K.B. Inglee's Blog: The Shepherd's Notes, page 11

The Obligatory Recipe

I offered to write a blog about cooking for an on-line friend. It seems the thing to do these days, include a recipe or two in anything you send out.
I don’t cook if I can help it. Cooking is one of those things I have done more for the joy of participating in something my grandmother did, probably as willingly as I do. Then by extension, it became historical research. I own an old cookbook or two. Boston Cooking School, 1896, Colonial Burlington Cookery, 1770, and a few others. I have no idea how to cook most of the things I have “receipts” for.
Try this one: To Make Apple Pudding: Take about half a dozen Apples and stew them Add half a pound of Butter and eight Eggs leave out six of the whites and a handful of breadcrumbs a little Cream and Mace, sweeten it and beat it well.
A little punctuation wouldn’t hurt. This is from the hand written journal of Polly Burling sometime around 1770. She probably knew how to make it and needed only a reminder. Sue Huesken and Mercy Ingrahm experimented with all the receipts and turned them into things you can actually cook, with the ingredients on the top and the process on the bottom.
It contains valuable information for any 18th century cook, like a gallon of West Indian rum cost three and a half pence.
The book is available from RanMer Publishing, PO Box542, Riverside, New Jersey 08075

NAP NOW

Oh, today is blog day, isn’t it?
I got back from Pennwriters yesterday afternoon. I did a workshop on writing historical fiction, which was great fun. Today I took 40 third graders through the 1704 the water powered gristmill (8 flights of stairs). Our dam burst two weeks ago, so there was no water to power it.
I have my critique group tonight, and have read only one of the submission. Internet was down all day.
Have yet to unpack. May never.

Malice Domestic part 2

I had to read four books for the panel I moderated at Malice. One was in my to be read pile, one I got at the library, one I bought for my e-book device. I had to email the author to get the fourth one. They were all is different sub-genre of mystery. I was prepared to dislike two of them. Much to my amazement I loved all four. It’s hard to tell if I liked the setting or the characters best.
In these works each of the leading characters was someplace other than home,or what felt like home, so the author had to try harder to make the setting real. A character out of his or her well-worn daily routine is apt to show more personality than he or she might at home. So both the person and the place are more vivid. I read all four books with Google Earth up on my computer. Two of the places were real and I could look at the buildings the author described. The other two were fictional. The author stuck the place in the midst of real places. I could see the mountains, rivers and all the places the characters might have been.
Setting and character at the things I find the most fun about writing.
Lest you think that other things don’t matter, the plots were all carefully thought out. Secondary characters, while we knew less about them, were all real. We felt for the murder victims and sometimes for the perpetrator. In one case I really wanted the murder to get away with it.
Well, I’m off to pick up more books by these authors.
The books?
Sheila Connolly, Buried in a Bog
Sandra Parshall, Poisoned Ground
Terrance Faherty, Eastward in Eden
Jeanne Dams, Shadows of Death

Sometimes Good Things Happen to Good People

Malice Domestic is a conference for mystery writers and fans. I attended this year for the first time in ages. I had a wonderful time, but in order to keep with my 250 word maximum for this blog, I will hit the high points over the next several weeks.
Malice gives awards, called the Agathas, in several categories. The winners are announced at the banquet on Saturday night. This year many of my favorite people were nominated. Two won.
I have known Caroline Todd of the Charles Todd team since I joined Sisters in Crime. My first real contact with her was when she edited my short story for Death Knell IV. She was sensible, kind, knowledgeable. I could go on and on with the adjectives. She made me feel like a writer before I ever was one, and she continues to make me feel that way.
I met Hank Phillipi Ryan some years ago as she was about to have her first mystery published. I think at the time I had not one single thing in print. I was so jealous of her I thought I would just pretend she didn't exist. When she came through the door at the other end of the ballroom, I couldn’t resist. I went up to her and said something like, "Hi, I'm KB Inglee. Welcome to…" Not only did Hank never forget my name, she also inquires about my daughter every time we meet.
I applaud these two magnificent women, not just for their writing, which is top notch, but for the help and support they give to other writers like me. Maybe there should be an Agatha for that.

Medusa

I have always said that, while I spend most days with animals, I don’t have any animals in my writing. I wrote a carriage horse named Benjamin into one story and a kitchen cat without a name into another.
Last week when I picked up an old story to rework I realized that I do have a recurring animal.
Iccaurs Norton, born near the end of the American Revolution, supports himself by going from New England town to town tutoring young men to prepare them for Harvard, helping old friends with their businesses and ghost writing for prominent citizens. Before he left for his first commission his father gave him a horse, Medusa. She isn’t pretty or fast but she is serviceable and she knows her job. She takes fine care of Iccarus, who returns the favor. She trudges through the snow while he sleeps in the saddle. She alerts him to danger on the road. She is a good listener. Once she found a not quite dead body. She never talks or solve mysteries.
I have never described her but I see her as a broad barreled bay the tiniest bit more refined than a plow horse.
Medusa has done pretty much everything a horse can do in the New Republic, but she has yet to find her way into print.

Lost at the Car Wash

I don’t remember every buying a pet. Most of them come to us from the abundant universe. Our dogs have mostly been show dogs that either didn’t meet breed standards or didn’t have the temperament. Our current dog did well as a puppy, but grew more and more fear aggressive as she aged. We were home number four and she was a year and a half old when she came to us. Our birds have been looking for good homes when their owners could no longer keep them. Both cats just moved in.
Last week a phone call led to the latest bird. “We have a bird at the car wash with a broken wing.” My first thought was I can take him to the bird rescue. “He has a yellow head with orange circles.” OK, not bird rescue; they take only natives. This guy is Australian. His wings were not broken but his flight feathers had just been cut. How does a bird that can’t fly get to a car wash? He couldn’t have crossed the busy roads in front or in back. He must have hopped out of someone’s car at the fast food place next door. He is fitting in well with the other cockatiel and the budgie. His name? Car Wash, CW for short.

Old Cars and Old Mills

Today is the first time in living memory--well, this year anyway-- I have been outside in a short sleeved shirt. Coats and jackets and scarves all left behind. My daffodil patch which usually bears 15 blossoms this year gifted me with 36. The sheep are beginning to itch in their long wool and they are using the corners of the fences to scratch.
People are more interested in touring a damp chilly if not downright cold mill, now that it is warmer outside. I took some old car buffs through the mill yesterday. I wore period clothing and we ground a bit of cornmeal. They were a fun group and asked the best questions.
“What’s in you mug, gin?” (water)
“Why are you wearing pins instead of buttons?” (women used pins, men buttons)
“What is grist?” (anything that can be ground into flour or meal)
“Why is there so much open space in the mill?” (to store the deliveries from the farmers until it can be ground and then the barrels of ground flour or meal)
I love tours like this one.

(don't) Steal This Artifact

I am trying to put together a ‘please touch’ table of artifacts for a program on writing historicals.
The time period I work within is American Colonial through 1900.
What do I own that would be interesting, authentic, and replaceable? Yes, I fear someone will walk off with my Spanish Milled dollar, my 1870’s eyeglasses, my flint and steel. Do I want to add my daughter’s tomahawk? I don’t particularly want to walk around a hotel with a bladed weapon.
I do have a piece of clothing that I have done a lot of research on only to find out that I am wearing it in the wrong time period.
There is a lot of history that falls outside this range.
What can I pull in from other people’s collections from different time periods? I have a friend who might have some earlier stuff, but would he lend it to me? I am not afraid of having it stolen.
A friend has offered me a reproduction of a cuneiform wax tablet with bronze stylus.
Oh, yes and a bag of cornmeal ground in an early colonial water powered mill.
Suggestions anybody?

Anouncing a New Award

There are lots of awards for writers out there. Some are judged by an elite, some by members. All are worth wining. It gives a writer a tag to put on web pages. Sometimes there is a prize of publication, or money.
Anyone can give a writer an award. It can be an email telling them how much the reader enjoyed the book. It can be as big and formal as an established organization: the Edgars, or the Agathas. An author may have to submit the work, it may be nominated by membership or it may be chosen out of all the works published in the year.
Most of the big writer’s organizations offer awards.
I’ve been thinking that I might offer an award myself, for the X mystery I have read in a year.
I haven’t decided what to put in place of the X. Certainly not the best. There are lots of well written books out there that are wonderful but don’t fill my expectations. Someone else can give them awards. The book that has the most readers? The author who knows the most people? The book that I remember a year after I have read it? This may be what I base my award on. It will be the book that I have suggested to the most people. It will be unusual in some way. It will not appeal to everyone.
In May I will announce the first ever Cadaver Award and its winner. Watch this spot.

Reading vs. Writing

Whenever someone tells me they want to become a writer, my first question is always "What do you read?"
A significant number of these people look at me like I have two heads. "Read? I don't read. I want to WRITE." At that point I walk away. If people who want to be writers don’t understand the importance of reading they will never succeed.
I think of reading as the background to my writing life. I am always reading at least two books, a fiction and a non-fiction. I read something every day and I write something every day. In May I am on a panel at a conference, and have to read the panelist's works. I noticed as soon as I started reading in earnest, the amount of writing I did went down. I read less during my mad writing periods, but I still have something going.
When I started writing about Emily, I read only things that she would have read. As I became more confident I could read pretty much anything without disrupting my writing. Now I tend to read things that my characters wouldn't have access to or be interested in.
At the moment I am working on a short story set in 1799 and reading a work set in 1889. Non-fiction? History of the Brandywine Springs Amusement Park by Mark R Lawlor.