Pen, Spoon & Dagger

Next week I'll be back to making and freezing gallons of tomato soup for this winter, but today I'm taking a  to deal with the bonanza crop of zucchini.  I love zucchini, but I've never had any success freezing it.  I've heard that you can pre-grate it and freeze, but mine turns to mush.  So, I use it up quickly, before they have time to grow into baseball bats - you know what I mean if you have a garden. Here's one of my favourite zucchini recipes - a vegetarian meal everyone will enjoy. Dill Zucchini Pie 1 Pillsbury refrigerated pie crust  1 cup grated Gruyere cheese  1 cup grated horseradish Cheddar cheese 3    small zucchini (6-8 oz each) or 2 medium, cut into1/4 inch thick rounds   1/4 cup  cup chopped fresh dill 2 Tbsp  chopped fresh Italian parsley   2-3 ripe tomatoes, sliced 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil   Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough slightly to fit a 9-inch tart ...

Shirley, Shirley bo Birley Bonana fanna fo Firley Fee fy mo Mirley, Shirley! Can a name make or break your mystery?  Certainly the title can have a huge impact on sales, but what about the actual names of the characters?  Sure we read a book for the plot, the personalities, the tone, the language,  but let's be honest, we are influenced by things like setting, era and yes, names. For better or for worse, certain "types" are associated with certain names, whether through association with someone we know personally, or someone we've read/heard about.  I doubt that anyone would christen their handsome, swashbuckling hero with the name Leroy or Arnold, or their ravishingly beautiful heroine, Brunhilda because of the mental images those names evoke for most readers.  Names also date characters.  Tiffany, Destiny and Troy are modern; Mildred, Clotilda and Cedric are dated. The era is which your story is set may, to some degree, dictate the names available ...

It's that time of year again -- Tomato Overload.  You can't give them away because everyone else is suffering from the same problem.  Even the vendors at the Farmers' Market are sneaking free ones into your bag.  I don't care how beautiful they are, too many are too many.  Unless, of course, you like Puttanesca sauce.  And I love it. There are several theories on how this sauce originated, but its name -- which translates as "whore's sauce" -- suggests it was a favourite of "working girls" who could throw all the ingredients in the pot, let it simmer while they plied their wares, and then sit down to a delicious meal. No matter how it came about, it's delicious.  And it freezes beautifully, so now's the time to make a couple of batches and stash them in the freezer to enjoy when the supermarket has nothing but cardboard-tasting wannabes. Try it in January, with a big green salad and a glass of red wine.  You'll thank me! Putta...

Watching the news this morning, I finally figured out the deep dark secret behind all my sorrows, insecurities, and failures: I don't have a sister. Obviously, my parents were short-sighted during their child-bearing days, or I might be President today. New research shows that having a sister , whether younger or older  – even one who tattles, but also shares secrets and cookies – makes you a kinder, more giving person, an spur you to higher success, and generally make you happier. According to the study,  adolescents with sisters feel less lonely, unloved, guilty, self-conscious and fearful Regardless of whether she is older or younger, a sister has a far stronger influence than parents on a person's mental well-being, and therefore on her success is life. Brothers -- of which I have two -- do not, according to the report, have the same effect; it has to be a sister.   Neither, apparently, do eight years of successive boarding school roommates.  I have to...

I'm never at my best when I'm preoccupied, which happens a lot when I'm focusing more on the plot twists in my mystery than on the ingredients in my recipe. Yesterday evening, I was faced with the dilemma of sitting down and getting a really great idea down on paper, or making dinner.  Hungry mouths tipped the scales.  Not having shopped in several days, I raided the fridge and found left over chicken and a box of shitake mushrooms.  Perfect, chicken crepes it is!  After a short whirr in the blender, the batter went into the fridge to rest while I prepped everything else and made the Mornay sauce, all the while wondering how my antagonist (a young woman) learned to cut the brakelines on a truck. Eventually it was time to make the crepes.  I grabbed the revered family crepe pan -- the one with the special dimples and blue lining my mother hand-carried home from Paris some 50 years ago and set it to heat.  A quick brushing of butter and I was ready to l...