Around the Kitchen Table: What's Cooking in Our Books + #Giveaway

LUCY BURDETTE: About four years ago we had a discussion of what our characters eat. But over those past four years, we’ve had a lot of characters come and go, and a lot of new food and recipes, and even new members! So it seemed time to revisit the question: what’s your character cooking these days?

Last year, food critic Hayley Snow was all about Key lime pie. She tasted many, many versions (as did I), and she made a pie and other Key lime scented confections as well. Next summer's book takes place in Scotland, so she and I have been cooking and eating a lot of Scottish specialties. Scones! Sticky toffee pudding! Raspberry cranachan! It’s so much fun to explore a new book and a new culture through Hayley's eyes and Hayley’s food. 

What are your characters cooking?

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PEG aka Margaret Loudon: The main character in my Open Book series (Murder in the Margins out now) is not much of a cook but she's all about the curry take-aways from the shop on the high street in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke, England.  Her friend Lady Fiona Innes-Goldthorpe, aka Figgy, runs a tea shop where she makes lots of delicious baked goods like lemon drizzle cake, Madeira cake, Victoria Sponge, shortbread, Chelsea buns and Jammie Dodgers.  Penelope is happy to help out by seeing that nothing goes to waste!

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LESLIE BUDEWITZ: In my Spice Shop series, Pepper and her pals often eat and drink foods that showcase the theme spice. Searching for recipes and trying them is great fun. That's how the Lemon Thyme Shortbread in Killing Thyme and the Chai Spice Coffee Cake in Chai Another Day came about, both now household faves. She also tries to cook with what's new and interesting in the Pike Place Market, where her shop is. That's a bit of a challenge for the WIP, set just before Christmas! Now and then, a classic from our personal repertoire sneaks its way into a novel, like the Tortellini Salad Erin and her family take to a pre-concert picnic in Treble at the Jam Fest. More than once, I've eaten something so yummy I had to include it in a book, like the Herby-Cheesy Spread my BFF makes and the Summertime Chopped Salad, based on one I ate at the Pink Door in the Market. (Both are in Killing Thyme.) Writing about characters who love to cook and eat has made own life a lot tastier, and I hope it's added a certain spice to yours, dear readers!  

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VICKI DELANY: Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium can make a full English breakfast. Her cooking skills stop there. And Lucy Richardson from the Lighthouse Library mysteries can barely do that. Then again, she lives in a tiny apartment on the fourth floor of a lighthouse, so she doesn't have a lot of kitchen space.  The only character of mine who's a great cook is Lily Roberts of the Tea by the Sea mysteries. Lily owns a traditional afternoon tea room and the kitchen is her happy place. Some of the tea room favourite recipes are included in Tea and Treachery and the forthcoming Murder in a Tea Cup, and have been featured at Mystery Lovers Kitchen. 

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MADDIE DAY: Robbie Jordan from the Country Store Mysteries is always looking for new breakfast and lunch specials to offer in her restaurant. Her holiday Holly Cookies were on this blog not long ago, and her Cheesy Biscuits and Asian Noodle Salad have been, too.

Mac Almeida from the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries isn't much of a cook, but she ate some yummy Polenta Parmesan Disks at a restaurant, and she can whip up a mean Avocado Deviled Egg when she gets the chance (recipe in Murder at the Taffy Shop).

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MIA P. MANANSALA: I'm working on Book 2 in the Tita Rosie's Kitchen Mystery Series, and in Shady Palms, IL, it's currently summer. My protagonist Lila is busy coming up with offerings for her new shop and downing bowl after bowl of her grandmother's famous halo-halo to beat the heat. Halo-halo (literally 'mix-mix') is like the national Filipino dessert, a cross between shaved ice and an ice cream sundae. It's so delicious and refreshing that Lila is trying to incorporate the flavors in her Filipino-American fusion desserts.

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TINA KASHIAN: Lucy Berberian is the manager of her family’s Mediterranean restaurant, Kebab Kitchen, at the Jersey shore. She didn’t start as a cook, but after cooking lessons from her mother, she’s improved. Hummus and shish kebab are local favorites at Kebab Kitchen. The restaurant’s moussaka and baklava were on this blog not long ago. Lucy also loves lemon meringue pie and she often visits the local bakery, Cutie’s Cupcakes, for a slice.

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LESLIE KARST: Sally Solari has been experimenting of late with artichokes, which play a part in the upcoming number five in the series (tentatively entitled The Fragrance of Death). Native to the Mediterranean, the delectable thistles were first brought to coastal Northern California in the early 1920s, and have thrived in the cool, foggy, Mediterranean climate around Santa Cruz ever since. Sally's favorite artichoke recipe? A creamy artichoke soup made with Yukon Gold potatoes and shallots (which recipe shall appear in the new book).

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MAYA CORRIGAN: Val Deniston's grandfather and sleuthing partner took up cooking in his 70s and won't make any dish with more than five ingredients. The recipes in my Five-Ingredient Mysteries are ones from Granddad's Codger Cook column in the local newspaper. Over the holidays I used some of his recipes that I previously shared on this blog, including orange pork with parnsips, shrimp with tomatoes and feta, and a warm chocolate tart. My giveaway mystery today includes the recipe for that tart plus another one, the tell-tale tarte that embroils Val and Granddad in the search for a murderer. 

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MARY JANE MAFFINI I love this question! I am so jealous of my colleagues with characters whipping up delectable dishes and still saving the day. With three and a half series, I haven’t been able to concoct a single main character who can function in a kitchen without putting her life at risk.

Although it is rumored that professional organizer Charlotte Adams can make a stir-fry, there is no solid evidence for this. She does love to eat take-out pizza and large Italian sandwiches. But mostly she lives by her sweet tooth. Here’s her best dessert recipe: Open freezer. Extract tub of Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk. Remove lid. Apply spoon and move to sofa. Serves 1.

I hope she will expand her range in future books. But if Charlotte doesn’t cook, there’s always someone else to do that. In her case, the someone is Rose Skipowski, seventysomething friend and occasional sidekick and world class cookie baker. In the reissue of the first five Charlotte books and the new one, I will be including one of Rose’s fabulous cookie recipes in each book. I must say, I’m enjoying the research.

Jordan Bingham, the young researcher in the book collector mysteries (that I write with my daughter as Victoria Abbot) comes from a rich tradition of Kraft Mac and Cheese alternated with beans and wieners. Jordan is so thrilled to meet Signora Panetone, the Italian cook in her new job, that she doesn't mind the on-going risks to her life as she sleuths out rare books. We have included some of the signora’s specialties in each of the five books including The Christie Curse, my giveaway today.

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CLEO COYLE: Like our culinary sleuth, my husband and I always enjoy cooking up and (especially!) eating the foods we feature in our Coffeehouse Mysteries. In our latest release, Brewed Awakening, we staged an amusing wedding cake tasting as part of the mystery plot. 

Yet while our coffeehouse manager, Clare Cosi, sampled some of the most popular wedding cake flavors being baked these days, the question remains: when will she finally get hitched to her longtime boyfriend, NYPD Detective Mike Quinn? No spoilers here. Their bumpy ride to the altar continues in our brand-new Coffeehouse title, Honey Roasted, coming this December (in hardcover, e-book, and audio).

Beyond wedding cakes, some of our favorites recipes in Brewed Awakening include an outstanding version of Strawberry Cream Cheese Scones (pictured above); a delectable Secret-Ingredient Beef Stew (which a fan on Facebook recently raved about), and an amazing Mocha Buttercream. Ditto for the fun foods we featured in our previous Coffeehouse entry, Shot in the Dark, including Birthday Cake Biscotti, Amish Cinnamon-Apple Bread, and “Mommy and Me” Chocolate Chip Cookies. We are giving away that very book (Shot in the Dark) today, along with the first title in our long-running Haunted Bookshop series: The Ghost and Mrs. McClure. P.S. Look for our brand-new Haunted Bookshop Mystery in May: The Ghost and the Haunted Portrait. No cooking in our new Ghost book, but there will be a delicious mystery with plenty of twists, turns, and heartwarming humor.

GIVEAWAY!

To be entered in this week's drawing,

leave a comment about either the most

delicious food you’ve read about in a book

or a recipe you’d love to see a character cook.

Comments Open through
Thursday, Feb. 11.

The Key Lime Crime by Lucy Burdette

The Tell-Tale Tarte by Maya Corrigan

The Christie Curse by Victoria Abbott (Mary Jane Maffini)

Shot in the Dark by Cleo Coyle

The Ghost and Mrs. McClure by Cleo Coyle

Comments Open through
Thursday, Feb. 11.