I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
In chapter 23 in Year of the Dog, I mentioned Auntie Nell’s acerola cherry jam. I promise I didn’t make that up—except my grandma made it, not my Auntie Nell.
Grandma had an acerola tree in her front yard and would gather cherries every summer. It’s suuuuuuuuuper sour, so we didn’t often eat it fresh, but Grandma added truckloads of sugar to make it into jam, which we loved.
Come to think of it, we probably tasted more sugar than cherry, but we were kids, what else is new?
I only just learned that acerola cherries have 32 times the amount of vitamin C as orange juice, and tons of antioxidants! I wonder if that’s why Grandma lived so long!
Now I’m missing that jam. Isn’t it awful how we take so much for granted as kids?
Have you ever had acerola cherry jam?
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