Celebrate Launch Day with Lavender Goat Cheese! #recipe and #bookgiveaway by @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  It’s Launch Day for Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop mystery! At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But when a pot of lavender stirs up strong emotions, the sweet smell of success turns deadly . . . 

I always say it’s important to have friends who cook well, and Pepper agrees. So will your friends when you show up with a bowl of this Lavender Goat Cheese, from Lavender Lies Bleeding, and crackers, pita chips, or a thinly-sliced baguette to spread it on. 

For many of us, lavender is one of the scents of summer. Smell and memory are closely linked. Pepper describes it this way: 

    “Why is it,” a customer asked me, “that I can smell a spice and find myself remembering something I hadn’t thought of in years? It happens so fast. I don’t even have time to think ‘oh, nutmeg. My grandmother used to sprinkle that on her eggnog at Christmas.’”

    “Memory and smell are closely related,” I replied. “They’re located in the same part of the brain. The theory is that early humans relied heavily on taste and smell to tell them whether something was safe to eat, so their brains developed a memory bank of smells to guide them.”

    She spooned a few lavender buds into her palm from the wooden display bowl and gave them a good sniff. “I’m not getting much.”

    “Crush them lightly.” I mimed swirling the fingertips of one hand against my other palm. “To release the oils. Some spices announces themselves. Paprika, for example. You open the jar and you know it. Others, like lavender or rose petals, work their way into your consciousness more slowly, from your nose or your tongue. But once they’re there, you don’t want them to leave.” 

(Excerpted from Lavender Lies Bleeding, copyright 2025, Leslie Ann Budewitz.)

Since lavender is commonly grown, and not so commonly used in cooking, make sure your lavender buds are food-safe. If you buy them from a reputable commercial source, no worries. If you grow your own or cut a few stalks from a neighbor’s plant—no special variety is needed—make sure no pesticides or herbicides were used nearby. Lavender is best harvested when the flowers are about 25%-50% open, in the morning before the oils begin to release in the heat of the day. 

May your summer be filled with the tastes and scents you love! 

And thanks to our new Kitchen pal, Kim Davis, for celebrating the launch with a plate of Lavender Buttermilk Scones, on her blog, Cinnamon, Sugar, and a Little Bit of Murder! 

Lavender Lies Bleeding is out today in paperback, ebook, and audio! I'm celebrating by giving two lucky readers their choice of an audio code or a signed copy. Details below.

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing. 

Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Lavender Goat Cheese Spread 

Perfect on crackers or toasted slices of baguette—or serve a dollop on top of egg-filled crepes or an omelet. It’s addictive—put a bowl on your charcuterie tray at your next gathering and watch it disappear!

10 ounce log of plain goat cheese 

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon fresh or ½ teaspoon dried lavender buds

lavender flowers for garnish (optional) 

Place the goat cheese in a bowl to soften, about 30 minutes. If the lavender is fresh, chop it; if dried, grind it a bit in a mortar and pestle.

Add the honey and lavender to the softened goat cheese and blend thoroughly with an immersion blender or a small food processor 3-5 minutes, until smooth. Thin if necessary with a few drops of milk or half and half.  

Transfer to a small serving bowl and garnish with lavender flowers. 

Serve with crackers or slices of baguette. Leftovers can be refrigerated, covered, and kept up to 2 days. 

Enjoy! 

Do you have a favorite memory connected to a scent? Have you cooked with lavender before I started feeding you ideas? Do you grow your own? 

Leave a comment – and your email address – for a chance to be one of two lucky readers who win their choice of an audio code or a signed copy of Lavender Lies Bleeding. (US addresses only, please. Winners will be announced Friday, July 18. Update: The audio has been delayed; the winner can wait or choose another audiobook -- I have some leftover codes!) 

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .  

Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills. 

Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket. 

Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf. 

As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.