#COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR C. HOPE CLARK

Blue Crabs

C. Hope Clark has written six novels in two series, with her latest being Echoes of Edisto, the third in the Edisto Island Mysteries. Mystery continues to excite her as both reader and writer, and she hopes to continue as both for years to come. Hope is also founder of FundsforWriters, chosen by Writer’s Digest Magazine for its 101 Best Websites for Writers. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website.             

Crab, Shrimp, and a New Edisto Beach Mystery

My mind lives at a particular beach, and my body goes there several times a year – Edisto Beach, at the tip of Edisto Island, an hour south of Charleston, South Carolina. Having grown up within a half hour of the beach, it’s in my blood. When I lay eyes on a massive, five-hundred-year-old oak in all its dangling Spanish moss swaying in humidity-laden breezes. . . when I cross a bridge from the mainland to the island and take in the aroma of pluff mud . . . when white egrets and great blue herons coast on warm sea air with nary an effort . . . then I am where my soul needs to be.

Edisto Beach

Edisto Beach is like no other Carolina beach. It’s secluded, almost jungle-like, lacking the neon, franchises, and motels of other beaches that prefer the more commercial flavor. It’s where people cross the McKinley Washington Bridge over the Dawhoo River and leave their worries on the mainland behind them. All of which made for the perfect setting to take my broken character, an ex-big-city detective, freshly widowed with no desire to return to law enforcement. And of course I make crime follow her, or have her the only person able to see it, because, after all, crime doesn’t happen on Edisto. No, ma’am. No, sir.

Echoes of Edisto is book three in a series that coastal South Carolina has come to love, and I almost let Callie Jean Morgan settle in this time and decide she’s found her calling . . . but of course I have to rock those doubts. But that story’s for another time.

When Callie isn’t dealing with the unusual threats that come with island living, she is like everyone else, enjoying the seafood so easily available. And with the easy availability of seafood comes unique and handed-down ways to fix it.

But some folks aren’t into the richer sauces, the fried, or the casserole compilations. Instead they prefer the simple, which is Callie’s preference. Crab and shrimp, mainly, and here are two ways that locals eat these favorites. I’d say they eat these quick-fix dishes because of time constraints, but that’s rarely the issue. Instead, the simplest way to eat seafood is the healthiest and the best tasting, and require nothing special. Plus, you can close your eyes when you taste these recipes, and feel like your feet are in the sand.

Citrus Shrimp

(Measurements below are per person in your party)

1 pound of raw shrimp

2 Tbsp butter

Garlic to taste (don’t feel you have to go lightly here)

Salt to taste (but don’t overdo the salt)

Pepper to taste (optional)

1 orange, sliced

1 lemon, sliced

Turn on your oven broiler. Put shrimp on a sheet pan and dot with butter. Sprinkle seasonings. Cover shrimp with orange and lemon slices. Broil until shrimp are pink, stirring often.

Now, let’s go to the crab. You can substitute the type of crab used, but blue crabs are common on the Carolina coast. They are pretty but they aren’t big, so feel free to eat several. As with all seafood, great with beer!

Steamed Blue Crab

Can of beer

Same amount of water

Same amount of vinegar (apple cider preferred)

Old Bay seasoning to taste

One to two dozen blue crabs (live, please. Just look the other way when you put them in the pot.)

Put three liquids into a stock pot. Place rack into the pot. Put one layer of crab, layer of seasoning, and repeat. Steam 15 minutes or until the crabs turn deep red.

NOTE: Don’t have Old Bay Seafood Seasoning? Use the following ground spices in amounts that you prefer: bay leaf, dry mustard, pepper, ginger, paprika, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, mace, cardamom, cinnamon, and some crushed red pepper flakes.

Echoes of Edisto

Murder came in with the tide . . .

Edisto Island is a paradise where people escape from the mainstream world. Yet for newly sworn-in Edisto Police Chief Callie Jean Morgan, the trouble has just begun . . .

When a rookie officer drowns in a freak crash in the marsh, Callie's instincts tell her it wasn't an accident. As suspects and clues mount, Callie's outlandish mother complicates the investigation, and Callie's longtime friendship with Officer Mike Seabrook takes a turn toward something new—but is shadowed by the unsolved mystery of his wife's death. Everyone's past rises to the surface, entangling with death that cuts to the bone.

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--PEPPER JELLY WITH GUEST AUTHOR C. HOPE CLARK

C. Hope Clark spins her tales Southern like she loves her food, her men, heck, you name it. Hope lives on the banks of Lake Murray in central South Carolina, that is when she isn’t wandering the sands of Edisto Beach where her current series takes place. Her recent release is Edisto Jinx, book two in the Edisto Island Mysteries. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website. 

Whenever a new book comes out, reviews follow close behind. Edisto Jinx is an October release, again starring Callie Jean Morgan, a broken and flawed ex-detective relocated to the beach to regroup and reboot her life’s purpose. Of course fate slings all kinds of opportunity in the guise of tragedy at her to challenge her decision as to just what that purpose is. I love flawed characters. And I love digging out the best and worst of them, the juxtaposition making the plot oh that much sweeter.

Such journeys aren’t limited to novels. Life is better for all of us when we endure calamity and turn it into character growth. While horrible experiences aren’t pleasant when they occur, in hindsight, we’re often grateful for the experience, and what it molds us into.

It’s the highs and lows that give color to our lives. The lows hand us lessons that, if we’re smart, we apply to the days ahead. And if we take the moment to deeply appreciate the most excellent times when we’re flying high with mile-wide smiles, we can spot those dark-day lessons in our success.

I am Southern, and I serve no food to guests without proper spice and correct balance of flavors. Plenty of highs and lows there, too. Nothing bland. No, ma’am and no sir. My spice cabinet is amply stacked and loaded to address whatever comes out of my garden, hen house, or husband’s latest deer hunt excursion. Herbs hang on the wall, drying in bunches.

This time of year the garden is in transition. Winter crops still mature; crops that include collards, turnips, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. Summer crops have borne their fruit and wilted down to the soil where I’ll either pull up the stalks or till in the compost. But one crop tends to weather the transition with vigor and style, as if waving at the autumn leaves to say, “Hey, look at me. I can do color, too.”

This is the time of year that my peppers explode in flavor and hues. While they grow in the summer, they come into their own in September and continue a prolific level of production until that first hard pumpkin frost. And when they are at their peak, there aren’t enough recipes on the planet to use them all up. I try, though, and my favorite means of savoring my peppers is in pepper jelly.

The thought of uniting peppers in a sweet jelly causes a mental train-wreck to the uneducated, but to those of us who know better, the heat and the sweet make a profound combination. You can use the jelly in a sweet recipe, or take it over to the savory side on cheese. The simplest way to serve it is by simply dumping a half cup of it over a bar of cream cheese as a spread during football games. Goodness knows you can’t have enough finger foods for a tailgate affair, and this stuff goes fast. Better bring two bars of cheese, and double the jelly.

Something magical happens on your tongue when you take a bite of pepper jelly. The sweet hits you first, then slowly the pepper heat creeps in. You take another bite: sweet then heat. It’s addictive, and if you’re a cheese aficionado to boot, your calorie counting effort crashes and burns.

Do you still have ample pepper jelly once the cream cheese is gone? Use it like any other jelly in preparing meat dishes.  Pork takes on an especially impressive taste. Shrimp becomes decadent, and burgers are to die for. But goodness gracious, you ought to taste the marinated chicken wings! You can even use it on ice cream, peanut butter, in mixed drinks, and in salad dressings.

Soon you can’t do without it. Never made jelly? Well, this is one of the simplest recipes to learn by. And an extra special side benefit is its beautiful green color. Pick your peppers green, yellow and red and you have a kitchen product worthy of a Christmas gift. Enjoy!

Pepper Jelly

1 cup finely chopped peppers (choose peppers of choice – I use 1/3 cup each of jalapeno, banana and bell peppers – don’t worry, the sugar cuts a lot of the jalapeno heat – just don’t use the seeds)
1 pkg. Certo gel pectin

1-1/3 cup bottled apple juice

2 T. apple cider vinegar

1 drop green food coloring

4 cups sugar

1/2 tsp. butter

Measure peppers into a six to eight-quart saucepan. Stir in apple juice and vinegar. Measure the exact amount of sugar and stir it into the pepper mixture in saucepan. Add the butter to reduce foaming.

Bring mixture to a full, roiling boil, constantly stirring. Roiling means the boiling won’t stop even while you stir. Boil for one minute. Add the pectin. Return to a boil. Remove from heat. Skim any foam off with a metal spoon, but the butter should take care of most if not all.

Ladle quickly into prepared Ball or Mason jars, filling to within 1/8” of top. Prep your jars before you start cooking the mixture by placing them in hot water, boiling them and the two-piece metal ring covers for at least ten minutes. Leave the waiting jars in the water as you fill each jar.

Wipe any trace of jelly off jar rims and threads. Screw the two-piece lid on each jar. Screw tightly. Place jars back in the hot boiling water bath, covered by one to two inches of water, and bring to a gentle boil. Cook five minutes. Remove jars to a towel to cool completely. After the jars cool, check seals by pressing the lid. If lid springs back it is not sealed. Refrigerate. If the lid is firm, it can be stored for up to a year. (Thus the reason you use new lids.) After 24 hours, store in a cool, dry place. Once opened, keep refrigerated. Lasts up to three weeks.

Edisto Jinx

Is it a flesh and blood killer—or restless spirits?

According to a local psychic, beautiful Edisto Beach becomes a hotbed of troublemaking spirits every August. But when a visitor dies mysteriously during a beach house party, former big-city detective Callie Morgan and Edisto Beach police chief Mike Seabrook hunt for motives and suspects among the living. With tourists filling the beaches and local business owners anxious to squelch rumors of a murderer on the loose, Callie will need all the help she can get—especially once the killer’s attention turns toward her.

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EDISTO BEACH, THE PERFECT GETAWAY...FOR MURDER WITH AUTHOR C. HOPE CLARK

C. Hope Clark adores her South Carolina home on the lake, but sometimes it takes a beach to bring characters to life in her head. Hope is the author of The Carolina Slade Mysteries as well as the Edisto Island Mysteries. Her latest release is Edisto Jinx. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website.

Edisto Beach – the Perfect Getaway . . .  for Murder

The perfect getaway . . . we all dream about it. The place where nature soothes us like a balm, and nothing is allowed into our senses but peace and calm. Where we can write great thoughts because nothing else stands in their way.

To most of us, that means the presence of water.

The Edisto Island Mystery Series is set on exquisite and secluded Edisto Island. Located on the very edge of South Carolina, down long, long Highway 174 that crosses a huge bridge then a smaller one across the marsh, Edisto Beach faces the Atlantic Ocean with five miles of beach. Steeped in history, from the extinct Edistow Indians to the Civil War, this jingle-like area welcomes visitors, but does not welcome development. To get away, you rent someone’s house, and every single one of them is within three short, walkable blocks to the waves on one side, or the jaw-dropping beauty of the marsh. No franchises. No fast food. No pollution of urban light. Just breezes and a low, sliding roar of waves curling over the sand.

Callie Jean Morgan was a Boston detective until she finally nabbed a criminal she’d pursued for five years, and then his family killed her husband. Desperate for revenge, she ruins her career, and in an effort to salvage her son’s emotional health, she returned to South Carolina. Her parents give her the keys to the family’s vacation home on Edisto Beach. Reluctantly she retreats to the house with all its calming memories, the childhood mentor next door, the healing ebb and flow of the sea.

What a perfect setup. A horribly broken woman hoping to find herself at a setting everyone views as a generic panacea to anyone with ills to cure. Then the day she sets foot into that Eden, her childhood mentor is murdered right under her nose. She is yanked back into a world of crime, against her best judgment, risking her fragile sanity, only to also face a world of beachcombers who don’t believe crime happens at the beach.

People who vacation at Edisto Beach always return. Most wish they lived there. Many scan the blocks for real estate signs, seeking that special deal, hoping to actually buy a piece of this treasure where they can one day retire. I own a small piece on one of those blocks. This is where I go to sigh and settle, think and weave stories. It’s the consummate setting for a character whose arc takes her from lows to highs and back down again, in story after story, book after book, as she learns to fight to make her life perfect, instead of expecting the setting to do it for her.

Edisto Jinx

Is it a flesh and blood killer—or restless spirits?

According to Sophie the yoga mistress, beautiful Edisto Beach becomes a hotbed of troublemaking spirits every August. But when a visitor dies mysteriously during a beachhouse party, former big-city detective Callie Morgan and Edisto Beach police chief Mike Seabrook hunt for motives and suspects among the living. With tourists filling the beaches and local business owners anxious to squelch rumors of a murderer on the loose, Callie will need all the help she can get—especially once the killer’s attention turns toward her.

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#TRAVEL WITH SERENA--GUEST AUTHOR C. HOPE CLARK ON EDISTO BEACH

C. Hope Clark lives between two worlds – on the banks of Lake Murray and the shore of Edisto Beach. All of her stories take place in these areas where she understands how nature and the beauty of South Carolina can steal one’s heart and grip it forever. Her latest release is Murder on Edisto, book one in the Edisto Island Mysteries. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website. 

The Hidden Charm of Edisto Beach

When my publisher asked me to diversify and write a second series, my heart stopped. In love with The Carolina Slade Series, I could not imagine building a new world with original characters any more enticing, in a setting any more inviting. The parameters? Make the protagonist law enforcement, create some family angst in addition to the mystery, and finally…place the entire series in my favorite locale of choice in South Carolina. My mind jumped to my getaway haven, Edisto Beach.

Located about 50 miles south of Charleston, is the major Edisto Island. You feel the relaxation the farther you take the two-lane roads from the peninsula across the various islands separated by tributaries, marsh, creeks, and bays, toward the coast. This is not your commercial beach trek. You almost feel a hush as you approach, because these live oaks dangling yards of thick, Spanish moss, the white tufted egrets, porpoise, crabs and lush growth of myrtle and palmettos, continue to mirror the Edisto of old, back to the 1600s.

Edisto Island is huge as far as South Carolina islands go, 68 square miles, but it’s a precious commodity maintained and protected. Even the rice field dikes of the 1700s are still in existence, along with three hundred year-old plantation homes that represent the Golden Era of Edisto’s history, when wealthy landowners and their secluded world across the Edisto River almost put Gone with the Wind to shame. You’ll find no commercialism short of a family-owned store here and there. Small single-family homes lay tucked behind the oaks and azaleas that practically grow wild. No franchises or motels. No taxis or buses. You can breathe the air. You disappear in time.

At the tippy-toe end of Edisto Island is Edisto Beach, a sliver of a town again without hotel or strip malls. Few commercial enterprises. No chains. No franchises. Edisto Beach proper covers maybe five miles of sand, but that’s plenty. Nowhere along the coastline of the state will you find a stretch of shore so secluded, peaceful or condoning for those who just want to get away and watch the tide. The only partying takes place in your beach house unless someone creates an impromptu gathering at Whaley’s, McConkey’s or Finn’s, none of which can handle much of a gala. The dress is always informal, and societal tiers melt away since everyone wears shorts, sundresses or bathing suits.  You shop at farmer roadside stands or the lone BiLo.

In my years of visiting Edisto, I’ve learned that the year-round natives gravitated there for a purpose—to leave the rat race behind. The unspoken understanding is that everyone has left another life, and that the present is all that’s important. They are at the tip of the world, happy, living the live-and-let-live life. Seclusion is key.

Why visit Edisto? To get away, pure and simple. What is there to do on Edisto Beach and its surrounding area? Plenty.

The main interest of the region is wildlife. Surf fish along the beach or head out to deeper water where you can catch just about anything your heart desires for dinner. Shrimp or crap the waterways. Take a tour to enjoy the sea life. Don’t dare come without a camera, or you’ll miss the most gorgeous sunsets and undisturbed nature vistas you’ve ever seen. Canoe, kayak, bike or walk. The beauty is unsurpassed.

Visit Botany Bay, a 3,300 –acre wildlife preserve traced back to Bleak Hall Plantation and Sea Cloud Plantation in the 1700s. The combined plantations grew more cotton than any other plantation in South Carolina. But what Botany Bay is noted for today is its often photographed scenic driving paths with live oak canopies and the ancient live oak forests that go right to the beach, many of the trees dead yet remaining, reaching up to the sky with gnarled fingers in prehistoric design. People do not swim on that beach. They stroll, marvel and whisper, as if not to disturb a setting so untouched by the modern world.

The second interest of the area is history. The Edisto Historical Museum is proactive in sustaining the genealogy and its lifestyle going back to when Native Americans ruled the land. Unfortunately the Edistow Indian tribe is no more, but you’ll see what they contributed to the island and marvel at their love for the place. The Edisto Island Land Trust subtly yet firmly rallies to avoid commercialization and over development of this pristine landscape.

And of course the final interest is beachcombing. With innumerable entrances to the sand, you avoid the parking lot mentality so many beaches have. Wherever you are on Edisto Beach, you are an easy saunter to the water. Walk your dog. In the winter he can run loose. Wet a line or search for shark,s teeth which are in fair abundance.

I can never be too long away from Edisto, and when my publisher asked where I intended to set the new series, my heart leaped at the opportunity to infuse that secluded environment into a series of mysteries. The romance, the enchantment, the healing power of its nature left no doubt in my mind that my protagonist could thrive, along with her readers who almost always ask how can they find their way to Edisto Beach.

Murder on Edisto

When her husband is murdered by the Russian mob, Boston detective Callie Jean Morgan suffers a mental break and relinquishes her badge to return home to South Carolina. She has no idea how to proceed with her life, but her son deserves to move on with his, so she relocates them to the family vacation home. But the day they arrive on Edisto Beach, Callie finds her childhood mentor and elderly neighbor murdered. Her fragile sanity is threatened when the murderer taunts her, and the home that was to be her sanctuary is repeatedly violated. Callie loses her fight to walk away from law enforcement as she becomes the only person able to pursue the culprit who’s turned the coastal paradise into a paranoid patch of sand where nobody’s safe. But what will it cost her?

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BOILED PEANUTS WITH GUEST AUTHOR C. HOPE CLARK

Boiled peanuts on left, unboiled on right
photo by Katori

C. Hope Clark is author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series and also editor of FundsforWriters.com, a website chosen by Writer’s Digest for its 101 Best Websites for Writers for the past 13 years. Her newsletters reach 45,000 readers. Learn more about Hope and her books at her website. 

Peanuts and Palmetto Poison

Boiled peanuts are the official state snack of South Carolina. Like a good Scotch, outsiders call them an acquired taste, but Southerners are addicted. Travelers often find them at roadside stands, ballgames and county fairs. They can be messy, and some don’t shell out easily, but peanut connoisseurs swear the delicacies inside each hull are worth every effort. Eat them outside, with a good beer or sweet tea. They somehow seem to taste better that way, plus you can throw the shells on the ground.

Word has it that during the Civil War (the War of Northern Aggression to a die-hard South Carolinian,) a lack of supplies resulted from Union General William T. Sherman’s successful split of Confederate territory. Soldiers had no bread or meat, but they could sure boil up a big pot of peanuts, giving them much needed nutrition. The combination of the salt and the boiling process allowed soldiers to keep the peanuts for as long as a week.

Palmetto Poison, the third in The Carolina Slade Mystery Series, takes the feisty and inquisitive Slade into politics, confronting a shady governor with peanut farming in his blood going way back, lots of skeletons he’d prefer remain in the closet, and family deaths that don’t make sense. The setting is Pelion, South Carolina, peanut capital of the state, as represented by their annual Pelion Peanut Party, celebrating all things goober!

While boiled peanuts are not pretty or exotic or found on many four- and five-star restaurants, there is absolutely nothing that can substitute that flavor. The peanuts can come from anywhere, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina or Texas, but they all cook up the same way. And yes, you’re allowed to slurp as you eat them!

South Carolina Boiled Peanuts

30 minutes prep time. 4 hours cook time (depending on variety of peanuts used)

4-5 pounds of peanuts (must be green, also known as raw, not previously cooked in any fashion – best found in late summer months)

4-6 quarts of water

1 cup plain salt per gallon of water

Optional seasonings, such as crab boil, cayenne, Cajun, chili pepper, pepper flakes, garlic, onion, Chinese 5-spice, jalapeno.

Wash unshelled peanuts in cold water. Soak in large heavy pot of new water for thirty minutes. Add more water, bringing the level to two inches over the peanuts. Add the salt. Add the optional spice or your choice (or none.)

Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover the pot and continue to simmer for approximately four hours, checking occasionally to maintain the water level. The larger the peanuts or thicker the shell, the longer you have to cook. Up to six hours.

At four hours, taste a peanut for texture and salty flavor. Fully cooked results in a peanut the consistency of a cooked dried bean. Remove from heat and drain to avoid becoming overly salty. Eat hot, room temperature or chilled. They keep up to one week.

(NOTE: You can freeze cooked peanuts. They keep forever!)

Palmetto Poison

Are peanuts capable of murder? Carolina Slade will bust this shell game. Big money, big politics, crime, greed, and big farming—Slade, an agriculture department investigator in the steamy state of South Carolina, once again finds herself planted in a dangerous mystery.

Her assignment? Find out if there’s a sinister connection between the drug-dealing arrest of wealthy peanut farmer Lamar Sheeler and the gruesome death of Lamar’s teenage son in a car wreck. Especially since the dead teen is Governor Dick Wheeler’s nephew.

Of course, the governor’s people practically sky-write STAY AWAY FROM THE FIRST FAMILY over the Palmetto state’s capitol dome in Columbia, which doesn’t make Slade’s job easier. Couldn’t she simply back off from what appears to be a tragic and ugly—but private—family matter?        

    

Not with hot-tempered DEA agent Pamela Largo on the case. Ex-wife to Senior Special Agent Wayne Largo, Slade's romantic interest, Pamela's hell-bent on using Lamar Wheeler's situation to re-open a cold case involving an Atlanta drug lord and Wayne's long lost sister Kay.

Soon Slade’s shoveling shooflies uphill against Pamela’s obsessions, the drug lord’s vendettas, the Governor’s secrets, and the bizarre realization that those secrets involve peanuts with the ability to kill.

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