Barbara Samuel's Blog: A Writer Afoot, page 12

Yesterday, when I was nineteen

Over at Lipstick Chronicles, we are talking about where we were and what we did at 19.  Come tell your story.  http://thelipstickchronicles.typepad....

Ramona's Sunshine Fruit and Honey Bread

(A recipe from How to Bake a Perfect Life. )

These are actual texts from my sister a few days ago:

Feb 5, 2011 7:13 pm

Making sunshine fruit and honey bread

Feb 6, 2011 12:36 pm

OMG OMG OMG. That bread is soooooo good I could prolly eat the whole thing!!!

Feb. 7, 2011 12:26 pm

I can't stop eating this bread ! I feel like the guy in the window in Chocolat. LOL

———

I can't promise you will like it as much as she does, but it's one of my favorites, too.  It would be an excellent offering at a book club.

RAMONA'S BOOK OF BREADS

Sunshine Fruit and Honey Bread

Sometimes a recipe is born from a moment, and this is the recipe that I came up with after my first night with Jonah. Filled with light and juice and tenderness, it is one of my favorite things. Try it with a cup of sweet chai.

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp kosher salt

½ cup butter, softened

½ cup raw sugar

½ cup dark honey

½ tsp vanilla extract

½ tsp orange extract

2 tsp grated orange zest

1 cup raspberries, whole

1/3 cup slivered, toasted almonds

Juice of one orange, mixed with enough powdered sugar to make a thin glaze

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a 9 x5 inch loaf pan

Whisk together dry ingredients. Cream butter, honey, and extracts. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in the dry ingredients just until moist, then gently, gently fold in the raspberries and toasted almonds.

Bake for 55-60 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Cool for 20 minutes, then tip bread out to a wire rack and cool thoroughly, then drizzle the top lightly with glaze.

February special: medieval romances only .99

In honor of the month of February and all things love, I will be offering both of my Kindle medieval romance novels for just .99 each.

A Bed of Spices was my first medieval.  It's a Romeo and Juliet story, set against the thick forests and castles of medieval Germany,but don't let that put you off.  It's a highly romantic tale of discovery and honor and true love, and it seems just right for Valentine's Day.  Er…sort of.  You'll see what I mean.

Here is a review of the book, posted to Amazon by Susie Q:

"5.0 out of 5 stars This is that rare 5-star romance you've been looking for!

I can't believe I haven't submitted a review of this novel long before this time, as I've owned and loved this book for years.

A BED OF SPICES has all the elements I love in a romance novel: a forbidden love story, this time between the Christian heroine, Rica and the Jewish hero, Solomon (very rare to find a Jewish hero); well-drawn supporting characters; a medieval setting (Germany, 1348-1349 in the time of the Black Plague) and a fabulous blend of historical fact with romantic fiction. Although the story moves slowly, it's really worth your while. You will remember Rica and Solomon's story. If you love historical romance novels, you owe it to yourself to read this book. I often turn back to this novel to refresh myself as to what a historical romance OUGHT to be – creative, imaginative and tender."

Read more reviews at Amazon,

It is a Desert Island Keeper at All About Romance, where the reviewer wrote:

"Finally, the fifth star would be for the beautiful language. It is clear and deceptively simple, but with an almost poetic quality. All the nuances of feeling, all the poignancy of the story are expressed perfectly, without a shade of purple prose. If a book has that much to offer, how can it not be a Desert Isle Keeper? A Bed of Spices is a little treasure, and I recommend it to anyone who would like to read something very special."

Heart of a Knight , 1998 RITA award winner.

When Lord Thomas of Roxburgh arrives mysteriously at the abandoned castle and village of Lady Elizabeth D'Auvers, the villagers are relieved to at last have a champion and install the knight in the castle. When Elizabeth returns after a weary exile, she is astonish to find the lands and people thriving, thanks to the able command of the physically imposing and charming Lord Thomas.  Both attracted and wary of the knight, Elizabeth allows herself to be drawn into his realm, only to discover the dark secret that threatens them all is without hope…unless Dark Thomas can prove he is more knight than even the king of England.

"Ms. Samuel weaves a tale worthy of one of Lyssa's tapestries. Not only does she write of love between men and women, but of the powerful friendships between the women and a man's need to be free and respected. This is a powerful, stirring medieval romance. SENSUAL."  –Romantic Times

Just in case you're stuck inside this week…..

The wonders of British food

The Brits get a bad name over food, but I'm here to say there is a lot that's lovely about British cooking. Saveur Magazine has a feature[image error]

today on their website about British Pub Food.  I receive their emails and clicked right through to find this lovely menu:

Welsh Rabbit, which I thought for years was Rarebit, no idea why, and is only cheese and toast.  How simple and lovely is that?

Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, served bloody rare, which I loathe.  Not a fan of roast beef, though I love the gravy, and that gravy is a wonder with Yorkshire puddings.

Beef and Guinness pie . I once made this recipe, or one quite similar and forgot that I had it in the oven (before the crust was on it). It cooked at 300 for a couple of hours and the flavors were as deep and rich as some precious old wine.  Highly recommended.

Banoffee Pie, which I have talked about here before.  It's an English classic, made with digestive biscuits, bananas, caramel and whipped cream.  CR's mother served it at a holiday meal and I licked the spoon and practically my plate, so she sent me home with tins of caramel, which is not sold here.  It is unbelievable sweet, but the cream and the bananas and the digestives give it texture and depth, so it's not as horrifying as you might imagine. (Go on, try it, you know you want to!)

What's funny is that my traditionalist younger son, also a very picky eater, fell madly in love with Banoffee pie the first time I made it for a Christmas meal and he begs for it at every opportunity since.  Though CR's mother sends those tins of caramel, I don't always have a can when I need it.  This recipe has a work around that makes the caramel with condensed milk and brown sugar. (And I recently discovered you can buy cans of dulcet de leche in the Mexican food aisle at the grocery store, so I am saved, anyway.)

But my favorite thing about British food: cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese.  Check out these 9 artisan cheeses. But don't forget[image error] Stilton or Wensleydale with cranberries or mangos or some other something.  They're all great.

What foreign foods do you love? Have you even fallen in love with something in a far away land?

Food and love and important things like that

One of the ways writers get their books out these days is to guest blog everywhere.  It's actually fairly productive, but it leaves the local blog sadly neglected.   As I said before, I will be posting at Lipstick Chronicles twice a month starting in February, and you can catch me there talking about food and women's fiction and…well, you know, the whole catastrophe.

In the meantime, this is a blog I posted there that I think many of you might enjoy

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"A little while back, when I first blogged here at Lipstick Chronicles, a couple of people mentioned writer MFK Fisher.  I had never read her, but always hungry for food writers, I googled her and started reading.  Two hours later, I ordered four of her books from Amazon, including the hefty anniversary edition of The Art of Eating .

When the books arrived, I curled up in my chair with two kittens and a class of wine and cracked open Art, and I've been dipping into every day or two ever since, doling out the pages like some rare, complex cheese.   Sometimes, I cannot stop reading as fast as I'd like, carried along by the drama of her narrative as surely as if I'm lost in a novel.  She led an unusual and adventurous life, and was a highly celebrated woman writer during at time when that was not at all common or easy. I feel as I did when I first read Hemingway's A Moveable Feast —how is it possible I missed this work until now?

All things in their proper time.  Thanks to some of you here, I have found a new favorite in Fisher.

For those who are not familiar with her work, she was a food writer who predates Julia Child by some decades.  She wrote in the thirties and forties and fifties, writing with good humor and intelligence and wit.

In The Gastronomical Me , she writes in her foreword:

"People ask me: Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way others do?

READ MORE AT THE LIPSTICK CHRONICLES

Booksigning in Pueblo today!

I'll be signing copies of How to Bake a Perfect Life at the Pueblo Barnes and Noble today, 1-3. Hope to see you there!

Pueblo

Eagleridge Shopping Center

4300 North Freeway

Pueblo, CO 81008

719-542-0698

Looking at the world

Seems as if I've been posting tiny tidbits on Facebook and Twitter, as well as a score of posts for blogs elsewhere.  I will be joining Lipstick Chronicles, and will be posting every other Friday starting in February.  In the meantime, I've posted there a couple of times thus far.   And for writers, of course, I am still posting blogs to Writer Unboxed the 4th Wednesday of every month.

To get myself back to the regular practice of blogging here, a process I genuinely enjoy, I'm going to use this blog as a little writer's notebook through the month of January.  I'll post whatever I notice about the world on my daily journey through it.  This is from a day or two ago, but it is the thing that made me want to begin.

On Wednesday, I had a pedicure at a shop I do not usually frequent. It was staffed by only two, very very young Vietnamese kids, she not more than twenty, he only a little more than that. She did not appear to speak English much at all, though he was quite enthusiastic and a good salesman.  He was my pedicurist. Friendly, but not too chatty, and I was reading a book on my iPhone, so I didn't really want to talk very much.  After awhile, I noticed that his left thumb was small and wasted and didn't move. It didn't seem to hinder him.  I went back to reading.  A little later, I noticed that his forearm had a thick, old scar down the top, elbow to hand.  It went all the way through, as if a sword had sliced through it.  He moved his hand well enough, so much so that it did take that much time to notice the scar and the immovable thumb.  My writer brain wanted to know what he'd done to it, and I find myself writing scenarios.  I wondered how old he was. It must have been quite a dramatic scene.  It must have done something to the tendons.  I wondered how his mother felt when it happened, how afraid she must have been.

He fetched hot towels and said, "Feels good, right?" and I nodded. I went back to reading.

Target Club Pick!

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HOW TO BAKE A PERFECT LIFE featured at Target.

I've actually known about this for a couple of months and could not say a word. At last I am free to announce it to all of you. How to Bake a Perfect Life is the Target Club Pick. There is a special edition of the book with extra features and book club questions, and as you see, a very nice display at Targets all over the country.

I am THRILLED

Feasting and friendship in New Mexico

It is a lusciously gloomy morning here in Colorado, and despite the long list of tasks that are calling me (the tamales, the wrapping of gifts, walking the dog), I find myself drawn here, to write.  The subject almost doesn't matter—the desire is simply to be here and put some words on the page, capture something.

Last week, my friend Heather and I went to Chimayo. It's a tiny strip of settlement along a two lane highway leading into the mountains from Espanola. You may remember the mention of these places from The Lost Recipe for Happiness, and I will say that it was oddly [image error]disorienting to see again all the places that inspired the book—the elaborate descansos, some now lovingly decorated for Christmas, the arroyo that saved Elena from bleeding to death; the wide open field behind the Santuario where I imagined her companions bidding her farewell.   It was like visiting another part of my life, a me I once was.

Heather and I were there to make vision boards, which is simply a poster-sized collection of words and images to represent goals and desires for the coming year. We wanted someplace quiet—and got it.  The Rancho de Chimayo hacienda is an old inn, with the rooms built around an internal courtyard in traditional hacienda style. A friendly white cat with black patches on her ears and paws visited us.  We had no television. No radio.  And horror of horrors: my iPhone did not work. No texts. No phone calls. No compulsive checking of emails every ten minutes.  It was wildly uncomfortable at first, and then we both grew into the quiet.

The first night, the only restaurants in town were already closed and the B&B had nothing, so we traveled back down the road to a convenience store where two tall blonds stood out like bright yellow lights among the small dark men.  Sometimes I've felt slightly afraid in Espanola, but not that night. The clerk was friendly, and one of his customers joked with us about our purchases—bottles of water and a can of prepared tuna salad and guacamole chips.   I had tucked away some good cheese and bottles of beer and Izze sodas for the trip, so we had those, too, and it was a decent supper. We cut out photos and started arranging our vision boards in the utter silence, and went to bed early.

In the morning, we both we ready to leap for more civilization. Breakfasts both mornings were very good, carried to our room on trays, with tiny oatmeal muffins and juice and pretty fruit the first day, a giant blueberry muffin and good yogurt the next.

[image error]That first morning visited the Santuario, which is one of only a handful of pilgrimage sites in North America. (You can read the story here.) It was only a few hundred yards up the road, and there we mulled spiritual things. I found small gifts for my Catholic son and friends who would appreciate the holy dirt. I shot photos and then spent a long quiet time in the chapel.   I found Heather, who is the queen of animal charmers (and believe me, that takes some doing in my world) making friends with a dog and a horse.

And then, like the city women we are, we bolted for Santa Fe. Heather had never been and I was delighted to show her around, thinking we could eat at my favorite diner, The Plaza.  First, we wandered around the La Fonda hotel, which is a very old, sprawling hotel with a beautiful restaurant in the middle.  Heather asked if we were eating here, and I realized I'd never tried it—I always eat elsewhere in Santa Fe.  "Another time," I told her, and we headed for The Plaza.

To my dismay, it was closed under renovations.  Not only was I disappointed that we couldn't eat there, but even more that the restaurant I loved would not exactly be there the next time I visit. No more the kitschy little booths, the old diner style in red and turquoise, the spirit of Route 66 lingering in the old tiles on the floor.   While I recognize things cannot always stay the same, I'm hoping that they'll preserve the spirit of the old restaurant.

So we ended up at the La Fonda restaurant after all.  We sat by the fountain and I shot photos of the handpainted window panes that[image error]give the room its unique beauty. Light floods into the room. The menu had some northern New Mexico dishes, but my eye was captured by a spinach tart, puff pastry over sweet potato puree and topped with spinach and goat cheese. It is an elegantly balanced dish, and I'm sure a person who likes beets would have found even that note charming.  I left with the resolve to recreate the dish, and to have traditional northern New Mexico food at dinner.

We wandered the shops in the mild afternoon. I noticed again that Santa Fe is genuinely graying—far more people in their sixties than their twenties or thirties. I also remembered that love Santa Fe style architecture and decoration, the color and splashy details, the coexistence of buildings to earth and sky.  I should live in a Santa Fe style house someday.

Back in Chimayo, we had an indifferent meal at the local restaurant. Nothing was terrible, but nothing was particularly interesting, either.  Back in our room, we rigged up music through my iPad (and discovered we do not have the same tastes in music at all—since she likes mainly modern country and that might be the only form of music I don't really know very well).  In the morning we made a second visit to the Santuario. I talked with the old priest, a tiny very old man with a Catalan accent, who told me he was "95 years old, soon to be 100!"   I bought Chimayo red chile, and a rosary made of turquoise and silver.

Our last meal was on our way home through Santa Fe to catch I-25, at Café Pasqual, and it was the best of the trip.  A chile relleno that[image error] might be the best I've ever eaten, delicate and not overwhelmingly cheesey, and a black bean and roasted corn tamale, that inspired me to give this version a try. I don't even like black beans, and have an aversion to corn in things, and it was marvelous. We took a picture to remember the day, and drove home in a blustery day, across the vast, empty landscape with its harsh mesas and faraway mountains, talking and talking and talking and talking, which is what one does on a road trip.

It was quite fine. We agreed we will find another place for this trek next year, and make our vision boards again together.

Postscript: my vision board was not quite finished, and I wasn't quite sure what I was waiting for.  It sat on a table in my family room for several days.  During the eclipse on the solstice, I awakened at exactly 1:48 and went outside to discover the shadowed amber moon at full eclipse.  I went inside, finished my vision board, and came back outside to see the bright white edge of blazing moon emerging from the shadows.  Magical!

Do you love Santa Fe, too, or some other place you like to go eat?  Do any of you set goals by using a vision board?

Release day!

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HOW TO BAKE A PERFECT LIFE

by Barbara O'Neal

Available TODAY in trade paperback from your local retailer, or these on-line venues

Also available as an ebook for Kindle, and Nook and other formats.

READ MORE ABOUT IT