%20(1).jpeg) |
| Photo: Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 jeffreyw |
What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings?
Directionless. After melting down during my zoo vet residency, I went to live in an ashram in West Texas. There my grandmother found me and asked if I’d like to take over Gregg House, her mansion in Beauchamp, Texas.
The author became interested in me around the same time, especially after I asked my college roommates JD Thompson and Dianne Cortez to join me in Beauchamp. We live upstairs in the mansion and have offices for a cat vet, lawyer, and accountant on the first floor.
What’s the one trait you like most about yourself?
I take care of cats. Other animals too, like the time a golf course called me in my capacity as assistant animal control officer to remove a snake from their ball dispenser. Not only that, but the snake had swallowed a golf ball, thinking it was an egg. I surgically removed the golf ball and rehomed the snake after it recovered. I can feel compassion and take action, too, which is useful, at least for the cats and snakes.
What do you like least about yourself?
Years ago, I would have said my brain, the brain I’ve learned to call neurodivergent. I’ve now learned it has advantages, and I’ve learned how to optimize its function and choose the best environment for me to flourish.
Do I have to think of something else I don’t like about myself? My therapist says I shouldn’t dwell on things like that.
What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?
There have been so many! There’s the time she had me remove a wild boar from downtown Beauchamp, though wild boars are normal in Texas. Bobcats are, too, but not usually in the pizza parlor.
Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about?
Mostly I just smile and pretend to agree with her, though if I’ve got a serious complaint, I ask JD to negotiate with her. He’s the lawyer, after all. I do wish she’d pay more attention to the science of detection and cat care and less to people’s emotions, but JD assures me that isn’t going to happen.
What is your greatest fear?
Sometimes when I was a child, school and life became too much for me. My parents would send me to my grandparents’ house in Beauchamp, where I’d go with my grandfather to his restaurant during the day. Now I live in Beauchamp, but life could still become too much, and with my grandfather dead and the restaurant sold, where would I go then?
I’m also afraid that the author and my friends, not to mention my grandmother, are going to throw an enormous bar mitzvah for me after I complete my conversion to Judaism, even though I informed them that spending all the money you have on a party attended by everyone you’ve ever met is not part of the spiritual process. Grandmother said I was wrong. I said that first I have to read the Torah in Hebrew, read the whole Talmud in any translation, and many, many other writings too. I’m not sure how long I can make those excuses hold.
What makes you happy?
Seeing my patients recover after I’ve treated them, especially if they have a loving home to return to.
Being useful in the community as assistant justice of the peace and assistant animal control officer.
Cooking for my friends, seeing them enjoy the meal, especially if they have special dietary needs, like Chantal Gaumont, our band leader, who is diabetic. She gets tired of finding that lettuce leaves (no dressing) are all she can eat at a dinner or restaurant.
I always keep something in the freezer for her, like sweet potato brownies, pumpkin waffle mix, or bread. In her treatment program, she counts carbohydrates, so breads can be a challenge. I’ve found alternative flours like coconut flour, but corn bread seemed impossible. What tastes like corn besides corn?
That turned out to be the key question. I’ve discovered two low-carbohydrate foods that taste like corn: corn flavoring and the baby corn used in Asian food.
If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why?
I wish my grandfather would have lived long enough to see me here, in his house, serving his community. He died during my zoo vet residency, and I’ve never stopped missing him.
Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?
Let’s face it: people in general are too much for me. When I first lived with many roommates in college, I took the apartment over the garage, while the rest had bedrooms in the main house. I don’t have a separate apartment in Gregg House, but its 4000 sq. ft. let me avoid people when I need to.
Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why?
You know what? I think I’d rather be myself. I used to want to be JD, the blond, six-foot-three All-American hero. But I’ve known JD ten years and I’ve spent the same ten years getting to know myself, and now I’m happy in my own skin. Usually.
Tell us a little something about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog?
You can find more about M.R. Dimond and her books at her website. The blog is called Thoughts—you can click the Thoughts tab or the slider of the young Regency woman writing—but she hardly ever writes anything. She leaves that to her characters. I’ve recently written about keeping your cat safe during the holidays, Valentine’s Day (which is not my jam at all), and the Vietnamese Year of the Cat.
What's next for you?
I hope it’s not a bar mitzvah. My own plans are to continue my forensic training so that I can be more useful as an assistant justice of the peace, though the sheriff thinks I’m far too useful as it is. He says I wreck his budget every time I ask for an investigation, but I notice that the county hasn’t gone bankrupt yet, and getting to the truth has to be the most important thing.
Johnny’s Semi-Keto Cornbread (a work in progress)
(serves 12)
Note: This recipe still has real corn meal, but I keep trying to reduce the amount. I still haven’t found the perfect ratio of corn meal, corn flavor, and baby corn to imitate corn bread’s texture and taste. Chantal assures me that she’d rather have a whole piece of my ersatz corn bread than a teaspoon of any other kind. We’ve found it works well in cornbread dressing for Thanksgiving too.
Ingredients:
6 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1Tablespoon onion powder or 1/4-cup diced onions (optional)
1 teaspoon Kosher salt
Corn flavoring according to product instructions or to taste
1/4-cup sifted coconut flour
1/2-teaspoon baking powder
1/4-cup coarse-grained corn meal
1/3-cup chopped baby corn
3/4-cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese (optional)
For a sweeter cornbread, eliminate the onions and cheese and add 1/2-cup of your favorite sweetener and at least 1 Tablespoon of cinnamon.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
Mix eggs, oil, onion powder (optional), and salt. If you’re making the sweet version, add the sweetener and eliminate the onion powder.
Blend coconut flour, baking powder, and corn meal. If you’re making the sweet version, add the cinnamon.
Grease an 8x8x2 pan and place it into the oven.
Whisk the dry ingredients into the wet mixture.
Fold in corn, diced onions (optional), and cheese (optional).
Pour into the hot baking dish. Heating it ahead of time makes a nice crust when you pour the batter into the pan.
Bake 18-20 minutes, until you can insert a knife and pull it out clean. Cool on a rack.
A Black Orchid Enterprises Mystery, Book 2
Johnny Ly, Dianne Cortez, and JD Thompson are trying to celebrate their first year in business in a small Central Texas town. The weather outside is frightful, and indoors isn't looking too good either, not when a crazed hairless cat invades their Christmas party and leaves a trail of destruction in his wake.
The murder in the backyard doesn't help, but Johnny and Dianne are more worried about the cat. After the police reduce the suspect list from the entire town of Beauchamp, Texas, to just the Black Orchids' friends and family, Attorney JD Thompson springs into action to clear them all, preferably before Monday night's concert. Life's hard for a veterinarian, accountant, lawyer, and ABBA tribute band.
Buy Links
No comments:
Post a Comment