We're giving Cloris a much needed day off today and
welcoming mystery author and foodie Lucy Burdette (aka Roberta Isleib.) Lucy is
a clinical psychologist and the author of ten mysteries. Death in
Four Courses will be available September 4th. Publishers Weekly
has said, "Anyone who's ever overpaid for a pretentious restaurant meal
will relish this witty cozy." You can learn more about Lucy and the Key West food critic
series on her website or facebook or on Twitter.
She also blogs at Jungle Red Writers and Mystery Lovers Kitchen. -- AP
My Mysterious Foodie Life
by Lucy Burdette
When people ask me if I'm a
great chef (which happens more and more since I've started writing about food),
I tell them I'm a good solid cook but that I really excel as eating. And this
came in my DNA, as a short vignette will illustrate.
Several years ago, my
extended family was gathering for a weekend. When we visit my husband's family,
we must remember to take golf clubs, tennis rackets, ping pong paddles, whiffle
balls and bats, and so on. So quite naturally, my husband was concerned about
what to pack for my family's get-together.
"What kind of sporting
equipment will we need?" he asked my cousin.
"With our crowd, all
you need is a knife and fork," my cousin told him.
With that level of foodie
enthusiasm in my blood, joining the ranks of culinary mystery writers felt like
a natural to me. I'm a long time fan of Diane Mott Davidson's culinary mystery
series. Her main character, a caterer named Goldy, makes cooking sound so
satisfying and pleasant. She never seems to grow tired of mixing up enormous
batches of cookies or casseroles or scones or chili. Cooking is her job, but
it's also her passion and her way of containing anxiety or fear or sadness.
I too wanted to create a
character with a powerful emotional connection to food and family. Hayley
Snow's job is to review Key West restaurants for a new style magazine, Key
Zest. But when she's not eating out, she's cooking for her friends and talking
food with her mom.
In book two of the Key West
series, Death in Four Courses,
Hayley is sent to report on a conference of important food writers. As a new
reviewer, she's terrified that she'll be compared to her writing idols and
found lacking. And she's made the mistake of inviting her mother down from New
Jersey for the weekend. As she puts it, having her mom tethered to her side
while tackling her first major journalistic assignment feels like watching a
falling soufflé through the oven door.
By the end of story, she's
come to some conclusions about her job; I'll let her tell you about them:
"While food did mean
life and death in its most elemental form, most often we in the food writing
industry were talking about food as the pleasure of connections. When we wrote
about simmering a stew or a sauce for hours or days, we were really talking
about how much we owed to the folks who came before us and the importance of
cherishing their memory. And how much we yearned to give to the people in our
present who'd be gathered around our table. We were writing about food as
family history, and love, and hope, and sometimes a little splash of
guilt."
And now, with no guilt at
all, I give you Hayley Snow's strawberry-rhubarb cake:
Strawberry-Rhubarb Cake with Streusel Topping
Ingredients:
1-1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 egg
1 cup milk or buttermilk
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups rhubarb, chopped
1 cup strawberries, chopped
For the topping:
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp. flour
4 tbsp. rolled oats
Cream the butter and sugar,
and add the egg. Sift together flour and baking soda and add this to the
creamed mixture with the milk and vanilla. Fold in the rhubarb and
strawberries. Pour into greased 9-by-11-inch pan. Blend topping ingredients with
a pastry blender until pea-sized and sprinkle on top of the cake. Bake at 350
degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes
Oh, how I wish my rhubarb crop had survived last
summer's hurricane! This recipe sounds so wonderful, I may have to break down
and buy some rhubarb at the supermarket. What about you, readers? -- AP
