FOODFIC: Discovering Vintage New Orleans - Bonnye Stuart

Because I lived in NOLA for so many years, I can never pass up a chance to read what others recommend that visitors see and do in The Big Easy. Must-sees, must-dos, must-eats; I have to know each compiler’s picks. Of course, I’m most interested in which restaurants and bars top each list. #FoodFact. Or #FoodOpinion? Hmm. I’ll leave that here for digestion. ;)

Anyway, this guide points out all the old favorites, which makes sense as Stuart has chosen to focus on the “vintage” spots. Not surprisingly, I found I’d been to most (if not all) of the eateries and drinkeries and visitories she describes. I checked off everything from lunch at Commander’s to climbing Monkey Hill to drinks at the Old Absinthe House.

I’ve not, however, actually had absinthe. Yes, the popular depictions of “the green fairy” as “psychoactive” and “hallucinogenic” seem reason enough not to imbibe,  but the bigger issue was its illegality. Since I hadn’t been actively following absinthe’s “status,” it came as a surprise to me to read here that the Old Absinthe House is indeed now selling its namesake drink.

Now, it’s not exactly the same stuff – thujone, a naturally-occuring chemical in wormwood, must now be strictly limited, leading many folks to call it “absinthe refined.” But the essence of the spirit remains the same, as, apparently, does its flavor. “Anise” and “fennel” are not my usual go-tos for cocktails, so you won’t find me rushing out for a bottle, but the next time I’m in NOLA, I might have to make my way down to Bourbon Street to give it a shot. ;)

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Brooklyn James, Author of Jolie Blonde

Brianna Bentley Castille (aka Jolie Blonde) fancies lobster and lots of it, the more clarified grass-fed butter in which to dip the succulent sea fare all the better. As a hard-pressed prosecutor for Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, the fork and veggies will have to wait. Just keep the protein-packed, vitamins/minerals-loaded lobster and butter coming, she’ll lap up the energizing essentials with one hand while the other works through cases and codes. Oh, and if you have a Sazerac, a Big Easy favorite, she favors it, too. Though keep the lemon peel for someone who has time for ‘garnish.’ If you’re interning at the firm, Café Du Monde is not a luxury but a morning necessity—two beignets and one café au lait heavy on the chicory, please.

Jolie Blonde, a nickname given her by her childhood sweetheart’s father, would invite you over for a bayou feast of gator, po’ boys, etouffee and sweet sun tea. Relaxed and at home she is, only when in the company of that childhood sweetheart.

This story of an average girl and the one twist of fate that made her extraordinary, Jolie Blonde is reinvented, an entirely new identity as Detective Gina DeLuca, at the wily hands of a hematologist, finding herself engulfed in a mysterious world of super blood (though a sci-fi/action-adventure tale, there are no vampires—i.e. no drinking/eating/ingesting of blood…blech) and super powers. Detective DeLuca doesn’t concern herself with beignets when a donut goes down just fine. And what grown woman, pray tell, needs milk in her coffee? Preferring it black and with the grinds, one may think she’s Greek! Finicky only about pizza, it’s nonnegotiable—margherita. Oh, and a beer—any beer—to wash it down.

In a series (The Vigilare Series) featuring aliases and identities, of course there is an alter ego, too. Vigilare—the one who watches over—who is she and why does she exist? The question both Brianna and Gina must answer to find themselves. Food’s good and all, but our antihero Vigilare subsides on retribution, her favorite dish to dole up…a kick-ass portion of just deserts!

Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Brooklyn!

You can find Brooklyn here:

Brooklyn-James.com

Twitter @BrooklynJames7

Facebook Fan Page

Books on Amazon

Brooklyn James is an author/singer/songwriter inspired by life in the Live Music Capital of Austin, Texas. Her first novel, The Boots My Mother Gave Me, has an original music soundtrack and was chosen as a Quarter Finalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards.

When she is not writing books, she can be found playing live music around Austin as part of an acoustic duo. Brooklyn has been in a Weezer video, met Harry Connick Jr. as an extra on the set of When Angels Sing, appeared in Richard Linklater's Boyhood for all of a nanosecond, and she was Mira Sorvino's stand-in on Jerry Bruckheimer's Trooper pilot for TNT. She most enjoys being a wife and mother, reading, dancing, working out, and a good glass of kombucha.

Brooklyn holds an M.A. in Communication, and a B.S. in both Nursing and Animal Science. Her nursing career has seen specialties in the areas of Intensive Care and Postpartum. She serves as a Guest Speaker with a focus on awareness and prevention of Domestic Violence and Suicide.

Subscribe to her YouTube channel for music video releases. You can also find her music on Amazon, iTunes, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, CDBaby, and Pandora.

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Karen Ann Hopkins, Author of EMBERS

There are descendants of angels walking among us. Ember is one of them.

Embers is an epic paranormal adventure/romance about a girl who discovers that she’s immune to fire and any other injury when she’s in a horrific car crash that kills her parents. Following a violent episode with her aunt’s boyfriend, Ember flees Ohio to live with an old relative in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. Ember’s exuberance at escaping a bad home life soon turns to trepidation when she learns that she’s a Watcher, a descendant of angels.

While Ember is instructed about her heritage and the powers that go along with it, she strikes up friendships with two teenagers who live inside of a frightening walled compound in the forest. Inexplicably drawn to one of the young men in particular, an impossible romance develops. But it’s cut short when Ember discovers that her new friends are fighting on the opposite side of a war that’s been raging between two factions of Watchers for thousands of years. When the compound’s inhabitants threaten the townspeople, Ember takes action, sealing her fate in the ancient battle of good versus evil, and the grayness in between.

When Ember isn’t getting to know her neighbors, learning about her newly discovered powers, or battling creatures from darkness, she goes to the local high school and rides her horse on mountain trails. But she also spends a lot of time with her “Aunt” Ila, being taught how to live off the land. Ila is a Watcher with incredible powers and even though she could live in luxury anywhere in the world, she chose to settle down in a small cabin in the Appalachian mountains, where she grows all her own food. Respecting her ties to the earth and the animals that she exists with, Ila is also a vegetarian, so meat is off the menu in little valley surrounded by hills.

Ember has never eaten so healthy before, and she must adjust to a diet consisting of vegetables, fruit, nuts, grains, eggs, and goat’s milk. Ila shows Ember how to tastily live off the land, introducing her to homemade wheat pancakes, omelets loaded with vegetables, a variety of casseroles filled with pasta, beans, squash and potatoes, and scrumptious tomato sandwiches. Ember leans how to grow, harvest, and can the fruits and vegetables from Ila’s gardens. And Ila’s storeroom is stocked full of their bountiful hard work. One of Ember’s favorite pastimes is sitting on the front porch with her mentor, sipping fresh grape juice, and listening to Ila’s stories. Luckily, Ila also has a sweet tooth and her grandest treat is a special chocolate cake that even a demon and a growler can’t resist.

For all of her growing appreciation for healthy eating, Ember is still a teenager and enjoys snacking on soda, french fries, and cheeseburgers when she gets the chance. And that’s not a bad thing. With the end of days approaching, she’s going to need all her strength for the battles to come.

Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Karen!

You can find Karen here:

KarenAnnHopkins.com

Twitter @KarenAnnHopkins

Facebook Fan Page

Books on Amazon

Karen Ann Hopkins is the author of the urban fantasy/dystopian YA series, The Wings of War, along with a mystery/crime thriller series, Serenity’s Plain Secrets, and the YA Amish-themed romantic Temptation series. 

FOODFIC: Please Welcome Connie Hambley, Author of The Charity

Food and the Art of Cooking Up Characters


All Irish are born with a love of a cuppa. Right? The deep rosy tones of Irish Breakfast tea are supposed to give respite in a hectic day and provide a moment of clarity where all ills can be cured and all problems solved.

Yeah, right. Guess again.

The “Irish Love Tea” is a broadly held stereotype many readers hold. Turning an assumption upside down allows me to surprise a reader and have some fun in the process.

My recently completed trilogy’s main character is Jessica Wyeth, a world-class equestrian with Irish roots. She was raised in the States, so her attitudes are distinctly American. She is strong, assertive, and independent. Oh, and she craves a great cup of coffee.

I’ll confess to playing on stereotypes, too with that old “Irish Love Pubs” assumption that flirts with cliché. Instead of drunken sots weeping into their whiskeys, I placed characters having crucial political conversations in back rooms or families enjoying a night of lively music together. Mining that cliché for details and facts and bringing depth to my scenes helped me avoid two-dimensional characters but, in the process of researching facts and settings, something surprising happened.

My story had layers I didn’t anticipate, but once I saw them, I knew I had to bring them to life.

I didn’t start out thinking I was going to write a trilogy, but each book had one little fuse that, when lit, exploded into another story. The Jessica Trilogy unfolds the story of a woman who uncovers the money behind a Boston-based cell of the Irish Republican Army. Each book encapsulates one distinct stage of her discovery. The Charity shows what happened, The Troubles explores why it happened, and The Wake answers how the characters move forward in a world turned upside down.

The Charity started as a love story, but the worlds surrounding my characters complicated their relationship . . . and that’s an understatement. I live in Boston, where generations of wealth impact politics and society in seen and unseen ways. Money and power drive good people to do bad things and I wanted to create a story where you questioned which characters are good guys and which ones might lure you with a cuppa then slice you with a dagger.

How readers view a conversation held over a cup of tea or one held in the back room of a pub colors their perception of the characters. Food, and the settings in which it is consumed, help me weave a web of deception.

Thanks for stopping by to share your food for thought, Connie!

You can find Connie here:

ConnieJohnsonHambley.com

Twitter @ConnieHambley

Facebook Fan Page

Books on Amazon

CONNIE JOHNSON HAMBLEY grew up on a New York dairy farm and all would have been idyllic if an arsonist hadn’t torched her family’s barn. Bucolic bubble burst, she began to steadfastly plot her revenge against all bad guys, real and imagined. After receiving her law degree, she moved to Boston and wrote for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Nature and other wonky outlets as she honed her skills of reaching readers at a deep emotional level with great research, laser-sharp focus on detail, and persuasive writing. Her high-concept thrillers feature remarkable women entangled in modern-day crimes and walk the reader on the razor’s edge between good and evil. Connie delights in creating worlds where the good guys win–eventually. Her short stories, Giving Voice and Black Ice won acceptance in Best New England Crime Stories: Windward (2016) and Snowbound (2017), respectively, published by Level Best Books. The third book in The Jessica Trilogy, The Wake, joins The Charity and The Troubles. Connie is a two-time winner of Best English Fiction literary award at the EQUUS International Film Festival in New York City. She is Vice President and Featured Speaker of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime.

LOG LINES:

The Charity: Witness to a gang-style slaying, a young woman is hunted to stop her from exposing the money and the people behind a Boston-based terrorist cell.

The Troubles: Deceived by her family, a rebellious woman seeks to unearth how Northern Ireland’s Troubles are buried in her mother’s secret past.

The Wake: A shattered heiress’ family secret is exploited by her spurned lover to blackmail her into engaging in international terrorism.

7-Year Blogiversary!

Year 7 was a lucky one for me, as so many terrific authors stopped by to share their food for thought:

Jeffrey Beesler – Speed Demons
Eldritch Black – The Book of Kindly Deaths
Jenn Brink – Silver Bells
Carole Brown – The Redemption of Caralynne Hayman
Peggy Chambers – The Apocalypse Sucks
Jeff Chapman – The Black Blade
Debra Chapoton – Sheltered
Caroline Clemmons – The Texan's Irish Bride
April Michelle Davis – A Princess in Disguise
Steve DeWinter – Forgotten Girl
Brittany Hawes – Wicked
Cathryn Hein – The Country Girl
David Hogan – The Last Island
Holly Jacobs – Steamed
Jessica Knauss – Awash in Talent
Deborah Lawrenson – The Lantern
John Mefford – IN Doubt
Assaph Mehr – Murder in Absentia
A.G. Moye – Cronicles of the Marauder
Luke Murphy – Wild Card
Patricia Obermeier Neuman & Rosalind Burgess – Lethal Property
D.H. Nevins – Wormwood
Cory Putman Oakes – Witchtown
Laurence O'Bryan – The Cairo Puzzle
Jean Knight Pace & Jacob Kennedy – Grey Lore
Stephen Penner – A Lack of Motive
Tony Piazza – Murder is Such Sweet Revenge
Jodie Pierce – Vampire of Brazil
Rachel Rawlings – The Morrigna
Juli D. Revezzo – House of Dark Envy
Tony Riches – The Tudor Trilogy
Holly Robinson – Folly Cove
Patricia Sands – Drawing Lessons
Dina Santorelli – Baby Grand
Jack Scott – Perking the Pansies
Deborah Shilan & Linda Reid – Dead Air
Tricia Shiu – Please Hold
Ellis Shuman – The Burgas Affair


Then I dug into:

The Ice Maiden – Edna Buchanan
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs

With so many great guests this year, I didn’t get to blog about every book I read. And, to be fair, not every read lends itself to a good FoodFic discussion, either because the food in the story doesn't jump out at me, or my schedule’s already full for the year, or a book’s subject matter is too dark or serious for me to lightly chat about here.

Anyway, below are some of the better books I read over the past year that weren’t reviewed here at BWATE?

And, as always, please feel free to suggest some great reads for me in the coming year. :)

Body of Evidence, All That Remains – Patricia Cornwell

Sacred Scars – Kathleen Duey

Mr. Lemoncello’s Library Olympics – Chris Grabenstein

The Lady of the Rivers, The White Queen, The Red Queen, The White Princess – Philippa Gregory

Midnight Without a Moon – Linda Williams Jackson

Crazy Rich Asians – Kevin Kwan

The Last Good Girl – Allison Leotta

So High a Blood – Morgan Ring

Four – Veronica Roth

The Murder Farm – Andrea Maria Schenkel

The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane – Lisa See

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – John Tiffany

We Have Your Daughter – Paula Woodward