Cathy Gohlke's Blog, page 4

Merry Christmas

Wishing you a very Merry and Blessed Christmas and Peaceful New Year!

I’m taking a sabbatical from Social Media for a time to complete a new novel.

My new book, A Hundred Crickets Singing, will release in April 2022. Subscribe to my newsletter to be reminded when it releases: https://authorcathygohlke.com

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Cathy

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A Quote from Night Bird Calling

“I woke while it was still dark and heard the first whippoorwill of spring call, Mama’s signal for comfort in the night, Aunt Hyacinth’s signal for joy, and mine for hope and new beginnings.” –Cathy Gohlke

You can listen to the song of the whippoorwill by visiting the Audubon eastern whippoorwill page, scroll down to the bottom right of the page and click on Song #1.

Until next time, happy reading and a very Happy Thanksgiving to you!  May you know the joy and fulness of God’s love with each sunrise,

Cathy

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Celia’s Birthday Applesauce Cake

“We heard over the radio that the train was delayed for ice on the tracks.  We celebrated Celia’s birthday quietly, cutting the applesauce cake Gladys had baked that morning—a recipe Celia loved and one that had been passed down to their family for generations.  But Celia barely ate.” — Cathy Gohlke from Night Bird Calling

Celia’s Birthday Applesauce Cake

Ingredients

2 and ½ cups all-purpose flour½ cup brown sugar½ cup raw or cane sugar1 and ½ teaspoons baking soda¼ teaspoon baking powder½ teaspoon salt1 rounded teaspoon ground cinnamon½ teaspoon ground cloves½ teaspoon allspice1 and ½ cups raisins—Optional—but Celia prefers hers with raisins½ cup vegetable or canola oil½ cup water1 and ½ cups unsweetened applesauce (homemade is best, but store bought is fine)2 eggs, room temperature

 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.Grease and flour a tube pan or Bundt pan or 2-8” round cake pansWhisk together dry ingredients.In a separate bowl combine oil, water, applesauce and eggs.Combine all the ingredients and pour into the prepared pan.Bake 60-65 minutes or until done if a tube or Bundt pan. If 2 -8’’ round cake pans, bake 38-40 minutes.Cool 15-20 minutes on wire rack before inverting to cool completely.Can be eaten as is, dusted with confectioner’s sugar, or topped with the glaze below.

Ingredients for Glaze:

1 stick butter1 cup dark brown sugar¼ cup milk

Directions for Glaze:

Mix all ingredients and boil for 2 and a ½ minutes, stirring constantly.Pour over cooled cake. *If making a layer cake, pour glaze over bottom layer first then over the top layer and sides. You may even like to prick the top of the layers with a fork to allow the glaze to sink in.  However, fork marks will be faintly visible on the top layer.Allow to set at room temperature or in refrigerator.

Until next time, happy reading and a very Happy Thanksgiving to you!  May you know the joy and fulness of God’s love with each sunrise,

Cathy

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Night Bird Calling

If I could go anywhere during the month of November, I’d run to the foothills and mountains of North Carolina.  There’s nothing like the Blue Ridge these crisp autumn days!  That’s where Night Bird Calling, my ninth novel, unfolds.

For me, writing Night Bird Calling was both a “coming home” to those welcoming foothills and an emotional journey into difficult issues of racial injustice and domestic abuse.  It was not an easy story to tell.  Deep in my bones, I think I always knew I’d one day need to write it for the sake of women everywhere and as a thanksgiving to the God in Heaven Who brought me through a dark and broken past and into the light.

Night Bird Calling:

When Lilliana Swope’s beloved mother dies, Lilliana gathers her last ounce of courage and flees her abusive husband for the home of her only living relative in the foothills of No Creek, North Carolina. Though Hyacinth Belvidere hasn’t seen Lilliana since she was five, she offers her cherished great-niece a safe harbor. Their joyful reunion inspires plans to revive Aunt Hyacinth’s estate and open a public library where everyone is welcome, no matter the color of their skin.

Slowly, Lilliana finds revival and friendship in No Creek—with precocious eleven-year-old Celia Percy, with kind-hearted Reverend Jesse Willard, and with Ruby Lynne Wishon, a young woman whose secrets could destroy both them and the town. When the plans for the library also incite the wrath of the Klan, the dangers of Lilliana’s past and present threaten to topple her before she’s learned to stand.

With war brewing for the nation and for her newfound community, Lilliana must overcome a hard truth voiced by her young friend Celia: Wishing comes easy. Change don’t.

***

“A sumptuous, textured ode to small-town relationships” (Foreword Reviews) in the tradition of classics like Cold Sassy Tree and Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café.

***

I hope you enjoy Night Bird Calling.  Next year Tyndale House Publishers and I will bring you a companion novel, A Hundred Crickets Singing, a time split story (American Civil War and WWII) in which you’ll once again meet some of No Creek’s characters, learn more of their complicated past and unravel a mystery hidden since the days of Generals Grant and Lee.

Until next time, happy reading and a very Happy Thanksgiving to you!  May you know the joy and fulness of God’s love with each sunrise,

Cathy

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Cream of Chicken Soup

Cream of Chicken Soup

~This delicious recipe came by way of my sister-in-law, Randi Eaton from the author, Nagi. It’s real comfort food for cold nights!~

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil5 tbsp unsalted butter½ cup flour1 garlic clove, minced½ small brown onion, finely chopped1 small carrot, diced1/2 red capsicum/bell pepper, finely chopped1 small celery stick, diced2 cups chicken stock or broth, preferably low sodium3 cups milk½ tsp salt¼ tsp EACH garlic powder, onion powder, dried thyme, black pepper (“Spices”)3/4 cup frozen peas1 cup cooked chicken, diced or shreddedCroutons:2 slices white bread, cut into cubesOlive oil spraySalt

Instructions

Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and cook for 2 minutes until partly translucent but not browned.Add carrots, celery and capsicum, cook for 1 minute to soften.Add butter and melt. Then add flour and mix until incorporated, and stir constantly for 1 minute.Add broth, mix until flour is incorporated, then add milk. Mix to combine, then add salt, Spices, chicken and peas.Bring to simmer, mixing occasionally to stop the bottom from sticking. As it heats, it will thicken – about 4 to 5 minutes. Don’t let it bubble.Once thickened to your taste, adjust salt and pepper. Ladle into bowls and serve garnished with croutons and fresh thyme if desired.Croutons: Spray croutons generously with oil, sprinkle with salt, then bake for 5 minutes at 350F or until golden and crunchy.

Until next time, enjoy these cool autumn days.  God bless you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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Book Quotes from Cathy Gohlke’s Saving Amelie

“Joy is the gift of God, and you are His child.  He loves you so.  He rejoices over you with singing!”

“Sometimes taking up our cross is doing the thing in front of us, not the glamorous, high-risk thing afar off.”

“What worried him most was something Dietrich had mentioned observing during his visit to America—the way Americans treated Negroes.  Not so different in some ways than German citizens treated Jews at the beginning.  If Americans treat our citizens in such a way, will they step up to the plate to protect their own or the world’s Jews?  He wasn’t so sure.”—Cathy Gohlke, from Saving Amelie

God bless you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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Rivka’s Harosat for Passover

“My mother used to let me mix the nuts and cinnamon, the apples chopped with a little wine.” She swallowed. “We’re missing that tonight, too, but it represents the mortar used when my people labored so hard to make bricks in Egypt.” . . .

Rivka sat back, breathed deeply, then lit the two candles, drawing their flame toward her . . . and reverently began, “Barukh atah Adonai Eloheynu Melekh ha’olam asher kidshanu bidevaro uvishmo anakhnu madlikim haneyrot shel yom tov . . . Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, who has set us apart by His Word, and in whose Name we light the festival lights.”  — Cathy Gohlke in Saving Amelie

Rivka’s Harosat for Passover

Ingredients:

2 large crisp apples, peeled, cored, and chopped1/3 cup chopped walnuts1/3 cup chopped almonds1/3 cup chopped pecans1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground1 teaspoon grated ginger4 crushed cardamom seeds (optional)3 Tablespoons honey1/4 to 1/3 cup red wine (Kosher)

Directions:

Toast nuts in a single layer on a baking sheet.Combine apples, walnuts, almonds, pecans, cinnamon, ginger, and cardamom (if used), and honey.Add the wine and mix thoroughly.The longer this sits, the more the flavors mingle.Serve the day this is made, if possible, but definitely use it within the week. Nuts will soften over time.
This can be spread over Matzo for a tasty snack.

Until next time, enjoy these brilliant autumn days.  God bless you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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Saving Amelie

 

Saving Amelie was inspired by a trip to Oberammergau, a Bavarian village high in the Alps, that produces the world’s longest-running Passion Play every ten years—since 1634!  I wondered, after attending the 2010 Passion Play, how it was that a Passion Play produced in Germany had received Hitler’s endorsement when the Nazis displayed anything but the love of Jesus Christ.  About the same time, I learned of the vast eugenics movement popular in the 1930s and 40s in Germany and around the world, including the U.S.—a movement intent on promoting certain bloodlines and eliminating others. So many questions, so many secrets, so much to discover . . .

Saving Amelie

One letter . . . one request . . . will challenge everything she believes.

Summer, 1939

Rachel Kramer is visiting Germany when a cryptic letter from her estranged friend, begging Rachel for help, upends her world. Married to SS officer Gerhardt Schlick, Kristine sees the dark tides turning and fears her husband views their daughter—deaf since birth—as a blight on his Aryan bloodline.

Once courted by Schlick, Rachel knows he’s as dangerous as the swastikas that now hang like ebony spiders across Berlin. She fears her father, an eminent eugenics scientist, may know about Hitler’s plans for others, like Amelie, whom the regime deems unworthy of life. But when she risks searching his classified documents, she also uncovers shocking secrets about her own history and a family she’s never known.

Hunted by the SS, Rachel turns to Jason Young, a driven American journalist whose connections to the resistance help Rachel and Amelie escape the city. Forced to hide in the Bavarian village of the Passion Play, Rachel’s every ideal is challenged as she and Jason walk a knife’s edge, risking their lives—and asking others to do the same—for those they barely know but come to love.

Saving Amelie was my fifth novel and my most challenging one to write—uncovering history and well-kept secrets, separating propaganda, fantasy and fiction from fact, and untangling timelines.  I worked as a sleuth into the past, never expecting to find history so relevant to today.  This book began my writing journey into WWII history and stories—one I have yet to complete.

I hope you enjoy Saving Amelie if you have not already read it.  You can order it online or wherever books are sold.

Until next time, enjoy these brilliant autumn days.  God bless you, and happy reading!

 

Cathy

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Cheeseball Recipe

Cheeseball

(This tasty recipe is great for a book club meeting, a covered dish appetizer, or a family game night.  It’s colorful and pretty enough to serve at Holiday parties.)

Ingredients:

2 pkg (8-oz size) cream cheese, softened

1 can (8-1/2 oz) crushed pineapple, drained

2 cups chopped pecans

1/4 cup finely chopped red and green sweet peppers

2 tablespoons finely chopped red onion

1 tablespoon seasoned salt

Maraschino cherries

Parsley sprigs for decoration (optional)

Assorted crackers

Directions:

In medium bowl, with fork, beat cream cheese until smooth.

Gradually stir in crushed pineapple, 1cup chopped pecans, the green pepper, onion, and salt.

Shape into a ball. (I often divide this into two balls for gifts)

Roll in remaining nuts.

Wrap in plastic film or foil.

Refrigerate until well chilled—overnight.

To serve: Place cheese ball on serving board and add cherry on top.

Surround with crackers to serve.

Let guests help themselves.

Makes about 40 appetizer servings or two cheese balls for about 20 servings each.

Note: Any leftover cheese mixture can be reshaped and refrigerated, for use another day.

I sometimes half this recipe for a smaller cheese ball or two.

Until next time, God’s abundant blessings for you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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A Quote from the Novel The Medallion

As he was about to stand, about to steal into his apartment building, a lusty, quavering infant cry came from the floor above . . . a cry that screamed of life and hope and another branch on the Tree of Life. . . . He sank to his knees in thanksgiving and wonder. Thank You, Adonai! Thank You! For the first time he noticed that the cold December sky was filled with stars, alive with stars, dancing with stars in their heaven. How had he not noticed before?—Cathy Gohlke, from The Medallion

The Medallion is available online or wherever books are sold.

Until next time, God’s abundant blessings for you, and happy reading!

Cathy

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