Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt's writing workshop

After reading my November 24 letter, Carmen Jobin, a loyal reader, reminded me that maybe it was time I revisited my bucket list. I’d written about it last August in my letter entitled “Before I turn off my heart,” but I’ll gladly tell you about it again. Thank you, dear Carmen! It’s certainly a good time, maybe the last occasion, to rack my brain in search of some gentle excitement! My mind works at full steam, but it’s often my darned kneecaps that prevent me from moving. During the fall season and all through winter, I wear nice knitted wool socks. I used to knit them myself, but these days, I’d rather save my precious fingers and keep them for typing on the iPad. For a while now, especially when I’m watching television, I notice that my stalwart toes have the tendency to curl around each other. I write, seated at my large kitchen table, the oven giving off smoke in front of me. Did I forget the frozen pizza? Ten times a day, I lose my reading glasses. Have I been to the mailbox this week? I forget to take my vitamins every second day or so. I never should have said it out loud. All these small holes in my memory are adding up and it has my charming daughter worried. It seems like my fingers are my body’s only truly reliable soldiers. Standing at attention or hiding between the lines, they always have nice things to recount. So, dear Carmen, does this old woman really feel like revisiting her bucket list? Maybe I should forget about my aches and pains and consider a few road trips since I love driving so much. I’d love to tour my native Gaspésie once or twice more. To see the whales, converse with the seagulls and, mostly, to fill my head with new memories. I’m also planning to visit our two Cora restaurants located in Newfoundland. I could stay there for a few days and take some time to visit the large island, Gros Morne National Park, and Bonavista, the small fishermen’s village and its collection of small brightly coloured houses scattered along the rocky coastline. I can’t forget Cape Spear Lighthouse and the famous humpback whale I still haven’t seen. Why not go back to Boston, revisit Quincy Market, the New England Aquarium, Cambridge and the illustrious Harvard University where I was once invited to give a talk? When I was younger, I dreamt of going to Iceland where my favourite authors reside. I even looked up how to get there just a few days ago, but I hesitate. I weigh the pros and cons. I don’t know on which foot to dance. For so many years, I was the one who gave orders. What’s happening to me? My mind elaborates a getaway, and my poor heart enjoys the sweet yellow flesh of a mango. Dear Carmen, maybe I could forget about my list and reflect upon what I still like? In this bookish house I so cherish, there are three couches in which I disappear, sometimes in one, sometimes in the other, carried away by a gripping story. I bless all the trees that surround me; I fuss over the lupines, with their spectacular colours, in the summertime. I transplant them here and there around my two porches as if I were living in their native paradise, on Prince Edward Island. I also love each season, which I find as beautiful as the masterpieces of the great artists. I sincerely appreciate the crows, my best friends who caw, coo and squawk and who always seem to be taking good care of me. I simply adore the language of poetry, especially the very short poems called haikus. For nights on end, I calculate each line, each word, and it eases my mind. Of the few countries I’ve had the pleasure to travel to, I most prefer Italy (2004). There I visited Rome and the Vatican, where I admired Michelangelo’s work of art on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel from close up. I'll never forget it: God stretching out his finger to Adam to give him the spark of life. A few years later, I found a sublime reproduction, at a very good price, which has hung above my bed ever since. In Norway (June 2006), I had to purchase a big bag to bring back a large quantity of the country’s well-known pure wool that I had bought. That winter, I knitted scarves and mittens in assorted colours for everyone. Another year I walked several kilometres on the Great Wall of China, which runs some 9,000 kilometres. The construction of this imposing barrier began around 220 BC under the Qin dynasty. I also visited Japan in the spring, when the cherry trees don their floral coats. It’s the most beautiful sight in the world. I’ve visited so many countries. Where will I go tomorrow? I often go to the movies and once in a blue moon a show. When I'm feeling a little gloomy, I call on my memory and it always offers me a plateful of good memories. Cora ❤️

Caramel, caramel, you spin me like a carousel! I certainly don’t have a sweet tooth, but I adore caramel. Truth is, I’ve always regarded caramel as a precious elixir, an extra-special treat, much like the chocolate crafted by Quebec’s own Geneviève Grandbois or the celebrated baba au rhum. A specialty so rarified that I would never attempt to make it myself. In 2020, confined at home, I discovered the virtues of DIY ingenuity and creativity. I realized that there is great satisfaction to be had in devoting oneself to a subject and bringing it to life or improving upon it. Manual work quietens my mind and uplifts my heart. Putting our hands to work gives us enjoyment, but there is also the joy of contemplating the creation itself. Whether a delicious raspberry pie, a pretty fabric mask, a plateful of fudge, a splendid drawing or a woven ring of flowers to crown our head. They all give happiness. It’s as if tinkering here and there, doing things for ourselves fills us with a whole bunch of well-being hormones. All these hours of contented creative concentration have generated so much enthusiasm! To take my mind off things during this period of isolation, I transplanted celery stalks to sprout fresh ones, drew owls, decorated the house, strung pearls together into pretty necklaces and bracelets, I wrote you letters each week, and, of course, I tried new recipes. While flipping through an old food magazine that talked about caramel, I puffed up my chest and told myself I too was capable of making caramel. I looked through several recipe books in search of a recipe. There turned out to be many, and none of them were exactly the same. Some said to add corn syrup to white sugar with a few drops of lemon juice; others to use brown sugar instead of white sugar; and others to add water and cream to the sugar and finish with a little butter. Feeling a bit bewildered, I called Éric, my old friend who’s a chef. He suggested a pinch of potato starch to thicken it. At that point, I began to suspect that caramel is like shepherd’s pie or Christmas tourtière – everyone has their own version, and theirs is the best in the world! Caramel is an addictive treat that entices and comforts. It’s only when you apply heat and the sugar begins to burn that the colour, texture and flavour turn exquisite. It’s amazing how this caramel came to have so much meaning for me. Maybe because I finally dared to try it, believing in my ability to do it well. Perhaps that’s the magical ingredient in any concoction: to have the confidence that we are capable of creating our own life, each in our own way, with our own ingredients. I’ve concluded that caramel is a little like life: a dangerous and addictive adventure, yet so seductive. Like life itself, the best caramel is the one for which we choose the ingredients, attentively maintain the heat and gently savour at home. I’ve loved caramel ever since I first tasted it as a child biting into an apple dipped in the sweet sauce. I’d never dared to make it though, and you only have my word that it’s delicious. I was proud that I plucked up my courage to attempt such a rare treat and overcome my fear of failure. According to my taste buds, this is the world’s best caramel, but only because of what it means to me. So here’s my version of the best caramel in the world! Pour about 2 cups of white sugar into a medium-sized saucepan on low heat. Gently stir with a whisk until the sugar becomes liquid and begins to boil and slowly brown. When it reaches the desired colour, add a cup of slightly warm 35% M.F. cream and a heaping teaspoon of cornstarch mixed with a little bit more of the warm cream. Mix until fairly thick and remove from the heat. Allow to cool (try placing the saucepan in a snowbank or at least in the fridge) and give yourself a pat on the back for daring. Enjoy! Cora ❤️

As you already know, we opened our very first Cora restaurant in May 1987 and it was an immediate hit. The weekends were especially memorable: the infernal congestion of cars looking for a spot in the tiny parking lot. Families, amazed by what they had heard or mesmerized by descriptions of certain dishes, ran to join the lineup of customers that encircled the building where we occupied the first floor. At the back of the kitchen, my eyes skimmed over the hubbub of the 29-seat space to the bay window at the front, where I could hear the excited clamour of the crowd eager to enter. For a laugh, I’d sometimes whisper to the kids that we were like some creatures on show at an amusement park with six fingers on each hand and hair down to our feet. My youngest would always get annoyed at my dumb imagination, and of course, because they were the only teens whose mom made them work every weekend of their lives. Thank goodness, the crowd wasn’t there to gawk at us, but rather to marvel at what was on their plates. They came to see for themselves if it really was as extraordinary as the rumours. As time passed, the need to offer new items to delight our customers became an ongoing challenge, so we put together a small group of people who were “nuts about food.” We would get together once in a while to whip up some ideas. Nothing was off the table, as long as the new dishes rekindled some childhood memory that still lingered on our tongues. And that’s how, one morning, the beautiful, tall Annie, athletic and lively, arrived to tell us about the story of the famous grilled cheese her mom used to make her when she was little, accompanied by a bowl of Campbell’s tomato cream soup. It was her favourite meal, she declared, her voice trembling slightly. I wanted to know more, but Annie remained mum. We focused on the idea of a grilled cheese that would be so delicious, it would make the rain stop. For the next few weeks, we tested a thousand and one ways to glorify this grilled sandwich and turn it into an amazing meal full of goodness. A simple dish to enjoy as is, accompanied by attractively cut fruit or potatoes crisped on the griddle. A dish that, when made at home, would increase the astonishment at the table fourfold. As a young girl who ate codfish five days a week, served up boiled, pan-roasted, in nuggets, salted or topped with white sauce, Annie’s grilled cheese made my heart cry. Among the best attempts the team presented, I leaned towards the version that we would eventually christen the “TUNA MELT.” Imagine a sandwich sizzling happily away on a hot griddle or in a pan, its belly stuffed with a generous helping of canned tuna perfectly mixed with sliced green onions and just a touch of mayonnaise. Add two beautiful slices of yellow cheese, each one hugging the bread and preventing the fish from slipping from its hideaway. Imagine the first mouthful releasing an explosion of flavours. The tuna’s flesh mixing with the hot, tasty cheese, running onto your fingers. Feel the thrill to your taste buds, the rustling of your memory as it recalls the irresistible draw of forbidden fruit. Of course, you can choose the type of bread as well as the DNA of your cheese. Your little ones will gobble down this simple grilled-cheese sandwich – especially if served with a delicious canned vegetable cream soup or even some chicken and rice soup. With a little creativity, a heat source and a sprinkling of love, you’ll most certainly transform these two staples, bread and cheese, into a true culinary masterpiece. You too will be able to metamorphose this plain grilled cheese into a dazzling meal for your loved ones. The possible garnishes are infinite! “Once familiar and comforting, delicate and refined, the grilled cheese is a sandwich with multiple facets that’s always irresistible, whatever form it takes.” Cora ❤️ Psst: I add a little finely chopped celery to the garnish because it adds a pleasing crunch-crunch to the texture, and also because I’m crazy about celery. I put it everywhere!

Thirty-seven years have passed, and yet, I still remember as if it were yesterday the excited energy I unleashed when I made the outrageous promise to put up four 6-foot-tall Christmas trees in our first tiny restaurant that we had decked out for the holiday season. The idea came to me as I was cutting out small molasses cookies in the shape of trees that I was going to serve for dessert in December 1987. The restaurant had been open for over six months and, as our clientele swelled, so did our audacity. — “Boss, did you fall on your head again after putting up your signs?” exclaimed Platon, our new dishwasher from the Caribbean. “Just make us a Christmas log like you see in all the store windows.” I struck a deal, promising to make him a carrot cake to take home if he helped me install my towering surprises one afternoon after closing. I got down on all fours in the living room of our apartment and cut out four huge padded trees from a large piece of bright green material to put up in the diner’s side windows. Each night during the week before Christmas, I sewed on different coloured felt circles by hand, various ribbon garlands, white cotton ball snowflakes, small blue satin stars, big silver buttons, real small candy canes and eight small pink-feathered cotton birds that an elderly customer had brought me one day “in case I might find some use for them in the restaurant.” The trees were “planted” and installed some days before Christmas, reaching right to the top of each window and within reach of delighted small hands, who were given permission to take the small red and white striped candy canes if they waited until the day after Christmas. Atop each tree, a large star in sparkling yellow brocade perched comfortably, as if content to rest after climbing to the top. In actual fact, it was our brave Platon who got up on a chair, placed on a table, and made sure that each star was securely attached to the top of each tree. — “Platon, I need your help. I’d like to prepare a free Christmas dinner for our most loyal customers. For Mirella, Jean-Claude, Carole, Marcel and for our taxi-driver friends, the brave firemen and for all those who perhaps don’t have a family. What do you think?” — “Are you sure, Boss? It will cost you an arm and a leg to feed all those hungry people who are going to stuff themselves full.” — “Platon! I’d like to make them a really nice dinner, like a Christmas Eve party with turkey and tourtières, and maybe a few of the Greek specialties I’m pretty good at making.” — “Boss, who taught you Greek cuisine?” — “We’ll talk about it later, Platon. Take a piece of paper and write…” — “Boss! You’ve never taken a single day off since the restaurant opened and now you’re going to do dinners?” — “Platon! Stop talking and listen to me. I want to throw this big dinner party on Sunday, December 27.” — “OK, Boss, if you insist. We have 12 days to get everything ready.” — “Platon, let me check the grocery list. Add pork and ground veal for five or six large tourtières and meatball stew. And so my young teenagers, my faithful Platon and I worked with love to surprise and delight 28 people invited at the very last minute to our Christmas feast. All the food was laid out over two red tablecloths covering the long counter. An appetizing, delicious-smelling feast served piping hot! Five large tourtières cut in pieces, a steaming pot of meatball stew, a turkey right out of the oven that Platon quickly carved up, our delicious baked beans with small cubes of ham, a plate of my secret cretons recipe, braised pigs’ feet you could eat with your fingers, a huge bowl of carrot and parsnip purée, my sublime sweet potato gratin and an entire assortment of holiday condiments. Caroline, our morning waitress, had wrapped four large fudge squares in wax paper for each guest to take home for the next day. Marcel turned on the radio, and Mirella and Jean-Claude playfully danced a few steps to the Christmas tunes. My eldest hurried to move the tables towards the Christmas trees to open up space for a dancefloor. Everyone was moving, singing, swinging and twirling real teenagers on vacation. Their bellies full, their hearts satisfied. I was suddenly the happiest woman in the world. The moral of this true story is clear: we should GIVE BEFORE WE RECEIVE. Happy holidays to all of you, dear readers! Below you’ll find a little gift… the recipe for my famous fudge. Enjoy! Cora ❤️ My famous fudge Ingredients 3 cups (750 ml) light brown sugar 2/3 cup (150 ml) melted butter 2/3 cup (150 ml) 15% or 35% M.F. cream 2 cups (500 ml) icing sugar A pinch of love Preparation  Grease a 6-inch x 10-inch pan. In a saucepan, mix the brown sugar, butter and cream. Bring to a boil. When it reaches a boil, continue cooking for 5 more minutes. Remove from the stove. Add the icing sugar while whisking vigorously by hand or with a hand mixer until smooth. Transfer the mixture to the pan, spreading it out evenly. Let cool and cut into squares. Enjoy with a cold glass of milk!

I’ve already told you the story of a delicious recipe a sweet customer had given me back in the early days. Do you recall? Her husband, an Irishman, ate big wieners for breakfast. Almost every morning, he’d show up just before 8, sit down on one of the stools at the counter and order three sunny-side-up eggs, a mountain of potatoes and three large sausages he’d swallow in one go. I couldn’t quite understand why he refused to try our delicious omelettes or generous stuffed crêpes. But, like clockwork, he’d faithfully come in every morning to eat the same comforting dish. This customer, an anglophone, was called Maurice and I eventually named his breakfast order after him: “Eggs Maurice.” This dish appeared on our menu for a very long time and was a best-seller with hearty eaters. As a way to thank me for honouring her husband, his wife brought me a lovely plate of delicious date squares with her own recipe hand-written on a neatly folded, piece of white lined paper. Date squares are just the thing when you want to enjoy a comforting treat that’s both crispy and moist, nourishing and delicious. Read on for Maurice’s wife’s recipe, to which I’ve added my own touch based on some 37 years of experience as a self-taught restaurant cook. To make 9 big squares, you will need a well-buttered 8-inch square ovenproof baking pan. I always double the recipe and I wrap each piece separately before freezing, so I always have some on hand for an evening snack. True, I don’t really have a sweet tooth, but give me a cup of black tea, a good movie on TV and one of these squares, and I’m in heaven. I love dates and I often eat some because they’re rich in vitamin C, E, B2 and B3, and they’re apparently excellent for my old muscles and bones. Did you know? Dates contain zinc and iron and help reduce blood pressure and joint pain. It even turns out they’re rich in antioxidants and have anti-aging benefits. Hallelujah! And now, the recipe! Set the oven to 350°F. Place 2½ cups of chopped pitted dates in a pot with 1 cup of water, 1 cup of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of vanilla. My secret? I use orange juice instead of water and replace the brown sugar with a small can (398 ml) of crushed pineapple with its juice. Slowly cook the dates, stirring until you obtain a purée. Allow to completely cool. In the summer, I place the pot in a large bowl filled with ice cubes or in a snowbank if it’s winter. A snowbank is ideal for cooling fudge and caramel while you whisk or even a big pot of soup when you need to quickly serve a warm bowl to hungry kids. For the crumble, combine 1¾ cups of quick cooking oats, 1 cup of regular white flour, ¾ cup of brown sugar, a pinch of baking powder and ¾ cup of softened butter in a bowl. Spread half the crumble over the bottom of the well-buttered baking pan. Press down firmly with a fork or your fingers. Next, evenly spread the date mixture on top. Finish with the remainder of the crumble, pressing very lightly and taking care to completely cover the layer of dates. In recent years, I have been reducing the quantity of oatmeal in the crumble slightly and replacing it with slivered almonds. It’s a great idea that I got from a specialty magazine whose name escapes me now. It seems to always make the squares extra crunchy and every mouthful a bit tastier. The key is to make sure you divide up the crumble evenly. Make sure you don’t put too much on the bottom and run out for the top. Maybe date squares are a bit like life! Everything is a question of balance. “Knowing how to love is just as important as knowing how to work.” Oh, how those words hurt my ears: I’m certainly no master when it comes to balance. We can always improve, however, and it’s never too late to surprise yourself. Cook for about 50 minutes or until the crumble is nicely golden. Allow to cool at least 4 hours or overnight before removing from the pan and cutting into squares. I cut them up directly in the pan once they’ve completely cooled and use my egg spatula to carefully remove each piece. I then wrap each square of happiness individually and slip them into the freezer. I divvy up the squares as follows:  two or three for myself, two for my neighbour, two for my granddaughter and two for the beggar, like my Grandpa Frédéric, in Gaspésie, used to say. I thanked Maurice’s wife several times for introducing me to date squares. My Mother had never made any, probably because dates were hard to come by in the Gaspésie in 1950. After Maurice’s wife had shared her recipe with me, I began making them in my first small restaurant, following her handwritten instructions to a T. The customers loved them for a lunchtime dessert. The taxi drivers were the first to ask for a few to take on the road. I had to double the recipe just to meet demand. Recently, while perusing an old menu displaying “Eggs Maurice,” the famous date squares of the wife of Maurice, the Irishman, came to mind. I had to rummage through my memory, my archives and my old handwritten recipe books to find this famous recipe for date squares. I thought you might like this recipe so you can treat your family and friends over the holidays. You should double it too! From me, to you, with all my love. Cora ❤️

I believe that creating is more than a gift from heaven. After publishing some 250 letters, do I still have it in me to fight routine? Being creative is a state of mind I cultivate daily. Others do it while drawing, knitting or composing amazing music. Sometimes the flame inside me flickers, wanes or soars. Writing for me has become the soil of real transformation. To create, I have to take risks, open myself to the unknown, be empathic and advance slowly like a mouse from a cupboard. I feel my way forward, always worried I won’t be able to successfully pull together ridiculous lexical behemoths. When I was a businesswoman, my favourite hobby consisted of threading lovely beads on a string to make myself bracelets or necklaces I’d wear with pride. I love to create. Today, I assemble vibrant paragraphs to embellish the page. I employ beautiful words; golden agates colouring the meaning of each sentence. All my lines wish to rid me of fear. I’m training to be at peace with making mistakes, surprise myself and be the sole defender of my viewpoint if need be. So many letters have come from my fingers, so many hesitations, fears and perhaps contradictions. It’s as though I’m weeding a new garden every week; a modest harvest for my readers’ hearts. I love creating so much, adding my personal touch and grain of salt, like a brushstroke or springtime breeze. I’ve already told you about Julia Cameron, the well-known creativity coach who suggests we take a blank piece of paper each morning and note down by hand everything that comes to our minds in 20 minutes, without thinking or worrying whether it’s neat. As a result, ruminations, worries, small and big frustrations – everything that stops imagination and creativity from emerging – are ejected. By giving myself completely to this exercise every morning, I quickly realized I was also releasing things that didn’t have an outlet. At the mid or end point, ideas, desires and projects come to light too. Cameron also suggests to re-read our texts no more than once a month so as not to impede the momentum. Creativity experts are unanimous: it’s essential to put our mind to rest regularly, to relieve it from heavy thinking and the usual activities. Isn’t that what I did despite myself during my Alaskan cruise? Every morning, after two or three coffees, I tried to find a topic to write about without any result. Unconsciously, I suppose, I let my thoughts sail on the blue wave. Sometimes I’d desperately search for the heads of surfacing whales, other times I’d be ecstatic over a rose-purple glacier. Unable to translate so much beauty, my white pages remained empty of words. Recently, I wanted to empty my head and finally open my heart. I shared with you this period of my life in Greece, spread over 10 painful letters. Back in those days, I was trying to escape reality. I wanted to embellish it. I wanted to die. But my babies’ tears brought me back to the present moment, and to life. As I write these lines, my Zorba the Greek is 91 and still alive, but he no longer dances. He spent the last 30 years in his native land, in Thessaloniki. Our oldest son recently crossed the ocean to visit him at his bedside in a hospital. He was told that his father had contracted a highly contagious virus. What will become of him? Will I ever manage to forget all the miseries this man caused me? Before death carries him off, may my heart forgive him! Cora ❤️

This morning brings a furious sky like a stormy sea or battlefield, ink blue, black lines, holes in my head and my fingers hard at work, drumming on the keyboard. The days slip between these pages filled with words that make no sense. Through the café’s window, I observe an angel who’s busy cleaning the celestial vault. They colour the vastness of the sky with a single droplet of blue dye. It makes me forget about my dream, my age and the creaking of old bones. Starting out young and green like my favourite tree, I’ve become an ancient aspen that sometimes trembles. In the back of the lot, this majestic tree and I age together. Our spotted coat of bark is becoming more brittle, but our sap gets a bit wiser each day. There are a million words in my knapsack that assemble into half-decent stories with each passing day. My imagination has that power. Every morning, it knits a bit of warmth for me. It remembers old victories, deserved trophies and handsome faces I should have loved. “Writing is only possible by writing,” according to French Canadian author Robert Lalonde. All I wish for is for my mind to turn out nicely written sentences, egregious adverbs and remarkable words that link together to tell a story. I try to soothe my hesitation and fears; I’m afraid of ghosts that might refute me. This morning, the blank page before me is as vast as the Sahara Desert. Back at my kitchen table, I smell the sweat of the wilted September flowers. My old body trembles; I curse the damned ticking of time. Will I soon see the land promised to good women? I try to put my head to sleep, but it stubbornly insists on dreaming with eyes wide open. Could Morpheus leave me behind? After drinking a few cups of coffee to wake up, accompanied by one or two biscotti, I start to write while the clothes go around in the washing machine. Five or six times every day, I look for my magnifying glasses. Maybe they’re under a cushion, on a table buried beneath books, behind a couch or in my Mini. I’m always searching for something. Through the row of windows in my kitchen, I watch as autumn dries to shades of brown; I feel the wind getting colder. The birds have emptied all the feeders. Will they migrate, sleep in the hollow of a tree or in the needles of pine trees? Like I do each year, I’ll throw them a real feast before winter lays its coat on the ground. As a young girl, I remember writing in the basement, near the old washing machine. The grumpy wringer as background music and the bogeyman’s bright yellow eyes watching me through the window. I was 7 or 8 when I wrote my first poems. Dad sharpened the black lead of my pencil with his pocket knife. I wrote on the back of old calendar pages that Mom would save for me. I’d write new words and short sentences, the beginning of stories that I hid in my pillowcase. Seated at the kitchen table made from Formica, we’d cut out our drawings and stick them on the back of pages from the calendar using cooked potato skins. In the winter, we’d skate on the ice-covered stream; my nose ran, my young years floated away. Later, sitting at a park bench in the fall, I’d grab my blue pen and open my notebook. I’d jot down a sentence and then a second, just as wobbly as the first. With loose leaves at my feet and a few ants climbing my leg, waiting for the right word was unbearable, just like it is today. Lost in thought at my big kitchen table, another fragment of the past appears. April 2016, Kyoto. The cherry trees are in bloom, dressed in every shade of pink and white. I visit the geishas’ quarters on foot in Gion. Their faces and necks are entirely white, their lips a deep shade of red. Their makeup is an art form; their outfits as fine as the work of the Old Masters; their smiles indelible memories... I’m ending today’s letter with the extraordinary words of the great writer Nikos Kazantzakis in his last book “Report to Greco.” “My entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.” I try to console this aging heart, to coax it to freely say YES! Forced to grow up quickly, I often get the impression I’ve toiled too much. I never learned to dance or to love. Sometimes I hear my heartbeat roar like thunder. Maybe it’s a bell that’s ringing or a fire truck siren sounding, or maybe, a handsome lover falling down my chimney? Dear readers, the sky this morning was heavy with debris and I struggled to write. Was it the raging sky? Was it me? Was it my aging heart, still determined to love? Cora ❤️

Dear Mireille Mathez, Thank you for reading my letter every Sunday! At the end of the summer, you asked for my famous lemon poppy seed cake recipe. Here it is, just in time for the Holidays! Of course, you may also try Ricardo’s version and compare the two. Since my friends love food, I always double the portions so they can enjoy seconds or thirds. Before you start, place the oven rack in the centre and preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C). Select a large cake or bread pan. The one I’ve been using for 50 years measures 14 inches long, 5 inches wide and 3 inches deep. You could also pour the cake batter into two smaller pans or two round ones, depending on what you have on hand. My life story has been, for the most part, about survival, and yet, at 77, I realize that living is a lot simpler than I imagined. I no longer try to understand those around me. I simply love them, spoil them and occasionally treat them to life’s simple pleasures. My offspring adore the lemon poppy seed cake, and I always double the recipe so I have some to give the children, my neighbour and, of course, my old friends from the coffee shop, who also love my homemade jams. First, dear Mireille, to make a double recipe, carefully wash 6 lemons and finely grate the zest. In a bowl, mix together 3½ cups of sifted white flour, 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds and 4 teaspoons of baking powder. In recent years, I’ve been adding a third tablespoon of poppy seeds. My good friend Eric, a skilled chef, taught me the virtues of this incredible seed. Rich in calcium, poppy seeds are said to strengthen bones and hair, and promote good cardiovascular health. People suffering from anemia can also benefit from their high iron and manganese content to fight fatigue. My friend the chef warned me that poppy seeds tend to become rancid. They don’t have time to go bad in my cupboard, however, because I regularly make this cake. If you get it right, trust me, you’ll find yourself making more. But back to our recipe. Using an electric mixer, combine the following ingredients in a large bowl until smooth and consistent: 1 cup of unsalted butter, 6 eggs, 2½ cups of white sugar, the finely grated zest and juice from 3 of the lemons. Next, add the flour, poppy seeds and baking powder mix. Squeeze the juice from the 3 remaining lemons and set aside to make a light glaze. When the cake batter is thoroughly mixed, carefully line the pan(s) with parchment paper, pour the cake batter in and place in the oven. The cake must bake for nearly an hour, but use the toothpick test to confirm whether it’s ready or not. Of course, I also use my sense of smell and sight to tell if it’s time. Practice will quickly make you an expert. While the cake is in the oven, mix the juice of the 3 remaining lemons with ¾ cups of icing sugar and a little bit of milk in a small saucepan. The glaze will slowly thicken as you stir. Once the cake has cooled, drizzle the glaze over it. Before you start, make sure you have at least 6 large eggs in the fridge. Last winter, in the middle of a snowstorm, after mixing the sugar and unsalted butter together in my large bowl, I realized I didn’t have any eggs. With 4 feet of snow in front of the garage door, I had to wait several hours before my neighbour was able to clear the driveway. I quickly drove to the nearest grocery store to buy extra-large eggs, which I eventually whisked with the butter and sugar, whispering a prayer to the baking gods for good measure. They heard me, because the cake was delicious! From one baker to another, dear Mireille: don’t forget the eggs, and make them extra-large! Letter after letter, like leaves falling in the autumn, I’ve openly shared my life story, my hardships, my challenges and my terrible singlehood which, thirsty as I am, I still carry like an empty pitcher in search of a well. Maybe I should invite my friend Claude over to grate the lemons? Cora ❤️

The calm sea was at odds with the thousand giant fish swirling in my head. What a crazy idea a cruise was! Especially right now, with the company’s office team hard at work refreshing our brand image, concocting new dishes and devising surprises to delight you. So why did I leave? Likely because I needed to let go and give all the experts around me room to do their magic. Despite the small balcony, the incredible view, the gentle roll of the waves, the king-size bed, six voluminous pillows just for me, and a TV almost as big as a movie screen, I missed my world. The morning coffee with my old friends, my iPad with blank pages to fill and the projects that would unfailingly stop to knock on my mind’s front door. Everyone around me had been encouraging me to set sail and take a break. Go and discover Alaska, they said, with its immense glaciers and magnificent totem poles, and enjoy the boat’s gigantic floating buffets, thousand and one enchanting pastries and armada of restaurants, where I could linger as if I were Her Majesty the Queen. It was all wonderful, and yet I found it hard to keep up with the endless delights at my fingertips. All my life, I've been hungry to live and thirsty to share my projects with my children, those close to me, my colleagues and all those who love my big yellow Sun. I walked the length and breadth of the great ship, but I was never tempted by the casino or evening shows. That kind of entertainment has never really interested me. On this massive moving palace, I tried out this thing called “vacation,” and I have to admit, I missed work, writing and my list of projects terribly. My drive to improve my lot in life is still very much alive. Perhaps being in business is like knitting: if you love it, you never stop. A stitch forward, a stitch back. Making progress, whatever the project at hand, keeps my old bones warm. Most of the passengers were couples, accustomed to cruising and living the high life on an all-included package. As for me, I turned in circles. Up and down I went in the elevator, stopping at the wrong level. I confused north and south. A young uniformed Pakistani explained the difference between “starboard” and “port.” Where were the musicians, the singers, the magicians? Where was I exactly, so many miles away from my Sun? The boat was huge, perhaps as big as Quebec City and its suburbs. On this floating island, I lost my bearings. Even when the moon came out accompanied by a thousand stars, the ship hummed like a fantastical city of dreams, games and feasting. The idyllic trip seemed popular with the white-haired crowd. There were certainly plenty of them. The biggest surprise, however, was the large number of Asian families, often with a patient grandmother in tow to look after the little ones. I too could have done with a nanny to tell me a bedtime story. Had I eaten too many sweets? After two consecutive days at sea, a group of us disembarked and walked more than three kilometres to the small village of Sitka. There we admired several totem poles and congratulated the local carvers as they worked. The tiny fishing village reminded me of the poorest village in my native Gaspésie: a wooden church, an unkempt, half-forgotten cemetery and old, dilapidated fishing boats. Of course, every time the boat stopped, tourists flocked to the trays of trinkets. Socks, caps and sweaters saying “ALASKA,” and miniature polar bears and whales of every description. I perused the wares, examined a beautiful shawl adorned with Inuit designs, putting it back to please a young American girl who had her eye on it. All the little villages we visited turned out to be similar; all served the same purpose: to attract tourists and earn a few dollars. In the evening, I’d meet up with my group for dinner, always at the same restaurant, whose menu changed daily. You already know my fondness for seafood, and I certainly made the most of the daily feast. I savoured onion soup or clam chowder and delicious fish plates almost every night. I was dazzled by the extraordinary service: the impeccably set tables, the baskets of tasty rolls, the perfectly rounded butter balls and the magnificent glassware. A member of my Quebec group informed me that the ship housed over 2,000 passengers, with some 1,000 employees at our beck and call. Everything, absolutely everything, was perfect. A seamlessly orchestrated affair, as if a magic wand were guiding the ship. On the fifth or sixth day at sea, we passed by giant glaciers. We were in awe of these icy mountains, captured in photos by everyone who got close to them. Wrapped up to fend off the cold, I took in the landscape from the boat’s highest outdoor deck. In front of me, majestic beauties, photographed countless times. The wind was blowing and my nose was running. A pod of whales appeared, and the ship’s residents cheered when the creatures poked their heads out of the water. Memories of this grandiose show are stored in my heart. Perhaps it was the first time I had been deeply moved by nature. The liner bade farewell to the blue-mauve glaciers, turned around and resumed its northerly course. Passengers who had stayed outside were treated to delicious hot chocolate or chicken ramen soup. I was part of a group of 32 Quebecers, all married except for Aline and me, who had remained single all our lives. I was of course very reluctant to venture off on my own. If I had had a lover at my side, the glaciers would have no doubt melted faster. In any case, let me take Caesar’s famous phrase from 47 BC – “Veni, vidi, vici” – and adapt it to my own story. I came, I saw, I returned. Cora ❤️

I was 20 and 153 days old the day I met the man who’d become my husband. I was a simple, shy and naive young girl who’d studied in an all-girls Catholic school. I was bookish and knew nothing about the pleasures of life. All I dreamed about was attending the Sorbonne in Paris, where I’d been accepted in the writing program. I wanted nothing more than to become an author. Now that I think of it, what in the world would I have written about if I’d never met this odious man who ruined 13 years of my life as a young woman? It’s true, his beauty swept me away. I had studied Ancient Greek civilization and had seen hundreds of statues of Adonis, but the man who pulled me onto the dancefloor was living. He was initially attracted to my friend, but once he settled on me, he looked me straight in the eye; my heart melted like snow in the warm sun. I’d never danced before in my life, and yet I let his arm encircle my waist and pull me towards him. I should’ve known better. In the Ancient Greek civilization I studied, Adonis courted Aphrodite and Persephone at the same time. Zeus, King of the Gods, had to intervene and sort out the rivalry. In the end, Adonis was to spend four months a year with each of them and four months with another person of his choice. A similar story to Husband’s, who kept his multiple goddesses a secret. While I was pregnant with my third child, Husband forced me to abandon everything in Montreal to move to Greece, where he thought he’d easily find work. The money was going to come in faster than we could count. Didn’t he know that all the men his age had left their village for more promising countries? We’d just spent nearly 10 months in Krya Vrysi and had nothing more than when we first arrived, except for an extra mouth to feed. My mother-in-law had finally convinced her son to return to his two brothers in Montreal, where she promised she and her daughter would join us so I could work while they minded the kids. My emotions were becoming clearer for me. My heart could finally imagine better. When Husband ultimately received the money transfer from his brothers, he hurried to Thessaloniki to book our plane tickets. My sister-in-law was crying, her mother was grumbling, and I couldn’t have been happier. The two oldest kids understood that we were going back to “Papy’s” (their Canadian grandfather). They were jumping for joy. I went to get bread and saw my friend Thanassis, who was replacing his father at the local bakery. I was thrilled to see him. — “When are you leaving?” — “I don’t know the exact date yet, but Husband promised me that it would be within 10 days.” — “Your husband,” said Thanassis, “will obviously take his time to haggle down the price of the tickets. Everybody does that with Olympic Airlines. Besides, for a man as pretentious and exceptional as he is, it’ll no doubt work!” I was just glad for my sake. My heart was racing because I was so excited to return to Canada. I would go back to having running water in the house, electrical heat, a telephone, a washer, and of course, a television. All those comforts would make up for the fact that we hadn’t bathed even once in the Aegean Sea. Canadian winters may swallow all the vegetation, but the thick carpet of snow allows us to take a sleigh ride. In Greek villages in 1972, most of the homes had flat roofs which featured one or two clotheslines, depending on the number of occupants. The last load of clothes before our departure turned out to be the most difficult. The November wind bit my fingers as I hung the damp clothes that had been hand-washed and hand-wrung. It was just another reason to leave as promptly as possible before my fingers became red and worn to the bone! What a relief to be headed home. In Canada, we’d be able to once again enjoy frosting on our cakes, pudding chômeur, steamed hot dogs, mustard, ketchup, French fries and mashed potatoes, shepherd’s pie, marshmallows, canned corn, mayonnaise, peanut butter, caramel, sliced bread for toast, large pumpkins and Halloween candy. If we hurried, we might get to see houses decorated with Christmas trees hung with colourful balls. When we arrived in Thessaloniki, getting on a plane was out of the question. Instead, we’d take a bus to Athens. The mere thought of it terrified me. I remembered the crazy gray-haired man who drove us straight into a truck filled with oranges. Thankfully, we had suffered a good fright and nothing more. This time, a young driver sat at the wheel and I calmed down. I had the two oldest kids sitting on each side of me and the baby asleep in my arms. I started to hum a French lullaby, but Husband quickly silenced me. I could only speak Greek to the children even when I sang! At the airport, the winds were gusting strongly, unnerving travellers. The crossing guards at the airport tried to reassure us with kind words. Husband had sat the two oldest kids in a large shopping cart with our two suitcases. The baby wouldn’t stop crying in my arms. In the waiting room, all the passengers seemed worried. Each time I caught a snippet of their conversations, my distress would rise a degree. A powerful wind by the name of “Bora” regularly terrorized the Aegean Sea, keeping the planes pinned to the ground. We were thirsty. We were hungry. We were afraid. Would we safely make it to Canada? Husband was chain smoking, and I prayed in silence. We had to wait until the next day to finally get clearance to leave. With the likely exception of the first-class passengers, everyone who was headed to Montreal had slept on small sleeping mats or the seats in the waiting room. We were finally going to leave Greece. Husband’s dream of barely lifting a finger and becoming rich would never come true. The next morning, we boarded the giant bird and I quickly thanked the great Manitou and pleaded for his mercy to help me get away from Husband. It was impossible for me to flourish in a hostile atmosphere where I was ignored and devalued. I aspired to live in a more noble environment, more virtuous and more generous. A world of goodness, kindness, love, courage and compassion. I was honest and hard-working and very capable of finding a job to feed my kids. As you may already know, I still had to endure Husband for a few more years. Until a certain day in November 1980. I’d been married for 13 years and, that morning, the kids and I found the courage to leave home forever. That was the day I finally emerged from my nightmare. What else can I say about this famous trip to Greece? The National Hellenic Tourism Office would tell you that “tourists from around the world who visit this magnificent country return home dazzled.” Visit and see for yourself! Cora ❤️

I’d been languishing away for nearly eight months at my mother-in-law’s house, with no running water or electricity, in the heart of a poor village that had been deserted by its young people. The angels create an immense quilt out of suffering and beauty, hope and confusion, stitching it together with wool in the colours of humanity. People are works of art that are never quite finished. This morning, I wonder what was the hardest pill for me to swallow: my errors in judgement, my misplaced convictions or this awful wedding I’d agreed to because a child was growing inside me. As a young girl, my faith in the future was inexhaustible. I remember setting traps with Grandpa Frédéric to catch hares for dinner. I loved our walks together in the forest! I’d become the hare caught in the trap of a marriage. Shortly after giving birth to my youngest, I started to feel nauseated. I knew why but I didn’t say a word to anyone. Then, 40 days later during my postpartum appointment, Husband had the doctor perform an abortion on me right there. I never forgave him. That man would slip into me like a small snake in a crack, smoke two or three cigarettes, get dressed and then head out for a good time. My heart was slowly dying. I was never able to oppose Husband’s decisions or go beyond the family’s basic needs to experience genuine happiness with the kids. I of course loved my children, I cuddled and cherished them, and they loved me like kittens in need of milk, warmth and care to survive. They kept me alive. After his mother’s sermon, Husband had only one thought: to pack up and leave. His mother, sister and I were surprised but delighted with his reaction. We would go back to Montreal first to find an apartment and then mother-in-law and her daughter would follow. Poor Husband. He was like an ice cube melting in life’s harsh heat. It turns out not all Greek gods give birth to a sunny “Zorba the Greek,” gyrating out his emotions on the dance floor. The movie was actually inspired by the larger-than-life character Zorba from the novel “The Life and Times of Alexis Zorba,” by Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis. When Husband partied and danced until the wee hours of the morning, he probably was just as happy as the fictional character, but I was never there to witness it. In my days, Greek men chatted, went out and danced among themselves. Most of them worked in the restaurant industry and partied like the great gods of Ancient Greece. Being much more realistic, it upset me to think that no one would be there to help us start over again once we were back on Quebec soil. Since Husband had gotten rid of the little furniture we had owned before setting his sights on Greece, we’d have to start from scratch again. My sisters-in-law in Montreal had predicted we’d quickly return to Canada. They suspected, and rightly so, that our large suitcases that followed us by boat had never been opened. Husband was going to have to return them to Montreal via the same route. Worry and fear were eating me up. I was wondering if Husband would have enough money to get us home. We had to book the plane and ship the recently delivered suitcases by boat. In addition, we needed to obtain the official documents for our baby who’d been born in Greece so he could leave the country. It couldn’t be a baptismal record; otherwise there’d be no escaping his mandatory military service. In early November, Husband visited the Canadian embassy in Athens twice and finally succeeded in adding baby Nicholas to his passport. “Between expectation and reality lies suffering, between hope and facts there is often disappointment,” wrote Carlos Fuentes. I was hoping for a better life, like rain in the middle of the desert. My friend Thanassis was keeping his distance since his catastrophic trip to Cologne with Husband, and I was left with no one to talk to. Husband was waiting for his brothers to send him money to buy our plane tickets. I felt a mix of shame and fear. While I was rocking my youngest, huge tears rolled down my cheeks, falling onto the baby’s thighs, and onto my life flooded with small daily misfortunes. Would we be able to find an apartment suitable for my kids and big enough to eventually welcome the in-laws? A school that would take the oldest one in January? I felt like a spinning top that never stopped, struggling to stay upright. Fold this, give away that, sew, iron… I even forgot to salt the soup a few times. My sister-in-law tried to calm me and, once the baby had nursed sufficiently, she’d throw me out of the house so I could take my mind off things. One Sunday, I seized the occasion; I borrowed my mother-in-law’s scarf and went to the village church. The Greek pope welcomed me. — “Koritsi mou (or, my girl), what can I do for you? I know you have three small children, a mother-in-law and a sister-in-law.” — “I also have a husband. A lazy man who thinks he was made from Jupiter’s thigh.” — “Your name is Cora, isn’t it?” — “Yes. My Catholic baptismal name is Marie Antoinette Cora.” — “It sounds like the name of the queen who was guillotined in October 1793.” I wanted to tell the pope that the halter placed on me by a shotgun wedding was already pressing into my neck but abstained. After a few exchanges, the man of the cloth dipped his finger in holy water, traced a cross on my forehead and whispered, “Go in peace, young woman.” Where on earth was the peace promised to good women? TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️

We’d been in Greece for more than seven months. Husband still hadn’t found a job. He’d come home empty-handed from his trip to Cologne. I never wanted to be a prophet of doom, but I dare say that I had a sense of what was coming. A man like Husband doesn’t change easily. According to his sister Despina, he’d spent his youthful years chasing the county’s prettiest girls. The most handsome Romeo in the village, he of course caught them all. And after his mandatory military service, his seductive power only increased when he returned as an army officer. Shortly after our wedding, this Casanova even told me that the love of his life was a certain Helena, a teacher and mother of two, who had the distinction of being elected the most beautiful woman in her village three years in a row. Had he visited her since our arrival in Greece? Had he spoken to her once, twice, three times? I couldn’t help myself and asked my sister-in-law Despina if Husband had visited his old flame. She replied that yes, he had seen her, “but only twice because her husband Theodoros is still jealous of him like a tiger.” Husband had certainly forgotten to tell me. In any case, he hadn’t told me a thing since he’d returned from Cologne. What had he done there for three weeks? Had he found job opportunities? Highly unlikely. A pizza or souvlaki counter? Maybe a foreman at a manufacturer? Nothing would be good enough for his standards. Would he finally explain to me how we were going to live with two old women and three kids at home? There were no English or French schools in Krya Vrysi, and the two eldest ones barely spoke Greek. Did Husband really want to live in Greece? His clean hands would certainly not be dirtied helping the gypsies harvest cotton. I was at the end of my rope, morally exhausted, discouraged, broken and totally disappointed. Soon I’d have to sell something to buy onesies for the baby who was growing quickly. My wedding ring, perhaps? I no longer wanted to wear it anyways. I tried to calm down instead of dissolving into tears. I took the little one in my arms and sat with him in a rocking chair in the room upstairs. He babbled away and then fell asleep. The cold, rainy weather put me in a blue mood. Was it the right time to speak to Husband about our future? Was he still asleep? It was his mother who spoke first. — “Yavrum (or, my dear child), life in the village is more and more difficult. We don’t have enough money to install running water or electric heat. And even Despina is getting too old to chop wood. We have a garden that’s too big to weed ourselves. Our vegetables generally end up on the neighbour’s table because we have a kind heart. All the grandmothers head to America to help their children with the grandkids. We want to do the same! Despina and I want to live in America. Your two brothers earn good money there and they’ll help us. Yavrum, para calo (or, my dear child, please), let’s go to Montreal as soon as possible and Despina will cook a nice lamb to celebrate our reunion, all of us together.” And I, the good French Canadian wife, quickly added that I’d cook my Greek specialties. “I’ll make stuffed vine leaves, my traditional yuvarlakia soup (meatball and rice soup in an egg and lemon sauce), spinach puff pastries, delicious kourabiedes (almond and butter cookies) and baklavas. My sister-in-law didn’t miss her chance to go one further and said she’d be delighted to babysit my children. Husband stayed silent and smoked one cigarette after the other until his mother and sister stopped speaking. I, like Lot’s wife, transformed into a statue made of salt. Would mommy’s sweet yavrum agree to go back to Canada? My eyes teared up, my heart beat faster and the sky turned a beautiful purple. Is happiness a stroke of luck, a state of being that falls into our lap without warning? I remembered the quote by Goethe I learned in college: “The highest happiness, the purest joys of life, wear out at last.” Life saw fit to make me suffer; but happiness, I tried to convince myself, would surely come later. My eyes suffered, my heart suffered and even my intelligence suffered. I thought of everything I’d had to give up since our wedding: my scholarly studies, the writing I loved so much, my family, my liberty and my own agency. As the wife of this Greek god, under his yoke, I had no rights, no authority, no love, no real intimacy and no right to decide anything. What could I hold onto? This marriage was like a halter that kept getting tighter and tighter, preventing me from moving forward. TO BE CONTINUED… Cora ❤️