#COOKING WITH CLORIS--A DOGGIE BISCUIT RECIPE FROM MYSTERY AUTHOR C.B. WILSON

C.B. Wilson’s love of writing began after she read her first Nancy Drew book and reworked the ending. Her fascination with dogs and their passionate owners inspired Barkview, California, the dog-friendliest city in America. Learn more about C.B. and her books at her website. 

Every Dog Has Its Day

In a town where designated leash lanes lead to hound playgrounds and every resident owns a BFF (that’s a Best Furry Friend), a talented, dog-loving chef should’ve fit right in. Not so much, it turned out. Who knew even our seaside Mayberry viewed competition as grounds for a dogfight?

 

My name is Cat Wright, Cat to my friends. Since I’d caused the uproar by creating and producing the cable sensation Fido’s Food Fest, I decided to face the problem head on. What better way to determine Barkview’s best barkery than to host a treat bake-off judged by five of the town’s most impartial tasters on live TV? Did I mention the judges are dogs? Who else can fairly rate canine confections?

 

I invited the four barkery owners to present their treats. The rules were simple. The entries needed to be prepared in our test kitchen. Each judge would simultaneously receive a sample bowl containing the four treats. The first treat consumed received a point. The most points won. Five dogs tasting four treats. Easy.

 

I mean, what could go wrong? Dogs love treats. They’d do their part, right? Although competition day dawned perfect, I alternated between lip chewing and coffee guzzling as I sat in the glass phonebooth we fondly called a studio control room. One hand hovered mid-center on the Star Trek-inspired panel, ready to go to commercial, and the other held my go-to caramel cappuccino.

 

Everything followed script until…the dog tasting segment. Watch out Hollywood, the ensuing slap-stick comedy routine needed no further choreographing. Gem, the German Shepherd with control issues, herded her fellow tasters into a pack. Misha-the- Fashionista Yorkie took issue with Gem’s nose nudge on her blingalicious vest and bumped Fifi the French Poodle, whose beret fell into her bowl, covering her yummies. Refusing to be left out, Fifi nosed her way into the bowl of Renny, the reigning Cavalier King Charles. No one separates Renny from her food, and the dog-eat-dog growl caused Hawn, the can’t-we-all-get-along Golden Retriever, to go into a record-setting flyball retreat, but not before stepping on her bowl’s edge and launching it at Misha!

 

Never great in a crisis, I just stood there frozen, watching the Yorkie stare at a canineoli, pupscream cone, muttball, and Bayle’s Biscuit, arching for a direct hit. To make matters worse, Chef Bayle, the Bichon Frise star of Fido’s Food Fest who’d been overseeing the chaos from the counter, barked and in a blur of white fluff, sprung toward Misha.

  

Could this get any worse? I spewed my coffee all over the control panel, which suddenly lit up like a Vegas slot machine. The go-to-commercial switch stuck. Furrballs! America now watched without edit!

 

My career crashed around me. I closed my eyes. I couldn’t look. Sudden applause made me peek as Chef Bayle saved the day. Or, rather, his treat obsession did. In a single midair gulp, the dog swallowed all four of the treats and managed to avoid Misha.

 

A four-way tie! Yeah! I joined the clapping. Man, I love live TV.

 

Although Bayle shared the best barkery designation with his competitors, his favorite treat is Bayle’s Biscuits. He hopes your BFFs love it as much as he does.

 

Bichoned to Death

A Barkview Mystery, Book 2

What was once a simple rivalry turns into a deadly dog fight. 

 

The award-winning, dog-loving chef should’ve been a perfect fit in the dog friendliest city in America, but no one is following the script. When murder strikes on the set of her hit cable show, Fido’s Food Fest, executive producer Cat Wright wonders if this is a competition gone wrong or something more?

 

With her star chef under arrest and her Bichon Frise a target, Cat realizes that far more than gold-ribbon dog treats are at stake.

 

Can Cat dig up enough evidence to bury the killer before he strikes again? 

 

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COOKING WITH CLORIS--GUEST AUTHOR DORI HILLESTAD BUTLER

Dori Hillestad Butler is an Edgar-award winning author of mysteries for children. Her Buddy Files series introduces Buddy, a crime solving therapy dog. She’s also been hard at work on a new series called Haunted Library which launches in 2014 and features a ghost boy named Kaz and a “solid” girl named Claire who work together to solve ghostly mysteries. Learn more about Dori and her books at her website. – AP  

Never has my personal life and my work life come together so seamlessly than while I was writing the Buddy Files books. I’d always wanted my own series. And I was lucky—a publisher I’d been working with for quite a few years had invited me to submit a series proposal. But I was having a hard time coming up with anything. That was about the time my dad’s health took a turn for the worst, and I had just learned that my oldest son would be moving from Iowa City, IA to Seattle, WA the following summer. I always knew my kids would grow up and move out one day, but I thought they’d move across town, not across the country! That was an adjustment. For me.

I knew I should be celebrating my son’s entry into adulthood, not mourning it. I realized I needed a new project to throw myself into. Not a writing project. Something else. I’d been hearing a lot about therapy dogs. I knew there was a therapy dog group in my community, and I was especially interested in the program where kids read to therapy dogs. A dog is a non-judgmental listener. He doesn’t care whether a child is reading at grade level or not. He’ll never laugh at a child who stumbles over a word. He just lies there and enjoys the story. And the child learns to associate reading with something positive.

What I missed most about my kids being little was reading to them. So I decided this was the perfect new project to throw myself into. I loved dogs; I loved kids; I loved books. I had a dog already, but I knew my dog wouldn’t make a very good therapy dog. So I went to the P-O-U-N-D (by the way, you should never say that word out loud in front of a dog) and adopted this guy:

Mouse

And I started training him to be a therapy dog. It was while I was training him that I got the idea to write the Buddy Files. A therapy dog comes into contact with a lot of different people…and all those people could have problems, or maybe mysteries, to solve.  I loved writing from a dog’s point of view.

Buddy

Like my real-life dog Mouse, my fictional character Buddy is a good and loyal dog. He loves everyone and everything.

But he tends to get a little distracted…especially when there’s food around.

“Pizza? I LOVE pizza. It’s my favorite food!”

“French fries? I LOVE French fries. They’re my favorite food!”

“Hamburgers? I LOVE hamburgers. They’re my favorite food!”

I get a lot of letters and e-mails from kids who want to know what is Buddy’s real favorite food. So here’s a recipe for Buddy’s FAVORITE dog treats:

Buddy’s FAVORITE Dog Treats

1 cup uncooked oatmeal
1 T. chicken bouillon granules

1 T. honey
1/3 cup soft butter
1 1/2 cup hot water

1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup powdered milk
3/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup nutritional yeast flakes (found in health food section)

3 cups flour

1. Preheat oven to 325°F and grease baking sheets.

2. In a large bowl, stir together oatmeal, bouillon, honey, and butter. Pour hot water over mixture, then allow to stand for about five minutes.

3. Add beaten egg, powdered milk and cornmeal. Stir well.

4. Add yeast and flour, a little at a time while mixing. Continue to stir thoroughly. Add more flour if necessary to make the dough very stiff.

5. Divide dough into three balls. Roll each ball out to a ¼ inch thickness. Cut dough into small squares (or use a dog bone cookie cutter) and place on baking sheet.

6. Bake at 325°F. If your dog likes softer treats, take them out of the oven after about 20 minutes and let them cool on wire racks or paper towels. If your dog likes crunchy treats, bake them for 30 minutes, then turn off oven and crack oven door, but leave biscuits in to cool and dry out.

Oh! And my real-life dog Mouse LOVES Buddy’s Favorite Dog Treats, too!

The Buddy Files

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