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Crescent Dragonwagon

DEFIANT JOY, OR YOU HAVEN’T HAD ALL YOUR SURPRISES YET: NEW YEARS EDITION

DEFIANT JOY, OR YOU HAVEN’T HAD ALL YOUR SURPRISES YET: NEW YEARS EDITION

By Crescent Dragonwagon

SOMETIMES YOU THINK YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN. YOU’RE USUALLY WRONG. AND THAT’S PROBABLY NOT A BAD THING. I used to teach in a program called Artists-in-Schools, as did my longtime friend, musician Bill Haymes. I’d come into schools, a visiting writer helping students (sometimes very young, sometimes teenagers) write. Bill did the same, but with music and song-writing…. Read More

Filed Under: Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer Tagged With: bill haymes, Crescent dragonwagon, nuclear button, resilience, resistance, surprises

TOMATO MEDITATION, AT SUMMER’S END

TOMATO MEDITATION, AT SUMMER’S END

By Crescent Dragonwagon

OH those first tomatoes; the kind, we eat out of hand (from our own garden, if we are lucky, a tomato eaten as one would a piece of fruit, parting that hairy aromatic foliage to find that first globe, still-sunwarmed). These are the tomatoes we wait all year for; even after we tire of them plain, mostly of us still wouldn’t… Read More

Filed Under: Deep Feast Tagged With: banadora, cilantro, Crescent dragonwagon, Gil Marks, green chile, Olive Trees and Honey, quinoa, recipe, summer food, tomato, tomato salad

COOL HAND CUKE: CUCUMBER-YOGURT SOUP WITH MINT, & GRAPES,  WITH A VEGAN VARIATION.

COOL HAND CUKE: CUCUMBER-YOGURT SOUP WITH MINT, & GRAPES, WITH A VEGAN VARIATION.

By Crescent Dragonwagon

THE ONLY SUMMER SOUP RECIPE YOU WILL EVER NEED. SO SAVE YOUR GORGEOUS SUMMER-RIPE TOMATOES FOR SOMETHING ELSE. BECAUSE, FRANKLY, THIS LEAVES TRADITIONAL GAZPACHO IN THE SHADE. It got up to to 96 degrees yesterday. In Vermont! And it wasn’t even quite July yet! This struck me as cruel and unusual punishment, because part of the reason I adore Vermont… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, Deep Feast Tagged With: chilled soup, cold soup, Crescent dragonwagon, Cucumber-Yogurt Soup, green grapes, mint, recipe, summer food

The Secret Heartbreak of Widowhood

The Secret Heartbreak of Widowhood

By Crescent Dragonwagon

This week I am sharing with you our Widowhood Wednesday message via video for reasons I will explain at the end of the message. Our monthly call will be at 8 pm eastern on Wednesday, May 30th. The call is a pay what you will if you can, or simply join us. Registration is required, so that the teleconference call… Read More

Filed Under: #WidowhoodWednesday, grief, widowhood Tagged With: Crescent dragonwagon, the living room, widowhood, Widowhood Wednesday Calls

DOES IT GET EASIER? YES. DO YOU GET OVER IT? NO.

DOES IT GET EASIER? YES. DO YOU GET OVER IT? NO.

By Crescent Dragonwagon

I would like to tell you, dear fellow members of the Club No One Wants to Join, especially those younger to widowhood than I am, that it gets easier over time. And I can. For it does. It gets easier over time. I would also, so very much, like not to tell you that you never get over it. But… Read More

Filed Under: #WidowhoodWednesday, Fearless Living Tagged With: Crescent dragonwagon, gradual transformation, grief, grief & grieving, love, Ned Shank, widowhood, Widowhood Wednesday

STILL BEANING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

STILL BEANING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

By Crescent Dragonwagon

There’s no doubt of this: New Orleans is a city which knows its beans. So when Camellia Beans, a well-respected and well-loved brand of dry beans based in that municipality approached me about using some of the lima bean recipes from my book Bean by Bean,  of course I gladly said yes. They have just put up the post featuring  three… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, Deep Feast Tagged With: Bean by Bean, beans, Brunswick Stew, Camellia, Crescent dragonwagon, Ragout of Shiitake Mushrooms Butter Beans & Southern Greens with Potatoes, Southern Country-Style Butter-Bean & Green Bean Soup

IT FEELS LIKE INSANITY. BUT IS IT?

IT FEELS LIKE INSANITY. BUT IS IT?

By Crescent Dragonwagon

I call it, “the club no one wants to join.” I look back, seventeen years as I write this since I joined, absolutely against my will… so much against my will that when the local paper, reporting on Ned’s death, referred to me as his widow a few days after his death (a bicycle accident), I actually phoned the editor…. Read More

Filed Under: #WidowhoodWednesday Tagged With: Crescent dragonwagon, grief, Ned Shank, widowhood

BISCUITS AND GRAVY, A SIDE OF OVER EASY: LOVE, BREAKFAST, MEMORY

BISCUITS AND GRAVY, A SIDE OF OVER EASY: LOVE, BREAKFAST, MEMORY

By Crescent Dragonwagon

I’m in New York at the moment, with my boyfriend. I woke up early, suddenly and fully this morning, filled with reasonless happiness. He was asleep, warm beside me. I started thinking about what to make for breakfast. Out of nowhere, in that funny discursive way memory has, biscuits and gravy came to mind. THE SUN KITCHEN I used to… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon Tagged With: biscuits and gravy, breakfast, Crescent dragonwagon, eggs, Eureka Springs, lat life romance, mushrooms

RIDING IN THE CARRIAGE WITH MY DADDY

RIDING IN THE CARRIAGE WITH MY DADDY

By Crescent Dragonwagon

“Daddy,” I said admiringly, “You should run for president.” I was six. Sitting on the dirty clothes hamper in the bathroom, my back to the window, watching him shave late one afternoon. He stood, in his white boxers, facing the mirrored white medicine cabinet.  At that time, he was a Broadway critic, and if he was going out to an… Read More

Filed Under: Maurice Zolotow, Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer Tagged With: anniversaries, Central Park carriages, Crescent dragonwagon, fatherhood, fathers, grief, Maurice Zolotow

THE REINVENTION OF A DAY: HOW WE’RE CALLED (& WHO WE CALL) WHEN THINGS DO NOT GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

THE REINVENTION OF A DAY: HOW WE’RE CALLED (& WHO WE CALL) WHEN THINGS DO NOT GO ACCORDING TO PLAN

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Last Friday, I finally made it to my doctor’s office for a full physical. I had tried, sincerely, a few weeks earlier, on a hot, hot humid day. But only partially succeeded. A tree got in the way. But in a larger sense, perhaps, a tree was the way. Disruption. What a weird gift it is. *** If a tree… Read More

Filed Under: Fearless Living Tagged With: aging parents, change of plans, Crescent dragonwagon, happiness increases with age, reinvention

THE DILL-SEEKERS: AN HERB, A MOTHER, MEMORY

THE DILL-SEEKERS: AN HERB, A MOTHER, MEMORY

By Crescent Dragonwagon

I’d had friends over last Friday, for dinner. A couple of the dishes I’d served them required a little fresh dill. Now, you can’t buy a little dill. You buy it by the bunch. That bunch is usually, especially this time of year, preposterously large. This is problematical. I live alone, except for when my boyfriend comes up from New York to spend a few… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon Tagged With: aging, aging parents, Charlotte Zolotow, cooking, Crescent dragonwagon, culinary writing, dill, Food and Drink, herbs, mothers and daughters, vinaigrette

PEPPERS, PUDDINGS, & FOOD FOR THE HIGH NOON OF SUMMER: A DINNER PARTY IDYLL

PEPPERS, PUDDINGS, & FOOD FOR THE HIGH NOON OF SUMMER: A DINNER PARTY IDYLL

By Crescent Dragonwagon

High noon, on the year’s clock. That’s what it is right now. I know technically, literally, that summer’s high noon would be the Solstice, towards June’s end. But subjectively, I place it about a month later. That’s when the overflowing, abundant generosity of my local farm-stand makes me swoon with possibilities, and it’s hard not to overbuy. All that produce!… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon Tagged With: cooking, Crescent dragonwagon, dinner parties, Food and Drink, friendship, Recipes, vegetarian

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Read Aloud with Crescent and Mark

NOT A LITTLE MONKEY, by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrted by Michelle Chessaree

"So, the little girl climbed into the big waste-basket and waited." ' Oh no,' said her mother, ' we don't want to throw you away.'"There are many ways to express love and the need for attention. Here, a busy mother and her just-a-bit naughty little girl tease each other affectionately — the little girl making her point without even uttering a word.That's today's story time — read aloud by the author's daughter at Crescent Dragonwagon's Writing, Cooking, & Workshops, with Mark Graff's "text support" and discussion."Just right for two-to-fours, the humor of this true-to-life story of a mischievous little girl who blocks her mother's attempts to clean house will elicit giggles from the lollipop set." Kirkus Reviews

Posted by Crescent Dragonwagon's Writing, Cooking, & Workshops on Thursday, June 4, 2020

Read Aloud with Crescent

Read Aloud with Crescent

The Washington Post on Crescent’s Lentil Soup Recipe

The Washington Post on Crescent’s Lentil Soup Recipe

Greek Lentil Soup with Spinach and Lemon, photograph by Tom McCorkle, Washington Post

Bean By Bean Cookbooks

#DeepFeast Recipes

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Dinner with Dragonwagon

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A NAPPA Gold Winner
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"... like a warm luminescent blanket at bedtime... softly lulling." -- New York Times


"(With) weary animals, Dragonwagon offers an “alphabet of ways to sleep,” smoothly working in some alliteration..."
- Publishers Weekly (starred review)


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read aloud with Crescent Dragonwagon

Until Just Moistened

Until Just Moistened

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