Not Quite a Foodie

By Jennifer Haymore

(Today we welcome PensFatales friend Jennifer Haymore, author of A Hint of Wicked as well as Highland Obsession, written as Dawn Halliday. Jennifer's giving away a copy of A Hint of Wicked - be sure to post a comment for a chance to win!)

As much as I dream about being a food connoisseur, I am not a foodie. I have friends who grind their own wheat. I have other friends who can whip up a gourmet kid-friendly meal sans cookbook for their own family and ten guests without batting an eyelash. Some of my friends can taste the subtlest difference in a flavor of wine (and I know so little about wine, I cannot even say what kind of wine they can spot the differences in…).

Yes, I’m jealous. I wish I was at one with the universe of truly good food and drink. But frankly, give me a piece of bread and a slab of cheese, and I’m good. Add some avocado, and I’m in gourmet heaven.

Perhaps I should blame my parents. Not only were they vegetarians, but when I was growing up, my mom believed popcorn with a dash of Brewer’s yeast made a good dinner. Oh, she had her moments. We baked a few cakes in my forming years, and when she was feeling really ambitious, we’d make a loaf of bread. And we made cookies often. Still do, in fact. Sugar cookies with frosting. My kids have grown to equate their grandma to that kind of cookie. Result: I can bake a damn good cookie, but an actual meal? Uh…

I’ve sort of given up on my desire to be a gourmet. For now, I’m sticking with the labels “mom” and “writer.” Frankly, the last time I tried to cook something spectacular (a Moroccan lemon chicken dish with quinoa), it took an hour or two, and the result: I loved it, my husband thought it was okay, my kids thought it was spectacularly gross. So for now, while I try to meet my writing deadlines, I am keeping my focus on simple but healthy, easy meals that won’t result in whining children. Lots of fruit. As many veggies as I can get away with. And straightforward, easy-to-cook main dishes that everyone will eat.

But I’m always looking for new options. Our limited meal list does get old after a while, you know? What are some of your simple favorites?

Jennifer Haymore grew up on the Big Island of Hawaii, where she surfed, learned how to fly airplanes, raced bicycles, and developed a love for sailing. She was an avid reader and completely destroyed her eyesight by sneaking a flashlight under her covers and reading far into the nights — making her mother wonder why on earth she couldn’t get up for school in the mornings…

You can find Jennifer in Southern California trying to talk her husband into yet another trip to England, helping her three children with homework while brainstorming a new five-minute dinner menu, or crouched in a corner of the local bookstore writing her next novel.

Food for Writing

By Gigi

I love the atmosphere of libraries for writing. The problem? No food allowed.

I'm no good at being productive without sustenance. I'm not the type of person who can throw myself into something so deeply that I forget to eat. I need food. Or, at the very least, coffee.

(Coffee counts as food, right? And if not exactly as food, then at least as "fuel," like my NaNoWriMo mug says.)

So instead of the library, I usually end up at a cafe. I love to shake things up, so I'm always trying out new places, but I do have my favorites.

Coffee to the People in San Francisco (at right, where the quiche and bagels with chunky peanut butter have gotten me through many a writing session)

Espresso Roma in Berkeley (where a "single" latte is as strong as rocket fuel)

Solstice Cafe in Seattle (below, which I frequented during grad school and got me through my thesis, but honestly I can't remember the food or coffee, just the mellow atmosphere and the amazing tree-ring tables)

Sadly, the Canvas Cafe and Gallery in San Francisco went out of business last year. When I moved to San Francisco, that was one of my favorite places to eat and write.

I'm currently in the process of moving to a house where I'm going to have my very own room for writing, etc. It's next to the kitchen, so perhaps I'll start to make my own food and coffee. But when I hear the laundry calling...? I think I'll go in search of a new cafe.

Martha Loves Food

I eat out. A lot. Because I love food. A lot. But why believe me when I can show you proof of my prior month's conquests!

As others have posted, Blogger is feeling temperamental about pictures. If you view this page in Firefox you'll have a decent shot at seeing it formatted, otherwise it's going to be all over the place. But that doesn't mean it looks any less yummy.

Lisa Loves Lunch

I have a confession. When I was a kid I was the pickiest eater on the planet. After having my own children I apologized profusely to my parents for how freaking difficult I used to be. Example: when we went out to breakfast I would order boxed cereal. No eggs, no bacon, no waffle or pancake, not even oatmeal. Boxed. Cereal.

Once I hit my twenties, in a quest to expand my horizons, I forced myself to experiment outside the little food box that confined my life.

The result: I love food. I love to cook. I love to eat. Both food prepared by myself and food from restaurants. I love junk food and haute cuisine. Give me a Lays potato chip with French’s onion dip or a fried waffle potato slice with creme fraiche and caviar. A fried zucchini stick or a succotash of zucchini and corn. A burger from In-N-Out or a grass-fed Filet Mignon roasted medium rare with an accompaniment of bearnaise sauce. I love them all.

I have subscribed to Bon Appetit, Food and Wine, Gourmet. I peruse Vegetarian Times and Cook’s Illustrated. I have so many cookbooks that I have favorites and others I’ve barely even cracked open.

I love experimenting with different colors and spices and textures in pursuit of a particular taste. My current favorite lunch is a vegetarian pita sandwich. Green zucchini cubes and yellow bell pepper sauteed in a bit of olive oil and garlic. A chopped red heirloom tomato. A sprinkle of cheddar cheese. A modest slather of mayo. Stuffed into a whole wheat pita. Yum.

In my world, writing shares a common bond with cooking. The menu changes daily. Textures, moods, characters, quirks, conflicts both internal and external, a soundtrack. Each wonderful individually but when I mix them together the result is never quite what I expected. Sometimes the dish is so-so, that recipe never to be repeated, but sometimes after mixing and tweaking the end result is spectacular.

Some days, food is an artistic endeavor. Other days, it’s just lunch. But I love it anyway. Which come to think of it, is just how I feel about writing. :)

Lisa

ps. great cooking website for the culinarily adventurous = www.epicurious.com

pps. Blogger has decided they don't want my pictures so you are all missing out on the photo of one of my shelves of cookbooks....

Peach Season

L.G.C. Smith

In the summer, food in my house is all about fruit. My sister, Sarah Coddington, co-owns one of the premier stone fruit farms in the country – screw modesty, the world-- Frog Hollow Farm, with her ex-husband and business partner, Al Courchesne. Frog Hollow Farm grows the sweetest, ripest peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries, plums, pluots, pears and asian pears imaginable. Ever watch Iron Chef America? One of their frequent judges, Jeffrey Steingarten, once wrote that Frog Hollow Farm peaches were the best he could find.

Right now, my kitchen table is covered with bowls full of O’Henry and Cal Red peaches, Summer Fire nectarines, Flavor King pluots, and more. The dusty tang of ripe peaches permeates the room, the quintessential scent of a California summer.

The farm, in one form or another, has been in our family for almost ninety years. A cousin of my great-grandmother’s, Clara Smith, and her nephew, Clinton, bought it in the 1920s, and they grew apricots and cherries. In the Depression Years of the late 1930s, my grandparents, South Dakota teachers who didn’t get paid in the summer, packed my dad and his brother into the car and made the six-day trek to California. They worked in the orchards with the Okies and Arkies. When they returned home in August, they filled every free space in the car with canned and dried fruit. My dad was three and a half when he first lived in a tent in the orchard and built pretend airplanes out of wooden fruit boxes and tree props.

Shortly after we moved to the Bay Area in 1971, my dad trundled all of us in the car and headed for ‘the ranch,’ as it was called then. He didn’t so much as glance at a map though he hadn’t been there since he was ten years old, and he drove straight to Clinton’s. For the next fifteen years, Clinton, now an elderly bachelor with a penchant for travel and an impressive rifle collection, was a big part of our lives.

When Sarah and Al were first married, Al was farming on 13 acres next to Clinton’s place. My dad helped Clinton sell Sarah and Al a good portion of his land. It was tangled up in a complicated legal arrangement, and no mean feat to accomplish, but Frog Hollow Farm was born out of that transaction. Sarah and Al went organic in the late 1980s, and neither of them has wavered for a second in their commitment to sustainable agriculture and growing healthy, delicious fruit.

The best way to eat a peach is fresh at room temperature. To my mind, there’s no better breakfast than plain Greek yogurt topped with a sliced peach and a sprinkle of toasted almonds. Heaven. Cooking a ripe peach is practical criminal.

If you’re blessed with an abundance of peaches, here’s my favorite summer Peach Ice Cream recipe.

Peach Ice Cream

Makes about 2 quarts.

Ingredients:

3 cups organic half and half

1 1/2 cups organic cream (not ultra pasteurized)

half a vanilla bean

3/4 cup sugar

pinch of kosher salt

2 cups Frog Hollow Farm peach puree

Instructions:

Heat the half and half, cream, and vanilla bean in a heavy saucepan to 175°F, or a bare simmer, stirring often so it heats evenly. Immediately take the pan off the heat and remove the vanilla bean. Split it with a paring knife and scrape the seeds back into the hot half and half and cream. Add the sugar and a pinch of salt, stirring to dissolve. Let cool fifteen minutes or so while you prepare the peaches.

Wash and pit three or four large Frog Hollow Farm peaches. There’s no need to peel them unless you prefer them that way. Slice the peaches into a blender and puree until they’re nearly smooth. Stir the puree into the half and half and cream. (If the cream is too hot, the acid in the peaches may slightly curdle it. This is fine. ) Taste and adjust the sugar to your palate. The sweetness will vary depending on how sweet the peaches are.

Refrigerate the ice cream mix overnight, or for at least 6 hours. Aging it improves the flavor, and it has to go into the ice cream maker cold for optimal texture.

Process in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. It should take 15-20 minutes to finish. Transfer the frozen ice cream into a chilled glass or hard plastic container, cover tightly, and place in the freezer for at least an hour before serving. For hard ice cream, leave it several hours.

Serve with fresh peach slices and a few berries for a simple summer sundae.

Note: When fresh peaches aren’t available, you can use Frog Hollow Farm Peach Conserve in place of the fresh peach puree. Either add it straight from the jars, or give it a whirl in the blender first.

Barbara Bretton's Rolls-Royce

I am eating lunch at the counter in Atlantic City when Nicky DellaNova sits down next to me. I know he is Nicky DellaNova because he bellowed his name to the hostess at the entrance to the coffee shop.

“You got a cigarette?” Nicky asks.

I shake my head. “I don’t smoke.”

“You got a match?”

“Sorry.”

“So what are you doing here?” Nicky asks, as if smoking were the only possible reason a woman would be in the coffee shop.

I gesture toward my salad and iced tea. “Having lunch.”

“Have a burger why don’t you? Get some protein.”

"Plenty of protein right there," I say, pointing toward my chicken Caesar.

"You call that protein? You want protein, you eat beef. Case closed."

He wears a dark blue velour running suit with wide white stripes running up the sides, virgin running shoes, black socks, and serious bling. This is Atlantic City. He blends right in.

Nicky is a big man who is good-looking in a loud, Brooklyn kind of way. We had his type in Queens, too, when I was growing up. There’s a sweetness buried beneath the bravado. You just have to get through the bluster to find it.

“Bacon cheeseburger, fries, cuppa coffee,” Nicky tells the waitress then turns back to me. “So what’re you doing here?”

I tilt my head in the direction of the casino one hundred yards away from where we’re sitting.

“Yeah,” says Nicky DellaNova. “I’m a big gambler. That’s why I’ve been married four times.”

“Ah,” I say in my best noncommittal voice. “A romantic.”

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s a curse.”

“My grandfather’s a romantic too,” I say. “He was married five times.”

“You a romantic like your grandpa?”

“Not me. I just have one husband.”

“That’s too bad,” he says and he laughs.

“Why is it too bad?”

"That's like eating salad every day for the rest of your life."

"Lots of people eat salad every day."

"Okay, babe, then it's like driving one car for the rest of your life. Can’t do it.”

“Sure you can,” I say. “You find a car you like, you keep it tuned up, it lasts forever.”

“Nah,” says Nicky DellaNova. “Sooner or later it rusts out and you’ve got to start shopping around again.”

“Not if you have the car rust-proofed,” I say. “Lifetime guarantee.”

Nicky laughs again. “No such thing as a lifetime guarantee. Not in this world. Besides, don’t you ever want to trade up? Just because you start with a Chevy don’t mean you gotta end up with one.”

“What if you like Chevys?”

“Nothing wrong with liking Chevys, but sooner or later everyone wants to own a Caddy.”

I’ve never been much of a Caddy fan myself. Too flashy. Too easy to come by. “What if you already have a Rolls? What then?”

He peers at me so closely that I can make out the faint outline of soft lenses resting against his corneas. “You got a Rolls?”

“What if I do?” I say. “Let’s say I went out and bought a Rolls the day I got my license.” Let’s say I found that Rolls the first day I walked into my very first showroom and let’s say I still like sliding behind the wheel.

“You gotta love a Rolls,” he concedes. “Even the old ones.”

“And they look great,” I say. “Especially the old ones.”

“I hear you, babe, but even a Rolls gets boring if that’s all you drive.”

“If driving a Rolls gets boring, maybe it’s not the car,” I say. “Maybe it’s the driver.”

Nicky DellaNova considers my words while he folds a handful of fries into his mouth. “My Uncle Joey had a showroom on Utopia Parkway. He had Chevys and Fords and Buicks and Chryslers and even some of those Mercedes jobbies.” He takes a bite of his cheeseburger and continues talking. Little bits of pinkish beef dot his lower lip. “One day a guy comes in, one of those skinny guys with the fancy suits like you see in the city. So he walks up and down the lot with Uncle Joey right behind him. 'Take a test drive,' Uncle Joey says, pointing to a big white El Dorado. 'How ya gonna know what you like if you don’t get behind the wheel?'” He gulps down some coffee, folds in another fry. Nicky DellaNova knows more about pacing than most Hollywood screenwriters. “So this guy stops, he lights up a cigar, looks at Uncle Joey and says, 'Ya got any used Rolls-Royces around here?' And Uncle Joey says, 'You gotta be kidding. Once you get yourself a Rolls, you don’t go trading down to a Ford.'”

“Listen to your Uncle Joey,” I say to Nicky DellaNova as I catch sight of my husband standing in the entrance to the coffee shop. “After a Rolls-Royce, everything else is second best.”


Barbara Bretton is the USA Today bestselling, award-winning author of more than 40 books. She currently has over ten million copies in print around the world. Her works have been translated into twelve languages in over twenty countries. Barbara loves to spend as much time as possible in Maine with her husband, walking the rocky beaches and dreaming up plots for upcoming books. Her newest novel in the Sugar Maple series, Laced With Magic, is available now.

Bohemian Highway

--Adrienne Miller

I have a favorite plotting spot and it comes with a side salad and a bowl of minestrone soup. How’s that for service?

Its a ways away. A couple hours drive. Far enough that I feel like I’m getting away, but not so far that I think twice before loading up the family and making a day of it.

Its better if Tom drives, that way I can stare out the window as we pass over the bridge, through the wetlands, and up the freeway. Thats when the ideas start coming--just a trickle at first. Its not until we take the off ramp in the middle of Cotati that my imagination really gets going.

Sonoma County. I’m in love with it. 

We start rolling down those long country roads, the sound of my latest story soundtrack playing, and I watch it all go by. The patches of wildflowers along the shoulder. The cow pastures. The Russian River. The vineyards. And, my favorite, the apple orchards. 

I don’t know the names of the roads we turn on--maybe Tom does--but I know them all by landmark. There’s the left at the old Washoe House, and the turn at the tin movie theater, and the curve in the road that takes you past the house that I’m just going to have to use in a story.

And then there’s the food...Cause this supposed to be about food, right? 

If its the weekend we might stop at the Farmer’s Market in Sebastapol. Or there’s the apple pie place a few miles outside of town. And somehow we just always find ourselves driving past the Korbel Champagne Cellars and nothing, but nothing, in this world is more inspirational than a glass of Blanc de Noir. 

But those are all appetizers to when we turn down the Bohemian Highway (not kidding, thats the name of the road) and cruise into Occidental, a tiny town hidden away from the rest of the world. There you’ll find Negri’s, my favorite plotting spot.

You can’t miss it. There’s a giant neon sign with a martini glass on it and the handles on the entryway doors are a giant fork and spoon, just in case you needed reminding why you were there. The tables are covered in those plastic-coated red and white checked tablecloths that are great for easy clean up and serve as a warning to how messy you or, more likely, your kids might get.

And just as soon as our butts hit the seats, I slide out my notebook. By that time I’ve got two or three hours worth of ideas rattling around in my brain.

I  don’t have to worry about the kids. They’re happy as can be. Negri’s is a family place...a real family place. The kind of place that knows sometimes the two year old is going to put spaghetti in his hair. I order another glass of champagne or a cocktail and a plate of raviolis and get to work.

I’ll admit half the fun is that my favorite plotting partner is across from me. Tom doesn’t write books, but what he lacks in experience he makes up for in enthusiasm. And his ego isn’t bruised when I shake my head at some...most of his ideas. This is the man who thought Wayne Scotting would make a great character name, after all. 

The courses come out on rolling carts. Soup. Salad. Antipasta. And we eat it all, even the stuff I wouldn’t normally touch. Like the pickled peppers. I don’t like pickled food and I hate peppers. Yet at Negri’s I pop those bad boys into my mouth..and then gulp down the whole glass of water. 

The raviolis are wicked good. Everything is good. But I would be lying if I said we were only there for the food. Nope. It’s the place. The whole experience--the drive, the flavors and the feeling you get in a place where you can really relax and talk and laugh. And let the barn door of your imagination fly open.

Juliet's Appetite for Living

I have an astonishing ability to eat just about anything. I'm not sure that's a good thing -- and recent pictures of me demonstrate that it's really NOT-- but it did make me a successful anthropologist. Nothing like giving chili-sprinkled fried grasshoppers a go to ingratiate yourself with the local population in a small village in Mexico. Or gnawing on gelatinous chicken feet in a dim sum restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown. Or actually asking to try seal meat while in a Yup'ik village.

After all, how can you understand the flavor of a culture without trying its food?

The other day I was in bar with a bunch of other mystery writers (why are we so often found in bars?) and a young man was talking about his stay in Sweden, where he was offered a fish dish that is considered a great delicacy. He knew he was in trouble when the family's young daughter ran outside to throw up the moment they broke the seal on the jar. It seems that they prepare the fish with a variety of spices, then let it putrefy in the ground for a year or so until it reaches its prime.
(About the picture at left: I'm sure they weren't eating clownfish, but isn't it cute?)

When Bouchercon (the big mystery conference) was up in Anchorage a couple of years ago, I took part in the Authors in the Bush program, which sends authors out to remote areas of the state. I flew on a bush plane out to a Yu'pik village right on the Bering Strait. Hooper Bay is still almost entirely native, and its people survive primarily by using traditional means of hunting and gathering. I was speaking at the school and asked the children about their family hunting trips, and one girl told me her favorite thing to eat was "mouse food."

At first I thought she was referring to "moss food" or some such, but I was wrong: she was talking about the stash of food mice build up all summer, carrying home grains and roots and berries in their mouths and tucking them away for the winter. Apparently it makes for quite a delicacy (though it seems cruel to steal the mouse's stash, they leave half for the mouse to eat). I was just as glad there wasn't any available for me to try -- the seal meat was about as far as I could take this whole adventurous gourmand thing.


(For more info on the trip, and pictures, check out my artloversmysteries blog here.)

I wrote my first mystery series with my sister, who doesn't like to cook, so our protagonist Annie Kincaid does great take-out -- which is pretty easy to do in the Bay Area: Mexican, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, German...you name it, it's available. The possibilities are endless.

But now that I'm writing a new series on my own, my protagonist --who happens to be a witch-- loves to cook. Like me, she observes that cooking is a kind of everyday magic. You can infuse your cooking with love and caring...there's a reason that the first thing you do when someone visits your home is to offer them food and drink. It's a way to show your affection and respect...or is that my food-loving parents speaking?

I grew up in a family that adored food, and cooking. Life revolved around the kitchen, where my mother whipped up her own mother's southern dishes --gumbo and cornbread were my favorites-- and my father honed dishes he invented during years of cooking at resorts in the Adirondacks and Santa Fe--including the unforgettable "Lawes steak" and "Lawes spaghetti".

These are indelible parts of my childhood memories now, as much --or more-- food for the soul as for the body.

Rachael Starves Her Characters

No one eats in my novels.

I forget to make them hungry. I'm the opposite of the food writers in that way. There are no recipes, no drool-worthy descriptions of [cream/spice/sugar/fill in the blank].

I think what it comes down to is that I'm really not that great a cook. I've learned that simple is the best way to go. If I get any fancier than a meat and a green, it's bound to get a little funny, and my characters have the same problem.

In the novel I'm working on now, my main character Lucy gets so flustered that she cracks two eggs into cold water and then tries to convince the hero that she's going to poach them. I had to go into my own kitchen and try it myself to see if she could get away with it (it's not pretty and raises lots of white foam, but it's doable). That and a dessicated Hershey bar that ends up getting thrown into the rafters of a de-sanctified church is the extent of the food in the current work in progress. Poor characters.

Maybe if I fed 'em better they'd act right. I know I act better after a good meal. I might try it.

Channeling Cass, Who Eats to Live

By Sophie

I'm a terrible terrible junk food addict, as the Pens know (especially those who roomed with me in D.C. and got dragged along for McDonalds runs). My taste in, well, taste is lowbrow and well-larded with lard.

I'm not into the sugar so much, but sprinkle salt on just about anything and deep-fry it and we're good. Potato chips are my core food, in particular those sturdy kettle-style salt-and-pepper deals. But I also adore hush puppies, clam fritters, onion rings, catfish, anything at all from the Frito-Lay folks....

(It turns out that both LGC's people - the English - and my people - the Poles - make a version of stale bread fried in bacon fat. Global delicious!)

This has worked out okay for me, surprisingly. I force myself to eat a decent diet, packing away the required fruits and veggies and so forth before prowling the larder late at night for sodium-rich foodstuffs composed of polyunsaturated fats. I don't even have to compete with the kids, because in a freakish departure from the family genes, they don't like junk food. (A shameful memory of mine is yelling at my then-eight-year-old, "You better eat that whole damn cupcake or no apple for you!")

However, change has come to Sophietown.

Starting last week, my diet underwent a dramatic overhaul. I'm eating for sustenance. Food as fuel - consumed indifferently, on the run, chosen for dietary efficacy and without a thought to palate appeal. Cereal and yogurt and fruit for breakfast, a simple sandwich or salad for lunch and dinner.

This isn't a diet and I don't care if I lose weight. Any improvement in my cholesterol or blood pressure or BMI will be unintended.

Because it's all about becoming Cass.

Cass Dollar is the heroine of my next book. I'm not sayin' much about her, because that will jinx the project, but Cass is a haunted young woman who views her body variously as a vehicle and an encumbrance and a ticking bomb. Cass is hardly a sensualist - her world is a lean and daunting place, and she neither seeks nor indulges pleasure of any kind, and certainly not when it comes to food.

I've never tried "method" writing before - the idea of being the character, at least during writing hours. But this project seems right for it. I feel a real affinity for poor Cass (don't worry, she has a redemptive arc and by the end of the book she'll probably be downing jelly donuts and champagne and dancing through sprinklers or something) and I want to understand who she is as clearly as I can, at least in the early days of the draft.

(Note that I just gave myself an out there. "Early days of the draft," I said, which is code for "if I really need a Dorito then all bets are off.")

Topics Coming Soon

05.31.09 Writer

06.01.09 First Lines

06.15.09 Characters

06.29.09 Summer

07.13.09 Creativity

07.27.09 Movies

08.10.09 Food

08.24.09 Deleted Scenes