Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart, celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.

As German bombs fall over London in 1940, working class parents and Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice to send their 11 year old daughter to America for the duration of the war, where they hope she'll stay safe with an American family.

Let's welcome my guests, Laura Horst to discuss Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence Ash.

Welcome, Laura.

Good morning, Gail.

It's good to have you back.

Thank you so much.

It's great to be here.

Where did you find this good book?

Well, I'm in a new book club, and we were looking around for books.

We were asking our friends and family and looking online and someone read the summary and said, Well, what do people think about this?

And we all said, Sure, we like historical fiction, so why not?

So we tried it.

Good.

Well, I liked it very, very much.

I did too.

I might have done a little trimming if I were an editor, particularly in the middle section, but the beginning, the middle and the end, they just keep you focused.

And the comparisons between American life and English life during that period.

And let's talk about what we're making be we're making food from that period right?

That's right.

And kind of from the book and from the book, too.

So you're going to me, I'm going to make blueberry muffins.

There's a mention of muffins, numerous mentions of muffins.

The mother in America is a baker, and she makes, among other things, muffins.

And they spent some time in Maine.

And so blueberry muffins with Maine, blueberries and real small.

Today, we don't have Maine blueberries, but we have Indiana blueberries.

Yes.

And they're every bit as good.

The first thing I'm making is an apple pie, because it takes about 35 to 40 minutes to put it in, to bake it.

And and then in the second part, as I'm doing what you're doing hot dogs because we're focusing on well, they went to a ball ball game and so they went to see the Red Sox in Boston.

Right.

And then I'm going to make some corn on the cob, sort of the American very American influence.

So I'm going to get started.

And I Laura helped me peel, but she did most of the peeling Granny Smith apples.

That's what I've chosen because that's what the recipe said I had.

So I didn't choose it.

And then I'm going to add some cubed ice cold butter, a half a cup of flour, a third of a cup of brown sugar, a little lemon juice.

And I think that's it.

Shake a salt.

I thought you told me to shake of salt now, because we're using unsalted butter.

And since these are all trimmed now, I have to beat the apples.

I have to put them in in some kind of a fashion, don't I?

Can I just put them in?

I think you could do either way.

I could.

Depends.

Yeah.

I'll see how it goes.

Yeah.

And so you're going to start on your muffins.

Is that what you're doing?

I'm going to make a lemon blueberry muffin.

So I'm going to start by resisting this lemon and putting that in with the sugar.

It's about three quarters of a cup of sugar.

And then I'll add that to a cup and a half of flour and a couple of teaspoons of baking powder.

Then we'll do the liquid ingredients.

This is such an easy recipe.

I even made it with my young grandchildren this weekend and they loved it.

I bet they did.

my gosh.

I bet they did.

Just a little.

I didn't bring a real lemon.

I'm not the purist you are.

I'm putting a few drops in while I'm doing the lemon zest.

So I'll have a real lemon, too.

And Laura, thank you for peeling the apples.

absolutely.

So we have the brown sugar, we have a little lemon juice.

We're going to put a dash of salt, and then we have all of these apples.

And this to me, this looks like a pretty small crust, but I guess I can do it one of two ways.

I can either dump the apples in or I can painstakingly place them in place them in.

And I don't know what the mother does, but she's baking all the time.

The English mother isn't, you know, it's the it's the American mother is the one that's baking all the time.

The English mother, if you remember there, she she's when they're especially when they're in Maine, she's baking all the time.

And she thinks that, well, the baked goods really solve a lot of emotional problems.

And I kind of have to be eating it with, I guess, beating up the all this things you put in here.

For me, it creates havoc in my emotions sometimes doing pies, desserts are not my favorite to prepare and I'm so glad you helped me start the peeling of these Granny Smith.

I'm going to start with some kind of pattern, and then I might just end up putting it on top and then we'll put or sprinkle this stuff.

Now we're going to put the apples in here.

Let's do it that way.

And so but the American mother sometimes makes the muffin mix the night before.

That's right.

And so she's ready in the morning.

Her kids are well, she puts it in ice icebox.

Yes.

And gets gets it Always ready in the morning.

Warmed muffins right away.

First thing, that mother is always cooking and I think she likes it.

It's her way of taking care of her children, right?

It really is.

And so we we meet we meet this little group that lemon zest in the sugar Bowl.

And then let me take a look.

So it looks like I mean, it just disappears.

But yeah, it does.

It makes lemon sugar and then somehow that gets it more combined with the rest of the muffins.

so then I'm just going to work right here in my bowl.

Really?

I'm going to put these apples in here and stir all this up and the.

This little girl is sent away.

Her dad.

Well, the parents kind of blame each other.

They do.

The English people.

Yeah.

Like you really wanted to send her away.

I didn't want her.

No, you wanted to send her away.

And they are brokenhearted that she's gone.

And the little girl, she lands in this family.

It was amazing.

They get along so well.

Two boys.

She's 11, one boys, nine.

The other one is 13.

So she's right in between.

And they're they are so intrigued by this English girl.

And they they, you know, her accent.

And sometimes to tease her, they'll put on an English accent and they just like real siblings.

Yes.

Each other.

Right.

And they get to know each other very well.

They she fits in, doesn't she?

She does.

You know, I think she starts out really quiet.

I mean, yes, I guess who wouldn't?

You're in a brand new family, but it was a program that they had to try to keep their children safe during the war.

So.

Well, they're being bombed every day.

Three bombings a day in London.

So can you imagine that decision as parents to try to decide your children are in a conflict zone?

Yeah.

What can you do to help them?

Most parents are going to do everything they can possibly to keep their children safe.

I mean, I think that's just a gut reaction.

Yes.

And so they're torn.

But anyway, she does get to know these boys.

She she's becomes an outdoor girl the father teaches or how to swim.

They go up to their Maine cottage in the summer.

Its even on an island they own.

It's a tiny island that they own.

This family owns the whole island.

And she, like you said, she's from her working class family in London.

And I mean, things are bad there.

very, very.

They don't have enough to eat everybody after World War Two in London, in England is skinny.

Very skinny.

You see pictures of them in this book.

And in any case, she fits in, she loves it.

She learns to swim around the island.

She gets they get to the point where they even squabble together.

She goes through high school.

She's a good student back what, back in London, though?

What's happening with her mom and her and her dad?

Well, they're having really hard times because of the war, but also just into their relationship is is it's a little difficult.

It's difficult.

They're working.

The mother is also working, The father's working.

And then in the evenings, he's going to help the war effort.

Yeah.

And so they're just hardly ever home together.

And like you said, they kind of are blaming each other for her being gone and feeling jealous and sad.

The mother.

But she gets pictures or descriptions of the family.

Right.

The mother sunbathing and baking.

And she says, well, and here we are getting bombed.

My daughter, they're just having fun.

She she really gets annoyed, doesn't she?

Does.

She does.

And so this second part, I just add, I have a third of a cup of oil.

I add in my one egg and then you just fill fill it up till the one cup line with milk.

So you can kind of if you have a bigger egg or a smaller egg, it doesn't really matter.

You just want a one cup of liquid.

And then I'm putting in a one and a half teaspoons of vanilla and then I'll whisk this a little and then put it in into the dry ingredients.

So pretty easy.

Well, as I said, I don't make apple pies very often and I have too many sliced apple.

So I'm taking some out.

So please, if you have trouble baking pie, I'm with you.

I understand.

But I do have salt and I have some brown sugar.

and I'm going to put some cinnamon on top and we're going to bake this for 10 minutes and Laura, I going to have to give you a hand towel because I didn't.

And you might need this.

sure, that's fine.

Sure.

So she she meets the girls in school.

She's very quiet.

She's not an outgoing English girl.

And I don't know, at the time they were all scared.

They didn't have enough to eat.

Right.

And these boys do bring her out of her kind of sad situation.

They do.

And she sort of she knows she has to go back eventually, but almost doesn't want to.

Well, after a while she gets to know them and her her mother is angry back in England.

And they have they just have so much going on.

And her mother, well, her father dies.

That was so sad.

Yeah, that is sad.

So I poured those.

What ingredients?

you're putting your pie in, right?

Yeah.

Yes.

Because it takes a while and we'll see what happens and may have to.

Just getting these wet ingredients.

10 minutes.

I need a signal, but we have to kind of close out this particular period.

You're going to put those in the muffin tins and then put them in the oven.

Right at what temperature?

400 for about 15 minutes.

For now, all I do is fold in the blueberries and it's ready to put in the muffin tins.

All right.

Well, she's putting those in the muffin tins.

We will take a short break and we will show you the menu of what we are making.

And when we come back, we'll talk more about these groups that took care of children that were fleeing Europe.

We'll be right back.

We are continuing with our meal.

Americana Yeah, great.

So you're finishing up your berries here, your berry muffins.

Look at that, right?

It's like ice cream, right?

Yeah.

I'm just using a scooper to put put some in when you're putting two skips, scoops in each one around that.

Yes.

I want to make sure there's a lot of blueberries in each one.

that looks so divine.

And then you're going to do something special, aren't you?

I am.

And why you're doing that?

I'm taking four American hot dogs and I'm putting them in a pan in hot water.

Who am I ever going to get a little sugar on top?

A little brown sugar?

Yeah.

It's actually that raw sugar, so it's a little bit thicker.

Isn't that lovely?

And then there is a suggestion just she's amazing.

Put a little slice of lemon, you bite into it and it's a little tart, but awfully sweet and good.

And then these can go in the oven, so I'll just put them in with your pie.

Is that okay?

That would be my guest.

Okay.

And I will open it for you on top.

So great.

Mine is should be in for 35 minutes and yours for about 15 or 20.

At 400, we're going to be mixing in terms of temperature, but I think it'll work out just fine.

Yes, I think I'll even take the temp down a little bit.

I don't want something to have a problem.

So let's just talk about the fact that Millie is getting married several times while her daughter is growing up in America.

Right?

Her father Did we say that her father died?

I think we did, yes.

Reginald died.

I'm going to put I'm also doing a really quick way to do this.

The American on the cob.

I just use a skillet like this.

Then I'll I'll turn it up a little.

It'll boil for a couple of minutes, and then I'll just use my my tongs to flip them over.

And that way I don't have to have a huge pot of boiling water and it works out and you don't have to.

My husband likes to keep that, though.

I call it hair on and a couple of the leaves and he's put them in the microwave, he's out.

And then you have to take all that hot stuff off.

That's right.

This is how I grew up with it.

Doing it this way.

Yeah.

And, you know, of course, we always do it.

Our mothers did.

I have brioche buns, and I don't know what happened to our I relish.

it's.

Well, we'll get it when we're going to eat it, but I just don't know where it is.

We'll go back here.

You okay?

Keep going.

I was just going to ask about what you thought about the two boys and their relationship with B.

There's the two boys.

One.

William is the older one, and Gerald is the younger one.

Gerald is like a puppy.

He follows her, He loves her.

He's just.

He just delighted with her.

William was starting to get a little bit like a teenager.

He knows it all.

He's in.

He sometimes is a little bit nasty to her, you know, like a brother and sister.

And of course, he likes the girls.

The girls like him.

And Gerald just follows her around.

She adores him.

Did you see it any other way?

No, I think that's that's exactly right.

She also sort of she kind of falls in love a little bit with William.

yeah.

But, you know, she's just infatuated with William.

But then at some point, all of a sudden the war is over, and then her parents call and she has to go.

Very next week, they send her a ticket and she has to go.

And it kind of puts everybody in a dither because they knew she would have to go back.

But all of a sudden it's right now and her she had been there for five years.

She almost feels more close to the English, the American family than and she doesn't know what her her parents are going to be like.

Her mother has gotten remarried.

She doesn't know this person and has moved.

So she's a little bit upset about going back.

And you can't blame her.

Yes.

Because she's found a wonderful place in America and she describes, Gerald, what was that term?

He or William is a wide open American boy compared to English.

What does that mean, a wide open American boy?

I don't know.

Maybe it's that that he's easier to see what's happening or how he's feeling.

Or he just lets everything.

Yeah.

Yes.

And at that time, the English are much more controlling with their children and you had to behave a certain way and wide open American.

You know, if you want to get angry, you get, you know, it's wide open.

And so she had just movies over See this?

You're doing about three or 4 minutes on each side and a couple of minutes on each side.

Well, that's exactly the way.

It just doesn't take much time.

There.

Well, there's another interesting thing that happens.

The boy's father, English father, was starting to play chess by mail with Reginald.

This is before he died of a heart attack.

And they're playing that way.

And during the war?

Yeah, sending a postcard back and forth with their moves.

And.

And somehow the mother doesn't know this.

The American mother.

And she's a little annoyed and she gets annoyed that her daughter is going to parties in England and have new clothes that the mother in.

Yeah, the English mother.

She is.

She's jealous.

She is jealous.

And I'm saying you can understand totally a little bit what's going on.

And we're getting a signal here.

These hot dogs are are your hot dogs done?

I think they're done.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the corn looks pretty close, so she has to leave this warm, open family, go back and meet her mom, and she's a little bit leery.

And so she goes goes back to England, and then there's a big jump at the time.

Six years later, I think we find out what she's doing and and nobody has visited back of forth across the ocean.

And then William comes That's right is visit her And they they did have a bit of a passion before she left England.

Yeah but before he did.

Yeah.

But he had to go back because his father died.

Yeah.

So and he kind of talked about how how hard this is with his father dying and then all of a sudden realizes, when you were living with us, your father died.

Yeah.

So he kind of understands how she's feeling.

She shows him around London, and.

But he's going to go back and get married.

Yes.

And she finds this out sort of at the end of his.

Well, pretty much in the beginning of his visit, he and this woman are having a child, rose, and they're going to get married.

And of course, then what happens to well, B, she goes over for the funeral.

She gets to see people.

There's a lot more to the story.

They're really exciting.

And if you think she's going to end up with William, her think again.

She goes, That's right.

She ends up with the younger one and they're I think they always got along.

They were meant for each other.

But William was this daredevil, passionate guy.

And sometimes that doesn't last.

Well, that's right.

But she.

And what was his name?

Gerald.

Gerald Gregory World.

They really do get along and they have a nice life.

He loves and so does she.

The English go.

They love the island in Maine and they buy it back from the real owners.

In the last part of the book.

it's lovely.

It's a great read.

I love that the chapters are short, so if you're a busy person, it's a good one.

You can read a chapter and move on, not feel like you don't have time for a long for a long visit.

That's what I like.

Some people just like you.

I want long developed things, you know?

Not me.

I'm too busy.

Well, we're just going to take a break.

We're going to assemble, finish our American meal.

You are invited to join Laura and me, and we're going to have it in Maine.

That's right.

We'll have you in Maine.

Along with the corn, the blueberry muffins, the hotdogs and the apple pie.

So just take a minute and we want to show you some pictures of some of these programs that help children like the young girl was helped.

And there were so many groups that were there was the Kinder, the group for transport, Transport, Little Children, age three, sent by their German German parents to be saved.

And they went off in their little party dresses.

And that story about the Potato Peel Society, these little kids are put in a boat three or four years old, sent to England for five years.

So these kids had quite a life.

I have to say.

We're going to come back.

We're going to kind of wrap it up a little bit and think about it.

But here are some pictures of some of these programs of children.

Be right back.

And here we are.

We're ready for our American picnic.

Yeah, we're having the picnic for Bea or Beatrice.

And let's talk about what we've prepared for her.

Well, she's been five years in America.

Why don't you start with yours?

Okay?

I made some lemon blueberry muffins.

Blueberry?

In honor of their time in Maine.

And then we did a quick corn on the cob.

Good.

And she liked her mother's.

Not her real mother, but her American mother's apple pie.

So we have an apple pie.

And, of course, they've gone to several baseball games in Boston.

And so we have some Boston Brioche hot dogs.

How's that?

Good.

And first, the accouterments.

And if you like this real spicy.

Strong.

Yeah, use that.

But your American way, of course, is the red ketchup and mustard.

Yes, Right.

That's what you get at the ballgame.

I'm so glad you chose this book.

And I'd like to hear from you what you really liked in a special moment or something.

A moment, I think, was when Beatrix found out that her or B, they called her in America.

She found out her father died and she was very sad.

And she said, I don't even get to go to the funeral.

It just really hit her.

And so she and the boys, unbeknownst to Mr. and Mrs. G, they left in the middle of the night and went to a chapel and they did their own little service together.

And I think that was just a very touching moment.

It was the young children that wanted to help.

B And that was that was really very nice.

There were moments that I really enjoyed, and I have to say I enjoyed the mother.

I just thought she tried so hard to help this American girl.

She probably tried to hide both, but her husband kept saying, You don't have to be with her when she has her bath.

You know, just just let her be.

Now, she's growing up to be a young, young lady.

And but she adored the girl and the girl adored her.

It was a wonderful thing.

And remember the title of this.

Beyond that, the Sea comes from a line from Virginia Woolf, The Waves, a true statement.

So we are ending our story.

Thank you, Laura for coming.

And thank you for suggesting such a good this was a great time.

Thank you for having me again.

I always enjoy working with you on food and reading about to get in and zero.

Ditto.

All right.

Join us again next week.

And in the meantime, remember, good food, good friends, good books, good travels, make for a very good life.

We'll see you the next time.

Bye.

This WNIT local production has been made possible in part by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Dinner and a book is supported by the Rex and the Alice A. Martin Foundation of Elkhart.

Celebrating the spirit of Alice Martin and her love of good food and good friends.