Gethsemane Brown spent years traveling the US and the world touring with orchestras and giving concerts. Now she’s busy solving murders, directing an honors orchestra, and keeping a high-spirited ghost in check. Not much time to cook.
I don’t cook much, either. As a single woman juggling writing novels with a full-time day job, cooking for myself seldom seems worth the effort. Heat-and-eat and a variety of quality dining establishments within walking distance make take-out and dining out my default meal options. However, my budget and waistline demand I cook for myself on occasions.
Enter the pasta. I love pasta. Throw it in a pot for ten minutes or less, toss with some add-ins, drizzle with some olive oil and you have a meal. And pasta is perfect for the “some” method of cooking—throw some in a pot with a pinch of this and a bit of that—well-known to home chefs too busy dealing with life to measure ingredients by the milligram.
Here’s a gnocchi recipe I cooked up a couple of weeks ago:
Ingredients:
1 package gnocchi
Olive oil
Salt
Directions:
Choose some vegetables. Chop them.
Put some olive oil in a skillet.
Put the chopped vegetables in the skillet and cook. If you used onions, cook until translucent. If you used squash, cook until soft. Vegetable hack: use mushrooms, peppers, and olives from the grocery store olive bar and heat until warm.
Set aside.
Boil water. Put a pinch of salt and some olive oil in the water first.
Prepare gnocchi according to package directions.
Put the pasta on a plate. Top with vegetables.
Top with olive oil.
Take a photo to post on Instagram to impress your friends and family with your culinary skills.
Eat! Enjoy!
A writer since childhood, I continued writing through college but put literary endeavors on hold to finish medical school and Family Medicine residency training. My medical career established, I returned to writing fiction. I completed SMU's Writer’s Path program in Dallas, Texas. Henery Press published my first novel, Murder in G Major, book one of the Gethsemane Brown mysteries, in September 2016 and book two, Death in D Minor, in July 2017. Book three, A Killing in C Sharp, is scheduled for March 2018.
I am a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and the Writers’ League of Texas. I listen to classical music, drink whiskey, and blog at www.missdemeanors.com.
Find out more about Alexia at:
Facebook: www.facebook.com/AlexiaGordon_writer
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/Alexia_Gordon
Twitter: twitter.com/alexiagordon
Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/alexia_gordon
Instagram: www.instagram.com/drlex1995
Google+: plus.google.com/u/0/100944751118225764344
Website: alexiagordon.net
Death in D Minor (Gethsemane Brown Mystery #2)
Gethsemane Brown, African-American classical musician and expatriate to an Irish village, solved a string of murders, led a school orchestra to victory in a major competition, and got used to living with a snarky ghost. She can rest easy over the Christmas holiday. Right?
Wrong. The ghost has disappeared, her landlord's about to sell her cottage to a hotel developer, and her brother-in-law is coming for a visit—with one day’s notice. She scrambles to call her spectral roomie back from beyond and find a way to save the cottage from certain destruction.
But real estate takes a backseat when her brother-in-law is accused of stealing a valuable antique. Gethsemane strikes a deal with a garda investigator to go undercover as a musician at a charity ball and snoop for evidence linking antiques to a forgery/theft ring in exchange for the investigator’s help clearing her brother-in-law. At the party, she accidentally conjures the ghost of an eighteenth-century sea captain, then ends up the prime suspect in the party host’s murder.
“The captivating southwestern Irish countryside adds a delightful element to this paranormal series launch. Gethsemane is an appealing protagonist who is doing the best she can against overwhelming odds.” – Library Journal (starred review on Murder in G Major)
