Testing the family culinary limits, progress on the bucket list, and 8,000 words.

 

Plaque certifying that our house is a hundred years old

It’s been a good week. My family has decided, a bit belatedly, that they ate too much over the holidays. So to avoid more Keto stuff and Whole 30 meals, I have started serving what I call light suppers, often meatless. These are the kind of meals that my mom used to fix on Sunday nights for us to dine in front of the fireplace in the living room. Since it’s acknowledged that I cook for some picky eaters, I approached this with some trepidation. A couple of nights ago I fixed Welsh Rarebit, a thick cheese sauce served on toast and fancied up with pickled onions and micro greens. My mom fixed Welsh Rarebit, but as I recall it was mostly melted sharp cheddar over saltines—once when I served it for supper, Colin said, “This is dinner?” No wonder I was nervous. This time, following a recipe, I served it on English muffins, and it seemed to be a hit. Christian praised the flavor of the cheese. Great! One down.

Last night supper was scrambled eggs with a ranchero sauce and (canned) refried beans on the side. The beans were, to me, a disappointment (I want Joe T’s refritos) but the ranchero sauce, heavy with chopped bacon, was another hit. Even Jacob ate with us, and Christian commandeered the leftover sauce for his eggs this morning. My light meals may not be exactly diet food, but I think people eat less in quantity than they do if we have a casserole or a meat-and-potatoes dish. Tonight, for a guest, I served creamed mushrooms on an English muffin (I’m really into that muffin business) and a marinated beet and feta salad. So good, and so colorful on the plate. Once again, I blew it and should have taken a picture. A digression: Central Market sent me the biggest beet I have ever seen. I ordered two, cooked the smaller one twice as long as should have, cooked the superhumongous one even longer, and I’m still not sure it’s done. The smaller one made plenty for me and my dinner guest.

This week also marked progress on my bucket lists of maintenance chores. Jacob put my compost tumbler together, but it had far too many screws left over. Christian said he’d take it in the house and deal with it when he had time, but he was noticeably not enthusiastic about the chore. I called a handyman who advertises in the neighborhood newsletter and was recommended by a friend. He installed our brass hundred-year-plaque on the front of the house and fixed the tumbler, using almost all the screws. He said the instructions for the tumbler were totally inadequate and it was no wonder a highschooler didn’t get it right. So now I’m happily saving all those vegetable scraps and making a list of other chores that need a handyman. My walker and I have really dinged up the woodwork in the cottage, and I would like to have it touched up, repainted. whatever it needs.

It's been a great week for me in that I wrote 8,000 words on my novel-in-progress, tentatively titled, Irene in a Ghost Kitchen and fifth in my Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries. I had, as I may have said here before, put the manuscript aside at about 30,000 words. I’m not sure why I abandoned it except that I was in that muddle in the middle—halfway through and couldn’t see clear to the end. Ivan Doig once said writing is like driving in the dark—you can only see as far ahead as the headlights. And my headlights weren’t working very well. But at an informal gathering of publishing people someone praised Irene as a fascinating character, and that somehow was all I needed to hear to move ahead. So now I’m trying to write as much as I can. And I’m grateful to the former colleague who said that.

Big goof last night: Sophie wanted to go out at 5:30 in the morning. Somehow I set the burglar alarm off and didn’t get it cancelled in time to satisfy the security company’s automatic system. So there I was trying to talk to this recorded voice and unable to answer Subie’s call. Finally got it solved, only to have Jordan call, ask what was going on, and say Subie was on her way over here, which made me feel guilty. Got it all solved and went back to bed, with appropriate apologies to Jordan and Subie. But thanks to Subie for true friendship! And to Jordan and Christian for patience.

Getting back into my groove

 

Creativity is a funny thing. Some think it’s some sort of spontaneous will o’ the wisp kind of thing, and I’m inclined to agree, at least in part. I certainly don’t believe creativity is always “turned on” at the same level in an individual. Take short stories for instance—I cannot write one to save my life unless inspiration hits, Once when asked to contribute a short story to an anthology about World War II, I dithered forever about what to write. And then, an idea came out of the blue—I clearly heard an old woman’s voice lamenting her children lost to war. I wrote the first draft in about two hours and called it, “A widow’s lament.” The same is sort of true for novels—an idea has to “hit” me. I’m sure what really happens is that an idea simmers in the back of my brain and then bursts forth in my consciousness.

I thought for instance that I was through writing about my diva faux French chef, Irene Foxglove. But then an idea struck me—as I’ve been telling it, Irene tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Ahem, we’re not through with my story yet. I have to tell about the family I’ve left behind.” My fried Fred, who advises me, says if I ever am really through with Irene, I’ll have to drive a spike through her heart. Meantime, she’s given me the idea for a new story. That doesn’t mean writing it has gone smoothly. There’s that thing called writer’s block.

Writer’s block is an even funnier thing than creativity, though not in an amusing way. The dictionary tells us writer’s block is a state of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing. It happens to me, predictably, somewhere between 20K and 40K words. I write short—I know writers whose first draft of a mystery runs up to 90K to 100K but mine are often 55K at best. A good traditional or cozy mystery should be about 70K.

When I get to that middle point, my sticking point, my instinctive thought is “There’s so much more to go! How will I ever fill those pages? I’m ready to wrap this up now.” Hank Phillippi Ryan, an author much more talented and prolific than I am, calls that point, “The muddle in the middle.” I have been known to shelve a manuscript at 20K words, go back months later, and think, “Hey, this isn’t so bad!” That has happened with at least two books in the Irene series. And it happened with the current one which I’m calling, Irene in a Ghost Kitchen.

We are told in writers’ groups that persistence is the basis for success as a writer. Classic advice: put your butt in the chair and keep it there. I guess that’s where I failed. I put this manuscript aside at 32K words and focused on my cookbook. Then a friend, whose literary knowledge I respect, commented on what a good character Irene is, and I thought, “Hmmm. Maybe I should go back and re-read that.” I did, and suddenly my head is teeming with ideas. Whereas before I had no idea how it would work out, now I can see the ending. I’m just impatient to get it all down on paper.

Last night, Sophie and I didn’t sleep well, partly because one or the other of us had to pee. But I also lay awake for great bunches of time writing in my mind. I’m not one of those who gets up in the middle of the night to make notes, so I am trusting that some—most?—of that night-time activity is tucked away in my subconscious and will surface when needed.

Excuse me. I’ve got to go now, because I left Irene in a precarious situation. But PS I am delighted that people find Irene funny, interesting, complex, all those things. I call her outrageous. But I hope the narrative voice, which belongs to a much younger chef Henny James, is as riveting with her wry sense of humor and her clear understanding of Irene—well, almost.

Want to start the series? Try Saving Irene. Amazon.com: Saving Irene: A Culinary Mystery (An Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery) eBook : Alter, Judy: Kindle Store

A day gone amuck chases away the doldrums

 

If a day could go amuck, this one did. I could have happily lingered in bed this morning. Sophie was asleep and not desperate for food, and I was comfortable, trying to recapture a pleasant dream. But I had things to do—groceries would be delivered at ten, company was coming for happy hour and supper. And there was a to-do list on my desk.

Along about nine-thirty I realized I’d never gotten a confirmation from Central Market nor the cheery email which says, “We’re working on it.” Checked my computer and twenty-seven items were still in my cart. Rescheduled the order for late afternoon.

Then Jean emailed that she had picked up some kind of bug and would not be leaving her apartment today. I was sorry but of course grateful she didn’t bring us whatever it was. Then the happy hour guests cancelled—a long story, but it meant I had to quick cancel one errand I’d asked Christian to include on his morning run.

And finally, Jordan came out and said she and Christian hadn’t communicated well and they wouldn’t be eating with me tonight because good friends were having a birthday dinner party for their daughters. There went my plans for good appetizers and crab nachos for supper. I hastily refroze the crab. Maybe we’ll have it tomorrow, maybe we won’t. I should learn that I am alone in my compulsion to plan ahead!

So what do you do when you’re home alone for dinner on Saturday night? You fix a cold salad plate with a small can of salmon. And use some of that huge container of guacamole I ordered this morning.

And so is the fact that I wrote 800 words this morning, may do more tonight. I’m not sure if the day going amuck chased away the doldrums or not, but I wrote those words in less than an hour. Of course, I’ve not re-read them. They may all need to be deleted, but for the time they moved the story ahead.

I’ve been thinking a lot about writing today, and I’ve decided I’m a bit defensive about my writing. On a small writers’ listserv that I really value there’s been a thread about magical realism, one of those literary terms I never can quite grasp (I don’t think anyone talked about it when I was in grad school). A couple of posts really helped me grasp it, especially one linking the movement to the spirit world of Latina culture and citing Gabriel Garcia Marquez. So this morning I was all primed to enter my two cents worth, as the author of cozy mysteries, but overnight the thread had taken a deep turn into mythology, Greek and Norse and other, and Jungian archetypes and the like. Here’s a confession: that stuff is too deep for me.

I may have dealt more seriously with history when I was writing about women of the American West, but these days I am a storyteller. I write to give readers a good story, something to engage, amuse, puzzle them, and something to distract them briefly from the daily grind. Entertainment writing. I make no claim to plumbing the depths of the human psyche or tracing the origins of certain behaviors, or changing a reader’s life. That is not to say that a good mystery can’t weave in elements of the spirit life or insights into humanity—it should, but that’s not the reason for the story.

Right now I’m reading an older Murder, She Wrote, subtitled Highland Fling. I picked it up because of the Scottish setting. Turns out the setting involves a lot about the history and punishment of witches in Scotland—surely an element of the spiritual life (if a negative one) and mythology of its own, when you think back to the sixteenth century and the brutal punishments inflicted on suspected witches (specifically in this book, a pitchfork through the heart and a cross carved into the throat—pretty brutal for a Jessica Fletcher’s story). When a contemporary murder imitates that, Jessica must find the villain (if you’ve read any of the books, you’ll know the pattern.) To me, it’s crackling good reading, with just enough history, Scottish culture and landscape, food and brogue to lighten the mystery, and it’s fun. When I finish this blog, I’ll go back to it.

One of my core beliefs is that we each must leave the world a bit better than we found it, and sometimes that worries me in relation to my writing. I think of it as light stuff, not world-changing, and maybe I should be putting whatever skills I have to better use. My friend, Susan Wittig Albert, a prolific and popular writer, assures me that by bringing readers pleasure, I am contributing to the well-being of the world. Her China Bayles mysteries always have an underlying social theme, whereas my Irene stories don’t. But I’m working on that.

Enough rambling. I want my salmon supper and then I’ll settle down with Jessica. Wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Stay happy and cool. Sweet dreams.

 

Am I a Texan or a Chicagoan

 

I’ve lived in Texas since the summer of 1965—that’s a whopping fifty-eight years, well over two thirds of my life. That first summer saw the flourishing of the “Born in Texas” movement, and shopping malls, which we frequented then, had kiosks with T-shirts bearing that slogan and others, like, “I wasn’t born in Texas, but I got here as soon as I could.” You could buy certificates that certified that you were a native Texan, although of course it would have been easy to cheat. In a few years, by the time I had children and wanted T-shirts for them, the craze was over.

People in Texas thought I talked funny with my Chicago flat speech, but after a year, when I went home or talked to a relative back home, they all laughed at my southern accent. To this day, my kids say my accent depends on what I’m talking about—If I am, as I frequently have in the past, talking about author Elmer Kelton, one of my heroes, they say I get a cowboy twang.

Much of my career—as an author, as director of the TCU Press—revolved around Texas, and over the years I began to feel like a native Texan, even if it was a bit of a lie. Still folklorist Joyce Roach and I had a dog-and-pony show we took to meetings and other places—once even performing for an elite group of big donors at TCU. Joyce talked about the glories of being a fifth-generation Texan. My talk was titled, “Notes from an outsider.” I knew my place.

Not every book I’ve written has been about Texas, but a high percentage of them have. I’ve been best known for writing about women of the American West—Elizabeth Bacon Custer, Jessie Benton Frémont, cowgirl Lucille Mulhall, and Etta Parker of the Hole in the Wall Gang. But there were lots of Texas titles—a book about Elmer Kelton, books about Texas food from chili to great chefs, and most recently, three mystery series set in Texas. Yes, I claimed my credentials as a Texas writer.

But in the last ten years, a feeling for Chicago—I’m not sure how to describe it, but perhaps affection is a good word—has increasingly taken a place in my thinking. Years ago I wrote a y/a novel, I Wish I Lived at Eleanor Lee’s House, about something that really happened when I was a teen. I was then published by a small Texas press, and the publisher had no market for a Chicago title, so I put it aside. I’ve recently gotten it out and reread it with some interest.

But it was The Gilded Cage, a fat historical about Bertha Honore (Cissy) Palmer, wife of hotelier and robber baron Potter Palmer, that first renewed my interest in Chicago. I loved exploring the complex history of the city in the late nineteenth century, from the Great Fire to the Columbian Exposition, with the Civil War, the Haymarket Riot, Pullmantown, and a myriad of fascinating subjects.

None of that, though, explains why I set a new series of mysteries in Chicago. What may have sparked my more intense identification with the Windy City is a trip there with all four of my children. We toured the neighborhood where I grew up and the University of Chicago where I went to school, gazed at the lake, ate in fine restaurants, and took the historical tour at the Palmer House. I fell in love with the city all over again.

That may be behind the Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries though I cannot tell you where the characters came from. They were just there one day: Irene, the domineering, demanding faux French chef who claims a Cordon Bleu background she does not have, and Henny James, her apprentice, who tells the stories in a slightly snarky tone of voice.

Now, suddenly or so it seems to me, there are four Irene mysteries—Saving Irene, Irene in Danger, Finding Florence, and Irene Deep in Texas Trouble. They haven’t set the bestseller lists on fire, but they’ve earned respectable stars on Amazon and enough people have commented that I think someone out there enjoys Irene’s shenanigans.

A couple of months ago, I started a new Irene book—Missing Irene—and then for reasons unknown to me I set it aside, tried to write a bit on a memoir, fiddled and procrastinated and didn’t know what I was doing. Tonight I went back and read what I have of that new manuscript, and guess what? I rather liked it. Maybe I’m getting bolder but it will revolve around a case of incest. I think for the time being I’ll go back to it. I hope you’ll read it one day.

Dreaming of food

 

Boeuf Bourguignonne
The book I'm reading about France opens with a mouth-watering
description of a simmering pot of 
boeuf bourguignonne

With the newest Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery not yet in print—almost, watch for it, please, in mid-April—my mind is already turning to the next book in the series. At least that’s what I inferred from my dream last night. I dream often and vividly, and it’s not unusual for me to remember a dream, so that part wasn’t significant. What stayed with me today was the question the dream posed about food habits. There will, of course, definitely be food in the next Irene book—after all they are culinary mysteries. But what direction will that take? I don’t know.

In my dream, I was someplace with an old friend, and she told me she didn’t drink much water because there’s bad stuff in it. I squelched my impulse to preach on the importance of drinking a lot of water. I was also reminded of Jacob when he was about six and we used to go to the Neighborhood Grill every Tuesday night for supper with a group of neighbors. The custom unfortunately phased out due to my hip surgery, pandemic, and Jacob ageing out to the point he didn’t think his elders were that interesting anymore. But one night, before all that, when I asked what he wanted, he looked at me like I was so dumb and asked for his usual: grilled cheese. When I asked if he wanted fries, he said yes. When everyone was almost through eating, I noticed he hadn’t eaten his fries. “Jacob, aren’t you going to eat your fries?” He shook his head. “They’re bad for you.” Pause. “Can I have a cupcake?”

What I did say to my waterless friend was, “You could get hit by a truck tomorrow. Enjoy the present moment.” And therein, to me, lies the description of two culinary camps: deny yourself some pleasures to be safe or indulge to enjoy life. With my passion for chocolate and wine, I surely fall in the latter category. And so do the foodies in my books.

So perhaps the next Irene mystery (tentatively titled Missing Irene) will pit Irene (and Henny, inevitably) against someone with extreme health concern regarding food—as one of my sons once said to me, “too granola.” All I know is that the next Irene begins in a French-style café in Chicago.

As background I’m reading Murder Visits a French Village by Susan Shea. It’s the story of a young Manhattan widow who decides to go to France and renovate the decrepit, abandoned chateau her husband bought as a surprise for her. So far, no murder but the story is loaded with the atmosphere of a small village and with plenty of French phrases thrown in. Shea skillfully eaves the translations into her narrative, something I try to do with the Irene books. I studied French one year in high school (Latin two years but it is long forgotten) and had to pass a fluency test in graduate school. I can now barely stumble through the basics, but it’s fun. I’m wondering if Henny will ever follow Irene to France—I think my limited knowledge will preclude that.

Switching subjects, but still thinking about food, Sophie has the most amazing internal time clock. I’ve noticed the last few days that if she wakes at say, 6:45, she’ll go out and when she comes in, I’ll reward her with a tiny snippet of cheese. Then she’ll let me nap until about 8:00. But if she sleeps until 8:00, as she did this morning, she refuses to go out no matter how wide I open the door. She’s waiting for her full breakfast.

In the afternoons, both of us nap, but promptly at four o’clock, give or take a couple of minutes, she’s at my bedside reminding me it’s time for her snack of kibble.

And by 5:30, she’s asking for dinner—that kibble doesn’t stay with her long. If I’m alone in the cottage, she’ll lie on the floor and look at me long and hard as though she can stare me into action. But if Jordan comes in, she’s sure it’s past dinner time and begins to bark and demand. Similarly, if there is happy hour company, she makes her wishes known early, like 5:00 or 5:30.

And finally, she likes to end the day outside, but at eleven o’clock, she comes in. I guess all us girls need a routine. I know I do. How about you?

Bon appetit! je te souhaite bonne nuit.

 

Irene's in Texas--whooppee!

 

Here it is! The cover to the forthcoming Irene Deep in Texas Trouble, fourth in my Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries.

Irene Deep in Texas Trouble is all about love and romance—and murder! Fred Erisman thinks it’s the best Irene saga so far.

It’s Christmas in Texas. Henny’s best friend, Charlie, is marrying the love of her life, rich and spoiled Rick Scott, and Henny is to cater the wedding supper. Irene and Chance are spending the holiday with Henny’s family, and Irene steps in as Henny’s sous chef. When there’s a sensational murder at the supper, Irene is the prime suspect. Things are complicated by a wild set of characters and events—a mysterious stranger, threatening notes, a runaway couple, and a kidnapping. But Henny persists—and learns that there are all kind of couples in this world.

Come on down to Texas and wander the historic Fort Worth stockyards, watch a rodeo, learn about a new competitive sport, and eat some Texas food. While Irene detests most of the Texas menu, you’ll probably like it. Recipes included.

A note on Irene’s changing face: readers have pointed out that the Irene on the cover of the first book, Saving Irene, looks older than subsequent covers. In the first book of course, she loses her husband to murder, sours on Chicago, and flees to France. By the second book, she has established her save in Peyrolles-en-Provence and sweets into Chicago to cater Henny’s wedding—or so she thinks. She’s more self-confident, settled.

But ah, the third book: Irene is a woman in love. You can see it on her face, in her smile. And in this book? She is a woman well loved, secure enough to be a bit demanding, a bit manipulative. See it in her eyes?

 

 Thanks to designer Amy Balamut for terrific covers!

 

Living in a fictional world

 

The Old Neighborhood Grill
a very real place in Kelly O'Connell's 
fictional world

“Life is real, life is earnest/Dust thou art, to dust returnest.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sometimes had a dour outlook on life, but his words too often ring true. Real life is sometimes earnest and complicated and difficult—and you want to find an escape a place to hide. Readers and authors have such a place—the alternate worlds created in fiction.

On the listserv of Guppies, (stands for Going to be Published, the international electronic chapter of Sisters in Crime), a well-published author recently lamented that she was writing the last book in a series, and it made her sad because she hated to leave the people and the world she had created. Others chimed in, some saying they worried about the future of characters they’d come to love. Someone else assured that it's okay if you leave the characters in a good place with positive outcomes ahead for their lives. Even if you have to write it only for yourself, you may want to have those characters find the job they have yearned for, marry, have children, take a cruise. Whatever would make their lives happy.

I can testify to that. In my Kelly O’Connell Mysteries (my very first mystery and first series), I created a world built around the neighborhoods I know—Berkeley and Fairmount in Fort Worth—with landmarks such as Lily B. Clayton Elementary, The Old Neighborhood Grill, Lili’s Bistro, and lots of the Craftsman houses that dot Fairmount. And I peopled it with characters I could like—Kelly, whose a single mom (one of my daughters said it was a  highly autobiographical novel), Mike Shandy, her policeman love interest, Keisha, her girl Friday who has the sixth sense and is irrepressible.

Perhaps the greatest compliment I ever had as a writer is that those people were someone you would meet in your local grocery store. And one reader wrote that she thought she saw Kelly going into the Old Neighborhood Grill. Those comments meant, to me, that I had succeeded in creating a believable world.

The Kelly O’Connell series ended a few years ago. I had felt it winding down, partly because I let Kelly’s daughters, who were essential to many of the stories, age out. But still today, sometimes my mind wanders back to Kelly and I think of a plot hook that might work. The woman who “saw” Kelly going into the local restaurant still occasionally posts, “I miss Kelly.”

I’ve moved on to other series, other characters, and perhaps that part of the writing life—learning to let go when it’s time. Somehow, there are lessons there for us in daily life, though I’m not sure how to put them together—but having fictional worlds, if only in your daydreams, is not a bad thing. But there’s also a point at which you have to let them go and face reality. Maybe all of that is where the label “escape reading” came from. I admit tht a lot of time I think my mysteries are escape reading.

One of the things I keep reading about is what kind of footprint we each want to leave on the earth—not just our environmental footprint, but for what do we want to be known? I’ve long felt it important to contribute to the world in some way, but I am not a firefighter rushing into burning buildings (guess what’s on the TV in the background as I write) or a physician, saving lives, or even a teacher, helping to spread knowledge. I write for people’s amusement.

I have a friend, a much better and more popular novelist than I am, who tells me to banish such thoughts. By providing escape and entertainment and maybe a bit of enlightenment, I am improving the quality of some lives. I hope it’s true. I hope the fictional worlds of Kelly O’Connell or Kate Chamber in the Blue Plate Murders series or even wacky Irene in my current series carry readers away from the earnestness of their daily lives into a fictional world where, for some time, however short, they are free and happy and safe.

Speaking of making a contribution to the world—and of neighborhood institutions, I can’t help loudly cheering for the surgical team at Fort Worth’s Cook Children’s Hospital who today, in a first for the hospital, successfully separated cojoined twins. The baby girls are only a few months old and are tonight doing well. What a wonderful milestone. I’m in awe, but I also couldn’t help wondering if this provided a moral dilemma for the pro-lifers. If every life is God’s creation and sacrosanct, then perhaps God meant those babies to be forever joined, and surgeons were going against God’s will by separating them. I don’t for a moment believe any of that, but I can’t help wondering what the extremists among us think.[

Meantime, blessings on those babies and their parents who tonight must be enormously relieved. And thanks be to God for skilled surgeons—and fictional worlds.

Thoughts on fiction and fictional thoughts

 

There’s a new website, shepherd.com, where authors are encouraged to post about their favorite books in categories of their own choosing. Some choose books by topic, others by author. There’s a page, for instance, for the best five books with quirky detectives from around the world, and another for novels that get you inside the minds of historical figures. How about a page for books on good and evil? Or the best books for yoga teachers who feel stuck in a rut? Something for everyone, and a great site for browsing.

I submitted a page (five books plus one of my own, per the rules) on outrageous cozies, and it went live this week. Traditional mysteries have many sub-genres--the sci-fi mystery, the thriller, the hard-boiled/noir, the police procedural, the historical, and of course the cozy. Even within the cozy, there are subdivisions, like the noir cozy which is a real contradiction in terms. So why now the outrageous cozy?  I don’t know that it is yet a recognized sub-genre, but I’m working to make it so. The graphic above is for my page, and the link is https://shepherd.com/best-books/outrageous-cozy-mysteries. I hope you find some outrageously good reading in those books. Of course, I included the first of my own outrageous series, Saving Irene.

A friend in a small, online writer’s group recently commented that it amused her that I speak of my characters are though they are real people—sort of like they’re in the same room with me. It’s true, I feel that way about them. Irene and Henny, the narrator, live with me all the time when I’m working on one of their books.

Currently, Irene and her French entourage—Chance, Jean Claude, and daughter Gabrielle—are in Fort Worth for Christmas, visiting Henny’s family. The mere idea of putting the diva chef, with her faux French ways, in the middle of Cowtown is alive with possibilities, and I’m having fun. In line with my political beliefs, I supported a fund-raising campaign titled, “Mystery Loves Democracy.” (Two years ago, “Mystery Loves Georgia” contributed a hefty amount to the campaigns of senators Joel Osoff and Raphael Warnock.) As part of my commitment, I auctioned the right to name a character in my work-in-progress. The woman who bought the right chose to name the character after a friend, and so Kathy Fenton entered my story.

I was about to introduce Kathy as a character when I realized her backstory had already been told. All I had to do was go back and change her name. Once that was done, Kathy added yet another complication to the plot and another name on the list of possible murder suspects. (For me, that’s sort of how writing goes--as I write, ideas pop into my head, and they generally work better than if I had planned them ahead.)

But honest to gosh, when I renamed that earlier character, I thought to myself, “I must remember to tell Henny that I’ve made that change.” I had to slap myself upside the head to remember Henny is a fictional character and only knows what’s on the page. She won’t remember that first name at all. But that’s how real Henny had become to me.

This morning Jean sent me a link to an article about the reading habits of Ken Burns. His reading is so wide and so deep that it’s humbling. I realized once again it’s a tiny, tiny corner of the book world that I inhabit. Burns has a great familiarity with the Russian writers, refers casually to people I’ve never heard of, and cited a long list of those that I have never read but should have, such as Gabriel García Márquez. I was more comfortable with his admiration for Mark Twain and Willa Cather—he was getting closer to my comfort zone. I can’t help recalling that my first adult novel, Mattie, was panned by one reviewer because Cather had told the story better. I didn’t know enough to know my work was derivative, but I still think any comparison to Cather is a compliment.

And speaking of American greats in the literary field, this is a bonus week, with new books due from Cormac McCarthy (The Border Trilogy, No Country for Old Men--it’s been a long time since he had a new book), mystery writer Lee Child (the Jack Reacher books), Jude Deveraux (historical romance, including the many volumes about the Montgomery/Taggert family), and Patricia Cornwell (crime writer best known for books featuring medical examiner Kay Scarpetta). Surely something for every taste from these literary lions.

 

 

The adventures of Irene, the diva chef

Balancing this week of sad news and heavy worries, I have good news—at least from my point of view. I spent the week proofreading Finding Florence, the third Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery. And I’m glad to report that Irene will be back in Chicago July 5^th, providing Chance’s jet brings her as planned. I may be delighted to report this, but Henny is frantic. Here’s a taste of what Irene’s up to this time:

Irene is obsessed. And Henny’s life is a mess.

Irene has flown to Chicago from France in high style – the private jet owned by her longtime, on again-off again-on again amour, the handsome but mysterious billionaire Chance Charpentier. Her infamous “voices” have told her that something is horribly amiss with a person dear to her.  When she arrives, she learns that a death notice for Florence Sherman, her sometime friend, previous neighbor, and member of an historic Chicago family, has been published in the Sun-Times. Once Irene discovers her friend’s body is missing, the diva chef refuses to leave Chicago until she solves the mysterious disappearance. But, with Irene in Chicago, Henny’s successful “From My Mother’s Kitchen” TV cooking show and her precious time with Patrick, husband of her dreams, are seriously compromised by Irene’s insistence that finding Florence trumps any other concerns. So Henny struggles to balance Irene’s demands with the rest of her life and to find Florence, dead or alive, so Irene will go back to France.

Irene’s certainty that the past holds the key to Florence’s disappearance brings in a bit of Chicago history, and food references season the text. An appendix of recipes from both Irene and Henny’s mom is attached.

 I’ve had a lot of fun with Irene, Henny, and their friends and lovers. In these difficult times, they provide a real contrast, letting me escape to an easier world. In fact, they let me escape to the neighborhood of my childhood—Hyde Park on Chicago’s South Side, where everything is different from my days there but in many way still the same. Henny’s world is contemporary but pre-pandemic and politics just isn’t a subject.

Food is a big subject, ranging from Irene’s faux French (she does cook French dishes, but she just doesn’t have the Cordon Bleu background she claims) to Henny’s recipes from her mom’s Texas kitchen. With the latest book, you can cook anything from Coq au Vin to King Ranch Casserole.

Love is a big subject too. After two installments, this third book finds Henny deliriously happily married to the man of her dreams. Patrick not only loves her, he curbs what are sometimes her wildest instincts and her even wilder tongue. And Irene? The domineering diva is a woman in love—just look at her on the cover. The object of her affections is Chance Charpentier, the billionaire with whom she had a daughter twenty years earlier. Like Patrick, Chance is a balance for Irene. You’ll fall in love with him, as I have.

Cooking as a career is front and center in Irene’s stories, as told by Henny. Irene now runs a small café in a small French town near Aix-en-Provence. It is the kind of place where the old men go to drink wine, eat a hearty gibbolet with duck, and tell tales—until Irene calls their wives to come get them. Henny, on the other hand, has a TV show with a national network, “Recipes from my mom’s kitchen.” She works hard and sees her star rising—until Irene comes into town and demands her attention.

The Irene/Henny adventures, which Henny tells in her own, slightly snarky, slightly insecure voice, began in Saving Irene, when Henny was gofer for Irene’s cooking show—and ended, with Patrick, saving Irene’s spoiled daughter, Gabrielle, from a kidnapper. Irene subsequently decamped for France, but in Irene in Danger, she came back to Chicago for Henny and Patrick’s wedding—and nearly caused the cancellation of the wedding by getting involved with some unsavory characters.

I had so much fun with these stories that I already know the fourth one—Irene simply has to go to Texas. Can’t you see the clash of cultures? And the cover art? Irene in a Stetson! That’s another thing—I love the cover art of these books. For the first one, I knew what I wanted—Irene front and center, in a toque, with a background of typical apartment dwellings in Hyde Park. Having Irene as a central figure worked so well that we put her against the gilt of the Palmer House Hotel in the second book. And now for the third—don’t you think she looks like a woman in love? And of course that’s the wonderful skyline of Chicago’s North Shore. Thanks to designer Amy Balamut for the covers and the formatting.

Watch for Finding Florence July 5^th on Amazon!

The Benadryl Battle

 

Ny allergy queen

Sophie is sick again—or still sick. I hardly know which to say. Her tummy troubles seem gone, but her snorting, snuffling, whatever the sound, is still with us bigtime. I worry about describing it to the vet, and sometimes I want to say it sounds like a horse blowing. Or maybe she’s trying to clear her throat as a lot of us do in allergy season in Texas. And sometimes, when she’s not making all those noises but lying peacefully on the floor, you can hear a rattle as she breathes. I was really tempted today to ask the vet if dogs can get pneumonia. It stands to reason they can, but he keeps reassuring me it’s allergies.

Last night she began hawking, honking, whatever you want to call it at three in the morning. Poor thing was absolutely miserable. I gave her water, talked soothingly to her, massaged her throat. Nothing happened—except both of us lost sleep. I did get to doze a bit but it was not real sleep. I let her out and fed her about six-thirty, but she, who was ravenous last night, refused her food. About seven, I got in one of those funny hours—I dreamt but I knew I was dreaming. And in the back of my mind was the thought that she wouldn’t eat.

Relief, of course, comes from Benadryl. But I defy you to get a pill into that dog. She is far smarter than we poor humans. She has fished the pill out of the canned dog food she adores, pieces of Velveeta, spoonfuls of cottage cheese. This morning, in what I thought was a fit of brilliance, I pulverized two pills and mixed into the wet canned food she now loves. No go, one sniff and she wouldn’t go near it. She smelled the medicine. Tonight I gave her straight dog food and kibble, and she ignored it—but a couple of hours later she ate every bite.

Asking me about her behavior is sort of an exercise in futility. She’s an older dog, so she sleeps a lot during the day. I would say she was normal today, chasing a few squirrels, overjoyed when Zenaida came to clean the cottage, but tonight Jordan said, “She’s clearly not herself.” So there I went into panic mode again. Praying for good sleep tonight.

Other than Sophie worries, there’s always the larger problems of Ukraine and Russian aggression and worldwide moves toward autocracy—or in our country, the unraveling insurrection and worries about midterms and horrible disinformation—no, Joe biden is not senile; no, he is not in control of gas prices or inflation—and so it goes. In Texas, if you’re inclined to worry, I give you Abbott’s latest threat to declare an invasion at the border and the ongoing media blitz supportong the right. I am so disgusted with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram I am about to quit with a noisy flourish—but Fort Worth is my home, and I want to read my hometown paper. But it offends me they have a community board for conservative voices but not the same for liberals.

Closer to home, things look good. I have been finishing the first pass edits of Finding Florence and doing considerable rewriting, filling in plot holes, finding new scenes I think will improve it. I am so wrapped in that world that when a friend told me she was switching winter clothes for summer, I corrected—she meant putting away summer for winter. When she wrote back and said, no, she meant exactly what she said, she was getting out summer clothes, I realized that it is near winter in the book and I was still in the world of my fiction. Yes, in Texas, it is spring, although unusually cool. I could get spoiled to that.

Last night, out of the blue, I said to Jordan, “I want some Mexican food.” She laughed and said, “How did you know I just pulled up the menu from Enchiladas Olé!” I ordered a chalupa with ground beef—it came with all the good stuff, except the ground beef. I was bummed, but tonight everyone is gone, so I had my favorite: a salmon croquette and a big blue cheese salad. We’ve had such a busy week, we haven’t had many family meals in the cottage, and I hope we can get back to that.

Life is good. Pray for peace and love, not hate, here and abroad.

Rain? Always hopeful

 

Rain all weekend, they said, and we all rejoiced. But then they said, “Maybe a little on Saturday, but for sure on Sunday.” Sunday was indeed gray, like it could rain soon. Christian worried that Jacob wouldn’t get his practice golf game it, but he did with no problems. By late afternoon, I was sitting at my desk, French doors to the patio open, marveling at how still the world was. Still waiting for rain.

All of a sudden, a whisp of cool air, and the wind was ruffling the trees. The sky darkened, and I thought, “Here it comes for sure.” Pretty soon, though, it was still again. Now an hour later there is the lightest breeze moving the trees, it is still too gray for the time of day, and the air definitely feels cooler. But rain? Not yet.

My family has gone to a John Mayer concert in Dallas. Jordan got home at three-something on the Vonlane bus from Austin, and they were all out the door at four-thirty to ride the train to Dallas. Made me, just awake from a deep nap tired, but then I am not a John Mayer fan, though I admit if I were ever to go to a concert, his is probably one I’d like better than a lot of others. I think the boys in the family deserve credit for being willing to make the mom happy—Christian bought expensive tickets not because he’s wild about Mayer but because he’s wild about Jordan who is wild about Mayer. And Jacob? I doubt it’s his kind of music, but he got to take a buddy, and he’ll enjoy the outing. And if Sawyer, the hard rock musician in the family, could go last week and enjoy, so can Jacob and his friend.

Meanwhile I sit home and wait for rain. In a few minutes I’ll fix myself a loin lamb chop and a salad. I’ve written the last line of the first draft of Finding Florence, the third of my Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries. No, I didn’t rush it off to the printer. There’s lots of work ahead—editing on my part which means at least two more pass throughs, sending the mss. to beta readers, and considering their suggestions and questions, sending it to my longtime mentor if he is still ready to read, then sending it to a professional editor who works with cozy mysteries. Finally, I’ll send it to a graphic designer for formatting, cover design. One more proofing, and then she’ll post it to Amazon. Yep, it’s a months-long project.

But I’ve been thinking about what happens when you write a novel. One thing that’s come to my mind is that at the end of that first draft is you know your characters a lot better. That means, for me, that now as I go back and start over, I have to tweak the characters to let the reader know them better. I must fill our not only descriptions but actions and words by which they reveal themselves.

And another thing I found tonight just going over three chapters is that as I went through that first draft, I was putting words on paper—but sometimes they contradicted each other, or left holes in the plot, or raised questions, “Why did so-and-so do that?” or “Would she really have said that?”

I won’t read more chapters tonight because I want to do this slowly with focused concentration. After a bit, my focus wanders. So I’ll spend the rest of the evening reading that Diane Mott Davidson novel I’m deep into—Dark Tort. A good mystery with lots of food talk and recipes.

Have a great week everyone!

Going to school on Saturday

 

Saturdays are supposed to be a mini-vacation from work and responsibilities, but I went to school today. Specifically, I want to a webinar on the importance of first lines taught by Hank Phillippi Ryan and sponsored by the Grand Canyon Writers chapter of Sisters in Crime. If you haven’t read any of Hank’s books, you should immediately seek them out. They’re thrillers, and she’s really good, over and above the fact that she’s won several major awards in the mystery world. Her newest title is Her Perfect World.

Today she talked about what the first line of a book should tell the reader. I’ve always known, or thought, that the first line should hook a reader in, and that’s been m goal. But Hank says it must do much more, and she traced the scenario of an average customer considering a book in a bookstore. Our Jane Q. Pubic considers the cover—the first selling point—and then flips to the back cover to study the author’s bio and look at the photo. Believe it or not, readers want to know what the author looks like. But then, Jane Q. will open the book and read that first line—and right there, in a few seconds, she decides whether or not she’ll buy that book. Ideally, the first line will so grab her that ten minutes later she’ll still be standing there, reading the first page.

Hank says the first line must set the tone for the book—is it action adventure, spy thriller, sweet romance, cozy? It sets the book in time and indicates forward motion because the plot of a mystery always must be moving forward. We know from that first line that something has happened, something significant, and that the story will develop to tell us what that something was, how it affects the main characters. And the first line must introduce the main characters—that is, to use Hank’s phrase, “who we’ll be on the train with.”

She used several examples. One that sticks in my mind comes from Ken Follett (not being a Follett fan, I can’t tell you which one): “The last camel collapsed at noon.” So what do you know? The narrator is almost certainly in the desert, there have been several camels, but this is the last one, and it doesn’t just die—it collapses. It’s noon, and you can almost feel the desert heat. And undoubtedly the narrator is with a party, if there were several camels. So now they are in a bad place—the story has to go forward. How will they survive? What will they do?

The program sent me scurrying back to look at some of my own first lines, and I decided the best one I ever wrote came from The Perfect Coed: “Susan Hogan drove around Oak Grove, Texas, for two days before she realized there was a dead body in the trunk of her car.” What does that tell you? The narrator is not part of the story but a detached observer. Susan is in a small town in Texas. She’s not very careful about her car. This is a serious murder mystery, though with a light touch—it’s almost laughable that she wouldn’t know there’s a body in her car. And we as readers know we’re going to hear whose body it is and how it got there—and the story is on! I don’t know what Hank would say about that line, but I think it still needs improvement. Now I’m going to look at the first line of the forthcoming Irene in Danger.

Aside from the webinar, the highlight of the day was coffee on the patio with a new neighbor, a former teacher who founded a non-profit to help with the education of military children who are frequently transferred from school to school. Mary was CEO for twenty years, traveled extensively during those years, and has lots of stories to tell. It was a lovely morning, with a cool breeze, my friend Subie was with us, and we told our own stories about children and grandchildren and growing old.

A satisfying Saturday

 

 

Ta-da! Here it is!

 

The cover to Irene in Danger, second in my series, “Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries.” I’m delighted with the cover. In this one, Irene has been in France for a year, running a small café, but she’s back in Chicago now for Henny and Patrick’s wedding, a small but classy affair to be held at the legendary Palmer House Hotel. In the week between her arrival and the day of the wedding, murder, drug smuggling, and kidnapping combine to make Henny doubt she can pull off the day of her dreams. Through it all, Irene remains the diva—demanding, spoiled, always the center of attraction, and yet somehow a sympathetic character.

The arrival of Henny’s family from Texas adds a whole new set of characters to the story—and a new cuisine to rival Irene’s insistence on everything French. Henny includes some of Irene’s recipes, the best of French cooking like a gibelotte, and recipes from her mom’s kitchen. Down-home Texas food at its best. Henny’s mom will tell you the simple way to make the best pot of beans ever and suggest an unusual addition to deviled eggs.

Irene in Danger launches November 14, unless supply chain problems cause delays. For comparison, I’m attaching the cover to Saving Irene, available at Saving Irene: A Culinary Mystery - Kindle edition by Alter, Judy. Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com. If you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, it’s free.

I found my dream vacation!

 

Julia Child's French kitchen
Photo by Airbnb

I hope you noticed I’ve been absent, silent, gone for a couple of days. I plead an avalanche that hit my desk plus lots of company. By evening, which is the time I usually write my blog posts, I was too tired. No functioning brain. But now I’m ready to chuck it all and take a vacation I never dreamed was possible. Me, who doesn’t really like to fly and never felt as drawn to France as I do to Scotland.

What changed it? A chance to rent Julia Child’s cottage, La Pitchoune, (the little one) in the south of France. Julia’s kitchen with its famous pegboard is intact and functioning—you can cook dinner if you want. The three-bedroom, three-bath cottage also comes with an outdoor kitchen, a charming patio, a saltwater pool, and lush gardens.

Of course, this Airbnb is a bit expensive: $703 a night is within reason (after all, it sleep six), but if you want an all-day cooking class—shopping, wine pairing, and instructions for preparing one of her legendary, multi-course dinners—add $1500 to the bill. If you’d rather watch than cook, you can hire a personal chef for $500 (not including ingredients and wine). And then there’s airfare to France.

Would you all please buy a lot of books so I can go. Maybe I’d take my daughters. For the nonce, I have something wonderful to dream about.

Meantime back in Fort Worth where my feet are firmly planted on the ground, it has been a busy but happy few days. A load of work landed on my desk, starting with the neighborhood newsletter. I always encourage people to submit before the deadline, and this month they did, with the result that a lot of copy landed on my computer late Sunday night, which was technically before Monday’s deadline. Today I sent a whopping 28-page issue to the printer. Sunday also brought a critique of Irene in Danger from my mentor/friend that sent me off on some rewriting, and now I’m giving it one last proof before putting it into production. Hope to publish early in November. I may be fooling myself, but reading it again this time, I like it better than I ever thought I would.

Being busy makes me happy, but so does visiting with friends, new and old, and I have had some treats along that line. Saturday night Linda, a friend I’ve known for at least thirty-five years, came for supper. For most of those years, we have lived at least thirty miles apart, and when we did live in the same city briefly, early on when we were, ahem, much younger, we weren’t really that close. It’s been a friendship that has strengthened and grown over the years. Now, she’s about to move to Taos, though she assures me she will keep a presence in Texas. I hope so.

Linda has long been a person who appreciates both my mysteries—she says I have a devious mind—and my cooking experiments. I fixed a 1905 Columbia Salad for us. It’s the signature salad, tossed at tableside, of the Columbia restaurant in Tampa that opened in 1905. The dressing is hearty, to say the least—next time I may cut back on the oregano a bit. But the salad is rich with ham, Swiss cheese, head lettuce, Parmesan, and grated Romano—I used pecorino, as I always do. And I left out the pimiento-stuffed Kalamata olives—catering to my own taste (or dislikes). For dessert, I broiled nectarine halves with brown sugar (too much), blueberries, and a pat of butter. As she fought to separate the fruit from its stone, Linda muttered, “My grandmother would say these are not cling free.” We didn’t have halves—we had sort of hash. Linda said she loved it; I thought it too sweet. Another time I’d cut way back on the sugar.

Last night I went from old to new—a relatively new friend came for happy hour and stayed for supper, because I enticed her with a composed salad of canned salmon, pickled cucumbers, hearts of palm, hard-boiled egg, and tomato (darn! I forgot the avocado languishing in the fridge). It’s a salad that my mom and I used to make, and it carried me back to my childhood. My guest enjoyed it. She and I can go in a nanosecond from “So how’s your world” to some really involved discussions, which we both enjoy and which involve lots of laughter. A thoroughly pleasant evening.

Tonight was happy hour with the neighbors, which is always fun, and then Christian grilled us lamb burgers that we had with tzatziki sauce I had in the fridge and a salad dressed with a mixture of the dressings in the fridge, including the 1905 salad one. The meal was heavy with oregano but so good.

And now, dear friends, I’m back to proof reading. But I expect my dreams tonight to be of cooking a gibelotte in Julia’s kitchen.

 

 

 

Women and aging, and the mundane world

 

Sophie on her firs day with us--ten years ago.
Yep, both of us have aged since then.

Sometimes I’m a little slow about making connections, but an online review this morning caught my attention and gave me an “Aha!” moment. Stephanie Raffelock, a relative newcomer to a small online writers’ group which nourishes me, had a virtual launch of her new book last night. In reading a review this morning, I realized that Stephanie is also the author of A Delightful Little Book on Aging, which I heard a lot about last year. The premise is that older women are flourishing in entertainment, business and politics. Many of us--me for sure—feel that at heart we are still twenty. Okay, maybe thirty is my imaginary age, but of course I’m fifty years beyond that, and the physical effects of aging do show. But I am grateful to still have my mind and my spirit. Essentially, Stephanie used stories and essays to encourage women to celebrate every day and welcome aging. “Growing old,” she writes, “is a privilege.” She surely speaks for me in that.

But now to her new book, Creatrix Rising: Unlocking the Power of Midlife Women. Stephanie claims that women throughout history women have had three phases in life: maiden, mother, crone, the latter being an unflattering term which to me calls forth visions of the three witches from MacBeth, standing over their cauldron. But in the eighties, a new movement began which encouraged women to embrace the term crone. Some women even go through croning ceremonies, where they are formally welcomed into a group in a ritual that is sometimes solemn, sometimes light-hearted. But croning emphasizes that as women age, they develop wisdom, compassion, healing laughter, and even bawdiness. I don’t know about you, but I feel a lot wiser than I did at thirty. I won’t comment on bawdy, though my son criticized a word I used recently.

In her new book, Stephanie once again uses stories, essays, and personal experience to trace the way women have found their voice and their power in last fifty years. She proposes that a new archetype is emerging: the Creatrix, women who may well fulfill the prophecy of the Dalai Lama that women will save the world. I was reminded of the ancient Chinese saying that women hold up half the sky. These days I think we may have the larger half.

Both of Raffelock’s books are on my TBR list. Meanwhile back in the mundane world, it was a day of household chores, lightened by a visit from my Canadian daughter and her husband. (I’m waiting for cool weather to cook him stuffed eggplant—just sounds too heavy right now but he’s one of the few people I know who shares my love of eggplant.) This morning I made egg salad, put away the laundry that had been sitting on my bureau for two days, sorted recipes, ordered groceries, and tried endlessly to degrease the meatloaf pan that had lamb in it. My final recommendation was that it needs to go in the dishwasher. Tomorrow will be much the same, since I have promised to pickle a new batch of cucumbers and onions—no one but me eats the onions, and I want to holler at them that I deliberately use sweet onions, and once they absorb the vinegar seasoning, they are every bit as good as the cucumber. And then I am making dinner—one of those recipes I salvaged from my years of cooking for kids, this one involving chicken strips, tomatoes, and lime juice.

Sue emailed this morning to ask if I am receiving guests—she knows that I’m careful about covid exposure, but I assured her I would look forward to a visit. In truth, I had been thinking that maybe they had voted me off the island. Christian joined us, though Jordan was at a PTA meeting, and we had a good visit. It sure seems we all know a lot of people in a world of hurt in right now. Feeling blessed again.

Christian used his air fryer to make fish and chips tonight—delicious. I bought some malt vinegar, and he made a comparison I hadn’t thought of—Long John Silver’s. I had wondered if he’d use malt vinegar, but he said that was fine—and then when he mentioned the chain restaurant, I thought, “Of course!” We had one in the neighborhood when my kids were in high school—they used to eat the crispies—but it’s long gone. Now we know we can do it at home—with a lot less grease.

A good day. I’m ready to curl up with a book.