Kim Kash's Blog, page 2

May 22: Menswear is Murder

Last year I made some new friends in the Ocean City area who call themselves Murder for Hire. (Yeah, I hang out with some shady characters.) For a couple of decades now, this scrappy troupe has been performing murder mystery dinner theater shows in and around Ocean City. Their usual gig these days happens a few times a year at the Globe in downtown Berlin, Maryland, which is just outside of Ocean City. (Do you know, by the way, that Berlin was voted the America's Coolest Small Town in 2014?)

Since last fall, I have been writing original scripts for Murder for Hire. On May 22nd, they will produce my third script at The Globe. This one involves three generations of haberdashers, a questionable heir to an Italian fashion house, and plenty of fancy cocktails. It's a goofy celebration of the world of fashion, Mad Men style.

I was able to attend the last Murder for Hire show in February, when they produced my second script, called The Deadly Nor'easter. That story involved aging local rocker Rick Thunder, his tough-as-nails girlfriend Paulette, and various family members and hangers on, all stuck at The Globe in a snowstorm. I won't tell you who keels over dead, because they might bring that one back again some day. The experience of seeing my own script produced by this confident, campy troupe was pretty epic. So was Paulette's metal-studded bustier.

If you are looking for a great excuse to go downy ocean for the weekend, this is it! Come to Berlin to see Menswear is Murder on Sunday, May 22nd. (Yeah, it's a Sunday. Better take Monday off to give yourself some extra beach time....) Tickets are available via , but they're going fast.

 

 

A Quick Hello to Maryland

In West Ocean City, looking across the water to Assateague.

It's tempting for me to think it's not worth it, dropping a bunch of money and flying halfway around the world for just a few short weeks' worth of reconnection with my home state of Maryland. But then I do it, and oh, yes, it is. The moody grey and brown landscape, the bright winter skies, the cutting wind that snaps me alert clear down to my bones: this is where I was born, and this is what I cannot get in the Middle East, no matter how chilly the evenings get in the desert winter. This is home.

While here in Maryland, I got this great bit of news: The cover has been revealed for the Sisters in Crime Chessie Chapter's seventh anthology. It's called Storm Warning. My story, "The Gardener," will be included along with other scary weather-related tales by Donna Andrews, Art Taylor, KM Rockwood, Maddi Davidson, and other fellow chapter members. It will publish in April. I'm excited and humbled to be in such esteemed company. And look at this cover! 

Happy Holidays and Horn Tooting from the Middle East

Happy holidays to you, wherever you are and whatever you celebrate.

Just barely in time for the holidays, I am happy to announce that the Mystery Times 2015 anthology has published--and I'm in it! My 2nd-place story, "Pesticides Can Kill You" features a farmers market master who goes too far.... Pick up this short story plus seven other spine-tinglers in Mystery Times 2015, in paperback or as an ebook. What a perfect last-minute gift!

The Aramex delivery guy (he's our local version of the FedEx guy) showed up this morning with the one small box of presents that I ordered for my husband for Christmas. We don't do much here for the holidays (a tiny tree, a couple of poinsettias, a plastic sprig of mistletoe hung from the ceiling), much to our immense relief. We both dreaded Christmas in the States, with its rush and pressure and that nagging sense that whatever we bought, whatever we did, it wasn't quite up to standard. No more! I hope that when we leave the Middle East we can take with us this pleasantly minimalist new style of celebrating, which (ironically, but of course) feels more genuine and brings us closer to our "family" of friends here. 

This year a couple of girlfriends and I are planning a feast of Chinese dumplings and roasted duck for Christmas dinner. Another friend is organizing a Christmas dinner on the beach. We did that ourselves a couple of years ago, putting together a big sit-down supper on the sand, and then lounging around the fire into the evening. It was great! I think we spent thirty bucks on presents that year, but it was one of my most memorable Christmases.

However you choose to spend your holiday, I wish you a peaceful and happy day. 

The End of an Era

After almost ten years as a freelance writer and novelist, I have taken a full-time job. No more workdays in my pajamas on the couch, with Eddie the Cat as my only colleague. No more folding laundry or prepping dinner on my coffee break. No more spontaneous girls’ lunches. 

 

What have I done?

 

Actually, I’m thrilled. My husband and came to the Middle East for his work, and it is very difficult (for legal reasons and cultural ones) for most wives to find full-time work after arriving here and settling in. Knowing what I know now, I’d have applied for work before we moved, so that I could have established my residency with a work visa. But I didn’t. Instead, I added local clients to my already-established freelance business. I pitched in on writing and editing projects that ranged from business proposals to book manuscripts. English is the language of business all over the Middle East, so pretty much everyone can at least get by—but native speakers and writers are in demand. I had a good run here as a freelancer. 

 

Now, though, I’ve taken a support staff job at my community’s expatriate school. It’s a friendly, fast-paced work environment. At the moment I’m coordinating bus schedules and building maintenance logistics. I’ve also been trained to run the attendance desk. Who knows what they’ll have me doing next?  No matter what the job description, though, everyone stops when a kid shows up with an emergency. (“Emergency” is a word with a lot of flex, I’m learning.) Left your trumpet on the school bus? I’ll try to track it down. Ran full-tilt into a wall at recess? I’ll find the nurse. Lost a shoe? (How do you lose one shoe?) I’ll direct you to the lost-and-found box.

 

I’m learning to be more efficient with my off-the-clock hours, and to respect the sanctity of bedtime. My workday starts at 7:00 a.m.—appalling, no? And I’m the type who needs a lot of sleep. These days I’m in bed by 9:00 p.m., or else I’m regretting it the next day.  I’m doing more food prep on the weekends, and remembering what it used to be like the last time I worked a 40-hour office job. The weekends are as much about preparing for next week as they are about socializing.

 

My weekends, though, must also include some dedicated novel-writing time, if I ever want the third installment in the Jamie August series to see the light of day. Which I do! Hopefully soon I’ll be in the groove and able to fit some writing time into my normal schedule—the way the majority of other writers do. I was incredibly fortunate to have such a long run as an independent writer with the luxury of setting my own schedule.  But as the clock towards retirement ticks closer, I’m grateful to have landed this fun, busy job. 

Lost in the Real World

The view from West Ocean City, across Sinepuxent Bay to Assateague Island

My first instinct was to lead with a bunch of apologies. It has been months since I’ve written to you! But then I thought better of it. Sometimes I go months without speaking to my friends back home in Maryland, and yet we are still as close as ever when I visit them again. So it must be here on these pages. As life gets busier (and it has! I got a full-time job!) I choose to stay in the real world and trim away the time I spend at the computer screen. I love connecting with you, dear reader, but when something’s gotta go, it’s going to be this. I’m not going to give up cooking a proper dinner, or exercising, or getting a good night’s sleep. And writing the next Jamie August novel also ranks higher than chatting here on the blog.

So, no apologies! Here, in a few snapshots, is what I’ve been up to for these past several months.

Unpacking for a book signing at the Ocean Pines Farmers Market

I traveled from one side of Maryland to the other to promote the Jamie August series, stopping in Greenbelt, Ocean Pines, and out in western Maryland, near Deep Creek Lake.

The Jamie August books on display at the front of the Greenbelt Consumer Cooperative. If they're sold out, ask them to order more!

I had several author firsts this summer. My local co-op grocery store featured the books near their front entrance. For the first time, a reader brought me a copy of a Jamie August book that she already owned, and asked me to sign it. Woah!

Flea market shopping in Lisbon

In late September, I traveled to Portugal with my husband and some friends. We were in Lisbon for nearly a week. We went to a great flea market, and ate and drank and walked our way across this elegantly funky city. 

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Lisbon. This Portuguese twist on "I think therefore I am" translates to something like "I think but I do not exist."

We took the train north about three hours from Lisbon to Porto, Portugal's second city. I liked it even better than Lisbon: its architecture was more fanciful, and it wasn't as overtaken by tourist crowds as Lisbon was.

A view from Porto's teleferico, which passes directly over some of the city's--and the world's--best-known port wine producers.

Foggy view out the back window of our Air BnB flat near the train station.

From Porto, we flew to Paris. This was one of those remember-it-for-life trips: we met up with some friends who had retired over a year ago and are now living in Washington State. They were nearing the end of a long European adventure, having burned through the last of the frequent flyer miles they'd earned in their expat days. We met them at our little hotel in the seventh arrondissement, enjoyed a private birthday dinner party for me at a tiny restaurant called Reed, and then walked a few blocks to see the Eiffel Tower lit up for the night. What a birthday!

The Eiffel Tower, all in purple!

From Paris, we flew back to Portugal (the whole Paris junket was a last-minute splurge) and drove north into the quiet, green towns bordering Spain's Galicia region.

Looking across the gardens and down the valley towards Ponte de Lima

We'd booked no lodgings for this leg of our trip. Happily, I stumbled across Paco de Calheiros in an internet search for interesting places to stay in northern Portugal. This 17th century manor house is the oldest and most elegant estate in the region. Its doors are open to the public thanks to a program called Solares de Portugal, where the owners of important historic residences open their homes to tourists looking for beautiful, meaningful travel experiences. When I called to book a room, the Count of Calheiros, whose family has owned the home since it was built, answered my phone call from his mobile phone. He apologized that he would not be there to greet us personally, because he was in Italy for his son's wedding. He assured me the staff would take good care of us, and when I asked what time we should arrive, he suggested we "just go there now." We cancelled our hiking plans for the day and drove straight to Ponte de Lima. Wouldn't you?

A view of Paco de Calheiros from its vineyard

After a few slow, quiet days in northern Portugal, we drove back to Lisbon to catch our flight back to the Middle East. Less than a week later, I started my new job. But that's a whole other, happy story!

Dishing with the Femmes Fatales

Recently I was a guest on the fabulous Femmes Fatales blog--a group of today's top mystery writers dishing on whatever interests them. The blog is always a good read. I hope you'll enjoy not just my piece but the whole blog. 

Snapshots from Dubai

Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world

To celebrate my newly published novel, Ocean City Cover-up (which includes a whirlwind trip to Dubai), here are some shots I took this spring when I was in this sparkly, bustling city. 

Dubai Fountain, the world's largest dancing fountain, as seen from a tower next to the Burj Khalifa. In the upper right corner of the photograph is the lower portion of Burj Khalifa. From this great height we were nevertheless still craning our necks to see the top of that epic skyscraper.

The bar, all mirrors and swag, where we viewed the Burj Khalifa and the fountains.

A waterfall fountain inside Dubai Mall, the world's largest shopping mall. Are you sensing a theme?

We didn't see the world's largest yacht at the marina, but it was probably there somewhere.

A climbing wall mounted on the outside of an apartment building. Crazy! It's the highest climbing wall I've ever seen, but I'm not aware of any world-record standing it may have.

The rooftop pool at our hotel. They do nighttime lighting really well in Dubai, because so much of life happens in Dubai after dark, when it's cooler.

On the rooftop terrace, waiting for drinks. I would have had a Coors Light in Jamie August's honor, but it wasn't on the cocktails menu.

Bahrain's Pearling Pathway

One of many murals along Bahrain's Pearling Pathway

Pearl diving was an important industry in Bahrain from around 2000 BC until the 1930s when the Japanese introduced the cultured pearl and the whole market came crashing down. On the northern end of Bahrain, on the island of Muharraq, a new (2012) UNESCO World Heritage Site picks out the historical clues in the neighborhood where Bahrain's pearl divers and merchants lived and worked. UNESCO's designation also includes a few oyster beds just offshore and a bit of coastline. 

Signs (rather few and far between) direct pedestrians through the narrow Muharraq neighborhood.

We parked and walked into the Muharraq neighborhood not at all knowing what to expect, and at first we weren't sure we were in the right place. Lots of small businesses and apartment houses cast shadows across narrow alleys crammed full of cars. Then we started noticing that some of the buildings looked much older than others. Like this:

An example of traditional architecture, unrestored, with newer construction stuck on.

Notice the horizontal timbers sticking out all in a line near the roofline on the left side of the building. That's a typical, traditional building style here. Those timbers--really just long sticks or branches--run all the way across the roof and form the framework for a ceiling of woven palm fronds or other matting.

Seeing stuff like this we thought, oh boy, this is going to be an architectural scavenger hunt. However, as we wound deeper into the neighborhood we found more and more restored buildings. It was clear that something of an arts and cultural community is beginning to take root. 

Below are several shots from our walk in the heart of the Pearling Pathway.

Glass windows fitted over traditional wooden window screens.

I know you're looking at that green door. But notice, too, the restored woodwork on the second story to the right.

Murals (like this large-scale children's project) brightened up several walls that would otherwise have been stark white. 

Heavy, carved wooden doors like this and the one below are typical to this style of architecture.

The clean, graceful lines and the stark contrast between wood and white plaster is so lovely.

This mural is right next door to the cool, traditional building in the previous picture (well, it's visible here at the left, though you're probably not noticing it here.)

Imagine our surprise when the alley widened out and ... this! In several instances, the fairly narrow alleyway opened out into a courtyard, like a secret garden in the middle of the dense neighborhood.

By the end of the afternoon we were hot and tired, and we weren't sure whether we'd find our car again before the sun set, parked as it was in one of the neighborhood's thousand narrow alleyways. I hope to go back (when the weather is much, much cooler than it is now) and check out the galleries and restaurants that are tucked back in the Pearling Pathway. You definitely have to dig a little to find Bahrain's historical architecture and its non-shopping-mall attractions--but they're here. Wouldn't you agree?

It's a Desert, but not a Food Desert

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The "Before" Photo. Agricultural bounty of the Eastern Province. Who knew?

In the United States, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)--those weekly farm box subscriptions--are common. But here? Not at all. We are extremely fortunate to have a CSA subscription with a certified (by a German certifying organization) organic farm less than two hours from our residential compound. They deliver to our door. We get a gigantic box of produce every week--there's so much that we split it with another household. Next week will be the last of the weekly deliveries until the start of the next growing season. Here, that's sometime in October. 

Yesterday a new box was delivered--and a bunch of last week's vegetables are still in the fridge. Also, we're going out of town this weekend. (To Ireland. For three days. But that's another story), Seems everyone is bailing out for the weekend; I couldn't give these beautiful vegetables away! Drastic measures were necessary. So I spent the afternoon in the kitchen, and now the freezer is stocked.

As you can see from the photo above, I had a bunch of cucumbers to deal with--and cucumbers turn disgusting and mushy if you freeze them. But not if you liquefy them first. Therefore: cold cucumber soup. My recipe (adapted from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon) called for crème fraîche, but instead I used something called sour yogurt (below.)

Ever heard of sour yogurt? Me either, until I spotted it today at the grocery store. It was just a bit more tart than regular, plain yogurt--like sour cream, but not as heavy. There are so many fermented dairy options in the Middle East: yogurt, laban (like drinkable yogurt, but a different set of probiotics), three different weights of cooking cream, and I'm probably forgetting others.

Full fat? Yes. Every time. (There. I said it. Shall we talk about religion next?)

The cucumber soup turned out great--rich and creamy, but because I didn't peel the cukes, a little crunch remained. We'll see how that works out when the soup comes out of the freezer sometime in the future. 

Extra virgin olive oil from Syria

Next up: clean-out-the-veg-drawer gazpacho! (You probably saw that coming, given the ingredients in the first photo.) I used all of those tomatoes. No, I didn't peel all those little things. I never peel tomatoes. Who has that kind of time? In a blended soup, can you even tell the difference? I can't. 

All of the bell peppers went in, too, and those fat, purple scallions--that first photo shows them after I cut off the scraggly green tops. To these I added garlic (also from the CSA, if you can believe it! Forgot to include it in the photo), lemon juice, cilantro, and a healthy plug of beautiful green Syrian olive oil. I do not talk politics here (or religion--except for the Gospel of Full Fat), but the world needs to know that Syria turns out some gorgeous olive oil. Hope it continues to do so.

While all this cold soup production was happening, I had a zucchini bread in the oven. See those pale green little summer squashes in the first photo? Those function just like zucchini, so I put together a loaf that includes walnuts and dried cherries.

After the zucchini bread came out, I cranked the oven up higher and put in the eggplants, whole, directly on the oven rack. I roasted them, turning them a few times, until they were soft. I scooped out the flesh and boxed it up for freezing. Sometime later, I'll thaw that out to make baba ghanoush. We eat a lot of that around here because of the CSA box. I like it better than its milder cousin, hummos. (The two are basically the same, except baba ghanoush uses eggplant and hummos calls for chick peas.) 

Gazpacho, roasted eggplant, cucumber soup, and zucchini bread.

The end result: what you see above, plus a full dishwasher. I had to do some rearranging in the freezer. Not surprisingly, this stuff joins earlier attempts to stem the weekly vegetable tide, plus several white lumps of my husband's frozen pizza dough and more than enough shredded cheese to cover them. (Our motto: why make enough food when you can make wildly too much?)

All that food, and none for Eddie the Cat.

Eddie the Cat provided scathing editorial commentary all afternoon. He seemed to understand that I was cooking food for the other members of the household, and he would get nothing. Nothing.

Ocean City Cover-up: Revealed!

Jamie's second adventure is almost here.

Jamie is looking fabulous on the Ocean City boardwalk, after many months of work by J Caleb Design. We tried out many, many concepts for this cover, and (while my opinion is not the most objective on the subject) I am happy with this one. Investigative reporter Jamie August looks cool and sexy--even as she witnesses a very bad guy running down the busy summer boardwalk. Even as she sports a leopard-print bikini and a fishnet coverup. Not everyone could make that work--but our Maryland homegirl Jamie can. You like? Let me know in the comments.

Ocean City Cover-up is scheduled for publication in late June. In it, Euro-trash collides with American gangsta. Jamie befriends a spoiled heiress who is being pursued by Russian mobsters—and a chart-topping rap star. Meanwhile, a raging crime spree is keeping Jamie busy—and so is a hot new boyfriend and a strict jogging and frozen custard fitness plan. Action careens from OC to Dubai, from the wild shores of Assateague to a wild-west campground. 

I am pasty and pie-eyed in the blue glow of my computer screen, in worn-out shorts and a Bayside Skillet t-shirt. (Hey, maybe I could use a little help in the style department, but I'm keeping the OC flame alive. If only I had a hot pink fringed umbrella to prop up over my desk. And a fresh-squeezed mimosa.) My day has been spent formatting and reformatting a new version of the Ocean City Lowdown paperback to include a sneak preview of Ocean City Cover-up. The Cover-up manuscript is in the hands of its second editor. The Amazon pre-order page is set to go. Book reading and signing dates are being finalized. If you're in Maryland, I hope to see you in July and August.

I'm daydreaming of Thrasher's Fries and crab feasts, a hot day on the beach and a margarita on the deck at Fager's Island at sunset. I think this warm-weather instinct to go "downy ocean" must be genetically programmed into Marylanders at birth. It doesn't matter that I'm sitting in the desert in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. I'm ready for an OC vacation!