Pen, Spoon & Dagger

Sometimes writing can actually  save you time - especially if your primary character is a caterer. Most days, I carve out an hour or two to write, or do research, fitting the time in whenever I can.  Sound familiar?  Good writing takes time, and that's time taken away from everything else we need to do - like laundry, holding down a job to pay the bills, etc.  I don't regret the time, I just wish there were more hours in the day. Generally I look to my life for inspiration for my writing, but this week I'm going the opposite way.  My current WIP has the protagonist faced with catering a huge cocktail party - a senate campaign launch..  The first thing she has to do is decide on a menu, and then prepare the food for 150 hungry people -- all in 24 short hours. As life would have it, I'm planning an open house/cocktail party in celebration of my mother's 90th birthday this month.  Who better to consult than my own character?  The menu is alrea...

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...

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...

Jessica Faust posted a blog the other day which caught my imagination. If you could have dinner with any 4 authors, who would you choose? She admitted the idea was stolen from her client Jennifer Stanley and her Cozy Chicks blog , and I admit to continuing the "theft." But what a great idea. So here's my question: What four authors dead or alive would you want to have dinner with? And what would you serve? Here are my picks: Jane Austen - not only did she write some of my favourite books, but her skill at characterization -- particularly considering the restrictions placed on women in her day -- is second to none. Julia Child - I'm a foodie, need I say more? Not only is she a female and a pioneer in the culinary world, but her life story is amazing. And maybe, while she's here, she can teach me to make the perfect omelet - a skill I cannot seen to master. JK Rowling - anyone with an imagination like hers has to be an entertaining dinner guest. A ra...

I should have known better.  I broke my own rule #5: never go to Williams Sonoma alone (we can discuss rules 1 through 4 another time).  Actually I broke #3, too : never take your credit card into a cooking store.   Williams Sonoma is, for me,   like chocolate chip cookies for others: irresistible and never enough. I went in looking for  a new Y-peeler.  That's all I needed.  Let's face it, W-S is not dumb; their merchandisers know about people like me, that's why they group all the gadgets together in enticing displays.  Reaching for a peeler, I realized I could, instead, get three for only a few dollars more:  a straight, a serrated and a julienne peeler in a set, and in bright colours.  And only $15.  Such a deal.  Why shouldn't I  treat myself?  After all it's a lousy, hot, humid day, a storm is threatening,  and I deserved something . No sooner had my hand closed on the peelers, than my eyes ze...

As a dedicated foodie, I seek out not only food related mysteries, but also cookbooks and other novels/memoirs/etc. that focus on food and the culinary arts.  I just finished Nicole Mones' The Last Chinese Chef , and I will never look at Chinese food the same way. What a pleasant read.  Mones weaves a credible romantic plot with incredible insights into the history and philosophy of Chinese food. Food writer Maggie McElroy,  a widowed American food writer, is suddenly confronted with a paternity claim against her late  husband's estate--by a Chinese family claiming their granddaughter has inheritance rights. Maggie travels to Beijing with dual purposes: to write an article about a rising young Chinese-American-Jewish chef, Sam Liang, and to discover the truth of her husband's possible daughter. Along the way she meets much of Sam's family, including his Beijing uncles and the Hangzhou uncle -- a raucous, loving, argumentative bunch of foodies who advise Sam abo...

Is there an organization for gadget-holics?  I'm in serious need.  I love kitchen gadgets, to the point that I should be granted a special favoured-shopper badge at Williams Sonoma, Chef's Catalog and similar merchants.   When in doubt, my friends and family gift me with cookbooks, utensils and gadgets for every occasion. And I get excited about every single one of them.  At least until the first time I try to use one. A couple of weeks ago I received a new gadget -- a strawberry huller from my mother -- for Easter.  And,   even though hullers have been around for years, I've never owned one, relying instead on a small paring knife to do the deed.  Like other "holics", I hoard my gadgets.  At a meeting, I'd have to stand up and admit to having boxes, several boxes, and drawers of gadgets.  Some I love (in the drawers) and some I never use (hence the boxes). But for some reason, I never seem to be able to part with any of them.  What ...