Kate Collins's Blog, page 154
June 19, 2015
MY FAVORITE HOME-MADE MARINARA SAUCE
By Mary Kennedy
As we talked about last week, few things can beat a nice plate of spaghetti and meatballs. No matter what the season, or what the occasion, there is just something wonderful (almost addictive!) about pasta. If only it had fewer calories and carbs! In case you missed last Saturday's post, I posted photos of "zucchini pasta" made with a handy gadget called a "spiralizer." It turns this...
into this...
Does it taste exactly like pasta? No, not quite. But it's a darn good substitute and here's a hint. You can start using "half real pasta" and "half zucchini pasta" to ween yourself off the wheat version. Gradually reduce the amount of "real" pasta and you will be happy with the zucchini version (at least that's the theory. Hey, nothing is perfect in life.) But what's pasta without a delicious sauce?
I started making my own marinara sauce years ago. I want to save calories, eliminate fat and get rid of any "processed" taste. It's incredibly easy to do and now that basil is here, I make it and freeze it for the long cold winter.(I'm experimenting with keeping my basil plants going throughout the winter, but that's the subject for another blog, and I'm open to suggestions.)
A quick note about basil. You pinch it back, right? That's very important for encouraging new growth. And you can take those tall straggly pieces, strip away the bottom leaves, plunk the stem in a glass of water and in 2 or 3 weeks, you will have an entire new plant. Unlimited basil!! But more about that later. Here's my basic recipe for marinara sauce. Marinara sauce Saute a Vidalia onion (or a regular onion or a "sweet onion" if you can't find Vidalia.)
Add a little minced garlic to the pan and sauté that, as well. (this is optional, I don't use garlic. Another option is garlic powder.)
Add 8 ounces of fresh mushrooms to the pan. Keep stirring.
Now add crushed tomatoes. I usually start with a big can, or two or three smaller cans.
If you want more "texture" in your sauce, you can add a can of diced tomatoes, this is optional too.
Sometimes I add a handful of cherry tomatoes at this point. They're delicious and they add a sweet, delicate taste to the sauce.
And I add a pinch (maybe a teaspoon) of sugar. This cuts the acidic taste of the tomatoes and just make the sauce taste better.
Now's the time to add plenty of fresh basil and parsley.
Add a little black pepper and salt (I use Crazy Salt) which is both pepper and salt mixed together. If you are trying to cut down or eliminate salt, just skip this step. I also add a little Italian seasoning (but if you are lucky enough to have fresh oregano in the garden, use that instead.) You can tailor this recipe any way you want and I keep tasting as I go along. A little of this, a little of that! Now just let the sauce simmer and all the flavors will get acquainted with each other. I let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve over zucchini pasta (or real pasta, if you must!) and I think you will like it. Let me know how you do with it, and next week, I'm posting a recipe for "zucchini manicotti" and "zucchini lasagna." Both are delish! Thanks for stopping by and happy gardening and cooking, everyone. Once tomatoes are really in season, I'll post a recipe for "fresh marinara sauce" with no canned ingredients. Mary Kennedy
As we talked about last week, few things can beat a nice plate of spaghetti and meatballs. No matter what the season, or what the occasion, there is just something wonderful (almost addictive!) about pasta. If only it had fewer calories and carbs! In case you missed last Saturday's post, I posted photos of "zucchini pasta" made with a handy gadget called a "spiralizer." It turns this...
into this...
Does it taste exactly like pasta? No, not quite. But it's a darn good substitute and here's a hint. You can start using "half real pasta" and "half zucchini pasta" to ween yourself off the wheat version. Gradually reduce the amount of "real" pasta and you will be happy with the zucchini version (at least that's the theory. Hey, nothing is perfect in life.) But what's pasta without a delicious sauce?
I started making my own marinara sauce years ago. I want to save calories, eliminate fat and get rid of any "processed" taste. It's incredibly easy to do and now that basil is here, I make it and freeze it for the long cold winter.(I'm experimenting with keeping my basil plants going throughout the winter, but that's the subject for another blog, and I'm open to suggestions.)
A quick note about basil. You pinch it back, right? That's very important for encouraging new growth. And you can take those tall straggly pieces, strip away the bottom leaves, plunk the stem in a glass of water and in 2 or 3 weeks, you will have an entire new plant. Unlimited basil!! But more about that later. Here's my basic recipe for marinara sauce. Marinara sauce Saute a Vidalia onion (or a regular onion or a "sweet onion" if you can't find Vidalia.)
Add a little minced garlic to the pan and sauté that, as well. (this is optional, I don't use garlic. Another option is garlic powder.)
Add 8 ounces of fresh mushrooms to the pan. Keep stirring.
Now add crushed tomatoes. I usually start with a big can, or two or three smaller cans.
If you want more "texture" in your sauce, you can add a can of diced tomatoes, this is optional too.
Sometimes I add a handful of cherry tomatoes at this point. They're delicious and they add a sweet, delicate taste to the sauce.
And I add a pinch (maybe a teaspoon) of sugar. This cuts the acidic taste of the tomatoes and just make the sauce taste better. 
Now's the time to add plenty of fresh basil and parsley.
Add a little black pepper and salt (I use Crazy Salt) which is both pepper and salt mixed together. If you are trying to cut down or eliminate salt, just skip this step. I also add a little Italian seasoning (but if you are lucky enough to have fresh oregano in the garden, use that instead.) You can tailor this recipe any way you want and I keep tasting as I go along. A little of this, a little of that! Now just let the sauce simmer and all the flavors will get acquainted with each other. I let it simmer for about 20 minutes. Serve over zucchini pasta (or real pasta, if you must!) and I think you will like it. Let me know how you do with it, and next week, I'm posting a recipe for "zucchini manicotti" and "zucchini lasagna." Both are delish! Thanks for stopping by and happy gardening and cooking, everyone. Once tomatoes are really in season, I'll post a recipe for "fresh marinara sauce" with no canned ingredients. Mary Kennedy
June 18, 2015
Maggie and I have a lot in common
by Lorraine Bartlett / Lorna Barrett / L.L. Bartlett
If you've been reading the blog on a regular basis, you know that Maggie recently lost her mother. Well, now so have I.
Maggie's Mom was in relatively good health until recently. So was my mother, except she'd been living under a death sentence since August, with the oncologist (a particularly unpleasant woman) telling her in September that she had six months to live. My mother took the news with grace. She said, "I've had a wonderful life and I feel very lucky." She never cried. She never felt sorry for herself, and she rarely even mentioned when she was in pain.
So, we made the best of the time she had left. We spent time at our family cottage (until it got too cold). We went out to lunch and had toasts. She made her famous bread stuffing and creamed onions for Thanksgiving, and again for Christmas. She was happy. She had the greatest attitude.
I wish I could say I felt the same way. I woke up every day with dread. When will I lose my mother?
Mum did well until mid-February when she started saying, "I don't feel right." The cancer was beginning to spread, but we went out to lunch one last time and she ate her entire fish fry. I think that was the last decent meal she ate. Soon after, she had to deal with nausea that wouldn't go away. Her primary care physician didn't seem to take this seriously. She kept insisting my mother use over-the-counter meds. They didn't help. She started losing weight. She lost twenty pounds in about three weeks because even the thought of food made her nauseous.
I did everything I could to find something she could eat. I even learned to make the perfect poached egg Julia Child style. (Although it was actually a Gordon Ramsey video on YouTube that make that possible.)
Then she entered hospice care. A nurse came to visit her twice a week. Things didn't get better. The nurse had no better luck at getting the primary care physician to treat Mom's increasing pain and the nausea. I had to throw a temper tantrum to get SOMEBODY to listen, and my mother was finally put on a different medication that made a world of difference. But by then she'd lost the will to eat.
Mom started feeling weaker, so my brother and I asked her to abandon her cane and use my Dad's old walker if she was alone in the house. A week later, we hired home health aids to stay with her at night, while my brother and I kept after the social worker about finding a bed in a hospice home. Ten days later, Mum was invited to go to Mt. Carmel House. A place to die.
The day I drove her away from her home of 15 years for the last time, she never even looked back.
For me, it meant I no longer had to run down the road four or five times a day to make sure she was okay. That she was eating, that she took her meds. To put on and take off her compression stockings. I was pretty frazzled, but then suddenly -- she wasn't in my care anymore. Though I went to visit her twice a day (put a lot of miles on my car and listened to a bunch of audiobooks on the way to and from the home), it was very stressful ... because once she went to Mt. Carmel, she gave up. Every day she slipped away a little more. Every day I left Mt. Carmel in tears.
Mum stayed at Mt. Carmel for six weeks. Six weeks where I felt helpless and like I'd failed her. Our last real conversation happened about ten days before she passed. In her own way, she knew if she didn't say what she needed to say, I would never hear it. It was difficult for her, but she told me she loved me. She told me she was proud of me. She told me she wanted me to have a lot more success in my career.
The nurses gave her exceptional care. I know how my Dad suffered in the hospital and the nursing home. The care he received was adequate (by their terms, not mine). The nurses and volunteers at Mt. Carmel were absolutely selfless. If there was anything my mother wanted (such as Bird's Custard), someone jumped in the car, went to the grocery store, and bought it. She wanted lemonade? They made her lemonade.
Mum passed away last Saturday evening, nine months and three days after the oncologist gave her six months to live. She used to joke that she didn't know if she should die sooner or hang on much longer just to thwart that woman who couldn't seem to muster an ounce of compassion. (Believe me, she will die horribly in one of my future books.)
Mum asked me not to talk about her publicly until she was gone. She didn't want her Facebook friends to feel sorry for her, as a bunch of them were also my readers. That was the kind of person she was. She never wanted to stand in the limelight, but she supported me in everything I ever wanted to do.
But my Mum was a superstar to me. She and my Dad both were. My mother could sew. She made a lot of her own clothes when she lived in England, and when I was a little girl, she made a lot of mine, too. She once worked in a tailor shop and learned a lot. She made beautiful quilts, like this one I gave to Mt. Carmel so that other people would know that Valerie "Pat" Bartlett was an extremely talented needlewoman. She like to hand- and machine knit and made some beautiful sweaters. (For more than forty years, she hand-knitted all my Dad's socks.)
Mum was a great cook. Her prime rib dinners were the stuff of legend. The only thing that eluded her was baking cookies. For some reason, hers never came out all that good -- but who cared, because everything else was great.
My Mum also had two green thumbs. She was a great gardener. She could grow anything. She and Dad were organic gardeners long before organic became mainstream. Her orchids bloomed again and again. She kept African violets for years and they bloomed and bloomed and bloomed, too.
My Mum gave me the wonderful gift of a love of reading. She introduced me to mysteries (well, romantic suspense) when I was 11 or 12. I was bored one summer day and she thrust a Readers Digest Condensed book in my hand and said, "Read this." It was Ammie Come Home by Barbara Michaels. I loved it so much, she bought me the hardcover (unabridged) edition (and probably another eight or ten of Ms. Michaels books--in hardcover!). I'm a writer today, because I came from a house where reading was encouraged. We took both newspapers, Time and Newsweek (and a bunch of other) magazines, and our house was filled with books. When I brought Mr. L home to meet the parents, he knew he was going to like them because there were so many books on their shelves.
Not many people I know would have wanted to take a vacation, let alone 10-15 vacations, with their parents. But I did. Mr. L and I traveled with my parents to England (Scotland and Wales) twice; Italy, Canada (several times), Washington, Williamsburg, San Francisco, Lancaster PA, Bar Harbor, Portland, Boston ... I can't remember them all right now, but we kept going with my Mum and Dad because they knew how to travel. We always had a great time. Mr. L did not have a happy relationship with the in-laws from his first marriage. He considered my Mum and Dad to be his best friends. (How lucky is that for a daughter?)
My Mum was almost 80 when she got her first computer. She loved to play Mahjong and do jigsaw puzzles online. She checked her email a couple of times a day, and she loved to read about what family and friends and her favorite authors were doing on Facebook. (The last book she read was Duffy's Demise in Denim. She told me, "That Bruce Willis is always up to something!")
I have many, many happy memories of my mother. Like this picture that I took last summer at our family's summer cottage during a "girls only" weekend. Look at that smile. That's how I want to remember my Mum.
But right now I'm hurting. Like Maggie, I haven't been able to do much writing for the past couple of months. Back in January, I started a piece that came out earlier this week. Thinking about death so much, I knew the only way I could get through what was to come was to write about it. I turned to Jeff Resnick to channel my upcoming grief. I literally wrote that story one paragraph at a time. One day I might write 100 words, the next I might write only 25. I kept going and tried to work on other projects, but as my Mum weakened, it was all I could do to get through the day. (Thank goodness I have the most compassionate and the best editor on the planet.)
As Maggie blogged earlier this week, she's trying to adjust to the new normal without her mother. Me, too. Like Maggie, I'm trying to find some structure, a new routine. It's still too new and raw, but I'm hoping that I can find that new normal and adjust. Time is my best ally right now. I need to get back to writing. It's what keeps me going. What keeps me sane. Tricia and Angelica are waiting. So are Katie, Tori and Kathy, and Amanda.
Mr. L (and Leann and Ellery) keep telling me to stop beating myself up, and it was actually Mr. L that said something that really resonated. "No matter what you or anyone else did, the outcome was going to be the same." And I can hear my Mum telling me, "Oh, Lorraine--please don't cry." (But I still can't help it.)
I'm not the only person who ever lost her Mum, and many people left lovely condolences on Facebook that made me cry and made me smile. The ones I like best were the shared memories of their mothers.
Do you have a memory of your mother you'd like to share? If so, please leave a comment.
(P.S. I promise to have a shorter post next week.)
If you've been reading the blog on a regular basis, you know that Maggie recently lost her mother. Well, now so have I.
Maggie's Mom was in relatively good health until recently. So was my mother, except she'd been living under a death sentence since August, with the oncologist (a particularly unpleasant woman) telling her in September that she had six months to live. My mother took the news with grace. She said, "I've had a wonderful life and I feel very lucky." She never cried. She never felt sorry for herself, and she rarely even mentioned when she was in pain.So, we made the best of the time she had left. We spent time at our family cottage (until it got too cold). We went out to lunch and had toasts. She made her famous bread stuffing and creamed onions for Thanksgiving, and again for Christmas. She was happy. She had the greatest attitude.
I wish I could say I felt the same way. I woke up every day with dread. When will I lose my mother?
Mum did well until mid-February when she started saying, "I don't feel right." The cancer was beginning to spread, but we went out to lunch one last time and she ate her entire fish fry. I think that was the last decent meal she ate. Soon after, she had to deal with nausea that wouldn't go away. Her primary care physician didn't seem to take this seriously. She kept insisting my mother use over-the-counter meds. They didn't help. She started losing weight. She lost twenty pounds in about three weeks because even the thought of food made her nauseous. 
I did everything I could to find something she could eat. I even learned to make the perfect poached egg Julia Child style. (Although it was actually a Gordon Ramsey video on YouTube that make that possible.)Then she entered hospice care. A nurse came to visit her twice a week. Things didn't get better. The nurse had no better luck at getting the primary care physician to treat Mom's increasing pain and the nausea. I had to throw a temper tantrum to get SOMEBODY to listen, and my mother was finally put on a different medication that made a world of difference. But by then she'd lost the will to eat.
Mom started feeling weaker, so my brother and I asked her to abandon her cane and use my Dad's old walker if she was alone in the house. A week later, we hired home health aids to stay with her at night, while my brother and I kept after the social worker about finding a bed in a hospice home. Ten days later, Mum was invited to go to Mt. Carmel House. A place to die.The day I drove her away from her home of 15 years for the last time, she never even looked back.
For me, it meant I no longer had to run down the road four or five times a day to make sure she was okay. That she was eating, that she took her meds. To put on and take off her compression stockings. I was pretty frazzled, but then suddenly -- she wasn't in my care anymore. Though I went to visit her twice a day (put a lot of miles on my car and listened to a bunch of audiobooks on the way to and from the home), it was very stressful ... because once she went to Mt. Carmel, she gave up. Every day she slipped away a little more. Every day I left Mt. Carmel in tears.
Mum stayed at Mt. Carmel for six weeks. Six weeks where I felt helpless and like I'd failed her. Our last real conversation happened about ten days before she passed. In her own way, she knew if she didn't say what she needed to say, I would never hear it. It was difficult for her, but she told me she loved me. She told me she was proud of me. She told me she wanted me to have a lot more success in my career.
The nurses gave her exceptional care. I know how my Dad suffered in the hospital and the nursing home. The care he received was adequate (by their terms, not mine). The nurses and volunteers at Mt. Carmel were absolutely selfless. If there was anything my mother wanted (such as Bird's Custard), someone jumped in the car, went to the grocery store, and bought it. She wanted lemonade? They made her lemonade. Mum passed away last Saturday evening, nine months and three days after the oncologist gave her six months to live. She used to joke that she didn't know if she should die sooner or hang on much longer just to thwart that woman who couldn't seem to muster an ounce of compassion. (Believe me, she will die horribly in one of my future books.)
Mum asked me not to talk about her publicly until she was gone. She didn't want her Facebook friends to feel sorry for her, as a bunch of them were also my readers. That was the kind of person she was. She never wanted to stand in the limelight, but she supported me in everything I ever wanted to do.
But my Mum was a superstar to me. She and my Dad both were. My mother could sew. She made a lot of her own clothes when she lived in England, and when I was a little girl, she made a lot of mine, too. She once worked in a tailor shop and learned a lot. She made beautiful quilts, like this one I gave to Mt. Carmel so that other people would know that Valerie "Pat" Bartlett was an extremely talented needlewoman. She like to hand- and machine knit and made some beautiful sweaters. (For more than forty years, she hand-knitted all my Dad's socks.) Mum was a great cook. Her prime rib dinners were the stuff of legend. The only thing that eluded her was baking cookies. For some reason, hers never came out all that good -- but who cared, because everything else was great.
My Mum also had two green thumbs. She was a great gardener. She could grow anything. She and Dad were organic gardeners long before organic became mainstream. Her orchids bloomed again and again. She kept African violets for years and they bloomed and bloomed and bloomed, too.
My Mum gave me the wonderful gift of a love of reading. She introduced me to mysteries (well, romantic suspense) when I was 11 or 12. I was bored one summer day and she thrust a Readers Digest Condensed book in my hand and said, "Read this." It was Ammie Come Home by Barbara Michaels. I loved it so much, she bought me the hardcover (unabridged) edition (and probably another eight or ten of Ms. Michaels books--in hardcover!). I'm a writer today, because I came from a house where reading was encouraged. We took both newspapers, Time and Newsweek (and a bunch of other) magazines, and our house was filled with books. When I brought Mr. L home to meet the parents, he knew he was going to like them because there were so many books on their shelves.Not many people I know would have wanted to take a vacation, let alone 10-15 vacations, with their parents. But I did. Mr. L and I traveled with my parents to England (Scotland and Wales) twice; Italy, Canada (several times), Washington, Williamsburg, San Francisco, Lancaster PA, Bar Harbor, Portland, Boston ... I can't remember them all right now, but we kept going with my Mum and Dad because they knew how to travel. We always had a great time. Mr. L did not have a happy relationship with the in-laws from his first marriage. He considered my Mum and Dad to be his best friends. (How lucky is that for a daughter?)
My Mum was almost 80 when she got her first computer. She loved to play Mahjong and do jigsaw puzzles online. She checked her email a couple of times a day, and she loved to read about what family and friends and her favorite authors were doing on Facebook. (The last book she read was Duffy's Demise in Denim. She told me, "That Bruce Willis is always up to something!")
I have many, many happy memories of my mother. Like this picture that I took last summer at our family's summer cottage during a "girls only" weekend. Look at that smile. That's how I want to remember my Mum.But right now I'm hurting. Like Maggie, I haven't been able to do much writing for the past couple of months. Back in January, I started a piece that came out earlier this week. Thinking about death so much, I knew the only way I could get through what was to come was to write about it. I turned to Jeff Resnick to channel my upcoming grief. I literally wrote that story one paragraph at a time. One day I might write 100 words, the next I might write only 25. I kept going and tried to work on other projects, but as my Mum weakened, it was all I could do to get through the day. (Thank goodness I have the most compassionate and the best editor on the planet.)
As Maggie blogged earlier this week, she's trying to adjust to the new normal without her mother. Me, too. Like Maggie, I'm trying to find some structure, a new routine. It's still too new and raw, but I'm hoping that I can find that new normal and adjust. Time is my best ally right now. I need to get back to writing. It's what keeps me going. What keeps me sane. Tricia and Angelica are waiting. So are Katie, Tori and Kathy, and Amanda.
Mr. L (and Leann and Ellery) keep telling me to stop beating myself up, and it was actually Mr. L that said something that really resonated. "No matter what you or anyone else did, the outcome was going to be the same." And I can hear my Mum telling me, "Oh, Lorraine--please don't cry." (But I still can't help it.)
I'm not the only person who ever lost her Mum, and many people left lovely condolences on Facebook that made me cry and made me smile. The ones I like best were the shared memories of their mothers.
Do you have a memory of your mother you'd like to share? If so, please leave a comment.
(P.S. I promise to have a shorter post next week.)
June 17, 2015
June - my favorite month
By Victoria Abbott aka Mary Jane and Victoria Maffini
June is my favorite month. It’s the time when I have finally managed to forget about winter. Hard as it is to believe, I enjoy winter from December 1st to January 15th, but that will be the subject of another post. Our summers here just outside Canada’s capital are very hot and very humid.
We also have here in the Ottawa Valley the finest collection of ancient strains of ragweed in the world. There is so much ragweed that pharmaceutical companies use this area to test hay fever medications. So August is not a favorite month. Again, this is a topic for another post.
But now it's June and I'm in heaven. I'm happy to see and hear the happy little pollinators on the job. Can you see him?
Even though I enjoy a great deal about summer (minus hay fever) the more moderate days of June are the best for me. I put it down to my Celtic heritage. Our temperature as I write this is about 75 with a light breeze and dappled early evening sun. A stroll outside to get the mail also involves stopping to admire the peonies, finally blooming 'bigtime' and begging to be snipped for vases.
Bless their little pink hearts. Not only that but the first rose buds are showing up. This one is a climbing rose and it managed to survive its first very rough winter.
But the thing I love best about June is the length of the days. The sun will rise at 5:14 and will set at 8:54 tomorrow night. That will stretch to 8:56 on June 21, the Summer Solstice. In our neck of the woods, that will give us six hours and fifty-eight minutes more light than the Winter Solstice on December 21. Yippee! I revel in it.
Some of our Northern Canadian communities will be light until after eleven or in the far north, all night, but I’ll still take what I can get. Even though my husband can never resist saying the morning of June 22nd that now the days are starting to get shorter.
All that light is good for my happiness. I love to be able to sit outside and watch the sun come up and in the evening to watch the sunsets.
But perhaps best of all is the magical period known as twilight, morning or evening, when the world seems wonderful and mysterious, where anything can happen. A repeat trip outside once it’s actually night can be magical too. Last night we watched the wispy clouds pass in front of the two dippers. We love that feeling of being small humans staring out at the cosmos. We love just sitting, being and seeing. We know that we’re lucky. Go ahead, give me a hard time, because you can't take a picture of them with my little digital camera.. Use your imagination!
Trust me; they're out there twinkling!We enjoy it so much that a bit of star-watching worked its way into The Marsh Madness, the book collector mystery coming in September. One of the scenes has an ‘illuminating’ moment.The neighbors may think we’re crazy if they hear us outside at all odd hours, but we know that in June, the best things in life are free.
Some of you are from areas where June is pretty hot and sticky. But come and tell us what month or weather you do enjoy wherever you are and if you have a favorite time of day or night. June is open to all, of course, but I’d love to hear your take on it.
June 16, 2015
Guilty Pleasures...
So, what exactly is a guilty pleasure? To me it’s something I shouldn’t be doing ‘cause I should be doing something productive but I do it anyway. 
I have a lot of guilty pleasures. I think it’s because I’m old and have found that doing the pleasure thing is a lot more fun than doing the work thing and since I live alone no one tells on me and I can get away with it.
Guilty pleasures change depending where we are in life. When I was young a guilty pleasure was talking on the phone for hours to my best friend. Back then we were just best friends since BFF and Besties hadn’t come into play yet. Another guilty pleasure was driving...just driving around. Now I think… do I really have to drive and why is there so much traffic
When in my twenties a guilty pleasure was partying and staying up till the wee hours. Now eleven is a wee hour and two hours at a party and I’m done and need to get out of this bra and swear never to wear pantyhose again.Now a guilty pleasure is watching a movie for the millionth time, eating popcorn for dinner and chatting on FaceBook. I’ve watched Gilmore Girls so many times I know the script by heart, I’m starting to buy popcorn by the case and I know a lot of people badmouth FB but I really like it.
Another guilty please is taking a hot shower till all the hot is gone. I know it’s bad for the ecology but I love it anyway. In the cool weather I like to roll down the windows in the car and blast the heater. Sometimes I even toss my socks in the dryer just to heat them up so I can put on toasty socks.
One of the guilty pleasures that has stayed with me from childhood right on up to now is reading all night till I finish a really good book. When I was young I had to do the flashlight under the cover thing, now I can just curl up on the couch and pet the cats.So, what about you? Is there a guilty pleasure in your life that you’re willing to confess? Something you do that maybe is not good for you? With all this fess-up time I hope to add a few new guilty pleasures to my list.
June 15, 2015
Back On Schedule
by Maggie SeftonI like schedules usually. They help me keep on track with whatever project I'm involved in. Usually that's writing different novels. It's good if you've got an organized side to your personality. Starting and completing an entire novel takes a fair amount of organization. You're plotting out the novel, then writing the chapter or story outline to send to your editor, and then writing the darn novel.
That's been the way it's worked with me for 30+ years. Yep, thirty-some years of writing fiction, folks. Everything from big historical novels and family sagas to mysteries and suspense. Usually I can start a project and work on it consistently until completed, then do the editing and revisions necessary before sending it off to an editor. That's usually. But this spring, due to the my mother's final days and passing, I've had to delay my normal June delivery of the next Kelly Flynn novel. I've been lucky, I guess. I haven't had a family emergency or illness or broken appendages since the Kelly Flynn Knitting mysteries first were published in June 2005 with KNIT ONE, KILL TWO.
I consider myself fortunate, indeed. Many writers have had to have extensions to their fiction deadlines due to all sorts of life events. Right now, I'm back in my old home town area of Northern Virginia, staying with my
youngest daughter Maria and promoting #13 in the Kelly Flynn mysteries---PURL UP AND DIE which came out June 2nd.
Daughter Maria's new condo apartment which was built in my old neighborhood. The old out-dated little shopping center has been completely replaced by beautiful new apartments and shops.
This Wednesday evening I fly back to Colorado and pick up Kelly Flynn #14 where I left off in mid-May. It feels strange to be interrupted in the middle of the story like that. But I'm depending on Kelly and the Gang to pull me back into their world. I'm pretty confident they're up to the task. They are a strong-willed and opinionated bunch of characters. That's for sure. :)
June 14, 2015
The June 2015 Report
* * * * * * * * * *Welcome to Dru's Cozy Report: June 2015. This month’s listing features the second book in a previously released new series, for your reading pleasure.
Truffled To Death by Kathy Aarons
Series: Chocolate Covered #2
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Two best friends sell books and bonbons—and solve crimes—in this mystery from the author of Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates.A Batter of Life and Death by Ellie Alexander
Hoping to sweeten sales for their shop, Chocolates and Chapters, Michelle and Erica host a reception highlighting a new museum display of ancient Mayan pottery curated by Erica’s former mentor, Professor Addison Moody. The evening has a few hiccups, but the ladies soon smooth things over with ample servings of wine and chocolate.
Yet with the sweet comes the bitter. The very next day, the antiquities from the reception are discovered missing. The professor accuses Erica of having sticky fingers, claiming she wants revenge on him. And she’s only in more trouble after he’s found stabbed to death with one of the artifacts. Now Michelle must help Erica track down the real killer before someone else finds themselves in less than mint condition.
Series: Bakeshop #2
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Welcome to Torte-a small-town family bakeshop where the coffee is hot, the muffins are fresh, and the cakes are definitely to die for.Fat Cat Spreads Out by Janet Cantrell
It's autumn in Ashland, Oregon-'tis the season for a spiced hot apple cider with a serving (or two) of Torte's famous peach cobbler. It's also the perfect time for Jules Capshaw to promote her family's beloved bake shop by competing in The Pastry Channel's reality show, Take the Cake. The prize is $25,000. But as Jules quickly learns, some people would kill for that kind of dough. Literally.
Then, just as Jules dusts off her Bavarian Chocolate Cake recipe and cinches up her apron, the corpse of a fellow contestant is discovered-death by buttercream. What began as a fun, tasteful televised adventure has morphed into something of a true-crime detective show for Jules and everybody else on set. Who could have killed Chef Marco, and why? Can Jules sift out the killer before someone else gets burned?
Series: Fat Cat #2
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Butterscotch tabby Quincy is back and hungrier than ever in this frisky follow-up to Fat Cat at Large.Scam Chowder by Maya Corrigan
A booth at the Bunyan County Harvest Fair seems like the perfect opportunity for Charity “Chase” Oliver and Anna Larson to promote their Bar None bakery business. Unfortunately, plus-sized pussycat Quincy has plans for their delicious dessert bars other than selling them to customers. After tearing through their inventory, Quincy goes roaming the fairgrounds in search of more delights.
But what he finds is murder. One of the top contenders in a butter-sculpting contest has been killed, and Chase is churning on the inside when she sees Quincy’s handsome veterinarian, Dr. Mike Ramos, being led away by the police. With a little help from a kitty with butter on his whiskers, Chase needs to find the real killer and clear the doctor’s good name
Series: Five-Ingredients #2
Publisher: Kensington
Val Deniston loves the historic Chesapeake Bay town where she lives with her grandfather, the Codger Cook. Running the fitness club’s Cool Down Café—and salvaging the five-ingredient dishes Granddad messes up—keeps her busy. She’s used to his catastrophes in the kitchen, but not in the dining room.The Longest Yard Sale by Sherry Harris
Especially when one of his dinner party guests winds up face down in the chowder. The demised diner apparently scammed Granddad’s best buddy, and since the other dinner guests have suddenly clammed up, the police have all the ingredients to cook up a conviction for Granddad. With his freedom—and Val’s café job—on the line, Val is in a sweat trying to avert a catastrophe. But dredging up old secrets might just be a recipe for murder.
Series: Sarah Winston Garage Sale #2
Publisher: Kensington
ONE MAN’S CLUTTERBodice of Evidence by Nancy J. Parra
When Sarah Winston turns Ellington, Massachusetts, into New England’s largest garage sale for a day, it’s the small town’s biggest event since the start of the Revolutionary War—but without the bloodshed. That is, until a valuable painting goes missing…and the lifeless body of an Air Force officer is found in Carol Carson’s painting studio, his face perfectly framed with the murder weapon—a metal picture frame.
IS ANOTHER MAN’S CLOVER
Sarah is mad as heck that someone used her town-wide garage sale to commit a crime—and frame her good friend Carol. She is definitely on this case…but it’s not easy rummaging through increasingly strange clues that point to cheating spouses, downright dirty investment schemes—even the mob. And Sarah will have to be very careful if she wants to live to bargain another day.
Series: Perfect Proposals #2
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
This time Pepper Pomeroy discovers that shopping for the dream wedding dress can be a nightmare.Death of A Chocolate Cheater by Penny Pike
Pepper’s new wedding proposal planning business, Perfect Proposals, seems like a perfect fit. If only shopping for her sister Felicity’s bridal gown could be so simple.
After a long day of lace, tulle, and tears, Pepper, Felicity, and their mother pull it together to try one last bridal boutique. Maybe they’ll be surprised. And indeed they are—when they enter a deserted shop and soon discover the owner of the boutique slain in the alley out back.
Distressed by their proximity to the crime, Pepper vows to unveil the killer. As difficult as it is to draw a pattern from the clues, it’s still easier than finding Felicity’s perfect wedding gown. But as the killer begins to feel hemmed in, Pepper may be the one brought to her knees.
Series: Food Festival #2
Publisher: Obsidian
Food truck vendor Darcy Burnett unwraps a murder at the San Francisco Chocolate Festival in this mystery from the author of Death of a Crabby Cook.
At this year’s chocolate festival, Darcy and her Aunt Abby hope to win the $10,000 prize in the chocolate contest with Aunt Abby’s taste sensation: the chocolate raspberry whoopee pie. A little friendly competition from Darcy’s sometime-beau Jake Miller, who plans to enter with his chocolate cream puff delight, only sweetens the deal. But things get sticky when one of the judges, Polly Montgomery, is taken out of commission—permanently.
The suspects include every contestant with reason to believe Polly wasn’t too sweet on their sweets, including Aunt Abby’s high school friend. Now Darcy must pick through an assortment of secrets to catch a killer before someone else gets a bittersweet finish.
June 13, 2015
These Senior Cats
by Leann
Senior cats are wonderful. They are far more loving than their younger counterparts. But they also get sick, just like us old folks. Really sick. The immune system of a cat is very similar to a human's (and so are their brains.) They get what we get, only no Medicare for them. Pet insurance, at least the policies I looked at, don't really cover much that's serious.
I had a diabetic cat, Agatha Christie. Insulin is very pricey for a cat. When I had my precious Marlowe, who had seizures, he was taking phenobarbitol and the bottle I would get for a month cost more than $60. He also took a brand new antibiotic that was just as expensive. I had a tuxedo cat with FIV, named Archie Goodwin. That's the feline equivalent of HIV.
When he got sick, I would leave the vet with three or four bottles of medicine and a huge bill. I had a dog who developed ulcers on her cornea. She had to see a canine eye specialist and was on Restasis before it became a people medicine. That year I had several thousand dollars in vet bills.
Now, my daughter and her husband have been dealing with serious issues, even though their fur
friends are maybe a decade old or a little more--not really too old. One had a torn aorta and high blood pressure--that coming on the heels of some serious kidney stones. Kidney stones can kill a cat quickly--and so can a torn aorta! But he's a fighter and is doing well now. Their other cat, a pretty gray girl with gorgeous green eyes has been diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Disease. Apparently that's pretty common in cats and also very hard to treat. It's quite complicated. There have been endoscopies and biopsies and numerous vet visits. It's also made worse by stress and of course going to the vet is stressful for all involved.
But we dole out the big bucks to take care of our pets because they are the ones who love us unconditionally. They are like our children. We adore them and would do anything for them. But I couldn't end this without mentioning that the $60 bottle of phenobarb for little Marlowe, come to find out near the end of his life, cost $12 at Walgreens. I do think there's a bit of problem with vets dispensing the medication if it can be bought instead at the local pharmacy with their prescription. I know some of the medicine is only for vet use but there is a big difference between $60 and $12!
If anyone has had a kitty with serious irritable bowel disease and you found something that really worked, I'd love to hear from you! My daughter is having a difficult time with her poor baby, who's been on every treatment you can think of. Thank you friends.
Senior cats are wonderful. They are far more loving than their younger counterparts. But they also get sick, just like us old folks. Really sick. The immune system of a cat is very similar to a human's (and so are their brains.) They get what we get, only no Medicare for them. Pet insurance, at least the policies I looked at, don't really cover much that's serious.
I had a diabetic cat, Agatha Christie. Insulin is very pricey for a cat. When I had my precious Marlowe, who had seizures, he was taking phenobarbitol and the bottle I would get for a month cost more than $60. He also took a brand new antibiotic that was just as expensive. I had a tuxedo cat with FIV, named Archie Goodwin. That's the feline equivalent of HIV.When he got sick, I would leave the vet with three or four bottles of medicine and a huge bill. I had a dog who developed ulcers on her cornea. She had to see a canine eye specialist and was on Restasis before it became a people medicine. That year I had several thousand dollars in vet bills.
Now, my daughter and her husband have been dealing with serious issues, even though their fur
friends are maybe a decade old or a little more--not really too old. One had a torn aorta and high blood pressure--that coming on the heels of some serious kidney stones. Kidney stones can kill a cat quickly--and so can a torn aorta! But he's a fighter and is doing well now. Their other cat, a pretty gray girl with gorgeous green eyes has been diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Disease. Apparently that's pretty common in cats and also very hard to treat. It's quite complicated. There have been endoscopies and biopsies and numerous vet visits. It's also made worse by stress and of course going to the vet is stressful for all involved.
But we dole out the big bucks to take care of our pets because they are the ones who love us unconditionally. They are like our children. We adore them and would do anything for them. But I couldn't end this without mentioning that the $60 bottle of phenobarb for little Marlowe, come to find out near the end of his life, cost $12 at Walgreens. I do think there's a bit of problem with vets dispensing the medication if it can be bought instead at the local pharmacy with their prescription. I know some of the medicine is only for vet use but there is a big difference between $60 and $12!
If anyone has had a kitty with serious irritable bowel disease and you found something that really worked, I'd love to hear from you! My daughter is having a difficult time with her poor baby, who's been on every treatment you can think of. Thank you friends.
June 12, 2015
PASTA WITHOUT THE CARBS? COUNT ME IN!
By Mary Kennedy
Who doesn't love a nice bowl of spaghetti and sauce? We all do! But if you're trying to get a "beach body" (or even wriggle into last year's bathing suit) you've probably discovered that it's very hard to have a "small" helping of spaghetti. There is something so satisfying and delicious about pasta, we tend to eat restaurant size portions. A tasty treat, but disastrous for the waistline.
What's the secret? Can you really have your pasta, guilt-free! You can, with the help of a spiralizer. A spiralizer will turn zucchini into a very passable substitute for pasta. You can buy a rather elaborate one, as pictured above, but a $10.00 is fine, too. You can even try making thin strips with a peeler, but it just isn't the same. You really need a spiralizer to get the full effect.
The great part about zucchini (besides the fact that it has low net carbs and extremely low calories) is that a nice marinara sauce really clings to it. You can make "zucchini spaghetti" with a traditional tomato sauce...
You can have a nice zucchini lo mein...
Or a cold zucchini "pasta" salad, always refreshing on a hot day...the choice is yours!
All you need are some fresh zucchini (don't peel them, the skins add a little color and texture) and a spiralizer. And you can turn this...
into this...
Next week, I'll give you my recipe for home-made (very low calorie) marinara sauce. It's a perfect match for zucchini pasta and after all, who wants to spend a lot of time in the kitchen on these hot summer days? And it's a great way to use fresh basil (hope you are growing some in your garden, or even on the window sill). Stay tuned till next week and let me know your favorite way to fix veggie pasta! Mary Kennedy
Who doesn't love a nice bowl of spaghetti and sauce? We all do! But if you're trying to get a "beach body" (or even wriggle into last year's bathing suit) you've probably discovered that it's very hard to have a "small" helping of spaghetti. There is something so satisfying and delicious about pasta, we tend to eat restaurant size portions. A tasty treat, but disastrous for the waistline.
What's the secret? Can you really have your pasta, guilt-free! You can, with the help of a spiralizer. A spiralizer will turn zucchini into a very passable substitute for pasta. You can buy a rather elaborate one, as pictured above, but a $10.00 is fine, too. You can even try making thin strips with a peeler, but it just isn't the same. You really need a spiralizer to get the full effect.
The great part about zucchini (besides the fact that it has low net carbs and extremely low calories) is that a nice marinara sauce really clings to it. You can make "zucchini spaghetti" with a traditional tomato sauce...
You can have a nice zucchini lo mein...
Or a cold zucchini "pasta" salad, always refreshing on a hot day...the choice is yours!
All you need are some fresh zucchini (don't peel them, the skins add a little color and texture) and a spiralizer. And you can turn this...
into this...
Next week, I'll give you my recipe for home-made (very low calorie) marinara sauce. It's a perfect match for zucchini pasta and after all, who wants to spend a lot of time in the kitchen on these hot summer days? And it's a great way to use fresh basil (hope you are growing some in your garden, or even on the window sill). Stay tuned till next week and let me know your favorite way to fix veggie pasta! Mary Kennedy
June 11, 2015
My neighbors are driving me buggy!
by Lorraine Bartlett / Lorna Barrett / L.L. Bartlett
Sometimes I think Mr. L and I might drink a wee too much. I mean, he was making us a second drink the other night and looked out the front door (in our quiet suburban neighborhood) and did a double take. Wouldn't you?
Yes, suddenly there's an Amish buggy living next door. Mind you, Mr. L and I aren't adverse to a little kitsch ourselves.
But a buggy?
I suppose buggies and flamingos CAN live in harmony.
Anything odd going on in your neck of the woods?
Sometimes I think Mr. L and I might drink a wee too much. I mean, he was making us a second drink the other night and looked out the front door (in our quiet suburban neighborhood) and did a double take. Wouldn't you?
Yes, suddenly there's an Amish buggy living next door. Mind you, Mr. L and I aren't adverse to a little kitsch ourselves.
But a buggy?
I suppose buggies and flamingos CAN live in harmony.
Anything odd going on in your neck of the woods?
June 10, 2015
Weekend? What's a weekend?
On one memorable moment on Downton Abbey, the Dowager Countess Lady Violet (fabulously channeled by Maggie Smith) responded when asked about her plans for the weekend: “Weekend? What’s a weekend?”
I got that, although for very different reasons. Somehow in recent years as I’ve worked at home, one day seems to blur into another. As much fun as it is being a writer, there’s also the behind-the-scenes stuff: edits, rewrites, proof-reading and the ever-present deadlines. That’s before I dip my foot into the deep waters of promotion. Yikes. A girl could drown and there's never a day to just sleep in.
My point, and I do have one, is that the weekend seems to have disappeared. If I do book signings or events, they’re often on the weekend. Promotional travel? Weekends! In May, all four weekends involved book or writing events. First thing I know, I’ve been going flat out for seven days.
Of course, Lady Violet’s query shouldn’t have been surprising. Our notion of a five-day work week is relatively recent and must have seemed odd indeed to her. Not that the aristocracy had to worry about all the pesky work. It would have seemed odd to the Downton Abby staff too.
But over the course of the twentieth century, people got used to the idea. I have loved weekends since I started school and yet now … Where are they? Gone! Don’t get me wrong. Nothing beats the writing life and I can’t imagine what would ever send me back to the world of nine to five. I love the fictional ability of bumping off anyone who has every annoyed me in real life. I am ridiculously fond of the many fictional dogs and cats I have created. I enjoy the flexibility of leaving my own desk during the day to do whatever non-work is calling to me.
I just want a couple of days to goof off. Maybe stretch out on a chaise and do nothing for a bit.
But the idea of taking those two days in the middle of the week is hard to get used to. It feels like playing hooky! Plus there are commitments that must be met.
I get emails seven days a week and it seems like people are sending them twenty-four hours a day. In fact, this year I got emails with work suggestions and project ideas on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. To answer the question I am sure you were going to pose: why was I in email on Christmas and NYD? Well, I went online to wish Merry and Happy to friends near and far. And then …
This is an over-connected age. Some of us must be available 24/7, or we feel that we must. And a lot of us suffer from FOMO: fear of missing out. I confess, that sounds a lot like me. We can’t miss an email, an article, a blog, a tweet. Of course, we can’t read and do it all. Plus the reality is that most of us need a little down time. I definitely need time to read in order to relax and recharge. I'm not alone in that!
We need time to cuddle with a pet or a beloved small child. Time to stroll in the garden and see what's new.
or stare at the scenery. We need time when we aren’t marching to our To Do list’s orders. Time to just ‘be’. Some of us might even use our downtime to write. I often like to write on a vacation, but the secret is to be writing something that doesn’t have a deadline or a requirement attached to it.
I’ve noticed friends ducking out or ‘going dark’ for a few days because of travel, family events or whatever. Apparently, their worlds did not end. I'll take a lesson from them and also from the pooches, who seem to come by it naturally. In fact, they seem to have a seven-day weekend. Hmm.
So I am promising myself a little more time away from computer and To Do list. All right, that’s enough about me and what I need. How about you? Are you a weekend person? Do you need downtime? Can you share some secrets of how you carve out time for yourself? I look forward to stealing all your best ideas in my spare time. That’s what friends do. Maybe we'll have time to share a slice of cake.
