a generous if naive spirit, and a lot of creativity.
In the run-up to Christmas, the point of the game has always been to find the parents' stash of not-yet-wrapped Christmas presents. But what a let-down it is if you actually find them! In these stories you experience Christmas in a rural Midwest town in the 1940s and 1950s. Six rowdy children approach The Day with a mixture of rampant greed, enforced piety, and a hunger for family traditions even as they are being created.
Did your mother forget to teach you to make pie crust? Have you always sought the secrets of biscuits? Here's the chance to join the slow-food trend toward making your own pies and biscuits. In this audio program, Ann Tudor, calling on some fifty years of making-from-scratch experience, shares everything she knows about pie crust, homemade lard, biscuits, pinwheels, and strawberry shortcake. And just in case you feel that she thinks she knows it all, the last track on this program is a humiliating but hilarious account of one of her spectacular failures.
This original audio program offers seven tales of near-disaster, reminders that youth, strange circumstances, or a moment of stupidity can lead to catastrophe. And yet Rosie evades the frightening consequences of her foolishness and continues, unscathed, on her journey. Rosie's beautifully narrated adventures will linger in your imagination. In every situation, Rosie has a close encounter with disaster. Some of the stories hinge on a faulty vehicle ('Midnight Breakdown'), some involve a faulty driver ('Young Drivers'), and some show Rosie using faulty judgment (Hawaiian Angels). In retrospect, even Rosie would have to admit that she had great luck'or was it angelic intervention? May we all be as lucky as Rosie, or may our own angels be as competent and obliging as Rosie's. The humour and warmth of these beguiling stories make this an ideal CD for the spoken-word market.
Tales from My Table is a collection of twelve true stories about food. Bittersweet, funny, and thought-provoking, the stories explore the way food influences our lives and our memories. We learn about relationships, about life, and about the thrill of eating what you love to eat and cooking what you love to cook. Imagine Anne Lamott and Garrison Keillor meeting under a full moon for a midnight picnic. As author Ann Tudor says: "I value food prepared and served with love. And I value the memories that we store in our taste buds. Not all those memories are welcome ones. It would not serve us to recall only the times of sweet plenty and glorious love. We need also to taste bitterness and to feel our salt tears. We taste the salt, we taste the bitter. And then we find the sweet."
