A St. Patrick's Day Birthday -- #recipes and a #giveaway from Leslie Budewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  Even experienced cooks and bakers have the occasional fail, and I had one this weekend. A few years back, a quirky little cafe on the other side of the valley offered green tea cookies. Tasty and well, quirky. Alas, it closed before I'd had my fill. So when I saw a recipe, and knew we had a bag of matcha (green tea) powder, I decided to try making them. It was a slice-and-bake recipe -- easy-peasy -- and the green sounded fun for St. Patrick's Day. Alas, the dough was crumbly and wouldn't hold its shape, no matter how I rolled and chilled. I HATE throwing away food, but I also hate struggling with something that obviously does not want to behave, so out it went.

Which left me with nothing to share with you today. I like celebrating St. Patrick's Day here on the blog, because it's fun -- and it's the birthday of Erin Murphy, the main character in my Food Lovers' Village Mysteries. Erin runs the Merc, a local foods market in her family's 100+ year old grocery building in the heart of the village of Jewel Bay, Montana, a lakeside town on the road to Glacier National Park, and solves crime. She's a younger version of me in some ways -- a Montana girl who left and came home at 32, only to discover that both she and town had changed -- and it was great fun to explore that story through the eyes of a much younger woman. 

Erin is half Italian, as you can tell from her name, and comes from a close family. She comes home at her mother's request to take over the struggling Merc. A family business, mother-daughter tensions -- what could go wrong? Find out in her first venture, Death al Dente, winner of the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First Novel.

Erin's father was killed in a hit-and-run accident her senior year of high school, a case unsolved until Butter Off Dead, third in the series, when Erin finally puts together enough clues to solve the case. There are five novels in the series, plus a short story collection, Carried to the Grave and Other Stories. The collection includes a novella, "An Unholy Death," set in 1910, the year Erin's great-grandparents got married, settled in Jewel Bay, and opened the Merc. Turns out Erin's sleuthing skills may well be inherited.  (You can read the novella in the collection, in pb, ebook, and audio, or as a standalone, in pb and ebook.)  

Butter, by the way, is the title that always got the most laughs -- until To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop book, named by a reader! 

My first thought was to reprise a pair of St. Patrick's Day recipes -- Guinness Stew and Irish Soda Bread. And they are yummy, but Edith shared her version of the stew last week, so I'll just give you the link and move on! So to celebrate my girl's birthday, I'm reprising my favorite birthday cakes -- Erin and I are both March babies, after all!

Any March babies in your circle will love this Glazed Chocolate Bundt Cake. So will anyone born in January, February, April -- you get the idea.

A classic carrot cake is always cause for celebration, birthday or no. This Carrot Graham Layer Cake is a fun variation on the theme. Vintage cake plate optional.

I've been celebrating with that cake plate a LONG time!

You might prefer an angel food cake. This Angel Food Cake with Fresh Strawberries was my mother's favorite, and I hope you'll click on the link to read the sweet story of the angel who helped me recreate that treat for her last birthday. 

And to return to our theme, I offer these Guinness Brownies -- a bit of a misnomer, as it's really more of a cake than brownies. The beer cooks off, leaving a rich, deep flavor, much as adding a bit of coffee to chocolate does. 

Got a kitchen fail story to share? Two lucky readers will win a signed paperback of Death al Dente, Erin's first adventure in crime! Leave your email address to enter. US mailing addresses only, please. Winners will be chosen Friday, March 20. 

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. 

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