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A copy of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway: Volume 1, 1907-1922 (The Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway) [Hardcover] was available at Amazon.com for $4.70!
My first exposure to Hemingway was reading The Old Man and the Sea in
grade 9 English class with Mr. Fraser. I became a fan.
After studying more Hemingway at university, the focus of my undergrad
settled on 20th century American fiction, and I read most of his works during that time. Weird to say, but Hemingway was probably the most influential man in my life up to that point and the primary reason why I went to Spain at 26 to see what that was all about.
When
we bought our house 2 years ago, and all of our stuff was packed
and unpacked, my old Hemingway novels turned up again like old friends
from the past. But it wasn't until last June that I cracked one open and re-read A Farewell to Arms on a trip to Gatineau to visit Shawn and Lisa.
The story took on new meaning to me, since I am now almost 20 years older
and know a little more about the world in general. On a roll, I took Men Without Women to
the beach one day mid-summer but only ending up reading a page or two;
afterwards, it somehow got tangled up in my beach towel and went through
the washing machine.
 |
| washable AND readable |
Intrigued by Opera Chic Milan's post, I followed the link, read the blurb, watched the related video, and spent the rest of the afternoon reading online essays about Hemingway, his life and works. Hooked again, like that big marlin.
During this Cruising-the-net-for-Hemingway session, I came across a Cambridge University Press blog and a post Dinner is Served, Hemingway Style
which talks about his descriptions of food that he loved that are found in this collection of letters. And because I love food (and Hemingway too), a passage of his which always stuck in my mind was this scene from The Garden of Eden in which the two main characters have breakfast at a hotel in Grau du Roi. To this day it remains my weekend morning dream-breakfast:
"On this morning there was brioche and red raspberry preserve and the eggs were boiled and there was a pat of butter that melted as they stirred them and salted them lightly and ground pepper over them in the cups. They were big eggs and fresh and the girl's were not cooked quite as long as the young man's. He remembered that easily and he was happy with his which he diced up with the spoon and ate with only the flow of the butter to moisten them and the fresh early morning texture and the bite of the coarsely ground pepper grains and the hot coffee and the chicory-fragrant bowl of cafe au lait."
And
so, I thought it might be fun to re-read my entire Hemingway collection this summer and
re-create the meals he describes, starting with the one above. Hopefully the hens start laying again and I can find a bread-machine recipe for brioche.