November 26 gratitude

Three things I’m grateful for:

1. The Internet, for enabling foreign publishers to inquire about translation rights to my books. I’m also grateful to my foreign rights agent and publisher for following up on each inquiry. Thanks to these connections, I’m going to be published in a bunch of new foreign countries.

2. My favorite Italian food site, by Deborah Mele, with recipes like Winter Minestrone and links to Italian pottery.

3. Sweet videos like this, a global performance of “Stand by Me.” First seen (I think) on Bill Moyers Journal. Be sure to watch to the end. Four minutes of fun!

 

What are you grateful for right now?

Magic Muffins

I love my readers. I love the honest and heartfelt posts they leave on my message board. Like this one:

I just wanted to let Susan know how her recipe for “Morning Muffins” couldn’t have come at a better time. My son was diagnosed with Leukemia in September of 07. One of the side effects of all that chemo is constipation. Which is one more complication that we could do without. Your muffins took away that potentially serious problem (also tasting great!). He also has Down Syndrome so it is even more important for him to “move” things out! I shared one of those muffins with one of my sons nurses and she was amazed at how well they worked. She even commented to me later that she thought about my “Magic Muffins” when a few days later another patient was having to take even more drugs to try to help alleviate her constipation.

I’m so grateful that I found that recipe! I’ve made it so many times that I know it by heart. Thank you for putting recipes in your books!

In honor of Anne and her son, here’s the recipe. You can tweak it any way you like, substituting craisins or dried cherries, sunflower seeds, etc. I like to add craisins and grated orange or lemon peel sometimes. Enjoy!

Morning Muffins from the Sky River Bakery (from Snowfall at Willow Lake)

1-1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup ground flax seed
3/4 cup oat bran
1-1/2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup vegetable oil
2 cups peeled and shredded carrots
2 apples, peeled and shredded
1/2 cup raisins or currants
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Mix flour, flax seed, bran, brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, eggs, vanilla and oil. Add to the dry ingredients. Fold in the carrots, apples, raisins and nuts. Fill prepared muffin cups 2/3 full with batter.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Heard any good books lately?

Snowfall at Willow Lake is available in unabridged and abridged audio format from Brilliance. You can even download a copy here. Where do you listen to books on audio? In the car? On the treadmills? While walking the dog? Gardening? Shoveling snow?

The abridged edition doesn’t have the recipes, so here’s a quick peek at one:

Gougeres

These delicate puff pastries originated in France, and are traditionally served this time of year, with champagne–dry, not brut.

• 1 cup water
• 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup flour
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups coarsely grated Gruyere cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the water, butter and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil, then reduce heat to moderate. Add flour all at once and beat with a wooden spoon until the mixture pulls away from side of pan.

Transfer mixture–known as pate a choux–to a bowl and use an electric mixer to beat in the eggs, one at a time. If the batter is too stiff, add another egg.

Stir the Gruyere into the pate a choux and drop by tablespoons about one inch apart on the baking sheet. Bake for about twenty-five minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.

Queen of Tarts

I have a tart pan! I love that I have a tart pan! Here’s a recipe I adapted from Real Simple Magazine.  

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup flour
2 Bosc pears, peeled and sliced

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1-1/2 tablespoons demerara or turbinado sugar (plain white will work, too)
1/2 cup apricot jam
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Heat oven to 350° F. Spray a fluted tart pan with nonstick spray. Cream the butter and 1/2 cup sugar Add the egg, and beat until incorporated. Gradually add the flour and baking powder until fully incorporated. Press the dough into the pan with floured fingers to form an even crust. Arrange the pear halves, top to bottom, cut-side down. Combine cinnamon and demerara (coarse-grained) sugar and sprinkle over tart. Bake until the crust is golden brown, about 45 minutes. While the tart is cooling, warm the apricot jam and lemon juice in a small saucepan over low heat until melted. Brush gently over the entire tart. Serve at room temperature.

Best Books of 2007

Hooray for Jenny Majesky and the Sky River Bakery! The star of The Winter Lodge is celebrating today. This book just made the Publishers Weekly list of “Best Books of the Year.”

“Complicated, flesh-and-blood characters inhabit Wiggs’s idyllic but identifiable Lakeshore Chronicles, weaving a refreshingly honest smalltown tapestry of romance, domestic drama, mystery and generations-old Polish recipes.” (November 5, 2007)

In celebration, I think I’ll bake something. These cookies only use one pan, and you don’t even have to get out the mixer. I am raising my cup of tea in the direction of Manhattan today. Thanks, PW!

No Brainer Cookies:
2 tablespoons butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
5 Tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chopped nuts
confectioners sugar

Melt butter in square baking pan over low heat. Beat eggs slightly. Combine sugar, flour, soda and nuts. Stir into beaten eggs and vanilla. Pour mixture over butter. Do not stir. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until center is set. Invert pan onto rack. Cut into squares and dust with confectioners sugar.

(optional – stir in things you like, such as chocolate, white chocolate or butterscotch chips, dried fruit, toffee chips or M&Ms)

Writing better than I can

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

–Ernest Hemingway

 

I nearly forgot a career milestone this month. It’s the tenth anniversary of my first book with Mira Books, my current publisher. The Lightkeeper was a seaswept, Beauty-and-the-Beast-style romantic epic that takes place on the Washington coast in the 1870s. The setting is literally the ends of the earth, on the Long Beach peninsula at the mouth of the Columbia River, an area notorious for raging seas and terrible shipwrecks. The original title of this book was The Edge of Forever, a title I still love (and a tribute to the Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever”), but The Lightkeeper is probably stronger and definitely more straightforward.

The Cape Disappointment lighthouse still stands. When we visit this area, we love to stay at the dog-friendly Lighthouse (where else?) or the Klipsan Beach Cottages. A walk through Oysterville is a trip back through time. Every time I go there, I feel like writing stories misted in spindrift. It’s a place where I find myself writing better than I can.

This book has one blooper that I know of–there’s no way the characters can be drinking marionberry cordial, since marionberries weren’t introduced until the 1950s. Thanks to alert readers, that will be corrected in future reprints.

Happy 10-year anniversary to me and Mira Books!

My tomatoes kicked ass this year.

I’ve been harvesting them for weeks! It’s always a feat in this part of the world to get them to ripen after Labor Day. This year I used plants from the farmer’s market, bred for the Northwest.

Here’s what to do with too many tomatoes. Put them all in a deep pan. You can cut them up or keep them whole. No need to peel. Saute them in olive oil with some garlic, salt, pepper and fresh herbs like basil, oregano, thyme and parsley. Put a tight-fitting lid on the pot and cook them very slowly until they’re soft. Let the whole mess cool and put into small freezer containers or zip lock bags and freeze. And there you go. Fresh tomatoes to use in soups and sauces all winter long. Enjoy!

When life gives you lemons…

…Make LEMONADE CAKE.*

I put two recipes on my web site this summer, along with the promo for my August book, Dockside:

The small Catskills town of Avalon, New York, on the shores of Willow Lake, is what I think of as a “Velveteen Rabbit” of a place. It has become real because we love it there. Thanks to everyone who has visited my fictional town in the Lakeshore Chronicles. Dockside is a story for everyone who’s ever dreamed of making a life at an idyllic lakeside inn. Researching this book, I met so many innkeepers who shared not only their passion for hospitality, but some pretty amazing innkeeping secrets as well.

Each section of the book is introduced by a snippet about the Inn at Willow Lake, followed by a hospitality hint from a working innkeeper. They’re little grace notes, the sort that make a guest’s stay just a little sweeter. But the real sweetness comes from the unexpected romance of single dad Greg Bellamy, and the town’s former mayor, Nina Romano. In fact, expecting the unexpected is a major theme in this book.

News

• Thanks to all for asking about Just Breathe, originally scheduled to be published in 2006. It is now tentatively slated for September 2008, and I promise, it is worth the wait!
• By popular request, I’ve added a link to the recipes from my books. Finally! Click here: http://www.susanwiggs.com/recipes.shtml
• As always, you’re invited to join in at the message board. If you have a question, ask it there, and I promise to respond right away. Since it’s a public forum, pride compels me to be prompt so I don’t look like a slacker.
• Also, please check out “The View From Here” (Themed photo shows, including   Barkis the Wonder Puppy, at www.susanwiggs.shutterfly.com).
• My local bookstore, Eagle Harbor Book Company, will send autographed copies of my books anywhere you want, personalized however you like. Check it out here: Eagle Harbor Book Company.
• You can get a Printable List of my books, which includes related books and series by clicking this link: Printable List.
• You can also subscribe to my occasional newsletter by sending a blank e-mail to Words4Women-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
• Check out the most mysterious site on the Web at www.purpleamoeba.com.
• And below, the promised recipes. Enjoy!

Happy Reading,

Susan Wiggs

*Note: I couldn’t make up my mind which recipe to post here, so I’m giving you two. Please, try them both. They’re unbelievably delicious:

LEMONADE CAKE

• 6 oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate
• 1 pkg. lemon cake mix, without pudding
• 3/4 c. sugar
• Small package lemon-flavored instant pudding
• 3/4 c. water
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 c. cooking oil

Mix lemonade concentrate with sugar and stir well. Mix the remaining ingredients and beat with electric mixer for 3 minutes. Bake in greased and floured 9×13 pan for about 35 minutes or until done when tested. While cake is still hot poke holes all over cake with large fork and pour lemonade glaze (1T lemon juice + 1 cup powdered sugar) over top. Leave in pan until cool. Dust with powdered sugar. If you’re feeling artistic, lay a stencil on the cake and then dust with the sugar to make a pattern.

ICEBOX LEMONADE CAKE

• 1 prepared angel food cake
• 1 quart vanilla ice cream
• 1 6-ounce can frozen lemonade (keep this semi-frozen–slushy)
• 1 small carton Cool Whip, flavored with ½ tsp. lemon extract
• grated lemon peel, for garnish

Slice cake cross-ways into three even layers. Soften ice cream just enough to thoroughly fold in the lemonade. Spread the bottom layer of the cake with ice cream. Add the second layer, spread with the remaining ice cream. Add third layer and spread entire cake with the Cool Whip. Freeze cake in the freezer. Take cake out of the freezer about half an hour before serving time. Garnish with grated lemon peel.

“Wiggs’s uncomplicated stories are rich with life lessons, nod-along moments and characters with whom readers can easily relate. Delightful and wise, Wiggs’s latest shines.”

–Publishers Weekly review of Dockside

I love the smell of fireworks in the morning.

Everyone on our beach sets off fireworks for the 4th. See a slide show of the festivities here. Also by request, here’s the cake I made for the potluck. It’s semi-original, adapted from something I saw on the Food Network.

Rosemary Olive Oil Cake

• 3 eggs
  2 cups sugar
  1-1/2 cups extra-virgin olive oil 
  1-1/2 cups milk
  1/4 cup triple sec, Cointreau or Grand Marnier
  1/4 cup frozen orange juice concentrate
  3 teaspoons lemon zest
  2 cups flour
  1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup orange or lemon marmalade
  Rosemary sprigs and powdered sugar, for garnish
  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Oil and flour a bundt pan.
  Beat the eggs, sugar, olive oil, milk, liqueur, orange juice, and lemon zest. Add the dry ingredients, including 1-2 teaspoons chopped rosemary, and beat well. Pour  into bundt pan. Bake for 50 minutes to 1 hour, until it tests done. Place on a rack to cool. Run a knife around the edges and invert on a plate. Warm the marmalade in the microwave and drizzle over the cake. Garnish with rosemary sprigs, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Celebrate!

I have a banner ad! Go look–it’s a first for me. Thanks to my publisher and to Authorbuzz for this very cool gizmo on my web site.

Writing is a solitary pursuit, so it’s important to remember to take time to celebrate. I’m blessed with the best writing buddies in the world, and we’re really good at recognizing the good things when they come along–a first sale, an award, a placement on the bestseller list. Here’s a slide show of the fun side of writing and publishing.

And here’s one of my favorite cakes–an olive oil cake, also known as Ladi Tourta. Bon appetit!

What are the things you celebrate? What cements the good memories in your heart? Chocolate, flowers, champagne, wearing funny clothes, a spa day, shopping for new books, calling your friends and screaming, doing the Snoopy Dance with your sister? I’m always open to new ideas in this department.