Up, Up and Away!

I'm delighted to announce that I am working on a new book about my days as a flight attendant, back when flying was still glamorous. It’s been such fun researching the origins and development of that job over time, and to relive my own days in the sky. Michael and I were lucky enough to go to the opening of the new TWA Hotel, made right from TWA terminal 5 at JFK, my own place of departure for trips to Cairo, Athens, Rome, Paris, London, Madrid, and more. As soon as we walked in to that gorgeous building, designed by Eero Saarinen and opened in @1962, memories washed over me. The indescribable feeling of walking through the Jetson-like tunnel to my gate as part of a TWA 747 crew, all of us dressed in our Ralph Lauren uniforms and pulling our roller bags along. No one but flight attendants had those wheelie suitcases back then!  And standing under the departure board as it click click clicked. I admit I got teary a few times! There’s an old spiffed up Constellation parked there and used as a bar, where we sipped champagne. Jean-George Vongerichten has opened The Paris Cafe there, awash in pale pinks and oranges and the sunlight or airport lights that spill through the gorgeous windows and he gave us a tour, adding tidbits on the building’s history and on TWA and the renovation.

I can’t wait to return and actually stay in the hotel! And I can’t wait to write this book and share this story with all of you. For those of you who have asked where my next novel is, it’s coming along too. The title is THE MUSUEM OF TEARS.

Happy long weekend, though I know it’s a solemn one too. We are heading to Indiana yo eat lots and lots of fried chicken. You’ll read all about that in Michael’s New York Times piece about it, and my own piece in Food and Wine. May yours be filled with comfort food too.