Sheila Roberts's Blog, page 20

HANSEL AND GRETEL WOULD LOVE THESE

Oh, gingerbread! How we love it. And we especially love it when it comes in pretty shapes, like houses. Which is probably why the annual holiday gingerbread house display at Seattle's Sheraton is so popular. Going downtown for lunch and a tour of those amazing creations makes a perfect family outing. Or a girlfriend outing, which is exactly what I did yesterday. How fun to get to catch up with my old high school pal Donna, enjoy a great lunch and then tour those houses!
The only down side? Afterward I was craving gingerbread like a starving woman. I went home determined to bake gingerbread cookies. Maybe even a house. Except the few gingerbread houses I've tried to make were abysmal - needed to be condemned by the board of gingerbread health. But I could make gingerbread boys. Love gingerbread boys.
So do my fat cells, so it's probably a good thing I was too busy to haul out the flour, sugar, butter and spices.
Now I've recovered. The craving is gone. And that's a good thing, considering how many other Christmas cookies I still have to bake. And sample.
Oh, my poor hips!

ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS A CUTE CAT

We had a ton of fun at the book parties celebrating Ambrose's story, THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS, this season, and one of the fun activities we enjoyed at the Silverdale Barnes & Noble was a cute cat contest. I asked my friend Tim, who came with a slew of pictures, to send me some so I could post them. Aren't these adorable? (By the way, for those of you who don't live in the Northwest, Ivars is a landmark seafood bar in Seattle. Great seafood. This kitty has excellent taste!)
How on earth did they get this picture? And this guy is the spitting image of Ambrose! King of the stuffed animal jungle!

AND THE WINNER IS...

Deb, whose amazing cat is part firefighter. Thanks to everyone who entered the contest. All your cats sound fabulous!

BOOK SIGNING FUN

    We're about to bring the book signing fun to a close on this Sheila book. We had some stellar fun at all the parties - food, goodies, recipes, practical holiday tips, gifts and pranks. In fact, one prank almost got a certain big brother in trouble. My oldest brother loves to crash my signing parties in disguise. At the Federal Way Barnes & Noble (in Washington) he came dressed as... well, I'm not sure, but he looked scary, like someone who would happily mug me for my last brownie. And when he entered the store, the employees were sure he was there to rob the place because not only did he look suspicious he was acting suspicious, lurking around the books shelves like a crazy stalker. And he was acting like one too, heckling me while I talked. He so didn't look like himself that it took my sister-in-law teasing, "Don't you recognize him?" for me to see past the disguise. Fortunately, all the laughter that ensued alerted the staff that he was indeed harmless. Of course, sickies that we are, everyone in my family is mildly disappointed that the police didn't come and fit him for some Jailhouse rock bracelets. Wish I'd gotten a picture of him. Instead, you'll have to settle for this pic of all the yummy breakfast goodies we had at that store.
    Speaking of goodies, the Barnes & Noble in Olympia, WA were not to be outdone. We had scones and holiday tea. Yummy! (Hmmm. All these goodies could have something to do with why the weight I thought I'd lost has found me once again.)
And yes, that's me, gearnig up for our guests with my face in the food. Of course we're having fun. We had chocolate eclairs! Pictured here with authors Gina Robinson, Theresa Meyers and a new friend named Kathy who was celebrating her first book release. Kema and Dode, doing their part to make the goodies disappear. How cute are these gals?! Look here! I finally made the Christmas table! (The equivalent of getting to sit at the grown-up table at Thanksgiving) At the tea party in Olympia with one of my Sheila Girls, Diana. Is she cute or what? Her hair looks better! I had a spectacular time up in Leavenworth (Wa) signing at A Book for All Seasons. Gerhardt and I stayed at the Enzian Inn, which is a lovely place, all done up to give visitors a taste of Germany. At breakfast in the morning, diners were serenaded by an older gentleman dressed in traditional German garb who played the Alpenhorn. I loved that... all except the part where the guy climbed up on the wooden balcony railing to play. It was all I could do not to run out there and grab him by the legs so he wouldn't fall to his death. Of course, if I'd run out and grabbed him I probably would have knocked the poor old man to his death so it's probably just as well I kept my seat. 

    In addition to musical serenades, I received a special treat - a festive hat created by a lady named Renee. Let me tell, you, Renee and her family were sooo fun to visit with. They'd all come to town to enjoy some family fun time and Renee made matching hats for all of them so they could find each other easily in the crowd. Well, I raved over the hats and next thing I knew Renee was giving me hers. How cool is that?! So, here I am, pictured below with Renee and her granddaughter Jodi. Daughter Ellie kindly snapped the pic with her smart phone (I want one of those!) so we could record the moment for posterity. Ladies, that was such a highlight!
    I enjoyed talking with three budding young writers also: Mikaila and Vanessa, who are writing a book together, and Regina Rae, who has all kinds of projects going and wants to do this for a living when she hits the world of grown-ups.
    And I meet a couple of friendly ladies down from Canada who live right near Abbotsford, where "On Strike for Christmas" was filmed.
    How fun it is to meet people who love to read! A big thanks to all who came out to support me and say hi. And thanks to those of you who hadn't yet read a Sheila book but were willing to give one a try. As Thanksgiving weekend come to a close I can't help but think about how blessed I am. And one of my biggest blessings is you, dear readers. Thank you for loving books!

OH, THE FUN WE HAVE!

Here I am with my good buddy Jill Barnett, being goofy. It's one big party at a Sheila sighting! We had so much fun yesterday at the Nine Lives of Christmas party at the Silverdale Barnes & Noble. Food, games, door prizes -a good time was had by all. After the "official" part of the party at the bookstore, we hauled everyone in attendance to Hales Ales in the mall for appetizers and more fun. As you can see by the pictures, many of us got into the spirit of the thing! A big thanks to all my friends and fans who showed up. You all made it a memorable day!
Sisters-in-law enjoying girl time together. Some of our guests made a day of it, enjoying shopping an lunch before the book party. Shopping, lunch, book, signing, and finally, free food. What a great girls' day!
A few of our guests enjoying themselves... and one of them is checking out the loot in the gift basket she won in the door prize drawing.
I love it when people get in the spirit of things. Is this cat hat too cute or what?!

FAMOUS CAT QUIZ

Here's a fun game we played in honor of Ambrose the cat at one of my book signings. See how many of these famous "cats" you can guess. The answers are below but try not to peek!
1. Became famous doing cat food commercials
2. Put on his owner's shoe wear and turned into a mover and shaker
3. Ate breakfast at Tiffany's
4. Guy with a big smile, famous for his disappearing act
5. Belongs to Strawberry Shortcake
6. Is Tweety Bird's favorite feline
7. Went boating with a feathered friend
8. Solves mysteries with his human Temple Barr in Carole Nelson Douglas's mystery novels
9. Is a comic book celebrity:
10. Had only her memories left in CATS
11. Got his paws burned thanks to Tennessee Williams
12. Is big into stovepipe hats
13. Was Kim Novak's familiar in BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE
14. Top musicians in Nashville
15. The mama cat in Disney's THE ARISTOCATS
16. Before he was known as the King, Elvis was called this
17. A comic book star who looks a lot like Garfield
18. Greedy politicians and gluttonous felines
19. Lillian Jackson Braun's sleuthing kitty
20. Cartoon leader of a gang of alley cats


Answers:
1. Morris (By the way, did you know? Morris was rescued from a Chicago shelter 20 minutes prior to being put down?)
2. Puss 'n Boots
3. Cat
4. the Cheshire Cat
5. Custard
6. Sylvester
7. the Pussycat (of owl and the pussycat fame)
8. Midnight Louie
9. Garfield
10. Grizabella
11. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
12. the Cat in the Hat
13. Pyewacket
14. Nashville Cats
15. Duchess
16. the Hillbilly Cat
17. Heathcliff
18. Fat Cats
19. Yum Yum (or CoCo)
20. Top Cat

WHY SHOULD THE KIDS HAVE ALL THE FUN?

That is what I say anyway! I have been having a great time this month celebrating fall fun with my girlfriends. Our neighborhood something-for-nothing club got together for a boo breakfast at my house where the theme was trick-or-treat. We played all kinds of fun games (Draw a Jack-o-lantern.. blindfolded! Find the missing item in the picture - you can download these from many online sites. Word scramble games.) My pal Bonnie provided the prizes: a bunch of girl goodies she'd scrounged from various sources. That blue bottle was a popular item and Annette and Sheila had a leg wrestling contest to see who got it. I have bigger thighs. Why did she win?!!!


As you can see by the picture, it took all our strength. Good thing we had pumpkin scones and shrimp deviled eggs to recharge our batteries!
Oh, so many parties, so little time. The boo breakfast was last week and this week, I got together with my Game Girls for a Halloween lunch.  Costumes were over the top - we had everything from pirates to witch doctors. I'm costume challenged. I donned kitty ears and a collar and came as a cat... in honor of Ambrose, hero of my new release, THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS. Jill Barnett was our hostess and she made the world's best cupcakes... just like the Hostess chocolate cupcakes of our youth... only a million times better, with a filling made of whipped cream and marscapone cheese. Yum! I brought pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Are our cupcakes gorgeous or what?!    You know, as moms we can get so busy making sure our children have fun we forget about ourselves. (Well, some of us. Obviously, I never do!) But here's a bit of Dr. Sheila advice: there's nothing wrong with taking a little time to laugh and enjoy life. Show your kids you can have fun at any age. Make memories with your friends while you can. Our time here is short and it goes fast, so do those girl things now while you're all together! I hope you all get a chance to do just that this month.

APPLES & FUN

How gorgeous are these babies? This should be on a magazine cover! If it's fall in the Pacific Northwest it must be time for the annual apple party at the home of our friends Kathy and Tom. This is always so much fun - our hosts always gather a great mix of people, both old and young (four generations present at his party). We spend the afternoon putting what feels like a million apples through a hand-made apple press and making cider, and then we eat. And eat. And eat. Kathy has the Martha Stewart gene (as you can see by the pictures) and makes everything beautiful. We set up a regular assembly line with some people washing apples and others of us line up along on an old picnic table cutting the apples into quarters and putting them into bowls to be passed on to the guys running the apple press. Rain or shine, we gather - but it's much nicer when the weather cooperates as it did yesterday. There's a fire to gather around for those taking a break and a local musician friend serenades us. The Great Gatsby had nothing on Tom and Kathy, let me tell you. Every year we leave with homemade cider for the freezer and a host of lovely memories.
Kathy brings the Martha Stewart touch to everything she does - simple and elegant! Our host, Tom, setting up the drink station Part of the apple press assembly line You may be thinking, well, darn, wish I had an apple press and a Tom and Kathy in my life. Everyone should have a Tom and Kathy in their life, but let me tell you, you don't need an apple press to celebrate the joys of the season. Host an apple party in your a back yard (or loft if you live in the city) and have all your friends bring their favorite apple dish. A fire in the fire pit or the fireplace, some good friends, some hot apple cider and you're good to go. Fall is a time of changing colors and bountiful harvests. Let's celebrate!
A few guests enjoying break time

BUG SOUP... HOW NOT TO MAKE IT

Yes, I know. Doesn't that sound appetizing? Believe me, it's not!
I'm sure there are many things in life that are more gross than finding bugs in your soup, but right now that's at the top of my list.
     When my pal Jill and I went to the ocean for a writing retreat I promised her homemade chicken soup. I make a mean chicken soup and this one was going to be extra fabulous as I was adding organic brown rice. Thinking to be both health and savings conscious I had purchased a big bag at my local warehouse store. It came in this really cool burlap bag, which I figured I could re-use later for ... something. And inside that bag the rice was sealed up in plastic. So, with the utmost trust, I took out a cupful and dumped it into the pot. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Have to get this soup done and cooled before we leave.
     Our first night there was a perfect soup night. We had a storm complete with waves crashing on the jetty, putting on a real show. I flipped on the fake fireplace. Then I whipped out my homemade rolls and heated the soup and served it.
     And, what a shock. There was a teeny weenie little bug floating in my soup. Eeew. Okay, one bug. Pick it out and eat. Don't be a sissy.
     Hmmm. Another spoonful of soup produced another bug. And, what was this? Another? Careful inspection showed that my soup had quite a few bits of bug protein floating in it. EEEW!!!
     Needless to say, little Sheila didn't finish her soup. I had to toss the whole batch. And, as we sat playing food detective, there was really only one logical conclusion to come to: it had to be the rice.
     Sure enough, I got home and checked my big bag of imported bargain rice and there were the bugs. EEEW! And one of them was still alive. Double EEEW! Needless to say, the rice got returned and I don't think I'm taking another chance on imported organic rice from India ever again. I don't care how cool the bag is. There is a lot to be said for buying American.
     So, here is our number one cooking lesson for the day:Check your ingredients carefully before dumping them willie-nillie into a pot (especially when you've just brought them home from the store).  I've been cooking long enough to know that. I've definitely re-learned my lesson!

CANDY MAKING - IF AT FIRST YOU DONT SUCCEED...

   ... toss the whole batch. That's what my pal Doreen and I concluded after testing a recipe for white chocolate truffles. Oh, the flavoring was fabulous! (I'm not telling you what it was because right now it is top secret.) But the texture? A disaster. This is the second time I've tried to make these white chocolate truffles. The first attempt failed but I salvaged it and it turned into the white chocolate fudge recipe that you find in my book ANGEL LANE.
     Since next summer's book is going to include chocolate recipes I thought maybe I'd try again and see if I could master the art of white chocolate truffles. Maybe I could get in touch with my inner Julia Child this time and actually make a ganache that turned out.
     So I drafted Doreen, a seasoned candy cook and we tried again. The darned recipe baffled both of us! And, as you can see by the pictures below, once again, disaster struck. Only this time worse than ever. We followed the recipe to the letter, used the best white chocolate for the ganache and allowed it two hours to set in the fridge (Something the original recipe neglected to mention.) All to no avail. Part of the ganache gave us hope, but as we worked out way down the bowl it became quickly evident that this wasn't going to work. The white chocolate chips I thought would be perfect for our coating never quite worked out either.
     Well, waste not want not, we thought, and decided to once again turn the failed ganache into fudge and then top it with a nice, white chocolate layer. Even my husband, who eats everything, wouldn't touch it.
     So it's back to the drawing board.Doreen is determined to get to the bottom of this failed recipe mystery. While she's doing her culinary sleuthing, I'll be testing more chocolate candy recipes. Some I've scrounged, others have been sent by some of you. We'll try 'em all. Wish me luck. Obviously, I need it!
Here's my pal Doreen, queen of the kitchen. We thought maybe the bowl was too deep and tried putting our ganache in other shallow containers. Even tried putting the balls in the freezer. One picture is worth a thousand "icks"