BOOK CLUB FRIDAY -- GUEST AUTHOR ALICE LOWEECEY

Mystery author Alice Loweecey is a former nun who went from the convent to playing prostitutes on stage to accepting her husband’s marriage proposal on the second date. Her teenage sons clamor for dramatic roles in her next book, but she keeps threatening them with Redshirt cameos. Force of Habit is her first book in her Falcone and Driscoll Investigation series. The second, Back in the Habit, is already available for preorder at Amazon, and arrives in stores on Feb. 8, 2012. Learn more about Alice and her books at her website.

Alice has generously offered copies of Force of Habit to two lucky readers who post comments this week. -- AP

Italian women + food = Enough to feed an army. It’s not a cliché if it’s true, right? I come from a long line of Italian women who bring new meaning to the words, “Eat! There’s plenty more!”

I also write a mystery series starring Giulia Falcone, ex-nun, private investigator at Driscoll Investigations, and Italian woman who cooks. In the convent, Giulia had no problem cooking for a dozen nuns. Now that she’s on her own, she’s had to learn how to cook small.

The thing is, cooking is one way we show our families how much we love them. My maternal grandmother used to make homemade manicotti for Christmas. My mother has a way with chicken cutlets. My paternal grandmother taught me how to make sausage bread. And of course we all make sauce.

Like Giulia, I grow my own tomatoes, garlic, and herbs for my cooking. Giulia’s on-again, off-again romance with her boss (Frank Driscoll of Driscoll Investigations) doesn’t lend itself to cozy suppers over spaghetti and garlic bread. Because (she says) making a scratch meal for a man is a sign that the relationship is intimate. I agree. One of the first gifts I presented to my future husband was homemade chocolate chip cookies.

In my first book, Force of Habit, Giulia and Frank had just begun a tentative romance. In my second, Back in the Habit, Giulia goes undercover in her old convent, and Frank has trouble seeing the Giulia he knows under the habit and veil. But she pushes this potential issue to the back burner as she goes back behind the wall and finds power-mongering, suicide, drugs, and lousy institutional food. (In the interest of fairness, I will say that I encountered no drugs or suicides during my years in the convent.)

But lousy institutional food? Plenty of it. Fake eggs in particular are a crime against humanity. Thus Giulia, now that she’s out in the world again, makes it a point to cook real food that people want to eat, despite her tight budget. People angle for weeks to be the recipient of one of her home-baked or home-canned Christmas gifts.

Back in the Habit won’t feature any of Giulia’s cooking, just longing for food that doesn’t taste like cardboard. And intrigue, backstabbing, catfights, and gratuitous pawing of lacy underwear. (This isn’t your great-grandmother’s convent!)

But in the spirit of all Italian women everywhere, here’s one of Giulia’s family recipes. She—and I—hope you enjoy it:

Sausage Bread

Oven 375^o

45 minutes

1 lb pizza dough

1 lb cooked, crumbled sausage

2 C shredded mozzarella

Divide dough in half. Roll the first half in a rectangle with a rolling pin. Sprinkle half the sausage over the dough, then sprinkle half the cheese over the sausage. Roll up like a jelly roll; seal. Repeat for second half of dough.  Bake till nicely browned, 35-45 minutes. (The "tap on the bottom for the hollow sound" test does not work for this.)

Thanks, Alice. Sounds yummy! What do you think, readers? Post a comment to enter the drawing for one of two copies of Force of Habit. Include your email address or check back on Sunday to see if you’re the winner. -- AP