NCTE/ALAN photos… and guacamole recipe, I promise

Thanksgiving was filled with gratitude, turkey, stuffing, and pie. As always, it is/was the best holiday of the year for me.

I’ll post the best Thanksgiving photo later…. maybe tomorrow. In the meantime, I need to clear these photos off my desktop.

The trick is to figure out where to start…… with Beowulf, of course!

HWAET!

I met a teacher, Priscilla, who also has some Beowolf text on her wrist. That’s mine on the left, hers on the right.

That is Priscilla in the middle, flanked by her fellow NYC teachers, Kate and Alexandra.

I was stoked to see a poster for my friend Deb Heiligman’s new book, CHARLES AND EMMA.

Teacher Elizabeth Simison had me sit in on her Round-Table sessions in which she discussed how she uses aspects of the Post Secret Project and SPEAK in her high school classroom.

The ALAN Award Breakfast was a blast; good food, hundreds of friends, and Joan Kaywell serving coffee.

I do mean hundreds and hundreds of friends.

And a table of the loverly Penguins.

I had to go up to the podium to receive the ALAN Award. I babbled incoherently for a couple of minutes and tried very hard not to break down into sobs because this is a huge honor. It really touched my heart. As I stumbled back to my seat, David Gill, ALAN president, professor and author, came up to me with some visual commentary on my remark about how much I hated The Scarlett Letter when I was on high school.

I spent nearly five hours signing books that day. The line stretched into absurdity. I should have ordered doughnuts and coffee for the patient teachers who stood for-freaking-ever waiting for me.

This teacher made her own SPEAK shirt!

This self-described “book pusher” from Canada wore her passion for books as earrings.

When my signings were over, I wandered the convention floor and saw all kinds of good folk.

Like Neal Shusterman.

And Madeleine George (on the right) with our editor, Joy Peskin.

TOMIE DEPAOLA!

Patricia and Frederick McKissack.

And buddy Gail Giles.

I wound up eating at Boudros twice, which meant I was able to enjoy the award-winning guacamole of this guy, Dave. His guacamole is a religious experience, I swear.

Boudro’s Famous Guacamole
Ingredients
Juice of 1/4 of an orange
Juice of 1/2 a lime
1 avocado seeded and scooped out of skin
2 Tbs roasted and charred Roma tomatoes diced
1 ea Serrano pepper roasted seeded and diced
1 Tbs medium dice red onions
1 tsp chopped cilantro
coarse ground salt to taste (sea salt is better)

Directions
Squeeze juices into bowl. Add avocado and coarsely chop. Add onions, roasted tomato, serrano and cilantro fold into avocado mixture. Add salt (more is better). Result should be crudely chopped not mashed. That’s it.

The prickly pear marguaritas aren’t bad, either.

In the middle of all the smiling, signing, sipping, schmoozing, and sparkling, I did sneak in a little history.

A visit to Alamo. I was embarrassed at how little I knew about the place, how little I know about the development of Texas. Must study this!

I ended my journey with time spent under a tree, this live oak that grows on the grounds of the Alamo. It is a massive creature, very Ent-like.