speaking to book clubs

There's been a thread on the Guppies (Great Unpublished) list lately about the value of speaking to local book clubs. I'm all in favor of it. Granted the audience is small, but if they like you and your book, they'll spread the word. Tonight I spoke to the "Berkeley Babes," a neighborhood group with a name that some acknowledge as incongruous. One said to me, maybe it was appropriate years ago when the club was formed and the members were indeed "babes."
Tonight they met at a  local restaurant on the patio--a lovely evening and perfect setting. The friend who invited me said they made it a rule that visiting authors could not sell books, which was a bit of a disappointment, so I took bookmarks. Turns out I needn't have worried: all but one of the fourteen women present had read (and presumably purchased) my book, which made disicussion all the much easier. We drank wine, ate salads, and they munched on pizza, which I declined. Then I spoke about the book, finding that once I've done it, extemporaneous was easy for me. I had some notes that the dog chewed and I was going to take them as a joke, but forgot--and the gimmick wasn't needed. I talked about how I got the idea for the book, the publication process, agents, etc.--talked maybe for 15 minutes--and then opened it for questions. They had lots of them, and there was lively discussion for at least thirty, maybe forty-five minutes. At the end, I had one prospective sale (she'd been traveling and hadn't read the book) and ten new friends (four of those present are in my writing class, and I may have picked up some intrest in that). But those ten new friends will, I hope, tell their friends about the mystery they read and the author who spoke to them.
I have three more book clubs and a university employees book group coming up shortly, with the probability of at least one more book club. . Small audiences, but worth the time. And good practice in speaking to promote my book. Word may spread from those and garner me more invitations. Lots better than sitting at a table in a bookstore watching people walk by and avoid looking at me--though I may do some of that too.
I always remember Jane Roberts Wood's Train to Estelline. Jane made it a hit by talking to every small group she could find. I think she's a good role model. If you really want to promote your book, no group is too small, no effort not worth making--with a smile.
A note of confusion: last night's post about Spam was meant to go on Potluck with Judy. I get mixed up easily between the two, and it ended on Judy's Stew. So I hope you enjoyed it. Yay, Spam!

Oh, the things you can do with Spam

I've frittered away the evening with one of my favorite occupations--looking through recipes. My friends Elizabeth and Weldon are coming for supper next Sunday night. They are on a gluten-free, dairy-free diet and both feel much better for it. I knew what I wanted to cook--a top sirloin beef roast with a recipe from Cooks' Illustrated--but I couldn't find it in my appalling collection. I have two folders: Entrees Tried and Entrees Never Tried. I got mixed up about which one I'd gone through and probably went through both twice, but I finally found it in the Entrees Tried, where it shouldn't have been because I've never tried it. Cook's Illustrated tries several cuts of meats cooked several ways and then reports on which is best. I subscribe to it off and on but really should take it all the time, because it's a reliable guide. In this case, they say for a less expensive roast use top sirloin; second choice is a blade roast; stay away from bottom round roast. Recipe calls for lots of garlic, so it should be good.
Then I switched my attention to Spam--yeah, the canned meat kind not what you get on your email. Beth and Weldon also have a blog, "From Cows to Quinoa," about GF/DF eating. The title is a little misleading because they eat meat with relish, as long as there's no wheat or dairy involved in the prepration. But they do eat a lot of quinoa. Recently Elizabeth challenged readers to report on their experiences with Spam. It just so happened I had a cooking column ready on the subject, though it had never been published. So I'm to be a guest blogger.
Hormel has a huge Web site for Spam, plus lots of recipes, some of them mind-boggling. I culled through them looking for GF/DF recipes and came up with a beans and Spam dish, Spam and eggs (now I love lox and eggs, but Spam--I don't know), a Spam salad, and a State Fair prize-winning grilled Spam with raspberry, soy, honey, mustard sauce.
Don't get me wrong. I ate Spam as a child and loved it, and I would probably eat it today, except the fat content scares me away. I liked it in a sandwich, made with mayo and lettuce. 
A cool, damp, dull day in North Texas today and it was good to stay in and clear my desk of stray things, read papers for my class tomorrow, and so on. Tomorrow I'll get out and about in the world. Meantime, I'm watching one of my favorite TV programs--"Diners, Dumps, and Drive-ins" on Food Network. Guy Fieri rocks.

Food Fads

I've been reading a book titled Food Fads: Seven Decades of Food Fads, and it's a real revelation. I'm amazed at how our tastes have changed over the years, though the book begins in the Twenties, when I was not around. I don't suppose I remember much about food until the late Forties or Fifties, but I'm blush to think how many faddish foods I've cooked. In the Twenties, with refrigeration new, jellied salads were all the thing, and they stayed there until at least the Fifties. Consider ginger ale salad with pears, peaches, pineapple, walnuts and served with mayonnaise and lettuce. "Foreign" cooking was just beginning to make its way--tamale pie, Spanish rice, spaghetti. With the Thirties and the Depression came comfort food--sweet potatoes with marshmallow (oh, do I remember that though my mom always added a generous helping of bourbon), Welsh rabbit, creamed chipped beef. And then there was the introduction of Chinese food to American cuisine--chop suey and chow mein. Who eats those now with all the sophisticated Asian food available? Trader Vic's is quoted a lot.

And then the Forties, the war years of rationing. One recipe that intrigued me was boiled tongue (preferably smoked or cured). I grew up eating tongue and to this day I love a tongue sandwich (which I can get in the local deli, though many of my lunch companions look askew at me). I also grew up eating lamb kidneys, but alas they're never available. I'd really like to try a couple just to see if I still like them, but when I asked at Central Market, I was told you had to order them by the case--a little more than I was up for. After the war ended there were exravagant meals, with such delicacies as strawberries Romanoff, vichysoisse, and crepes suzette.

In the Fifties America celebrated its own food--barbecue (barbecued bologna? please!), baked potatoes, three-bean salad, and, of course, cooking with Campbell's soup--which I still don't think is a bad idea. There were even recipes for Spam meatloaf and Spam Quick Stove-top Special. I used to eat Spam as a kid--my mom would score it like a ham and cover with cloves and brown sugar. I remember liking it, but the fat content scares me away today. Chafing dishes were a big fad as was fondue, and, of course, cocktail parties with all the dips, etc. But there was also bologna pie--where did all that bologna come from? And then Julia Child burst on the scene, bringing exuberant French cooking to America. Two recipes I remember from the Sixties that were favorites: bourbon balls (I had a friend whose husband ate them by the handful and said, "There here are really good!") and Grasshopper Pie. The recipe in the book is the closest to the one I used to make and have lost--I'll have to make it for Jamie, who loved it. But then there are such atrocities as Tang pie (right, Tang powder for making a drink) and Tang tea. But there were extravagant dishes, like Lobster-Asparagus Mousse and Hot Crap Dip.
The Eighties brought more extravagant dishes--Americans were living well and experimenting more, and it was reflected in the food they were eating--the recipes of Paul Prudhomme, recipes using New Mexico's blue corn, lots of chocolate both dark and white and fresh new Italian recpes--no more spaghetti and meatballs.
The Nineties were the fusion decade, when we blended cuisines from all parts of the world, particularly pan-Asian cooking and Caribbean flavors. If you think we didn't eat differently, consider Calypso Pork Loin with Black Beans or fresh peach salsa.
The book is full of recipes, though I doubt I'll cook many of them, but it's a nostalgic trip through the past--and those of my generation will be amazed at how our food tastes have changed--and how many fads we fell into it.
Tonight I fixed Christian a belated birthday dinner--he celebrated his birthday in Jamaica last week. No food fads here: the birthday boy had steak while Jordan and I ate chopped steak and Jacob had chicken nuggets (with lots of ketchup)--such is the budget of a new retiree. I added baked potatoes for Christian and Jacob and salad for all of us. It was all festive and fun, and I'm enjoying seeing so much of them.

SPAM--the meat, not the annoying messages

My plan to sell a cooking column worked—sort of. I placed one column—the one on canned soup—with a statewide magazine I write for occasionally. The editor said they’d edit out the snob aspect, because her rural audience sees nothing wrong with cooking with soup. And I’m wishing I’d told them about Louella’s Rice, but that’s another story.
Here’s the third and final of my prototype columns. I haven’t given up the idea. But then I haven’t given up on my mystery either.
A few days ago on the TODAY show the final segment featured a chef from Food & Wine magazine talking about and demonstrating “American gourmet” recipes—pickles soaked in Kool-Aid (sorry I didn’t catch the drink flavor), Frito pie made in the bag, and Hormel SPAM treated as sushi. It’s a dish from Hawaii where a slice of SPAM is put atop rice and wrapped with seaweed. Popular as a lunch treat, it’s called musubi.
My thought though was that the faux gourmet draws the line at SPAM. For those that might not know, it’s a canned lunch meat made of ham, pork, sugar, salt, water, starch, and sodium nitrite. Since it was introduced in 1937 over six billion cans have been sold worldwide.
I used to eat it as a kid. SPAM sandwiches were made much like a ham sandwich with lettuce and mayo, or you could have used mustard. My frugal mother, who’d lived through the Depression and was living through the second World War in her lifetime, treated a whole can of SPAM like a ham—she criss-crossed knife slashes across the top, sprinkled it with brown sugar, studded it with cloves, and baked it. I remember liking it, but back then my favorite meal was a can of Campbell’s spaghetti and a can of spinach. What did I know? Mom sliced the leftovers and fried them for breakfast meat.
Now every once in a while I think about trying it again, buying one of those small cans and baking it the way Mom did. What stops me is the fat content—2 oz. has 15 grams of fat, and six grams of saturated fat.
Nutrition aside, SPAM has become sort of an inside joke these days. Hormel has a huge SPAM website that you can explore for hours (http://www.spam.com), but much of it seems tongue-in-cheek. The SPAM Museum is apparently a virtual museum—or is it? Listing visits per year, the site says, “As many as you’d like.” There’s a page devoted to Spammobile, a gift shop that sells T-shirts, coffee cups and mugs, drop earrings with SPAM cans, lapel pins, bumper stickers that say “I love SPAM,” a SPAM fan club (“your membership lasts a lifetime”), and an endless list of things. The Book of SPAM is available online from amazon.com. Today SPAM comes in a dithering array of flavors—original, hickory smoked, with bacon, with garlic, with cheese, lite, turkey SPAM. There’s an annual recipe contest, and the website has recipes—SPAM stroganoff, SPAM meatloaf, SPAM quiche, a speedy dip, croquettes, and a minestrone soup made with SPAM. There are also suggestions for adapting the ubiquitous meat to various cuisines. Prefer French food? You can have your SPAM in ratatouille or something called Ragin’ Cajun SPAM party salad. Asian? How about Speedy Cheesy Stir-fry? SPAM a la orange? Sweet and sour SPAM Cantonese? If Mexican is your preference, you can have SPAM in chili rellenos, ranchero eggs, chimichangas, or breakfast burritos. And finally, of course, there’s Italian—pizza is inevitable, but you can also make Turkey SPAM lasagna, eggplant Italiano, spaghetti sauce, or fettucine primavera. The possibilities are endless, but I won’t be trying any of them soon. I draw the line.
It’s no coincidence that spam has become the term for unwanted junk email. There’s an explanation on the web, but it went over my head.
Ham may be a tad more expensive, but it’s less fattening—and it’s good. Here’s an old standby recipe:
Spinach ‘n Ham Roll-ups
1 10-1/2 oz. can cream of celery soup
1 c. sour cream
2 Tbsp. Dijon-style mustard
1 c. quick-cooking rice
1 10-oz. pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and pressed dry
1 c. small curd cottage cheese
2 eggs
½ cup finely chopped onion ¼ c. unsalted butter
¼ c. flour
18 slices (about 1-1/2 lbs.) boiled hem (get the deli to slice it)
Parsley-buttered bread creams
Paprika
Preheat oven to 350. Mix soup, sour cream and mustard. In separate bowl, combine ½ cup soup mixture, rice, spinach, cheese, eggs, onion and flour, Put 2 heaping Tbsp. spinach mixture on each ham slice, roll up and put in 11x7 baking pan. Spoon remaining soup mixture over ham rolls. Top with bread crumbs and paprika. Bake 35 minutes or until hot. Let stand 10 minutes before serving.