My friend and fellow writer, Mary Rosenblum, died in a plane
crash on Sunday, March 11. Like everyone else who knew her or knew of her, I
was stunned by the news. She was so active, so intensely alive, that it’s still
hard to wrap my mind around a world without her in it. She touched so many
people’s lives, both personally and through her work. Everyone who knew her has
Mary Stories. Here are a few of mine.
I met Mary near the beginning of our literary careers.
Here’s her version of that encounter, from her introduction to Ink Dance: Essays on the Writing Life:
Deborah Ross introduced herself to me at the first Science Fiction conference I ever attended in Portland, way back in, hmmm, must have been 1989, right after I’d started selling my short stories and showing up in the reviews as a ‘hot new writer.’ The ‘new’ part was certainly true and I was so flattered when this established author introduced herself and had clearly heard of me. We’ve been good friends ever since, through the ups and downs of our personal lives and our careers.
Mary and I used to joke that we were 2/3 of the Reed College
Alumni Society of Science Fiction Writers, the other 1/3 being David Eddings.
That’s changed over the years as more Reedies have ventured into the genre, but
was worth a giggle or two.
This is one of my favorite pictures of Mary, taken around 1999. Often she appears solemn or sad, but she also had a great sense of humor. I love how happy and relaxed she looks.
I visited with Mary sporadically over the decades that
followed, often using Orycon or my college reunions as an excuse to fly to
Portland and see her, and also my best friend (more about that later).
On these visits, Mary and I cooked together, for some loose
value of “messed about in the kitchen.” Mary made the most amazing sourdough
biscuits, the kind that are all tangy and crusty and crowded together in a pan.
When I asked her for the recipe, she said: Deborah,
I’m almost embarrassed to give you the recipe for the sourdough biscuits. I
warm some milk, add starter and flour until it’s the consistency of cake batter.
Let it set overnight or all day. Mix 1 ½ tsp yeast and 1 T sugar into the
starter and give it 15 minutes to dissolve. Mix 1 c. flour, 1 tsp baking
powder, and 1 tsp salt, and dump into the sponge. Mix, and then knead in flour
until the dough is solid enough to cut, but not too heavy. Cut into rounds and
bake at 400 until done, about 20 minutes. Is this vague enough for you? I’m
afraid I do bread stuff by feel, not by measure. If you pour boiling water into
a pan in the oven before you put in the biscuits, you’ll get that crisp
woodstove crust.
Now you too can enjoy Mary Biscuits, although ice cubes work
even better than boiling water, as they do eventually boil at 400 degrees.
Another food-related memory is watching Mary make ricotta
cheese from her goat milk. Whatever she did, whether it was farming or goat
management or dog training or elk hunting or aviation, she approached it fearlessly
and with enormous gusto. As a consequence, she was very good at many things.
