Book is FREE!

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bread

The ebook is on a free promotion right now and who knows how long it will last? Probably a week. Grab it while supplies last.

This is my buttermilk loaf from Laurel’s Kitchen Bread Book. It’s one of my favorite recipes but I don’t make it very often because I’m chained to the kitchen on the day I make it and I always expect it will be more complicated than it is.

This time, during the second rise, I was called away. My mother-in-law’s basement flooded in the recent deluge. It actually flooded twice in deluges a couple of weeks apart. I ran over to help with a portion of the clean-up project and it took longer than I expected.

The rise looked blown out when I got home but the loaves turned out great. We ate a giant chunk with dinner and now it’s in the kitchen ready for toasting and Nutella.

Bulb Wads

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bulbs

I worked up the energy to dig up a couple of the dahlias and this is what I ended up with. This is two separate wads that I put into one pile. If you’re not familiar with dahlias — these are huge. I can’t remember the last time I dug them. Five years?

This particular dahlia is a plain red one and insanely prolific. You can whack this up any which way and whatever you throw in the ground will probably grow into a flower. This was my gateway dahlia, passed on by a friend. Then I got my first catalog.

The friend has since moved a couple of times and when she heard I dug bulbs she asked me to bring her some.

Giveaway Winners

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stack

Giveaway winners will be shipped tomorrow! Be patient because ’tis the season and all that.

If you are a winner and you don’t receive a book by the end of the month, drop me a love note and we’ll try to get you fixed up.

The Almost Pumpkin Pie Disaster

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pumpkin

(This is my pumpkin patch 2015. The green things are volunteer acorn squash but I included them in the photo. I had one more big one that I gave to a friend as a gift before this photo.)

For the past couple of years I used this Smooth Pumpkin Pie recipe with great success. But a couple of weeks ago I made these Pumpkin Oreo Cheesecake Bars so I thought I would go for a straight pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving dinner.

I have had great success with the Cook’s Illustrated recipe, but it takes forever and I wanted to “keep things simple.”

I figured I’d use the Serious Eats Classic Pumpkin Pie recipe – come on. It’s Serious Eats. I trust their recipes. I printed it out and made sure I had the ingredients and never examined more closely.

That brings us to cooking day. I had started mixing together the pumpkin stuff when I got to the part where the recipe called for 1 tablespoon of ground ginger. This sounded like too much to me. I’ve learned not to blindly trust recipes after that time I accidentally made about 1000 gallons of lentil soup.

I went back to look at the website to see if the recipe had been updated to adjust the spices. Instead, most of the comments said things like, “OMG worst pumpkin pie recipe ever,” “Tastes bland,” and “Too much ginger.”

Then I thought it would be a good idea to look for another recipe. Except I’d already started mixing stuff together. I was stuck with what I had.

I improvised by not using so much ginger and adjusting the spices and cooking times via the comments. It came out great. Very pumpkiny and yummy and even better the next day. I wish I’d taken better notes for next year.

The State of The Garden

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dahlia

Just a little freeze and here’s what the Dahlias look like.

I need to get out there and do some clean-up. I have a couple of giant bulb masses that desperately need to be dug and divided. Now’s the time but it’s always so cold and muddy it’s hard to get motivated.

A Real Book

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book

Yay! The proof of the paper book finally arrived. Insert all those cliches about how cool it is to see your work as a real book that you can hold in your hands. I just ordered a boatload for my Goodreads giveaway which ends on November 29. I just realized I don’t have a Goodreads button on this page. I’ll try to take care of that.

Is It A Sticker or a Bookmark?

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sticker

It’s both. I have a stack here, if you want one drop me a note with your address. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to collect your address. It makes my head hurt to think of collecting potential readers’ snail mail addresses.)

Working on My Apple Pie Recipe

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apple1

No fancy food photography here.

Quite a few years ago I decided that writing offered little in terms of immediate gratification and that I wanted to commit myself to learning a skill with more immediate rewards.

Why not pies?

Pie baking runs in the family so I already had the basics.

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I use this recipe for my crust except I use 3 oz. of shortening and 7 oz. of butter. I’ve learned that keeping it in the fridge overnight works better for me.

I use 1 tsp. cinnamon, 3/4 cup sugar and 1/4 cup flour.

I like lots of apples and one of my pie dishes is deep so this fall I’ve been experimenting with adding more apples. I just cram them in with my hands.

It seemed like the center apples still had a bite so I’ve been nuking them for 1-2 minutes and that’s been working well.

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I’m still not great at making crust. (Or photographing the results.) My secret is to be fearless. You can see where it got a little goofy. Still tastes amazing.

How Season of Us Came to Be Written, Part 3

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fall

I gave the beta readers a month and they all responded early.

I expected the final re-write to take forever but I think it took me one weekend. I spent a little more time trying to fix a few spots I thought were still weak and then off to the editor.

Since then it’s been a lot of learning process for getting it published. I’m glad I’m finally getting close.

When I started this whole thing I had grand ideas for several different series and free novellas. I knew I couldn’t do four books a year, but maybe three.

Now I’m thinking one every nine months would be pretty good.

I can see where I could write more efficiently. But it also puts a lot of stress on my home life when I get wrapped up in a writing project for an extended period of time. Plus I like to do other things like hang out with my husband and putter in the yard. I exercise. I prefer to eat food I make myself.

I still haven’t decided whether to write additional stories connected to this one.

I am considering doing a series of Urban Indian romance because near as I can tell, there are none and I have tons of ideas. But this is going to take some preparation so no projected release date yet.

Plus, I’m going back to the Project of Forever 2 to see if I can finalize that.

How Season of Us Came to Be Written, Part 2

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pinkdahlia
Dahlia from my garden.

What I didn’t mention in my previous post was how much I loved working on this project.

I go through cycles of insomnia and normally when I wake up in the middle of the night, I stare at the ceiling unhappily. During the project I would happily get up and start working. I was constantly coming up with ideas I wanted to work into the story.

At the end of May I finished a draft on The Project of Forever 2 and as a reward I decided to finish Season of Us. And to incentivize myself, I hired an editor and got myself on the calendar. Then I recruited my beta readers and gave them a hard date when I would give them a draft.

The 44K draft was a bit of a mess. For example, I knew Shelly was involved in some sort of business but I wasn’t sure what. And I knew she would have a sidekick but changed my mind between friend, sister, sister-in-law and mother-in-law. I took a long weekend to map it all out and make an outline so I knew what I needed to fill in. It took me two months to get it figured out and expand the manuscript to 75K.

This is amazing speed for me. I’m not a fast writer plus I have a fairly demanding day job. I’m also the person most responsible for keeping my household from falling apart. Three cheers for the outline.

Then it was ready for the beta readers.