Happy Birthday, Pepper! Celebrating with spice blends and a giveaway!

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: Happy Birthday to Pepper Reece, the star of my Spice Shop mysteries! I've long known her birthday is June 2 -- by no small coincidence, the birthday of my BFF. Why that day? Why not? 

Series readers tell me how much they like Pepper, for her smarts, her loyalty, and her determination to use her skills to make the world a better place, by solving crime -- and by serving up tasty spices and blends. So today, I thought I'd share a few of her favorite blends, each of them my variation on a classic. Each has appeared in a book and on the blog, so you can follow the links to favorite recipes using the blends.

Two lucky winners will receive a $10 gift card to Bookshop. org. Talk to me in the comments for a chance to win -- tell me your favorite herb blend, a recipe you've tried from the series, or something you like about Pepper. Or guess her age! (Be sure to leave your email address.)

Reader Tracie took A&P to the Market!

I shared my Herbes de Provence recipe, inspired by a delicious trip to France, in my very first post for Mystery Lovers' Kitchen as a member of the crew, which talks about my love for Seattle's Pike Place Market, where the Spice Shop series is set, and shares a recipe for Potato and Broccoli Frittata. which originally appeared in Assault and Pepper, the first Spice Shop Mystery. (I'd been a guest before that.) The blend remains a household staple, especially good on potatoes and eggs, but in other dishes, too. I also love it in these Salted Olive Crisps. 

Herbes de Provence

A savory touch, to transport your taste buds.

2½ tablespoons dried oregano
2½ tablespoons dried thyme
2 tablespoons dried savory
2 tablespoons dried crushed lavender flowers
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 teaspoon dried sage

Mix spices in a small bowl. Store in a jar with a tightly fitting lid. Makes just over half a cup.
As with all herb blends, experiment with your own touches. Let your taste be your guide. Other frequent additions: rosemary, sweet marjoram, or fennel seed. (Marjoram and oregano are distinct herbs but closely related and can be substituted for each other in some recipes.) Try a blend with whatever combination of the suggested herbs you have on hand. Then, next summer, grow a pot of lavender on your deck or in a sunny window!

Herbes de Provence are spectacular sprinkled on sautéed potatoes, rubbed on chicken before grilling, or best of all, in roast chicken and potatoes. Add them to a lamb or a vegetable stew—think eggplant, tomatoes, and zucchini, maybe some cannellini (white beans). Use them to season homemade croutons or tomato sauce.

Wrap a teaspoon of Herbes de Provence in cheese cloth and tie with kitchen string to make an herb bouquet, also called a bouquet garni. Drop it into a small jar of olive oil for a few days to make an infusion for salads or sautées.

Pepper’s Italian Herb Blend 

Jerry finds Killing Thyme a tasty treat!

Next up, Pepper's Italian herb blend. I first shared this in KILLING THYME, the 3d Spice Shop Mystery, in which Pepper investigates when an old friend of her mother's---a woman long thought to be dead---returns to Seattle and sets up shop in Pike Place Market.  

This is a good basic blend that you can adjust for your own taste. Remember that blends take a few hours for the flavors to meld; because of the mildness of these herbs, you can use the blend generously right away, and taste how the flavors improve over time.

3 tablespoons dried basil
2 tablespoons dried thyme
4 teaspoons dried marjoram
4 teaspoons dried oregano
2 teaspoons dried sage
2 teaspoons dried garlic flakes or garlic powder
2 teaspoons dried rosemary (break the needles with a mortar and pestle or in a small bowl with the back of a sturdy spoon)

Mix herbs in a small bowl. Yield: about 10 tablespoons, just over ½ cup.

A few recipe suggestions: This Herbed Black Bean and Pasta Recipe from Killing Thyme is---well, killer! (If you've read the book, you may remember what I mean!) As your summer garden comes on, , try it in this Late Summer Veggie Saute. And I used it recently in this Tomato Lovers' Minestrone, inspired by a bowl of soup in an airport restaurant!

Herbed Black Bean Pasta

Pumpkin Spice Blend is a perennial favorite at the Spice Shop. To be honest, I first created it for Butter Off Dead, the third book in my Food Lovers' Village mysteries, set in fictional Jewel Bay, Montana, based on the town where Mr. Right and I live. Erin Murphy is the star of the series, with her mother Francesca, aka Fresca, a hit with readers, too. And while Fresca is a bit of a food snob, she adores this blend Erin gave her for her morning coffee---and adds it to cookies, pound cake, and other treats as well. So when I created the Spice Shop mysteries, it was obvious that Pepper and her staff and customers would love it as much as Erin, Francesca, and I do! 

Fresca’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee Blend 

from Butter Off Dead by Leslie Budewitz

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1-1/2 teaspoons ground allspice or cloves, or a blend

dash of ground cardamom

1 teaspoon dried orange or lemon peel

Mix together in a small bowl and store in a jar or tin with a tight lid. For a pot of drip coffee, add ½ to 1 full teaspoon of the spice blend to the ground coffee. For a single cup of espresso, drip coffee, or French press coffee, use 1/4 teaspoon to start, until you know how much tastes just right to you. 

Turbinado sugar is a good sweetener with this blend; add it to your cup or the blend. Feel free to experiment with the amounts and other spices, such as a vanilla bean. Trust your own taste buds, and have fun! 

Thanks for taking this journey with Pepper and me. Food, flavor, and friends---what could be better? Leave a comment (with your email address) for a chance to win a gift card to Bookshop.org. And remember, stories are the spice of life. 

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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