Knit, Eat, Publish

Feeling pleasantly festive,

not in 1911 but 2013, we made our way to Tarrytown around noontime. First, an errand.

At the yarn shop, I attempted to yank out a hank of ribbon yarn from a bulging cubby of gorgeous candy-colored floss.

“Don’t worry… pull!,” said the proprietor. “The worst that can happen is a yarnalanche.”

Elise Goldschlag, the owner of Flying Fingers, is joined in the enterprise by her genius knitter son Dillon. They’re known for their Yarn Bus, which according to Goldschlag “has now logged 100,000 yards of yarn.” The store serves Westchester but also brings customers from stops across Manhattan– Bloomingdale’s, Chelsea, Penn Station, the Upper West Side – delivering them to Tarrytown (killer lattes right next door) for a few hours of chat and shop, then back home again.

Elise can knit anything, even a slipcover. Dillon’s getting close. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design before giving up the starving artist thing to work with his mother. Men were actually the first to knit for an occupation, and it’s still not uncommon the world over. To wit, these young men plying their needles in a Chinese dorm.

Clutching a new pair of size 13 sticks, I accompanied my husband to a new restaurant down the street. Did they know that Gil had just received his first copy of Mafia Summit: J. Edgar Hoover, the Kennedy Brothers, and the Meeting That Unmasked the Mob (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martins Press)?

The waiters kept arriving at the table unsummoned, bringing little complimentary plates of odd but tasty cheeses, cured meats, and a salad of wild rice and cranberries seasoned perfectly with sesame oil. We read the newspapers. Everything was easy.

There are few days that compare in the life of a book author with getting that first copy in the mail. You worked so hard on the earliest draft, sweated over revisions, slaved to get photos for the picture insert, and now the day is here and all of that is far in the rear view. It’s almost as if the book were produced by someone else – someone smarter than you! And yet it has your name on it (in large type, hopefully).

Gil’s book is terrific.

After we scarfed down as much of our paninis as we could manage, a different waiter appeared at our table to set forth a plate of french fries, gratis. “These have truffle salt,” he said before skipping away.

The most scrumptious french fries ever. Congratulations, Gil, the book is great.