My Culinary Evolution Because of Writing by Debra H. Goldstein

My Culinary Evolution Because of Writing by Debra H. Goldstein

When my first two books were orphaned by their respective publishers, I knew I wanted to try my hand at writing a cozy. As I analyzed the genre, I realized I would have no problem writing a small town, amateur sleuth, and a favorite pet, but I had a dilemma. Most cozies highlight cooking or crafts – two things I hate. I thought my cozy career was over before it began until I realized there had to be readers who were like me. Consequently, Sarah Blair, a woman who finds being in the kitchen more frightening than murder, was born. 

The problem came when Kensington told me I needed to include recipes. As a non-cook, this almost became a no-starter. After much thought, I decided to use recipes made with simple or pre-made ingredients. In real life, if I’m asked for a vegetable dish for a potluck (I usually try for the rolls), I  bring Spinach Pie made from Stouffers Spinach Souffle. That dish became part of One Taste Too Many as Sarah’s Spinach Pie. Looking for another recipe that might be comical, I found the perfect recipe advertised in 1950’s and 1960’s women’s magazines – Jell-O in a Can.

Once I was under contract for additional books in the series, I had to come up with more recipes that Sarah and I could both make. Not being particularly comfortable in the kitchen, I focused on drinks and hors d’oeuvres for Two Bites Too Many. The result of my efforts was inclusion of the Classic Wine Spritzer, the Howellian Catnip, and Sarah’s Sweet Potato Puffs the Convenient Way. By the third book, Three Treats Too Many, I felt more confident in my culinary skills and had perfected my ability to steal recipes from friends. This book included recipes Sarah might make contrasted with a more complex dish her twin, Chef Emily, would prepare, as well as the vegan recipes the book’s victim was known for.  

In Four Cuts Too Many, I went with comfort food, Emily’s Egg Salad, Sal and Laurie’s Tiramisu, and Stained-Glass Jell-O. Despite becoming more familiar with my kitchen, I realized, as I was looking for recipes for Five Belles Too Many, that neither Sarah nor I will ever function in a kitchen without an element of fear over what disaster might next befall us or possibly poison those we love. 

My publisher doesn’t view my culinary skills in the same way that I do. Kensington decided Sarah and my forays into the kitchen are so funny that they created a cookbook of the recipes from the first four books. It’s called Simple Recipes from the Sometimes Sleuth. You can download a free copy from my website, https://www.DebraHGoldstein.com . Who would have thought Sarah and my joint culinary skills would evolve to the point of having our own cookbook?

End of Summer Sweetness

Today in the Georgia Lowcountry, the temperature is hovering in the upper eighties, the humidity around ninety-five percent. My yard is filled with pines and live oaks, which remain thick with green foliage, and there is not a single leaf falling. Yet it feels like autumn, even if there is no nip in the air.

The clarified light gives it away, this turning of the seasons. That and the smell of muscadine wine fermenting in my downstairs bathtub, the closest thing I have to a cool, dark basement. When I was growing up, that pungent pong signaled the end of summer. It meant that the grapevines had finished producing, and that my father would be turning his attention from planting and weeding and harvesting to home brewing. And it meant that we’d have bottles of sweet wine ready for the grown-ups to drink on Christmas Day (and for us youngsters to enjoy in the fruit filling of my mother’s Lane Cake, a treat she baked only once a year).

I’m one of the grown-ups now, thank goodness, so I can have my cake and drink my wine too. My father no longer makes wine, so he gifted me with his giant glass brewing jars—the ones currently taking up all my spare bathtub space—and his secret recipe, which isn’t really a secret at all—I share it below—but I call it that because it makes a better story.

There’s nothing fancy here, folks. The yeast is regular old yeast like you find in the baking section of the supermarket (though I’m experimenting this year with yeast specifically for white wines). There are no specially engineered bungs and airlocks, no hydrometers and pH sticks. Just big glass jars with balloons on the neck that inflate as the mashed-up fruit ferments.

As I move into my fifties, I find myself coming into skills that I never had as a callow youth, gifts I inherited but could never fully utilize. My green thumb didn’t develop until my forties, and neither did my winemaking abilities. I think it has something to do with patience and attention, an appreciation of slow time, a willingness to settle into cycles and seasons.

My 2018 vintage is already bubbling away. If you’re in my neck of the woods on Christmas Day, come by and I’ll share a glass. Or you can make your own. Here’s how. Cheers!

Archie T’s Muscadine Wine

8 quarts muscadine grapes (purple or bronze)

4-5 lbs sugar (depending on sweetness of your grapes)

1 package yeast

1 gallon fresh water

You’ll need a large glass (preferable) or plastic container for fermenting—it should be big enough to hold all your ingredients, plus allow for the bubble of fermentation. I use a five-gallon pickle jar.

Wash your grapes very well, removing any leaf or stem bits. Get a big tub or cooking pot large enough to hold your grapes, and then crush them up good. You can do this with your bare hands (in which case, I recommend gloves as the juice is highly acidic), or with a potato smasher, or you can put the grapes in the freezer and let them burst, then thaw them to room temperature and continue.

Combine the grapes (hulls and juice together) with the water and sugar and yeast. Cover the lid of your container with something that will let gas escape (cheesecloth held on with a rubber band works well, as does a balloon). Let it sit for about three weeks, stirring daily.

Once fermentation has stopped, remove the pulp and siphon the wine into a clean container, leaving any sediment behind. Let it settle for three weeks, then siphon off again. Repeat the settle/siphon process at least one more time, then siphon into clean bottles.

Enjoy with people you love.

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Tina Whittle writes the Tai Randolph mysteries for Poisoned Pen Press. The sixth book in this Atlanta-based series—Necessary Ends—is available now. Tina is a proud member of Sisters in Crime and has served as both a chapter officer and national board member. Visit her website to follow her on social media, sign up for her newsletter, or read additional scenes and short stories: www.tinawhittle.com.

The Case of the Missing Wine

By Julie Tollefson

I can count on fictional mysteries, especially cozies, to wrap up neatly, all loose ends tied, all questions answered. I’ve grown accustomed to resolution. Which makes The Case of the Missing Wine all the more frustrating.

The story begins at my son’s graduation party in May. It was a calm affair attended by a motley collection of family and friends (AKA the usual suspects). Pulled pork sandwiches and potato salad. Sodas for the youth. Adult beverages for the, well, adults. I chilled two bottles of white wine in the cooler with the beer on the back porch. During the party, we drank half of one bottle.

Fast-forward a couple of weeks. I open the refrigerator, where I’m sure I’ve stashed the unopened bottle only to find … cream and frappucino and ketchup and mustard and pickles, but no wine. Baffled, I check the bev fridge in the basement. Not there. Surely I didn’t leave it in the cooler on the porch? Nope, the cooler is empty.

Taking the next logical step, I quiz the teenager: Fess up, did you swipe my wine? His response: “A whole bottle? That would be stupid.” And he’s not stupid.

A day later, my husband and I took a lovely evening walk down our rural road. Birds sang in the trees. The sun sank low in the west. Fireflies winked in the shadows. And there, in the ditch more than half a mile from our home, we found my missing bottle of wine, empty and abandoned.

In a book, I guess this would be the midpoint of the story. Part one of the mystery is solved, but the answer only serves to deepen the intrigue. Who took my bottle of wine? Why did they leave the empty bottle in the ditch?

Using my keen detecting abilities, I’ve homed in on a couple of possible theories:

Theory 1: Someone from the party took the bottle when they left and tossed it after they drained the contents. This seems unlikely, given the character of our guests. But isn’t that what makes a good murder mystery work? The villain masks his true character and actions, misleads those around her until the surprise twist at the end, when the murderer is revealed.

Theory 2: I left the bottle on the back porch during party cleanup and someone—a friend, a neighbor, or a stranger—happened by and snatched it. We live a long ways from anyone, so this scenario is also unlikely. And unsettling. The thought that someone may have skulked around my house, evaded the dogs, and filched hot wine from my porch makes my skin crawl a bit. Just like a good thriller.

So now what? Do I interrogate every party guest until someone confesses? Do I check the locks on the doors an extra time before bed? Maybe I could set out another bottle of wine and the motion-activated camera we use to capture shots of wildlife in an attempt to catch the thief in the act.

Or do I let the mystery remain a mystery, a reminder that life is messy and, sometimes, not having all the answers is part of the fun.

Days of Wine and Chocolate

The summer after my senior year of college, I spent eight weeks in a copy editing internship for Newsday on Long Island, New York. At the end of the summer, my colleagues asked what kind of going away party I’d like to have. They offered suggestions from the ridiculous (the managing editor in a tutu singing my alma mater’s fight song) to the ridiculously indulgent (chocolate and champagne). I chose the second, and oh my, that party was the most lavish, rich, and decadent of my life: Bottles of champagne and chocolate everything: Chocolate-covered potato chips, a solid foot-long chocolate ruler, chocolate-covered fruit, chocolate cups filled with chocolate liqueur.

Maybe it’s the champagne talking, but I loved the news business with a passion that day, and I still love it, though my career took a sharp, voluntary turn away from the newsroom many years ago.

That celebration, though, and the way it made me feel—valued, part of something big and important, tipsy—stuck with me.

So it was bittersweet this week to raise a glass of bubbly to toast the publication of a short story that has roots in my journalism past.

In recent years, almost everyone I know in the journalism world has been laid off or threatened with layoffs. Newsroom staffs dwindled to nothing. Newspapers began outsourcing everything, including copy editing, my old job. Two years ago, our local paper outsourced printing to another nearby, larger newspaper, and all of my friends who worked with the presses and in the mailroom lost their jobs.

That’s when I began writing “Abundance of Patience,” a short story loosely inspired by layoffs in the news industry and published in the March 2016 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine.

Since I started writing and publishing fiction, I’ve kept a “celebrations bowl” on my counter. Every time I publish a new piece, I pop the cork on a bottle of sparkling wine, then write the name of the publication and date on the cork and drop it in the bowl. My bowl, like my aspirations, is large. After my first publication, the single cork looked a little silly, but I left it on the counter as a reminder and an inspiration.

The bowl’s nowhere close to full yet, but I added cork number four this week and, in a toned-down echo of that party in New York, celebrated my new publication and my longstanding admiration for newspapers and news people.

Sweet chocolate tempered with the bite of champagne.