Around the Kitchen Table: Writing Food, Right Now! + 5-Book #Giveaway!

LUCY BURDETTE: I've taken a short break before I have to tackle my next Key West mystery, and I'm using that time to draft part of a novel set in a fancy Parisian restaurant. It's fun to figure out what this restaurant might be serving, and also where else my character might eat when she isn't working. Some of the dishes on Chez Cassan's menu aren't things I'd either cook or eat (fois gras, for example,) and others I will be making for sure (cheese soufflé and maybe raspberry soufflé too!) There will also be flash-fried squash blossoms stuffed with special goat cheese and tied up with fresh chives because that might become an important plot point...

So writers, that's the question of the day:

How is food figuring in to what you're writing now, and will you be actually cooking any of it? 

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LESLIE KARST: Since my Orchid Isle mysteries are set on the Big Island of Hawai'i, and since my protagonist, Valerie Corbin, is a retired caterer for the TV and movie biz--now working as a bartender at the Speckled Gecko in her new-found town of Hilo--there's not surprisingly a lot of food and cooking in my books, as well as recipes, of course!

And I have a lot of fun coming up with ideas for dishes based on the local ingredients and cuisine, and then testing out the recipes on folks who are willing to be guinea pigs. (Not hard finding them, I will admit.) The newest in the series, Murder, Local Style, which releases April 7, for example, features such dishes as Butter-Shoyu Chicken, Japanese Style Potato Salad, and Gochujang Sugar Cookies. (Yes, all those recipes are in the book!) And in the previous book, Waters of Destruction, I featured the amazing local dish, Kalbi Ribs: 

Okay, now I'm truly hungry.... 

 

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VICKI DELANY: Thanks for asking, Lucy.

My work in progress right now is the 2027 Tea by the Sea Book (as yet untitled). The Tea by the Sea mysteries are set in an afternoon tearoom, so the food served there always features prominently. Think scones, small sandwiches, a selection of bite-sized desserts. The protagonist of the series, pastry chef Lily Roberts, also cooks the breakfasts in her grandmother’s B&B. Muffins, breakfast pastries, etc. The books all feature recipes of some of the dishes made during the course of the book.

For the new book, I’m thinking of adding recipes for carrot muffins with oats and walnuts, and maybe a Bakewell Tart and likely some sort of cookies. The recipes for the muffins is already up here at Mystery Lovers Kitchen. MysteryLovers' Kitchen: Muffins with Carrot, Oats, and Walnuts from Vicki Delany. I made them for my grandchildren’s visit over Christmas and regularly keep a batch in the freezer for myself.

A Bakewell tart is a traditional English dish, and I’ve never made it before but I thought it should go well with a proper afternoon tea. Before putting it in the book, if I do, I’ll give it a try myself, because all the recipes I provide in my books are things I make myself. In the case of food served for afternoon tea, I’ve sometimes tried something new before giving it to Lily, as I’m thinking of doing for the Bakewell tart.

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LESLIE BUDEWITZ: Such a fun question, Lucy! Sometimes the food pushes its way into the book -- I eat something I just have to share, like this Indian Butter Chicken and the Asparagus with Goat Cheese Chevre that I ate on my last trip to Seattle and put in Lavender Lies Bleeding, the latest Spice Shop mystery. Sometimes I go looking for thematic food, which for me typically means recipes starring the title herb or spice, like this Lavender Goat Cheese, so easy -- and so good that even our 10 year old great-nephew loved it!

And sometimes, my characters just want to eat what I eat, and I whip them up a family favorite or two, like this Hungarian Mushroom Soup from Between a Wok and a Dead Place. Mr. Right and I aren't Hungarian, but Pepper's mother Lena is, so of course Pepper makes it when she misses her mother or her late grandmother.

No recipe goes in a book unless I've made it, often multiple times, but occasionally I'll refer to a dish without giving a recipe, typically because Pepper doesn't actually make it. Do I? Usually, because Pepper wouldn't mention it if I weren't intrigued by it. I recently wrote a short story featuring Lena, in which she stops for coffee while in pursuit of some Hungarian family history. What, I wondered, is a typical Hungarian coffee drink? These days, I discovered, it's a coffee-honey-milk combo called a melange, with a Hungarian pronunciation, not the French one, that reminds Lena of the coffee her mother often enjoyed of an afternoon. Naturally, I had to figure out how to make one, to really get the flavor -- pun intended -- of Lena's memories. I'll share the recipe when the story comes out -- think a honey latte. Of course, Pepper would add a dash of cinnamon, because she runs a spice shop and always thinks a dash of something makes everything better!

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MADDIE DAY: For each book, of course I make every dish I include a recipe for. Right now I'm putting final polish on Murder in the Lighthouse. Before it's due on April 1, I need to trial the recipe for Cape Cod Cornmeal Griddle Cakes, which I found in the American Lighthouse Cookbook written by Cape author Becky Sue Epstein along with Ed Jackson. Mac Almeida buys the the griddle cakes at the Lobstah Shack, but her baker husband Tim likes them so much he wants to bake and sell them at his bakery.

The same book has a spring Strawberry Cake recipe in it. The cake is basically the same as a Blueberry Pound Cake I shared here six years ago, but I still need to test it. 

Murder at the Toy Soldier, which releases in September, includes other recipes, including a yummy Italian Vegetable Tart. I tested it but didn't document my process. Keep an eye out here for that post sometime in the summer!

My Cece Barton Mysteries don't include recipes, but I can't help myself from writing about food. This native Californian loves being able to invent and write about dishes that include avocadoes, fresh produce, local fish, excellent olive oil, and wine.

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ANG POMPANO: Lucy, food plays a central role in my writing because it mirrors everyday life. Everyone eats, so it’s instantly relatable. Since I write with humor, I include kitchen mishaps and quirky eating habits we all recognize. In Diet of Death, Quincy Lazzaro is roped into writing “Cooking With Betty” despite being a questionable cook, which leads to creations like Twinkie Tiramisù (don’t laugh—it’s actually not bad). 

I do make the dishes I mention, even when I don’t include recipes, just to be sure they’re edible. Click here to find my grandson helping me make Twinkie Tiramisù.

Fast-forward to my WIP Simmering Secrets: Quincy opens his fridge to a sad assortment of odds and ends and cobbles together an egg-and-rice experiment. That scene even inspired a real-life Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen post about the art of cucina povera (using what you have to make a full meal.) I promise my version turned out better than Quincy’s. 

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PEG COCHRAN/MARGARET LOUDON: Right now I am working on the eleventh Cranberry Cove book.    I learned so much about cranberry farming and even visited a cranberry bog during the harvest.  As for the recipes, you guessed it--tthey all  include cranberries in some form or another.  I never realized quite how versatile cranberries could be. My character Monica Albertson joins her brother on his cranberry farm and takes over baking for the Sassamanash Farm Store.  (By the way, sassamanash is the Algonquin word for cranberry.)  She whips up all sorts of cranberry themed goods from cranberry salsa to cranberry scones, bread and these cranberry orange cookies.   There are no recipes in my Open Book Series where Penelope "Pen" Parish becomes the writer in residence at a bookstore in Upper Chumley-on-Stoke but her friend Figgy (Lady Fiona Innes-Goldthorpe) runs the bookstore's tea shop and is always making mouth watering goodies like this Victoria Sponge Cake, lemon drizzle cake, scones and many other tasty delights.

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KIM DAVIS: Such a fun question, Lucy, and I've enjoyed reading everyone's answers! My Cupcake Catering Mysteries are brimming with food and I generally have around ten recipes per book. Typically the recipes I include are centered around the catering or party theme of the book that my protagonist, Emory, is involved in, such as these Mini Chocolate Macaroon Tarts from Chocolate Can Be Deadly.

While Emory is typically involved in the dessert portion of the event, her sister is the caterer which allows me to include both sweet and savory dishes. I'll have to admit that developing recipes for the books is my favorite part of writing, lol! Often I'll have a list of dishes or desserts I'd like to include before I even start on the plot. Then over the course of writing, I'll make the dish as many times as it takes until I'm happy with the results. There's only been twice that I gave up on a recipe after three or four disastrous attempts. 

For my next Cupcake Catering Mystery (title TBD), the event is a bridal shower and the themed desserts are lemon-based. My step-daughter's lemon trees had an over-abundance of fruit this year, so I figured I might as well put them to use! 

In my Aromatherapy Apothecary Mysteries, my protagonist, Carissa, has a love interest who owns a patisserie. He keeps her supplied with pastries and coffee, as well as providing desserts, often lavender based, for special events she hosts at her shop. One such dessert are Lemon-Lavender Sandwich Cookies. 

I also have a brand-new book coming out in 2027 with the first book titled Of Death and Danish in the Danish Treasures and Bookshop Mysteries. While my protagonist, Kristy, isn't much of a cook, her aunt owns a Danish pastry shop so there are a lot of yummy pastries mentioned throughout the book. Of course I had to include a couple of recipes with each release, and in the first book I shared a family friend's recipe for Kransekage, an almond-and-meringue-based wreath cake. Here's a photo of my granddaughter holding the cake after we spent all day making it. I'll be making it again to make sure I take all the necessary photos to share on Mystery Lovers' Kitchen one of these days. I'm also working on the second book and recently took a trip to Solvang, a delightful Danish-style tourist town in California. I spent a considerable amount of time sampling pastries from the bakeries in town, hunting for the best version, and trying to decide which to feature in my next book 😋

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DARCI HANNAH: What a great question, Lucy! For me the answer is YES! Food is a huge part of both Beacon Bakeshop Mystery Series, and my Food & Spirits Mystery Series. In my Beacon Bakeshop series I often have the scrumptious baked goods I'll be highlighting in the book well before I have my plot or title, lol! Sometimes I have a baked good that I really want to be a central part of the story, but I have to wait for the right book to put it in. That was the case for my most recent Beacon Bakeshop mystery, Murder at the Lemonberry Tea. When I came up with my character, Lindsey Bakewell, (named after a village in England, and also the tart the village is famous for) I knew that in Lindsey's future, she'd be making an Bakewell Tart. In Murder at the Lemonberry Tea, Lindsey learns how to make the Bakewell Tart, alongside Vivi Lemonberry, a famous British foodie and lifestyle icon in preparation for a fancy tea party held in Vivi's honor. Of course, I had to make several Bakewell Tarts to test the recipe... and my poor family was forced to eat them! 

 

You can find my recipe for this delicious Bakewell Tart (and more!)
 in Murder at the Lemonberry Tea. 

As we speak I'm frantically baking and cooking my way through all the recipes that will appear in my 3rd Food & Spirits mystery, which is due to the publisher very soon! I've made most of them once already, but it's at this point in my process that I tweak the recipes so they'll be as close to perfect as I can make them for the book. Again, my family suffers through this process along with me. Main dishes,  desserts, sometimes even a cocktail or two. The tortures I put them through are riggorous, but somehow they manage. 

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MOLLY MACRAE: Ah, food, how I love you. Strictly speaking, I don’t write culinary mysteries. But the characters in all my series do their bit to show the truth of what Ang said—everyone eats. In my Haunted Shell Shop mysteries, for instance, an awful lot of muffins are consumed. When I include a muffin recipe in one of the books, like banana, walnut, chocolate chip muffins, you can bet I’ve baked (and eaten) them multiple times. 

But it’s not all muffins. You’ll find fig recipes in There’ll Be Shell to Pay (book 2), and in All Shell Breaks Loose (book 3, coming in June) you’ll find recipes for blueberry lemonade, lemon lush (a recipe my friend Susan gave me back in the 70s), and sweet potato biscuits. My family LOVES sweet potato biscuits. 

Now here’s a teaser. I’m starting a new cozy series set in the mountains of North Carolina, not far from where we lived in Tennessee for just shy of twenty years. Again, the books won’t be culinary mysteries, but the main character’s husband has a café so there will be eating and there will be recipes. Watch my posts this spring for more news this exciting project. 

Thanks for the great question, Lucy, and mouthwatering reading it inspired! 

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CLEO COYLE: I love to cook and (most of all) eat. My husband and partner in crime-writing feels the same, which is why we always have a great time not only putting together the twisty plots of our culinary mysteries but also whipping up the foods and drinks that we write about in our long-running Coffeehouse Mystery series (now celebrating more than twenty years in print).

For the benefit of our wonderful readers, we do our best to photograph the recipes that we make and put them (along with fun information about those recipes) in our free, downloadable “Illustrated Recipe Guides” that we post when our books are published.

Cleo's Free Illustrated Guide to the
Recipes in Bulletproof Barista

Above is the guide to BULLETPROOF BARISTA (which we’re giving away today to one lucky commenter) and below is the guide to NO ROAST FOR THE WEARY, which our publisher is releasing this Tuesday (March 3rd) in a brand-new paperback reprint edition. And we're happy to share that our coffeehouse manager and master roaster Clare Cosi will be challenged with an exciting new murder mystery to solve in our (22nd) Coffeehouse Mystery, publishing later this year. We’ll share more news soon about our upcoming title. In the meantime, May you read (and eat) with joy! ~ Cleo

Cleo's free illustrated guide to the
recipes in No Roast for the Weary

Readers: How important is the food writing in the books you read? Have you ever made a recipe after reading? Comment to be entered in the drawing for our giveaway this month! 

A Poisonous Pour ARC by Maddie Day

Murder at the Lemonberry Tea by Darci Hannah

When It's Time for Leaving by Ang Pompano

Essentials of Death by Kim Davis

Bulletproof Barista by Cleo Coyle

 

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