In the kitchen

I'm trying hard to get pictures of the grandchildren cooking. I think they'd make a great last page for my forthcoming cookbook, Cooking My Way through Life with Kids and Books, due out next spring I believe. At two Jacob is a bit young to take an interest in cooking--well, some kids do but he hasn't. So tonight we tried to stage some pictures. The above is the best we could do. He was curious, but I wouldn't say interested. And he really wanted that cookie I was giving him. Then when I had a brownie (one of those with chile powder and cinnamon) and a bit of white wine, he wanted that too--though I said "Not for Jacob" several times.

We had a good dinner tonight if I do say so. I sauteed two pieces of grouper in olive oil and butter, steamed them in a bit of white wine to be sure they were done, then dressed them with lemon butter and cilantro. I took two huge mushroom caps and stuffed them with a cheese/onion/ Worcestershire/dry mustard/mayo mix of my mom's invention, and made a salad of fresh tomatoes (Jacob loved that) with cucumber and avocado.

Tomorrow I'm making Salisbury steak and risotto for Jeannie and Jim plus some stir-fried veggies. Jordan says Christian is working at night, so she'll come again--we'll share one steak and eat a lot of veggies. I'm also going to make some pimiento cheese. I don't eat it often and I always buy it, but I found a recipe with jalopenos that I thought sounded good (okay, I'm leaving out the roasted red bell peppers!). I want tangy pimiento, not the sweet kind. Jordan says she can't eat it. I never fixed it when they were kids, and too many of her friends parents tried to get her to eat it.

I now have a large database of agents--courtesy someone on the Agent Query list of Sisters in Crime--and I'm resolving to send out one query a day. The ladies on that list have made a science--no, an art--of querying, but sometimes I wonder when they write. Querying and tracking their queries seems to take so much of their time. Clearly, I'm too casual about this and cannot hope to compete in the competitive market. Mystery writers also spend a lot of their time marketing--writing libraries and bookstores, blogging (okay, I can do that), upgrading their website (I'm in the process of building one, an alternative to my TCU Press staff page), and traveling to conferences. It really is a multi-faceted business, and I'm not sure I'm up for all aspects. I just wanted to write a mystery!

My Scottish enthusiasm is rising again. We're talking about fall vs. sping, I'm reading a Scottish mysteries and also reading a book about castles--of course, they're all haunted. Jordan says to fly direct to Edinburgh is prohibitively expensive (American goes through London) so it's better to fly to London and take the train, which sounds like fun to me. I'm getting excited all over again--but this time I'll buy trip insurance.