Claire Conger

Like Joan Didion, I used to get migraines.

For me, it was the kind of migraine when you’re so nauseated that you vomit. It was when I was married, or rather living with my baby’s father.

I felt trapped.

“I don’t have time to be married!” wails Julie in Julie and Julia, a movie about Julia Child and devote Julie Powell. What Julie really should have cried, was “I don’t have time to work all day at my stupid government job!”

The Secret Life Of Bees (2002), spiritual writer Sue Monk Kidd ‘s first novel, tells the story of a fourteen-year-old girl escaping from her father and discovering what happened to her mother. It’s a page-turner, populated with wise women and stupid men, and told in the voice of the girl. This voice, well crafted by Ms Kidd, carries the story, and, unlike her second novel, The Mermaid Chair, Ms Kidd keeps this story moving. (I couldn’t read The Mermaid Chair, and my posting Stephen King’s Backstory Well Done in Carrie explains why.)

As I was browsing my garden for strawberries just now, I remembered Mireille Guiliano’s number one rule: Excellent food only! In her book French Women Don’t Get Fat Ms Guiliano tells us that fresh in season food satisfies the appetite. You tend to eat more when the food is not so good. Here’s a link for a few Mireille Guiliano recipes. For more, try French Women for All Seasons: A Calendar of Secrets, Recipes: 2010 Engagement Calendar.

When Mireille Guiliano visited the United States as an exchange student, she got fat. Returning to her native France, she was so chubby that her father exclaimed she looked like a sack of potatoes—devastating to a teenager. Her book French Women Don’t Get Fat tells us how this happened and how she returned to her slim French self.