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Today I’m over at the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter of RWA, talking about too many stories.
You can find that posting here… and I’ll see you all back here on Friday, where I talk about pink wines!
Monday Mashup of Awesomeness
In the spirit of Holiday, and Freedoms, and all around extreme coolness, I’m passing on some blogs – or books – that I’ve found to be amazing, wonderful, interesting, or just very, very cool.
First up is Ais Portraits and her terrific post about food styling. This young woman is a terrific photographer, and I’ve just today found her. Trust me when I say I’ll be following her development!
Ais’s mom is Lorna Tedder, and her blog is The Spiritual Eclectic. An all around great place to hang. Lorna is good peeps and seeing her change and grow has been an amazing journey this past few years – plus I learn a lot!
I have to give a shout out to my very dear friend, Lynne Marshall. Her single title, ONE FOR THE ROAD, is out now from Wild Rose Press and it’s definitely a book full of heart. Lynne is a writer who knows how to dig into your emotions and keep you hooked, right from the beginning. You can find her book here.
For knowledge and fun, give Catie Rhodes a try. She’s a writer who blogs about – well, a lot. Today, she’s blogging about high treason, and how everyone who signed the Declaration of Independence could have been drawn and quartered (and I don’t mean have a portrait made and given a place to sleep), plus a lot worse. She gives good history – it’s another place where I always learn something.
For writers looking for mentors, check out Kristen Lamb’s blog. She’s the #1 social media guru for writers, in my opinion. Plus, she’s downright funny and fun to hang with. She teaches online classes, too – so if you can grab one of those, do!
Another terrific writing mentor is Bob Mayer. I’ve taken his Warrior Writer class twice now, both times in person, and done all the exercises in his book at least twice. He’s dedicated, funny, and prolific. He’s got his finger on the indie press pulse, and I’ve learned a lot from him. Because of an idea he gave me in one of his workshops, I sold my first book. So I’m also forever indebted to him!
And last but not least, for this week anyway, is a wine blog by Joe Roberts called 1 Wine Dude. He’s a “certified” wine specialist, but he’s straight forward, funny, and not at all pretentious. I’m actually gonna find him on Twitter and follow, as he does reviews there. He tastes tons of wines of all price ranges and is witty about his reviews but not obscure.
So there you have it, some of my favorite online places to hang. Coming soon is a blog on pink wines – why, oh why couldn’t they have just kept calling them Rose? (Pretend there’s an accent on the “e” for me, okay?!)
In the meantime, have a safe and happy Fourth of July. Love from my house to yours!
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Have you read DEMON SOUL yet? You can find it at Crescent Moon Pressor Amazon.com. Happy Reading!
Cline Viognier 2010 and Salmon Sausages
Yes, you read that right. Salmon sausages. I’m lucky enough to live in a small town that has a butcher and a fish monger. In the same building.
So when their email came out yesterday, and I saw they had salmon sausages for $5+ a pound, I gave a head’s up to the hubby. We’d both been kinda hankering for sausages – especially on the July 4th weekend – so the salmon seemed like a great compromise. Light in calories (comparatively speaking) and healthy to boot.
When hubby went in to pick some up, he was told they’d been flying out of the stores, to OceanFresh’s gratification. It seems we weren’t the only ones who thought the idea a wonderful one.
The sausages were delicious – like eating salmon filet without the worry of how to cook it. (I barbecued – oh SO yummy!) A roasted mix of veggies added just enough substance to the meal without making it heavy.
But what about the wine? After all, it IS wine Friday!
Cline Viognier North Coast 2010 Sonoma, California $14.99 a bottle but on special for $9.99 at Vons. Alcohol 14% by volume.
On the Label: “Family owned and operated since 1982. Viognier is most famous for producing the rich and exotically perfumed white wines of the northern Rhone’s Condrieu and Chateau-Grillet appellations. A variety characterized by low yields and small planted acreage, Viognier is one of the world’s most rare and treasured wines.
Cline’s Viognier is loaded with pineapple, peach and apricot flavors accented by floral and citrus notes. Perfect as an aperitif with Gruyere or Camembert, this wine also pairs exceptionally well with curried shrimp or Asian fusion cuisine. Serve lightly chilled.”
This was almost the perfect summer wine. Fragrant, with just a hint of sweetness, it paired with the salmon sausages and roasted veggies beautifully. It’s a terrific sipping wine, too and does go well with cheese (I had to taste test, you know!).
The meal itself would have been fun to serve at a dinner party, the sausages so delightfully different and the wine an awesome pick. A blood orange sorbet was the perfect ending to the meal.
My rating: ~Stay Away! This is my wine, you slut!~
Grab a few bottles for summer, take it to share with friends – you’ll be set! Remember – your taste buds may vary. Over the July 4th weekend, and always, please Drink Responsibly!
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Have you read DEMON SOUL yet? You can find it at Crescent Moon Press or Amazon.com. Happy Reading!
What’s in a Recipe?
Cooking. Recipes. I used to follow them to the letter, until I had kids. Then shortcuts started happening, or I didn’t have the exact ingredients, or I just thought it might taste better if…
My husband is still a slave to the recipe, no matter what it may be. Which is better? Someone who follows a recipe down to the last quarter teaspoon of water in the pan, or someone who is creative as they cook?
It all boils down (pun intended) to the recipe itself. The trick is finding the right one – and I still go by instinct rather than solid knowledge when I look for a recipe.
For instance, about three months ago hubby decided he’d make a fish chowder. For some reason I wasn’t home that day, so he found a recipe online and made this chowder. When I got home the next evening, he stood at the stove, reheating his creation from the night before.
“Fix this,” he said to me, and thrust the spoon into my hand. “It was bland and boring last night. Please, make it taste better.”
I sipped. He was right, bland and boring. But once you’ve added the cream to the chowder, there’s not much more you can do to it. I tried; I added creamed corn and some thyme, and a little bit of sherry. That brought the chowder up to not-bland and not-boring, but certainly not the chowder he was trying to recreate (from a restaurant we’d eaten at in Monterey in early March).
Time rolled on, until this past weekend. Fish Chowder, says the husband. I agreed to make it if he bought the fish. And it was my turn to hit the internet for a recipe.
Photo from http://simplyrecipes.com
Most of the flavor of a good seafood chowder comes before you add the fish and the cream. The recipe I ultimately found had all the ingredients it needed to be tasty – olive oil and butter, onions, dry white wine, potatoes, clam juice, Old Bay seasoning and thyme, for starters.
The New England Fish Chowder recipe that I found from Simply Recipes had everything I needed. The interesting thing about this recipe? If I wanted to omit the fish and add shrimp, clams, and crab, that too would taste amazing. Because most of the flavor is in the base of the chowder, not the fish itself. Two cups of clam juice was what it took to make this chowder lip-smackingly good.
The recipe itself calls for Pacific Cod, as its a sustainable fish here in the west. I used Tilapia because it’s cheap. I also, at the last minute, threw in a pound of cut-up raw shrimp just before the Tilapia was cooked – the shrimp cooked up in a minute or so and added nice color to the chowder (and as the shrimp was on special, $5 a pound, I didn’t totally blow the grocery budget).
Overall, it was a winner. We had the leftovers last night, and I didn’t have to do a thing to make it taste better! Oh, and we had a Chenin Blanc wine to go with it. Decent pairing, but I would have preferred an oaky Chardonnay.
Some people may think fish chowder is a funny recipe to make during the summer – but days can be foggy and cool here in June, and sometimes a hearty fish chowder can both warm you up and still make it feel like summer, with that taste of the sea.
What are some of your favorite summer dishes?
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Have you read DEMON SOUL yet? You can find it at Crescent Moon Press or Amazon.com. Happy Reading!
Happy Birthday, Scott Cunningham!
Today would have been my brother’s – um, let me count – 55th birthday, had he lived. The middle boy of Chet and Rosie Cunningham’s three children, Scott was an amazing brother.
Oh, who am I kidding! He was four years older than me, and as such terrorized me regularly – once I was old enough to bug him incessantly, that is! We bickered over stupid stuff like siblings often do. Yet he also was patient when he showed me how to drip candles into water to make medallions, and answered my seemingly unending questions about his tarot cards.
But he was truly an amazing adult.
We shared an apartment for a few months – he was 22, I was 18 – but I was rarely there. Within six or seven months I was gone, off to dance for the Arizona Ballet Theatre.
I don’t have a lot more to say about Scott, except that I miss him. I miss his biting wit, his terrible puns, and his out-of-the-blue phone calls. I’d love his take on the political situation in the world today. And I miss his presence.
So that’s why, today, I’m calling it out. Happy Birthday, Scott Cunningham. Love you. Miss you.
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His books continue to sell, 18 years after his death. You can find them at Llewellyn Worldwide’s site.
Blessed be!