Recipes
Deadline Delicacies: You Can Write and Eat Your Veggies, Too
October in Virginia is the last gasp for fresh vegetables at our local farmer’s market. Having just mailed off my latest book, I took the morning to visit and stock up for a week of roasted veggies. While the pickings were slimmer than they’d been a month before, I still returned home with armloads of…
Read MoreLet’s Start At The Very Beginning: The Write Way
Choosing the right idea and distilling it to is essence before building on it, is vital for cooks and novelists. Take the humble corn tortilla as a model. The grocery store version is fine, but the homemade version? Spectacular. Although it’s nothing more than masa and water, the tortilla serves as an exquisite base for creativity. Novelists must learn to take a simple, beautifully constructed idea, too, and once they understand all the possibilities, use it as a springboard for their own creativity.
Read MoreWanda is REAL and she’s living in Toronto: Lemon Meringue Pie from an Expert
Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. And sometimes it’s strange because of fiction. Take Wanda, for example. Not Wanda of Happiness Key and Fortunate Harbor. The very real Wanda of Wanda’s Pie in the Sky in Toronto. And had I never written about a pie shop named Wanda’s Wonderful Pies, I never would have “met”…
Read MoreReviewing and Chewing: The Real Joys of Book Clubs
The moment I heard that the Ashford Court Readers Group in Strongsville, Ohio was not only going to discuss Happiness Key, they were going to make food appropriate to my novel to enjoy together, I wanted to jump on a plane and join them. This is my kind of book club. Food and books. Can…
Read MoreCreativity by Ingredients: Recipes and Plots, Cooking and Writing
Those of you who have “fanned” my page on Facebook know I like to cook. In fact you’ve probably figured out that I like to cook from the Internet. And it’s true. The Yahoo homepage I stare at every morning, is a one of a kind original, with feeds and “widgets” chosen by me. My page…
Read MoreRecipes–or what do books and bread have in common?
It’s been quiet at Southern Exposure. I arrived home from Europe all set to do the final read through and editing of Fortunate Harbor, next summer’s Mira and the sequel to Happiness Key, which is at your bookstore now. Since my husband went on to Greece, I had a quiet house, and nothing on my…
Read MoreTravels With Emilie–or Breakfast in the Middle of the Rhine
By the time you read this, I’ll be in Europe. As part of my husband’s sabbatical, we’ll be cruising the Rhine for two weeks, exploring countries we’ve always wanted to visit. Somehow in our travels we’ve missed Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. We have been to France, but only (only?) Paris. So now we’ll…
Read MoreWhat Really Goes Into a Novel–Researching for Fun and Profit
Sometimes I can’t believe my own good luck. I have a built-in excuse to do the strangest things without one smidgen of guilt. Yesterday, for instance, in the middle of writing a chapter that does NOT want to be written, I got the urge to bake a pie. So I did. Without feeling the least…
Read MoreThe Smell of Baking Bread
I promised my Rosemary Focaccia recipe, so here it is, just in time for those post-holiday eating blues. The roast lamb or brisket is finished and nothing tastes quite special enough in comparison. This will, I hope. I first “noticed” focaccia while having dinner at a friend’s house. Jim had baked his own, and I was…
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