Anna Jeffrey's Blog: I'm Just Saying..., page 7

HELLO! I'm Back….

It's almost over and somehow I've survived. the madness.  Now I can get back to blogging and writing. I've been pulled in so many directions the past two or three weeks I've hardly had time for anything but work and sleep.

I've mentioned many times that in my childhood, we had no access to entertainment as kids know it today. But we did have books. Lots and lots of books of all kinds and our reading was unrestricted.

Lying around from somewhere was an old book of poetry and prose. From that tome, I read many of the Victorian classics, including the one I'm sharing with you below. CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE WORKHOUSE by George R. Sims. This is a melodramatic offering in the same vein as "The Face on the Barroom Floor" by Hugh Antoine d'Arcy and The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. It paints a vivid slice-of-life picture of Victorian England and reminds us why so many found their way to America.

I've re-read this poem many times through the years. I'm sharing it with you today as a Christmas gift. It's a reminder of how lucky we are. It's a long poem, but it reads quickly. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to win the battle with WordPress in separating the stanzas. If it helps reading it, there are 8 lines per stanza.

CHRISTMAS DAY IN THE WORKHOUSE



It is Christmas Day in the workhouse,
And the cold, bare walls are bright
With garlands of green and holly,
And the place is a pleasant sight;
For with clean-washed hands and faces,
In a long and hungry line
The paupers sit at the table,
For this is the hour they dine.

And the guardians and their ladies,
Although the wind is east,
Have come in their furs and wrappers,
To watch their charges feast;
To smile and be condescending,
Put pudding on pauper plates.
To be hosts at the workhouse banquet
They've paid for — with the rates.

Oh, the paupers are meek and lowly
With their "Thank'ee kindly, mum's!'"
So long as they fill their stomachs,
What matter it whence it comes!
But one of the old men mutters,
And pushes his plate aside:
"Great God!" he cries, "but it chokes me!
For this is the day she died!"



The guardians gazed in horror,
The master's face went white;
"Did a pauper refuse the pudding?"
"Could their ears believe aright?"
Then the ladies clutched their husbands,
Thinking the man would die,
Struck by a bolt, or something,
By the outraged One on high.


But the pauper sat for a moment,
Then rose 'mid silence grim,
For the others had ceased to chatter
And trembled in every limb.
He looked at the guardians' ladies,
Then, eyeing their lords, he said,
"I eat not the food of villains
Whose hands are foul and red:


"Whose victims cry for vengeance
From their dark, unhallowed graves."
"He's drunk!" said the workhouse master,
"Or else he's mad and raves."
"Not drunk or mad," cried the pauper,
"But only a haunted beast,
Who, torn by the hounds and mangled,
Declines the vulture's feast.


"I care not a curse for the guardians,
And I won't be dragged away;
Just let me have the fit out,
It's only on Christmas Day
That the black past comes to goad me,
And prey on my burning brain;
I'll tell you the rest in a whisper —
I swear I won't shout again.


"Keep your hands off me, curse you!
Hear me right out to the end.
You come here to see how paupers
The season of Christmas spend;.
You come here to watch us feeding,
As they watched the captured beast.
Here's why a penniless pauper
Spits on your paltry feast.


"Do you think I will take your bounty,
And let you smile and think
You're doing a noble action
With the parish's meat and drink?
Where is my wife, you traitors —
The poor old wife you slew?
Yes, by the God above me,
My Nance was killed by you!


'Last winter my wife lay dying,
Starved in a filthy den;
I had never been to the parish —
I came to the parish then.
I swallowed my pride in coming,
For ere the ruin came,
I held up my head as a trader,
And I bore a spotless name.


"I came to the parish, craving
Bread for a starving wife,
Bread for the woman who'd loved me
Through fifty years of life;
And what do you think they told me,
Mocking my awful grief,
That 'the House' was open to us,
But they wouldn't give 'out relief'.


"I slunk to the filthy alley —
'Twas a cold, raw Christmas Eve —
And the bakers' shops were open,
Tempting a man to thieve;
But I clenched my fists together,
Holding my head awry,
So I came to her empty-handed
And mournfully told her why.


"Then I told her the house was open;
She had heard of the ways of that,
For her bloodless cheeks went crimson,
And up in her rags she sat,
Crying, 'Bide the Christmas here, John,
We've never had one apart;
I think I can bear the hunger —
The other would break my heart.'


"All through that eve I watched her,
Holding her hand in mine,
Praying the Lord and weeping,
Till my lips were salt as brine;
I asked her once if she hungered,
And as she answered 'No' ,
T'he moon shone in at the window,
Set in a wreath of snow.


"Then the room was bathed in glory,
And I saw in my darling's eyes
The faraway look of wonder
That comes when the spirit flies;
And her lips were parched and parted,
And her reason came and went.
For she raved of our home in Devon,
Where our happiest years were spent.


"And the accents, long forgotten,
Came back to the tongue once more.
For she talked like the country lassie
I woo'd by the Devon shore;
Then she rose to her feet and trembled,
And fell on the rags and moaned,
And, 'Give me a crust — I'm famished —
For the love of God!' she groaned.


"I rushed from the room like a madman
And flew to the workhouse gate,
Crying, 'Food for a dying woman!'
And the answer came, 'Too late.'
They drove me away with curses;
Then I fought with a dog in the street
And tore from the mongrel's clutches
A crust he was trying to eat.


"Back through the filthy byways!
Back through the trampled slush!
Up to the crazy garret,
Wrapped in an awful hush;
My heart sank down at the threshold,
And I paused with a sudden thrill.
For there, in the silv'ry moonlight,
My Nance lay, cold and still.


"Up to the blackened ceiling,
The sunken eyes were cast —
I knew on those lips, all bloodless,
My name had been the last;
She called for her absent husband —
O God! had I but known! —
Had called in vain, and, in anguish,
Had died in that den — alone.


"Yes, there, in a land of plenty,
Lay a loving woman dead,
Cruelly starved and murdered
For a loaf of the parish bread;
At yonder gate, last Christmas,
I craved for a human life,
You, who would feed us paupers,
What of my murdered wife!"


'There, get ye gone to your dinners,
Don't mind me in the least,
Think of the happy paupers
Eating your Christmas feast;
And when you recount their blessings
In your smug parochial way,
Say what you did for me, too,
Only last Christmas Day."

The Holidays Have Landed…

And so has holiday food. The weather turned cold, we got a little rain, so the Christmas spirit finally hit me. I even got out and did a little shopping.

I also did a little baking. I made one of my favorite cookies and loaded them up with white chocolate chips, dried cherries and fresh pecans. I thought that sounded festive. They turned out fine.   …..  The price of dried cherries and this year's fresh pecans just about left me gasping, but then you've heard me whine about the price of food before. I calculate those cookies must have cost more than 50-cents apiece to make. And they aren't very big cookies, either. 

 

After that, I took a recipe for one of Emeril's cakes off the Food Channel website and made it. It's called Chocolate Swirl Bundt Cake with Nutty Topping. It's a fluffy marble cake accented with praline liqueur and fresh pecans pieces. I haven't tried a piece of it yet, but the recipe sounded so good, I know it will be larruping. Emeril's receipe called for walnuts and walnut liqueur, but I had fresh pecans on hand rather than walnuts, so I rushed to the liquor store and bought the praline liqueur  stuff. If you want the recipe, you can go here:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/search/delegate.do?fnSearchString=bundt+cakes&fnSearchType=site

 

If you make it with the walnut liqueur as he recommends, let me know how it turns out.

(On a side note, that praline liqueur is very good on ice cream.)

(On another side note, I read somewhere that chocolate is going to nearly double in price in 2012! That is pure evil!)

I will probably make more cookies. I always do. So how about you? What are you baking for the holidays?

****

When my daughter comes to visit, we always make things. This year she brought a recipe called Chocolate Eclair Icebox Dessert. Believe it or not, this is kind of low-cal. And it's so light, delicious and easy, you don't feel guilty if you have more than one piece. Guilt-free. That's the ticket. So here's the recipe.

CHOCOLATE ECLAIR ICEBOX DESSERT

22-1/2 sheets low-fat honey graham crackers (enough to make 2 or 3 layers in a 9×13 pan), 3 cups fat-free milk, 2 (3.4 oz.) packages vanilla or cheesecake instant pudding mix, 1 (8-oz.) pkg. reduced fat cream cheese at room temperature, 1 (8-oz.) tub frozen light cook whip, thawed

Arrange graham cracker sheets to cover the bottom of 13×9 pan coated with cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine 3 cups milk, pudding mix and cream cheese and beat at low speed 1 minute, or until thick. Fold in shipped topping. Spread half the pudding mixture over graham crackers and top with another layer of graham cracker sheets. Repeat with the remaining pudding mixture and another layer of graham crackers. (You can cut out the middle layer of graham crackers if you like.)

TOPPING

1/4 cup fat-free milk, 2 tbsp. margarine or butter, softened, 2 tbsp. honey, 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate, melted, 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar (We doubled the topping.)

Combine 1/4 cup milk, softened butter, honey and melted chocolate in medium bowl. Beat well with mixer. Gradually add powdered sugar and beat well. Spread chocolate over graham crackers. Cover dessert and chill 4 hours. Make sure your cover doesn't touch the chocolate topping. It's okay to leave it uncovered if necessary.

There you go. Let me know how you like it.

 

 

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Chocolate! Who Doesn't Love it?…

Yum!

The dictionary's definition of chocoholic is "someones who craves chocolate." That's simple enough and pretty much applies to me and most of the people I know. Probably most of the people *you* know. Chocolate is one of the most popular food products in the world. And at this time of year, with it all around us to be part of the holiday enjoyment as well as gifts to be given to friends, we just think more about it.

Chocolate is made from the partial fermentation of beans from cacao trees. The trees are small evergreens that originated in the Amazon basin. They have to grow near the equator because they need a great deal of rainfall and can't survive temperatures below about 60 degrees. Nowadays, more than three-fourths of the world's trees are grown in Africa.

The trees were cultivated in Mexico, Central and South America more than a thousand years BC. The Aztecs brewed a bitter drink from thebeans and chili peppers, which was favored by their kings and used as an offering to their gods. Chocolate found its way to Europe after

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the Aztecs shared it with the Spaniards. The Europeans didn't like the bitter taste, so they added sugar and removed the chili peppers.

Hard, durable chocolate didn't come into existence until the early 1800s when a Dutchman patened a process whereby cocoa butter could be removed from the chocolate. Now, cocoa butter is added back in varying amounts.

More recently, research has revealed potential health benefits from eating chocolate. Limited amounts of dark chocolate appear to help heart disease in that ingredients in dark chocolate to inhibit oxidation of LDL cholesterol and might even lower blood pressure in some people.

So! We just drew names at my job for our Christmas gift exchange. The person whose name I drew is someone I like a lot, so I was thinking and thinking about what I could give her. Then I hit upon the perfect thing. Gourmet chocolates.

Fudge Love Truffle

I used to have some retail stores, in which I sold gourmet candies and chocolates. The brand of chocolate I chose to feature was The Sweet Shop and its handmade truffles that are manufactured in Fort Worth, Texas. Here's a picture of one of their signature truffles. ….  I can't even describe how delicious this candy is. It has that smooth ganache center that melts in your mouth. It's robed with two layers of chocolate. It does not leave a residue on your tongue and floods your mouth and senses with goodness. (If you want to know more about The Sweet Shop candy, you can go here:  https://secured.keysql.com/sweetshopusa/shop.asp?site=&kpage=aboutus     Or you can go here:  www.sweetshopusa.com)

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A Little R & R…..

Jaston Williams & Joe Sears

I don't know if anyone noticed, but last Tuesday I didn't post on the blog. My daughter was here for a ten-day visit and we were heavily engaged in having a good time. She comes only once a year, so I spend as much time as possible with her. She came to celebrate my birthday, which always falls on Thanksgiving weekend. Plane tickets were considerably cheaper at the first part of the month, so we celebrated early. LOL

For my present, besides her visit, she treated us to a play, "A Tuna Christmas," starring Joe Sears and Jaston Williams.

I don't know if any of you have ever seen these two guys in their two-man plays set in Tuna, Texas, or if you even know who they  are. But if you haven't seen them, you have missed a true laugh-a-minute opportunity. This is brash Texan irreverence at its boldest and Texana at its corniest. And these two men do a brilliant job portraying more than a dozen humorous characters over the course of the play. Here's a clip from You Tube. There are several more clips on You Tube if you want to watch.

The first Tuna play they presented was years ago, "Greater Tuna." They followed up a few years later with "A Tuna Christmas." They have since done "Tuna Does Vegas" and "Red, White and Blue Tuna."  If you would like to read about these award-winning actors and the Tuna plays, they have a Web site. http://www.greatertunavisitorscenter.com/

It makes me sad to see these two actors aging and know these plays won't always be around starring these two particular men. In fact, I believe some of the performances are already now done by other actors. I've never seen the plays with other actors. I feel privileged to have seen them performed by the original cast.

If you're interested in some Texas laughs, Amazon sells DVDs of two of the plays. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dmovies-tv&field-keywords=A+Tuna+Christmas&x=10&y=18

Tuna, by the way, ism or was, a town in Texas. The Texas Historical Association says it was six miles south of Cotulla on the International and Great Northern line in west central La Salle County. Notice they say *was*, not *is*. But they also say it was shown on maps of LaSalle County as late as 1965. Whether it still exists, I don't know. Many small Texas towns have dimply disappeared.

Besides going to the play, we shopped for beads, did beading and attended a bead show. My daughter is a bead artist and a stained glass artist. She's done beautiful work in stained glass, which is a lot bigger hobby in Oregon than it is in Texas. We had fun creating while she was here. She does intricate bead work with a needle and seed beads, while I only string beads. I don't have the eyesight or the patience to do what she does. The frustrating thing about beading is you get half-way through a project and discover you don't have something you need. Then you have to search and search for that one thing that will make the creation perfect. And you might never find it, I'm discovering. A couple of years ago, I envisioned a necklace out of aquamarine and crystal beads. I found the crystal beads fairly easily, but didn't find the aquamarine at a price I thought was reasonable. I've been searching for the perfect aquamarine beads ever since. PERFECT = RIGHT COLOR + RIGHT SIZE+ RIGHT PRICE. Maybe next year. As you can see, I'm not quite ready to abandon the vision.

My daughter has gone home now, so I'm back to the daily grind. Writing, writing and writing. And working, working, working. Since I work in retail, life is a zoo right now. And Black Friday looms. But maybe I'll find the time to string a bead or two. I did find some things at the bead show I couldn't live without.

What about you, fellow readers? What hobbies are you dedicated to?

A Good Book…

Sometimes it's hard to find a book that suits your mood. Even when I consider my tall TBR stack, I often still can't find one that I want to tackle. For instance, "Nine Dragons" by Michael Connelly, one of my favorite authors, is still lying on my nightstand unfinished after months have gone by. I just haven't been in the mood for Harry Bosch.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was wandering through my keeper shelves for something and I came across "A Gentle Rain" by Deborah Smith, one of my all-time favorite authors.

"A Gentle Rain" was released in 2007 and was a RITA finalist. I read it the first time back then. But you forget the fine details in books after a while, so I set out to read it again. I'm so glad I did. This is such an entertaining book and revisiting Deborah Smith's writing is like enjoying a scrumptious chocolate sundae. No one is better at placing you right in the middle of a setting and right at the center of her characters' hearts.

I started enjoying the re-read so much, I went to GoodReads and gave it a five-star rating.

The story is set on a struggling cattle ranch in humid, swampy Florida. It's full of quirky characters you can't help but grow to love, including a smart-mouthed South American parrot, and a hero and heroine who will steal your heart.

The heroine is Kara Whittenbrook, a young woman who grew up in South America. Her rich hippie parents adopted her when she was an infant. The parents are killed in a plane crash, leaving Kara fantastically wealthy and her journey begins.

Her one desire is to find her birth parents. The manager of her estate tells her who they are and steers her to the Florida cattle ranch, where she goes incognito. The ranch owner, believing her to be a homeless wanderer, gives her a job, which enables her to get acquainted with her birth parents as well as his odd assortment of ranch hands. In the course of her stay there, she learns that both of her parents are mentally challenged. One suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome and the other from shaken baby syndrome. For those reasons, when she was born, they were forced by her father's family to give her up for adoption.

She also finds Ben Thocco, a salt-of-the-earth, half-Seminole ranch owner who not only takes care of her birth parents, but half a dozen other mentally challenged souls, including his own brother who has Down's syndrome. And it doesn't hurt her feelings that he looks like Keaneau Reeves.

Kara and Ben travel from one adventure to another, with her becoming more beloved by the group as the story unfolds. Even Ben falls in love with her. He's a man with a past and gradually, it manifests itself and it turns out they have a connection from years back.

It's a romance, so naturally there's a happy-ever-after ending.

Deb Smith

I don't know Deborah Smith personally, but I do know she's one of the most respected authors around. She's an author's author.  No one tells a better yarn or writes it more exquisitely. She's a New York Times Bestselling author from years back and has won many writing awards. She's now part owner of a small publishing company and continues to write in several genres. I've lost track of all of her pen names. You can visit her Web site at www.deborah-smith.com

If you've already read "A Gentle Rain," be sure to stop by the blog and leave a comment. If you haven't read it and want some pleasurable reading moments, try this one.

A Surprising Discovery…

As I've posted on Facebook and in other places, I'm eager to read Steve Jobs' biography. So I've been dithering whether to buy the book or buy a download for the Kindle. What I've discovered is that as much as I like that Kindle, there are some books that are just too delicious not to have a *real* book in my hands. Something tells me that the book about Steve Jobs is one of those.

This discovery was a "wow" moment for me because I thought I was ambivalent. I thought books in print had been replaced in my mind by Kindle books.

So I started thinking about other books I might like to read or have already read and I asked myself, "Kindle or print book?" I made a short list of the ones  I would just have to read in their print format if I hadn't already read them. Here's a small part of my fiction list in no particular order. I prefer a print-on-paper edition of every one of these books.

GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell

HEART OF THE WEST by Penelope Williamson

THE OUTSIDER by Penelope Williamson

LONESOME DOVE by Larry McMurtry

THE DEATH OF THE ARCHBISHOP by Willa Cather

THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA by Ernest Hemingway

SOPHIE'S CHOICE by William Styron

RIDE THE WIND by Lucia St Clair Robson

DEEP END OF THE OCEAN by Jacquelyn Mitchard

All of Nicholas Evans' books

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Those are just a few. Then there are the non-fiction books I would prefer to have in traditional print form. That list is much longer. There's just something about a non-fiction book that calls for one you can hold in your hands. Many of my non-fiction titles are research books and I haven't yet mastered how to find things in the Kindle downloads.

In addition, I get a little panicky at the idea that you don't really own anything with digital readers except the reader itself. The content is out there in cyberspace somewhere in that nebulous *cloud* and you're only *using* it. I can't get past the feeling that it could be yanked at any time.

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None of this is to take away from the convenience, the ease and the utter out-of-this worldness of reading a book digitally. I do love it. Even my husband loves it. As I've said before, he can't deal with a cell phone, but he can use the Kindle.  The technology is revolutionizing both bookselling and book publishing.

But in thinking about it, I wonder if a lot of readers will turn out to be like me. Some books on the Kindle, some not. Do all of you have digital readers now. And are you devoted fans? Or are there still books out there that you would prefer to read printed on paper?

I just hope the day never comes when the print books will no longer be available.

Anna J

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Now I'm Independent…

Last week, something finally happened that I've been working at for more than two years. I finally got the copyrights back on two more of mybooks. Whew! What a pain.

I'm so happy about this. It's a good feeling to know that books I slaved over are no longer hanging in limbo where they're not on the market, but there's nothing I can do about it because I don't own them. That's like having them fall into a black hole. Getting my rights back makes me feel like I have a future again.

Publishing and bookselling have become dramas with lots of moving parts. Independents are barely hanging on, Borders is gone and every day, B&N is starting to look more like a gift store than a book store. I don't know about the other chains because none of them are located in my part of the country. But I do know this. Big retail is in the process of killing mid-list authors like me.

Big retail is not in the book and author promoting business. It doesn't have a dedication or devotion to *books*, as such. Big retail is in the RETAIL business, which is fundamentally the real estate business. Every square inch of space has to produce so many dollars over a certain period of time. Consequently, they're going to fill that space with stuff that sells lots of items as fast as possible because profit lies in volume of rapidly moving stuff. From their perspectives, books are strictly a commodity that sells well or not. Thus, their interest in stocking only name-brand authors.

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Image via Wikipedia

These days, if you stroll through the book section of a Walmart, a Costco or a Target, you won't see a large selection of books by authors other than New York Times Bestsellers. Some of the stores are stocking the whole backlist of those authors, which leaves no space for mid-listers. So for you readers out there, if you don't want to read every book by an author going back to 1985, or if you've already read them and don't want to read them again, you're going to have to buy a digital reader.  Online is where the mid-listers have found refuge.

So now I'm no longer a mid-list author. Now I'm an independent author selling my out-0f-print books for e-readers. I'm on my own. this is why I'm blogging, tweeting and facebooking more than previously. It's a brave new world out there. I'm trying to reach as many readers as I can, hoping to find a larger audience for my stories.

Publishing houses are no longer the gatekeepers. The rights to my future books will not be owned by anyone but me, which is a liberating feeling. They most likely won't be showing up in big-box stores, but that's okay with me.

I sure can't predict how digital readers and independent authors are going to affect publishing houses in the final analysis. Some of them might very well go out of business altogether. Having said that, I should also say that I suspect there will always be books in print. The publishers that survive this earthquake will always publish the big sellers. So if you are someone who loves the feel of a*real book* in your hands, something will be out there for you. But basically, books are going to become like music. In bricks and mortar stores, you'll only see the big names who are posting big numbers. This is a huge boon to imaginative authors who have business sense.

I posted earlier on Facebook that I'm already starting to format my first release, "The Love of a Cowboy," for Amazon Kindle, B&N Nook and others. Cowboy was released in 2003. It has been my bestselling book and I still hear from readers about it.

See you online, Readers. Come and Facebook with me and Tweet at me. I'm interested in *all* of your opinions and thoughts.

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Forced to Give Up Food…

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Image via Wikipedia

Yes,  I think I'm going to have to give it up. Not because I need to lose weight (which I do), but because I simply can't afford to buy it these days.

Have you looked at what's going on in the grocery stores? I did a tour through a grocery store last night, which left me gasping. I spent $100 for what a few months ago cost me $50 or $60. It's enough to make you want to dig up your backyard and start gardening like our grandparents did. And on the same scale.

When I was a little kid, my grandmothers and old aunts spent almost every waking moment putting in the garden, taking care of the garden, harvesting the garden, then canning and/or preserving what came out of it. One of the most boring tasks that used to be assigned to me and my girl cousins was snapping and shelling peas and peeling peaches. As a kid, grumbling and grousing, I did not realize that this was an eat-or-not eat situation.

Joe & Myra Belle Matthews, my great-grandparents as they looked when I was a really little kid,

Since there was no grocery store of any consequence within a hundred miles, much less a supermarket, the garden produced by the women of the family were all we had to eat besides what they baked. We had meat because we grew our own animals, but even that called for a certain amount of preserving. Those women did an admirable job, I have to say. We never lacked for food. After my great grandmother passed, among the things she left behind were jars and jars of canned food that had come out of her garden. Amazing.

What's ridiculous is that even though I grew up in that environment, I can't even make a tomato plant survive. Back in the summer, my husband and I bought a green pepper plant and two tomato plants in pots. We did see  some green peppers, but they were no larger than golf balls and they were just as hard. The tomatoes were nearly the same. And my husband religiously watered and cared for them. Of course the relentless triple-digit heat in Texas this past summer didn't help.

What's even more ridiculous is that my husband grew up in basically the same environment I did, but he can't remember how to grow things either. So living off the land seems like a poor option for us right now.

Even if I wanted to buy fresh produce from somewhere now, because it's supposed to be cheaper in season, and try to can it, I couldn't without making a huge investment. I have no jars and lids, I have no kitchen utensils suitable for canning, no canner. And even if I did have a canner, I have an electric stove, which wouldn't work with a canner.  …. So I think I'm stuck with the grocery store and what's for sale in it for whatever price.

So now I'm wondering if we're approaching the day where in order to afford eating, we all will have to group together in co-ops of some kind. Are we going to have to become The Waltons? Maybe we should have pot luck clubs where we combine vittles. It's cheaper to cook for a crowd than for just one or two.

We're already to the place where many young people can't afford to leave the nest and go out on their own. I can't count the number of people I know personally who have grown children still living at home or who are raising their grandchildren for this or that reason.

When I think back on my life as a child, I realize that this togetherness is the way many of us used to live. So it isn't brand-new. I can recall three and four generations of people all living in my great-grandfather's house at one time (Fortunately, he had a big house.) and my grandmothers providing food for the whole lot of us.

Matthews Home, around 1900 - Notice no trees. This was West Texas.

I'm sad to say, I am not my great-grandmother or my grandmother. Left on my own to provide my own food from scratch, these days, I don't think I could make it. I would be forced to give up food. I'm shaking my head in sadness at all that I've known and lost.

But here's something that's even more amazing. Do you know what my grandmothers and my old aunts did for leisure and entertainment? … THEY QUILTED!

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Heroes…and Recipes

Hello, readers.

You're probably wondering what heroes and recipes have in common. The answer is nothing. But last week, I promised to give a report on Gooey Butter Cake. I made it. And I'm disappointed to say that what I bought at the grocery store was better than what I made. So if I make it again, I'll tweak it a little.

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Gooey Butter Cake

And that brings me to the subject of today's post, which actually does require a recipe of sorts–Building fictional romance novel heroes. Since all of you know me as a redneck, you won't be surprised to learn one of my favorite songs is a Willie Nelson tune, "My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys."

All of my books aren't about cowboys, but some of them are. There are those readers who probably don't like the alpha guys I write about. Although I'll never understand why not.

I've written and commented here and there about building romance heroes several times before and not much has changed in that regard since I first started writing. I might have learned a few new things, but building that heroic guy is still a daunting challenge. He is, after all, the most important character in a romance novel.

To begin with, the hero must be heroic, or perceived to be heroic by you, fellow readers. Some heroes start out as bad boys or jerks. But they have kind hearts and wounded souls. Flawed heroes saved from themselves by the love of a good woman are the best kind. Even in novels starring kick-ass heroines, I'm sure you agree that the hero must be strong and heroic.

Do you ever wonder where authors begin in the creation of this universally appealing dream man? It's more clinical than you might imagine. A dozen books have been written on how to write a romance hero. Every other writers' conference will have a workshop on "hero building." For authors, there is plenty of how-to information out there.

Myself, I start with a fundamentally *good* guy, one who helps old ladies (like me) across the street and is kind to animals. I give him strong principles that are at the core of who he is and the personal courage to stand by them. He's comfortable in his own skin. (And how many times have you seen *that* written in a romance novel?) At the beginning of the story, he's confident and happy with the status quo, only to become miserable after he meets the heroine. Can we say melodrama?

Need I say that work on this characterization causes me hours of study?

The Ultimate Romance Novel and Its Hero

As you know, all of my guys are alphas, but that is not to say that a beta male can't be  heroic. Alpha or beta, insensitive or sensitive, is not important. What matters is that the writing is clear and concise enough for you readers to spot the qualities that make that man likeable. And ultimately loveable.

In my book, SWEET RETURN, Dalton Parker is a good example. Having a "bad boy" in mind, I started out by making him good-looking (If you've read my books, you know that all of my heroes are good-looking). He's physically-able and smart. He's a sophisticated world traveler and successful in his chosen career, but he's a cynical lone wolf who has disdain for polite society. He's a blue-ribbon womanizer, loves sex and is a great lover, but doesn't like women. He is one arrogant dude.

After I gave him all of those stunning characteristics, I knew I had to make him redeemable. So beneath his crusty exterior, I gave him a soft heart and made him an instinctive "protector" of those weaker than he. I gave him a wounded soul from having grown up with an abusive step-father and a mother who loved him, but didn't have the courage to defend him.

Whew! And after doing all of that, I was exhausted. People-building is tough work.

But giving birth to a satisfactory hero is not the end of it as far as I'm concerned. The heroine has to be worthy of this larger-than-life guy, which brings on even more hours of study. Believe it or not, I find that even harder. I'm an avid reader of everything, but a heroine who's stronger than the hero will cause a book to be a wall-banger for me every time, even if I like the writing.

Sometimes capturing the hero and heroine is like grabbing for quicksilver. Sometimes I get the guy right, but not the girl. And vice-versa. Sometimes the whole thing works without my knowing why, as in THE LOVE OF A COWBOY, and other times I fall short. Funny, but in hindsight, I always know why it *didn't* work, but I have a harder time figuring it out when it did.

What I came up with in SWEET RETURN must have worked. With the exception of Luke McRae in THE LOVE OF A COWBOY, Dalton Parker is the edgiest character I've built. Yet I've received more comment from readers about how much they like him than any character since Luke. (The Cowboy book was published ten years ago, but readers still tell me they're looking for a Luke McRae.)

But to get back to Willie Nelson. Indeed, someof my heroes have been cowboys. But not the kind Willie sings about in that song. Romance heroes are not modern-day drifters whose best days are gone. What they are is every woman's dream man, thus the fantasy.

So pour a fresh cup of coffee, pull up a chair and just among us girls, tell me what you like about *your* favorite romance novel hero.

Anna J

Sin!…The Sweet Kind

As you food lovers might know, the great Paula Deene has a line of desserts that's sold in grocery store bakeries. So a while back, I was lost and wandering through a bakery and I happened across Paula Deene's Gooey Butter Cake. Two little slices were packaged in an acetate container and the cost was a little more than $3.00. Didn't seem like a bad price to me, so I bought a container.

Gooey Butter Cake

Well, what can I say? As it turned out, it was a mouth-watering, larruping delicious confection and I ate the whooooole thing. Did I say rich?

So, as I often do when it comes to cooking, I think, "I can make that."

I start researching recipes.  I  learn that this cake was introduced in St. Louis and is apparently of German origin. Well, of course it is. German food is just good. Wasn't it German cooking that gave us PIE?

I also discover that Paula Deene is by no means the only person who makes Gooey Butter Cake. Many people have recipes and they range from pumpkin to chocolate to toffee to caramel. A plethora of mouth-watering, pound-adding richness.

So not wanting to live in sin alone, I'm sharing a recipe for a simple, basic Gooey Butter Cake. This isn't exactly any particular person's recipe. It's one I sort of put together from several recipes. It looks good to me and should be fairly easy. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm going to. I'm willing to give a full report next week and if you like, you might do the same. If you want to know how to bake the various flavors, the recipes are easy to find on the Internet. Here you go, everyone:

GOOEY BUTTER CAKE

Preheat oven to 350-degrees

Mix together 1 box  yellow cake mix, 2 eggs, 8 tbsp. butter, melted and press into a 13″ x 9″ baking pan.

In a large bowl, beat 8 oz. cream cheese until smooth. Add 2 eggs and 1 tsp. vanilla. Continue beating until smooth.

Gradually add 16 oz. powdered sugar (I think this is 2 cups) and beat well.

Slowly add 1/2 cup butter, melted, and mix well.

Pour evenly over cake mixture that you've pressed into the 13″ x9″ pan.

Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, until center is slightly set.

If any of you have a recipe for Gooey Butter Cake that is different from this one, by all means, share it with us. We can all suffer together.

I should add that my sojourn through bakeries wasn't over. Just last night, I was wandering again and a Paula Deene's Carrot Cake just jumped out and said "Take me!"

Get thee behind me, Satan!

Now I would walk over hot coals for carrot cake. But I know that if I just have to have it, I can make it. I have many times. In fact, I have about 20 recipes and all of them are good. So I resisted that temptation to sin and didn't buy it. I was exceedingly proud of myself.

Gooey Butter Cake is my focus for now. After I make it, I'll see if I can resist it and thereby, force my husband to eat it.   He would do that just to get it out of my sight.

All I can say for you, Paula Deene, is with only two little slices, you've created a monster. The devil is bound to get you!

Anna J