Wine and Whine: I like 'Em Both by Guest Blogger Jessica Conant-Park

Please give a warm welcome to our very special Iron Chef Wine Week guest, mystery author Jessica Conant-Park, co-author of the Gourmet Girl mysteries.

Jessica is a wonderfully witty and talented writer: She pens books with her amazing mom (mystery author Susan Conant) and is married to a pro chef, which gives her sweet insider knowledge on writing about restaurants, professional kitchens, and all things culinary. Her newest release in her delectable culinary mystery series, COOK THE BOOKS, is coming to book stores on March 2nd. Here's a little taste...

If you can’t stand the heat…

While in her second year of social work school, Chloe Carter gets herself in a pickle by overindulging her beloved godson. To pay her bills, Chloe needs a part-time job. Still smarting over the break-up with her boyfriend, Josh, who took a job as a personal chef in Hawaii, Chloe knows that assisting a cookbook writer may stir up painful memories. But the Gourmet Girl is desperate!

While compiling a book of recipes from Boston’s top chefs, Chloe must deal with a lot of Josh’s friends, including the loud-mouthed, but lovable, Digger. Still, she stays cool until she arrives at Digger’s apartment only to find the building thoroughly charred—and Digger with it.

Chloe knows that Digger was too expert a chef to let a grease fire kill him. His death was murder. Putting her feelings on the back burner, the Gourmet Girl sifts through suspects. But as an executive chef with thorny love life, Digger had enemies by the dozen on his plate. Finding a killer when everyone has a motive is hard enough. Matters will get even stickier if the tragedy brings Josh back to Boston—and back into Chloe’s life.

You can find out more about Jessica and her Gourmet Girl Mysteries (and see more of her wonderful recipes and food thoughts) by visiting her author website by clicking here. And now here's Jessica! ~Cleo

You know what I’m really good at? Whining. Seriously, I love it. I’m great at complaining and pitching dramatic fits. You may think it’s very uncool of me to admit this, but I‘m a grown up now (supposedly) and you should take my admission as an indicator of my being terribly self-aware and comfortable in my own skin.

What I’m particularly good at whining about is the writing process. Every author has a different approach to writing, and while I picture other authors easily coming up with storylines, characters, and scintillating plot elements in a deep, thoughtful, and polite manner, I’m the complete opposite. My proces involves lots of wailing, storming around the house, complaining that I’m miserable and useless and will never get an idea to translate from my messed up brain into any understandable Word document.

I like to think that this makes me the proverbial tortured writer and is a sign of my being a true artist. Ha! I suppose I’m just a high-maintenance drama queen. Whatever. I’ve convinced myself that while words flow easily for every other author (those evil people who write twenty pages a day without blinking), I am the exception to the rule. I whine and struggle and flop myself onto the bed in desperation. Writing is work. Yes, some days are really fun and I barely get up from the computer to acknowledge the real world. But there are a lot of days that are rough.

I like to write cleanly as I go because the editing process is already enough work without adding to it with sloppy sentences and useless dialogue. So that might slow me down some. But it gives me another excuse to whine. “I can’t do this! This book sucks! I’m a failure and will never amount to anything! I don’t wanna do this! This is boring and I hate this stupid scene!”

Now, you may think whining is unproductive and childish, but it actually serves a purpose! If I’m whining about a scene that I don’t want to write, that tells me something. The best piece of advice my mother ever gave me was that if I didn’t want to write it, nobody would want to read it. She’s right.

Sometimes my resistance to writing a particular scene or chapter can show me that I should just take it out because it’s not adding to the story. Other times, when I know a scene is necessary and important, I use my whining as inspiration to make that scene different, maybe adding a quirky theme or funny twist that I hadn’t planned on. If I can entertain myself, then maybe I can entertain the reader. But let’s face, that’s still work. So I’m going to try another approach. I’ll curl up in bed with my laptop and leisurely sip a nice Pinot Grigio while I pen the most brilliant book ever written. Doesn’t that sound romantic? The kid is in bed, the chef is at work, and I will work on a bestseller. Here I go:

8:45 p.m.: Ah, this Pinot is perfectly crisp and full-bodied. I shall now work on a touching scene filled with raw emotion and powerful dialogue that will engage the reader.

9:15 p.m.: Obviously need to top off this glass in order to properly capture characters. Back in a minute…. Okay, am ready. (I type furiously for ten minutes and finish the glass of wine.)

10:00 p.m.: Huh. It seems Word has gone crazy and put offensive red and green marks all over my screen. It’s not Christmas. Do not need colorful decorations adorning my masterpiece. Strongly suspect silly program does not know anything about spelling OR grammar. Will keep writing nonetheless, as I continue to appreciate fine vintage from California. (I look around the room hoping for sudden gift of creativity to strike.) Oh, look! There’s the Rick Springfield Cruise DVD set someone sent me! A quick watch of a few songs from the concert on the lido deck will totally help with smart writing! And this calls for another glass of wine because cruise would most definitely be providing beverages at concert and I must fit in with others.

11:12 p.m.: OMG, love Rick Springfield! Love his biceps! Want to be his guitar. Okay, back to work. Will leave delightful DVD on in background while I write. In fact, will stare at television as I type and let self be inspired by rock God….

11:24 p.m.: Uh-oh. Have done something odd. Fingers were clearly not properly aligned on keyboard as have inserted full paragraph of Webdings symbols. Also typed entire lyrics to “Don’t Talk to Strangers.” Will take this as indication that watching 80s musician takes priority.

8:23 a.m.: Have written three pages of complete garbage and have raging headache. New method of writing assistance has proven ineffective. Also, have sustained hip injury, possibly related to jumping off of bed in joyous “Jessie’s Girl” dance move. Have plenty to whine about today. Oh! Have come full circle!

Oh, well. It seems my whine and wine strategy didn’t pan out very well. But I’m not giving up either one of them. COOK THE BOOKS, the fifth Gourmet Girl mystery, comes out on Tuesday and I plan on celebrating release day with an extravagant parade and a full glass.

MY Recipe: I’m nuts about that hottie chef Jamie Oliver (pictured left) and regularly use recipes from his cookbooks. This is my knockoff of one of his dishes, and it’s a good excuse to open a nice bottle of white wine. Don’t use a three-dollar bottle, please. You’ll wreck the dish and have a vile hangover from drinking the rest.

WHINING CHICKEN (or whatever you choose to call it)

2 tablespoons flour 

Salt and pepper 

1 whole chicken, cut up 

1 onion, thinly sliced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 

6 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced 

1 1/2 cups white wine

4-6 anchovy fillets 

1/4 cup pitted calamata olives
¼ cup green olives
5 ripe plum tomatoes, halved, seeded and coarsely chopped, or 1 can of whole plum tomatoes with most of the liquid drained from the can.
2 big handfuls of arugula

Combine flour with salt and pepper to taste. Add the chicken pieces and toss until evenly coated. Heat the olive oil in a large casserole dish over medium-high heat Add chicken pieces, and brown on one side, about 5 minutes. Turn the chicken, and add the onions and garlic. Continue to fry until the onions soften and garlic is soft but not brown. Add the wine and when it comes to a boil, add the anchovies, olives, and tomatoes.

Partly cover the pan and reduce heat to medium low. Simmer until chicken is cooked and tender, and broth is reduced to a rich sauce, 15 to 20 minutes. Check for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. Just before serving, remove the pot from the heat and toss in the arugula, letting it wilt in the sauce. That’s it!

Jessica, thank you again
for joining us today!

COOK THE BOOKS
On Sale March 2nd!

Jessica's official author website here.

NEW CONTEST!

LEAVE A COMMENT AND YOU MIGHT WIN...
a set of COOKIE CUTTERS from Wilton!

Check back on March 2, when the cookie cutter winner
will be announced -- oh heck, check back every day!
There's always something fun going on!

Welcome Guest Blogger - Jessica Conant-Park!

Guest Blogger Jessica Conant-Park, author of the Gourmet Girl Mystery series

What an honor to be asked to come hang out with the lovely women of Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen! Since I co-write the Gourmet Girl mystery series (with my mother, author Susan Conant), I feel a major kinship with this group. And, well, being here is a good excuse to write about food. My series is set in the Boston restaurant scene and follows Chloe Carter, a twenty-something half-hearted social work student who would much rather be frequenting local restaurants or browsing gourmet food shops than studying somatoform disorders and marching at the State House. Chloe’s love life and academic life are a constant challenge, but she does hook up with a hot young chef, Josh, and gets an inside look at the tumultuous and chaotic world of professional restaurants. The books are a blend of cozy mystery, chick lit, humor (well, at least, I think so… I suppose it depends on how weird your sense of humor is), romance, and food, and there are tons of recipes at the end of the book so that you can cook up some of the delicacies that you’ve read about. The fifth in the series, COOK THE BOOKS, will be out next February/March.

I also do a Food Fiction newsletter with Michele Scott (of the Wine Lover’s mystery series) and we dole out food news, recipes, guest author spots, and lots of great contests. Stop by our site http://foodfiction.weebly.com/ and sign up for the newsletter and our August giveaway!

Now, on to food! Summer is a glorious season for cooking and I find it so much easier to whip up something absolutely delicious and full of flavor in a fraction of the time it takes in winter. Relying on fresh produce and herbs means you need very little else to doctor up a dish. I’ve been glaring rather sharply at my tomato plants recently, begging them to hurry up and produce perfect tomatoes, because if I eat one more vile, pink tomato this year, I’m going to scream. Even those supposedly “vine ripe” tomatoes that cost a fortune at the grocery store have been flavorless… I’ve had it and refuse to buy another. My way around this? Grape tomatoes. These little guys are working out just fine and are proving to be a pretty good substitute (for now) for the coveted Beefsteak tomatoes I’m craving.

My other garden favorite is arugula. Yes, I’ll admit right off the bat that there is one giant drawback to growing your own: washing it. You must wash the leaves over and over again in a salad spinner. Then wash them a few more times. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly care for little spiders and grains of dirt in my food… So, suffer through the washing and you’ll be rewarded with a spicy, crispy, bitter-in-a-good-way treat. The store bought variety is also perfectly good, but I still recommend a thorough washing, too. My father spent years lamenting what he considered to be the severe neglect and under appreciation of the potato. Hah! Everyone knows about the boring old potato. If you ask me, arugula is much more neglected. I think we should be tossing it into practically everything. Stir a bunch into hot pasta and tomato sauce and you will have a much improved winter meal; mix with your favorite dressing as a salad; or add a few leaves to an otherwise mundane sandwich.

I’ve been making a lot of pasta salad this year, and one of my favorites makes use of both arugula and grape tomatoes. Simply cook cheese-filled tortellini and drain it well. (Never rinse pasta under water, as you need the starch from the pasta to make salads work well.)Toss it with a good glug of olive oil, and add in a generous handful of fresh arugula (the heat will wilt it nicely), grape tomatoes sliced in half, more fresh basil, and salt and pepper. If you like some heat, a sprinkle of hot pepper flakes or freshly minced cayenne would be fantastic. Toss in some parmesan cheese. I highly recommend that you pay a little extra for a fresh wedge of parm that you run over a grater. Well worth the cost. That’s it! Let your salad rest so it comes down to room temperature and the flavors a chance to come out.

So until those fat and fabulous tomatoes start showing up on my plants and in the farmer’s markets, I’ll be doing what I can with the littlest tomato out there, and washing and re-washing my arugula.
Jessica Conant-Park

http://conantparkmysteries.googlepages.com/

Wonderful idea. Delicious and easy! Thanks for joining us at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen, Jessica!

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