Kate Collins's Blog, page 120

Fun in the Sun

Duffy Brown here and ready to celebrate summer. This week is Memorial Day and the official kickoff of long days of sunshine.
I just love summer...heat and all. Bring it on. I love being out in the sun and opening windows and letting in fresh air. Temps have to hit 92 before I turn on the AC. I just remember all those days cooped up inside with the windows closed and freezing outside and try to soak up as much of summer as possible while it’s here.
This is the season of planting my garden and picking flowers for inside. It’s the season of fresh fruit. Watermelon, cantaloupe, cherries, peaches right off the tree and this year is apple year at my house and I can pick them right off my very own tree. Is there anything more fun than that!

It’s time to get out the bike and bike rack for some great rides not so close to home. It’s time to get out the grill and toss on burgers and veggies and hotdogs.

We had sailboats for years and Memorial Day marked the beginning of sailing season. Every Sunday the whole family sailed. I think it’s one of the main reasons my kids are so close today.
So what is your favorite thing about summer? What are you looking forward to the most? Dragging out the grill? Biking? Fresh right-off-the-vine fruits and veggie? Windows wide open?  

KNIT TO BE TIED

by Maggie Sefton



It's hard to believe, but the 14th Kelly Flynn mystery novel will be released in about two weeks on the 7th of June.  Yes, you read that right.  This book is the 14th Kelly Flynn mystery.  Wow.  That even surprises me.  Kelly and the Gang have had so many adventures over the past eleven years since the very first Kelly Flynn---KNIT ONE, KILL TWO---appeared on the scene.   Killers, victims, suspects.  All kinds.  We've truly had the Good, the Bad, and the Innocent in the Kelly Flynn mysteries.  And that's true for #14, the latest mystery----KNIT TO BE TIED.  Here's a a brief blurb description-----



Kelly Flynn and her friends at the Lambspun knitting shop in Fort Connor, Colorado are welcoming a new face into the fold. Shy, sweet, and pregnant Nancy Marsted would like to knit a baby hat, and the Lambspun knitters are more than happy to show her the ropes. They soon learn the father of Nancy’s baby isn’t quite the man she dreamed he was. Far from it.  Then one dark night a speeding car fatally mows down the dad-to-be and strikes a cyclist, who’s a friend of Kelly’s.  There are no clues to the driver’s identity. Everyone worries that a crazed killer is on the loose. Now it’s up to Kelly to try to discover who the culprit is before he’s driven to kill again.

FRENCH CREPES--OOH, LA LA!

By Mary Kennedy                               
 As many of you know, I went to Paris last summer with my son (who took this fabulous picture of the Eiffel Tower.) Paris was as marvelous as ever and I re-discovered one of my favorite French treats--crepes! I say re-discovered because I went to college in Grenoble eons ago and loved crepes back then, too. A lot of folks think crepes are for dessert...and they're certainly delish served with berries and whipped cream.                                                                 You can also add cherries...and sprinkle with powdered sugar...  You can drizzle them with chocolate, add ice cream, or whatever filling you like...   Today, I'd like to tell you how to make wonderful "dinner" crepes. They have no sugar, are light and delicious and I filled mine with roast veggies and rice. This is basic, very simple recipe, so let's get started. This is what the finished product will look like.    Here's the recipe. (Told you it was easy!) Crepes (makes 3). I used a nine inch diameter crepe pan, and no fancy gadgets. Ingredients: I cup flour2 eggs1/2 cup water1/2 cup milk1/4 teaspoon salt2 Tablespoons butter, melted Directions:Mix eggs and flour. Add all other ingredients. Stir. There may be a few lumps, don't worry about them. Heat a crepe pan on high heat (a crepe pan looks like a little frying pan, nearly flat. You can buy them on Amazon, not expensive at all. They sell fancy crepe-makers. You don't need one, a pan is fine.) Melt some butter or cooking oil in the pan and pour in 1/2 cup of the mixture. Cook the crepe for about a minute or so and then loosen the edge and flip to the other side. Cook for about another minute. Now, reduce the heat a little and cook the next crepe the same way. Reduce the heat a little more and cook the third. These burn easily, so be careful! Filling for a (veggie) dinner crepe.  I had a big pan of roasted veggies in the fridge (red and yellow peppers, chopped broccoli, etc) and I added some sautéed mushrooms. Then I added some cooked, leftover wild rice mixed with a little sour cream.  Put filling in a line in the center of the crepe and fold both edges in.  You really can use whatever you have. You can use quinoa or couscous instead of rice.  It helps if the rice is moist, so sometimes I use Rice a Roni.  Place the crepes seam side down to serve. You can re-heat these in microwave if they get cool while you are filling them.                                                          I also made a cheese sauce to go with them. Just melt some flour and butter in a heavy bottom pan and stir to make a roux. Now add some milk and grated (or small chunks) of cheddar and keep stirring. Add a little ground mustard if you like. Pour on top of the crepes. You can top with a little parsley or chives if you have any on hand.                                                            The recipe listed above will make three crepes and since I tend to use a lot of stuffing, one and a half crepes per person is plenty. They are also good as leftovers (if you are lucky enough to have any!) I hope you try this recipe and let me know what you think! Bon appetit! Mary Kennedy
o

Getting To Know You…

Hello. Shelley Giusti ­ Thanks so much for talking time to be interviewed. Nothing more fun than getting to know those we chat with online.
Where do you live now? Erie Pennsylvania
 Pets? Kids? Hobby? I have a sassy Yorkie named Bella, who believes she is a princess. My hobbies are knitting and crocheting( more so on the crocheting part lately) and cross stitching. Getting together with my crochets friends on Tuesday Night. And I have two adult kids.
  ­Upcoming plans? This years plans are a trip to D.C., Ohio and North Carolina. It is also the year the Tall Ships come back so we will be going to that this year.
 What do you do for fun? I like to go to the movies and when I can be outside walking by the lake and a lot of reading outside( well maybe not until summer)
 Do you travel? . Got a fav place? I do travel and my favorite place is going to D.C There is so much to see there and no matter how many times I go I still haven’t seen it all yet.
 How did you come to reading mysteries?  It was about 15 years ago and I happened to be at Borders (when they were still around) .My first novel I read was One for the Money by Janet Evanovich and it grew from there, I got introduced to Cozy Mysteries and fell in love with the books and wanted more. I do read other genres and authors, Mary Higgins Clark , Brad Thor etc. ­
Do you have a fav mystery show? Movie? The Artful Detective has been one of my favorites and I love Miss Fisher. 
 Do you have a fav book that you reread from time to time? Anything by Agatha Christie , I have read several of hers a few times. ­
Do you remember the first mystery you read? That would be One for the Money by Janet Evanovich.
 Is there a character in a book or movie that you’d like to pal around with? For sure Miss Fisher. ­
Tell us anything else about yourself. We all love meeting new friends. I am a book blogger and reviewer I host a Cozy Mystery Book Club and a craft corner at our local Library. I have had the pleasure of meeting so many of my favorite Cozy authors at Malice and full filled two bucket list wishes. One to meet Tonya Kappes in person and the other was to go to Lambspun yarn shop from Maggie Seftons books in Fort Collins Colorado.

SPOTLIGHT ON: Truffle and Sweet Marie

Introduced by Mary Jane Maffini

Please meet Truffle and Sweet Marie, the rescued miniature dachshunds from the Charlotte Adams, professional organizer mysteries. Um, they'd like to speak for themselves.




Greetings.  We hope you bring treats.  We are Truffle and Sweet Marie, miniature dachshunds who own Charlotte Adams.  We are what they call a ‘bonded pair’ and we had been abandoned on a median on the highway when Charlotte spotted us. We were very afraid of all the speeding cars and the noise.   Charlotte was able to figure out how to get us into her car and home to her apartment.  Treats were involved. Charlotte named us for chocolate. Truffle is black and tan and reminds Charlotte of dark chocolate truffles.  Sweet Marie is brown (dachshund people say ‘red’), but brown.  Charlotte called her after a Canadian chocolate bar that she was fond of.  It didn’t take long for us to settle in and help Charlotte improve her life. 
Our author, Mary Jane Maffini, says that we are a lot like her princess dachshunds, Daisy and Lily, but we believe we are unique. 
For one thing, Truffle is a boy and would never have a name like Lily. 
No one from our other home was looking for us.  That was good, because we didn’t want to go back to where we were before.  Ever.  And they were the people who left us on the highway.  We like it here in the second floor apartment of the big yellow house.   We like to sleep on the sofa. And play on the bed.  
 And we like Charlotte’s pillows.
 We’re not sure about the cat downstairs, but you can’t have everything.   
Charlotte is very kind, but doesn’t realize always that we want her to stay with us all the time. She brings us along when she meets her friends, but sometimes she insists on going ‘to work’.  What’s that about?  We are here and needing treats or a drive or a walk or a pat.  We let her know. 
We know that Charlotte is in books and we are trying to figure out how to read them.  It won't be long now!

 We do know what's in some of the books. In Organize Your Corpses she took us to work with her.


 We are little (about twelve beautiful pounds each) and we fit in the passenger seat of her Mazda Miata perfectly. We would like to drive it, but that’s apparently not in the cards.  
That time when Charlotte was meeting her client, the very scary retired high school teacher. Helen ‘Hellfire’ Henley, we were able to dash through the door of the big old house with all the mess everywhere and find ….  Well, we’re not supposed to mention what we found because it might ruin the set-up, whatever a set-up is.   We weren’t allowed back ‘to work’ for a while after that.


Another really scary time, in The Cluttered Corpse, we actually saved Charlotte’s life when she was trapped in a very bad, dangerous place surrounded broken … oh right. Another secret.  We think we would make very good detectives. We have the fedoras!  



 Charlotte isn’t sure. 
But she has been training us to be therapy dogs and we plan to surprise her by doing all the right things at the right time when we are asked to.  We think that will bring lots of treats.  Maybe you think we can’t do it.  May we suggest that you find out in The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder. 
We are taking hundred dollar bets!  You could pay up in … oops!  Here she comes.  We’re out of here.  

Until the next time! Big kisses!Truffle and Sweet Marie
MJ here!  I hope you enjoyed meeting Truffle and Sweet Marie.  I will be without internet on the weekend so won't be able to respond to your comments, but will check them out later.  Hugs to all! 

Ode to a ham sandwich

by Lorraine Bartlett / Lorna Barrett / L.L. Bartlett

There's nothing I like better than a ham and (Swiss) cheese sandwich; unless it's a ham and (Swiss) cheese CLUB sandwich. I have many fond memories of ham sandwiches that have come my way.

One that sticks out happened outside of Albany when Mr. L and I stopped at a family restaurant and he ordered a liverwurst sandwich, and I ordered a ham and (Swiss) cheese sandwich and both of them came with THREE INCHES of meat each!!!  (Wow, those were two heck of a sandwiches!)

The other time was in Buffalo (on the entire other end of New York State) when Mr. L took me to Schwabl's -- where a guy at the bar not only hacked off huge slabs of ham off the bone, but also huge slabs of cheese.  (Accompanied by a very fine martini, there was nothing to complain about.)

The one good thing about a good old ham sandwich (no matter what type of bread it's made on), it's always GOOD.

But then there're a bunch of restaurants that seem to have a no ham-sandwich policy.

YES -- there's a bias against ham.  And it's not for religious reasons or anything like that.  Can you imagine going to a restaurant and the ONLY club sandwich they offer is turkey?  BLAND old TURKEY?  Arrrrrggggg!

Oh, yes. It's a conspiracy. And I first addressed it in my Jeff Resnick story, EYEWITNESS. Poor Jeff, in the middle of Manhattan can't get a lousy ham and cheese sandwich, DESPITE the fact the restaurant offers ham in other dishes. (Think chicken cordon bleu.) It's enough to drive a man to drink. Although, as I recall, he left his beer and stormed out of the restaurant. Hell hath no fury like a man denied his ham and cheese on rye!

I like lettuce, tomato. and mayo on my ham sandwiches (and some dill pickle slices on the side).

What's your favorite sandwich in the whole, wide word and how do you like it?

A surprise in the backyard

By Mary Jane Maffini aka Victoria Abbott 



You probably know that I love flowers and many of you readers share in the joy of them too.  So you’ll appreciate my excitement when I discovered this little patch of trillium thriving in a neglected part of the back garden. 


 As they mature, their petals will turn a lovely shade of pink.   Last year there were a few and this year it was a bonanza.  They seem to do well with rocks and shade.  Who knew?
The trillium is the official flower of our Province of Ontario and quite symbolic around these parts. I love the look of the three petal flower and the delicate leaves and felt that finding them was a bit of good luck for spring.  As a child I remember the excitement of finding mayflowers, the official flower of Nova Scotia.  I’m here now on a trip and I’m keeping my eyes open for the elusive little petals.  Will report any successes to you all! Is your state or provincial flower something that’s important to you?  Are you sentimental about it?   Can you drop in and tell us what your ‘official’ flower is?  I’d love to find out! 

Holy cow where the (*&^ am I???

Hi guys. I’m here to tell you a tale of Duffy Brown on the go.
I was driving back from a conference, had my old trusty iPhone plugged in, Suri + Google Maps up and going and I was headed for home. It was late, I was tired but I just wanted to sleep in my own bed that the cats thought was their bed...but that’s another story.





It was a dark and stormy night and I took off down I-something or other around six o’clock. I had The Help blaring in the CD thing to keep me awake and figured I’d be home in 8 hours.
This all worked pretty well until hour seven rolled around, I’d polished off two Cokes the four packs of M&Ms and nothing looked familiar.

I have NO and I mean NO sense of direction but something told me I should be on I-71 by now. I wasn’t. Not only that but I didn’t recognize any of the exit signs of places I’d passed on the way to the conference. I picked up my phone to check the map and there was no map. There was no phone. What the heck! (I said a lot more than that but this is a family blog) I had the phone plugged in to one of those phone charger things so I should be okay. The operative word is should.
Old trusty was dead and I was in the middle of freaking nowhere with nothing around and it was past midnight.
Scared, I kept driving and finally saw Lexington fifty miles ahead. I figured if I headed for Lexington I’d finally find I-71 or I-75...both would take me home.

It worked! I got home around 3 hours and one gas stop later. The next day I got a new iPhone (after much haggling. The Apple store is haggle central) and now feel better.
I’m a woman alone. 99% of the time I travel alone. Not a problem except when things go right to hell like it did on this trip.
Has this ever happened to you? You’re somewhere and it’s late and you’re totally lost and alone? What did you do? It’s a great opening for a movie or book but sucks in real life.
I’ll give away a tote bag with a compass attached. 

Still Stuck in Spring

by Maggie Sefton


Next week I'll update everyone on the next Kelly Flynn mystery which will be released in June.  Can you believe it's the 14th Kelly Flynn?


Monday of last week I returned to Fort Collins, Colorado right in the midst of Spring (as I reported last Tuesday).  During this past week, we've been treated to Spring weather we haven't seen in at least four years here.  Instead of an early onset of very warm weather verging on Summer temps, we've returned to what was typical Spring weather here in Northern Colorado----cool temps, sunny some days, and rainy some others.  I'm one of those people who loves warm temps and starts
layering up with cooler ones.  Yesterday we had chilly rain practically all day, so I wore my little winter jacket whenever I went out----also with hood.  Of course, I also saw college students running into the grocery store wearing shorts.  We're supposed to have 80's by the weekend.  That's Springtime in Colorado.    

Last week I posted a photo of my big lilac bushes which were in full bloom.  Well, folks, they're still blooming.  Over the weekend, I cut a whole bunch of small branches which were filled with thick and wonderfully fragrant blossoms and gave bunches to my neighbors on both sides of my house here in Fort Collins.  :)   I believe in sharing those lovely blossoms and spreading that wonderful lilac scent all over.

Of course, I also understand that a great many people look at Springtime which trepidation because of their allergies to all those gorgeous flowerings plants, trees, and bushes.  I've been fortunate my entire life in that I have not experienced any of those allergies, so I stick my nose
down deep in the blossoms and inhale.  I know. . .several of you may be cringing right now.  I have had numerous friends over a lifetime (and do now) who suffer terribly with those Spring allergies.  And this is a season of sneezing and coughing for them.  So, it's not a happy time for those folks.

And, of course, Spring is also a time that all sorts of outside activities begin---outside BBQs, picnics in the park, and of course----watching our children and/or grandchildren play various outside Spring sports.  Wow. . .if I had a nickel for every outside sports team I have watched with either my children or grandchildren or some other family member or friend participating, I would be a rich woman today---as my grandmother used to say.  My dear grandmother (my mother's mother), a good Virginian, was born in 1890, so in her day a nickel could actually buy something.  :)   I don't think that's the case any longer.    Unless you folks know better.  Tell me. . .what can a nickel buy in your neck of the woods?   Also one of my dear grandmother's sayings.  :)  

DO YOU SAY YES WHEN YOU SHOULD SAY NO?

By Mary Kennedy                              
                                                        
 "Sure." "Yes." "Hey, no problem, I'll be glad to."  Do these words sound familiar? How many times have you agreed to do something, to take on one more task, to tackle a really unappealing job when your instincts told you to refuse? I think as women, we're particularly vulnerable to taking on more than we can handle and I caution my female clients against this.                                                                                               
Maybe it's because women have been taught to be nurturers. Maybe it's because women think they're never "doing enough," and set impossible standards for themselves.                                                       
Maybe it's because women easily are "guilted" into taking on more than anyone could reasonably handle. Often their internal dialogue runs along the lines of "If I don't do it, who will?" (When my clients tell me this, I often say, "If you were run over by a bus tomorrow, who would do it?")                                                             Every situation is different, but for some reason, I see a lot of my female friends, colleagues and clients going to superhuman lengths to try to accommodate everyone. Everyone but themselves, that is! There's a wonderful quote from Eleanor Roosevelt that sums it up.                                          Even though it's tempting to think we can push ourselves to the limit and put a tremendous strain on our physical and mental well-being to "get the job done," we have to learn to say no. The weight of the world really *doesn't* rest on your shoulders (you just think it does. Or maybe you've been taught to think it does.)                                                                                               Maybe it's because people expect too much of us.  Maybe we expect too much of ourselves.                                                                 In the end, we all need to take a step back, take a deep breath and separate the "needs to be done," from the "should be done," and the "maybe it can wait till tomorrows." Every job we take on isn't earth-shatteringly important. Trust me, the sun will still rise in the east and set in the west, whether you do this *crucial* task or not.  At first it will seem awkward, but the next time you're asked to do something, the right course might be to stop, think, and just say no. Try it. You can learn to love it, and you can gain back a big chunk of your health, happiness and well-being. It's not being selfish, it's taking care of yourself. Good luck and give it a try. Be sure to let me know how you're doing with this new approach and I'll cheer you on!  By Mary Kennedy