[caption id="attachment_264" align="right" width="150" caption="Harvest 2008"][/caption]

Against all better judgment, Farmer Margaret (my sister), Farmer John (my husband), and I doubled the size of our community garden plot for this year. On a beautiful hill overlooking the Schuylkill Valley and hosted by Philadelphia’s great SCEE nature center, we have expanded Triangulation Farm, as we like to call it, to be 40 ft. x 60 ft. Horticultural zones be damned, we’re growing everything from artichokes to asparagus, with potatoes and cucumbers and rhubarb in-between. This year, I’m in charge of the toad pond. Last year, I was in charge of the casita. A theme here?

We also have strawberries, blueberries and 15 tomato cages to fill. So I’ll be canning, canning, canning, when the time comes, and I’d love any tried and true recipes…for pickles, relishes, and chow chows (whatever those are). Can you help an urban farmer out?

Here’s the pickled peaches recipe I got from Mary Howard, sister of identical twins Albert and Elbert. If you have any family recipes for pickled peaches, I’m curious about variations on that theme.

Today I met one of the actual plaintiffs from Brown v. Board of Ed — John Stokes, who wrote about his high school’s stand against Plessy v. Ferguson in the book Students on Strike. I felt that telltale chill that says: You are witnessing something world historical.

Participating in the 15th Annual VA Festival of the Book was all about history, both personal and public. Since it was held in Charlottesville, I got to wander around the grounds of UVA, seeing the fingerprints of Jefferson in its architecture. I had lunch with old friends from Philadelphia, the Gunters, who moved to C’ville back in 1965, but with whom we’ve kept in touch.

I had the unexpected pleasure of my memoir panel moderator being Nancy O’Brien, the city’s first woman mayor. Former mayors make great moderators, as it turns out, plus the panel was a motley but wonderful, funny, and thoughtful crew consisting of Randall Kenan (The Fire This Time), Martha Frankel (Hats & Eyeglasses), and recent NBCC Award winner Ariel Sabar (My Father’s Paradise). In a small world meets smaller world moment, it turns out that the ex-mayor was a dear friend of the Gunters’ mom, the wonderful Mary Alice, who we lost a few years ago.

My other panel fell under the broad umbrella, “African American Voices,” and while Pig Candy might not seem to have anything in common with Randall Kenan’s The Fire This Time and Adam Bradley’s Book Of Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop, we had a cohesive conversation, great readings, and a responsive audience.

Not for nothing, I also ran into mystery writer SJ Rozan. We lived in the same West Village co-op a million years ago. She still lives there, but I sold my teensy tiny apartment shortly after moving to Philly — apparently too soon, since the sales price for some of those puppies — less then 500 sq. feet, mind you — peaked a couple of years ago at $550,000. But I love the 6th borough. I do. I really do.

Other highlights included a well-attended Links Brunch this morning, full of interesting authors and gracious hosts. And I finally got to meet Bliss Broyard (One Drop), who’s been a virtual friend for some time. All in all, a well-spent weekend.

Tomorrow I head down to Charlottesville for the 15th annual Virgina Festival of the Book (March 18-22).

It can be hard, as an author, to be “on” for hours at a time (I participated in an author brunch recently that was like speed dating — every ten minutes, an egg timer dinged and you had to move to another table, where, for 10 minutes, you pimped your book to strangers splitting their focus between you and the shrimp-n-grits). At the same time, let’s be clear (as PRESIDENT Obama would say): it’s a complete honor to be invited, a complete thrill to be in the midst of so many book lovers, and a lovely chance to hear great work from writers I didn’t know.

Now. What I really, really need to know is where to eat in Charlottesville? What are Hooville specialties? Any suggestions out there? My palate is pan-brow: lowbrow, middlebrow, and highbrow.

Here, if you’re in the ‘hood, are my appearances:

March 20: Virginia Festival for the Book
PANEL: Searching for Our Roots: Memoirs
Appearing with Ariel Sabar (My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq) and Martha Frankel (Hat & Eyeglasses).
Barnes & Noble
1035A Emmet Street, Charlottesville, VA
434.984.0461
2:00 pm

March 21: Virginia Festival for the Book
PANEL: African American Voices
Appearing with Randall Kenan (The Fire This Time) and Adam Bradley (Book Rhymes: The Poetics of Hip Hop).
Central JMRL Library
201 E. Market Street, Charlottesville, VA
434.979.7151
12:00 pm

March 22: Charlottesville Links 6th Annual Celebration Brunch
Charlottesville Omni Hotel
Charlottesville, VA