My brand new cookbook, A Literary Tea Party, came out last Tuesday!!! * cue wild flailing and dancing *
I’ve been doing lots of book promotions and event planning the past few weeks, so this is the first time I’ve had a chance to talk about it on the blog. There’s LOTS to tell you! Here’s what’s been going on:
Sara LeTourneau Guest Post.Sara was kind enough to write the intro for my cookbook AND invite me to write a guest post for her blog the week it came out! Since the cookbook focuses on tea party recipes, I decided to write a post with tea party planning tips. Swing by Sara’s blog and check it out!
Paperfury Cake Recipe for A Thousand Perfect Notes. Paperfury’s debut novel came out just two days after my cookbook, so we teamed up to write a post for her blog! Everyone knows she has a passion for cake, and she couldn’t resist sneaking one into the pages of her book: chocolate almond date cake. I developed a recipe for it, and she shared it on her blog, along with info about both our books. Many thanks, Cait! 🙂
Podcast Interview with DIY MFA. I am honored to have been a guest on Gabriela’s podcast for the DIY MFA writer’s site, where she interviews authors about their books and writing lives. It’s so fun and informative–I’ve been a huge fan for ages! Since my interview hasn’t come out yet, I don’t have a direct link to it, but I’ll share one as soon as it’s available. Keep an eye out!
My First Author Event! This past weekend, we held an author meet ‘n greet and book signing at the Streator Public Library in Illinois. It was my very first author event, so I was super excited! It was great to be able to do it in my home town, at the library I grew up using. I literally went around grabbing books and telling my husband, “This is the first copy of the The Hobbit I ever read! This was where I first read Phantom of the Opera!” Many thanks to the library for hosting and to everyone who attended. It was so great to see you all! 🙂
Me at the Streator Library!
Want Me to Visit Your Local Library, Bookstore, or School? Let’s Make It Happen!
I’ve had some people contact me about scheduling an author event in their town, which is SO flattering! I’ve got several potential appearances in the works, and I wanted to let you all know what to do if you want to schedule one too:
First, contact the location you’d like me to visit and let them know you’re interested in having me come by. Some locations don’t do author events, so it’s always good to check. Plus, libraries and bookstores are always more interested in inviting authors if their patrons specifically request them.
If they’re interested in hosting an event, send me an email here!
I’ll send them our press release, and my publicist and I can start talking with them about scheduling! 😀
NOTE: Since I live in the Midwest, visiting locations in this region shouldn’t be a problem. For anything further away, I’ll have to get the ok from my publisher, since they’ll be covering transportation and accommodation. However, if I’m not able to visit your town, we’ve got lots of other options available! We can schedule a radio or podcast interview, or you can let me know of nearby book festivals that my publisher might already plan on attending. We’ll do everything we can to make it work!
Thank you all for your continued support of my blog and book. I couldn’t do this without you guys! 😀
When I first decided to make a Star Trek: Voyager menu, I started hunting through Memory Alpha for recipe inspiration. Unlike the other Star Trek series I’ve seen, this series features a HUGE amount of food, since the ship’s cook (Neelix) is one of the main characters. As I scrolled through his various creations, algae puffs jumped out at me. They appeared in S3E6 (Remember) when Neelix serves them to an Enaran diplomat, but it isn’t their significance to the series that got my attention. It was the fact that they reminded of a recipe I already make all the time! 🙂
Everyday for lunch, my husband packs a spinach and cheese omelet, which means we ALWAYS have a bag of spinach in our fridge. However, he doesn’t need a ton of spinach per omelet, and our grocery store only sells it in big bags (they technically have small bundles of organic spinach, but it’s rarely in good condition and costs as much as a bag). Which means every week I’m scrambling to figure out how to use up almost an entire bag of spinach before it goes bad.
Enter these delicious, healthy spinach muffins from SuperHealthyKids.com. They feature whole wheat flour, honey, and a whopping 6 ounces of spinach. I stumbled upon the recipe after I decided I couldn’t eat one more bite of sauteed spinach ever again in my life. And these are GOOD. I love them; the Mister loves them; the baby loves them. They’re gone in a day or two every time I make a batch.
When I read up on Neelix’s algae puffs, I knew this was the way to go. So buckle up, crew, we’re off to bake some tasty green muffins!
Coffee may be the most iconic “organic suspension” in Star Trek: Voyager, but Vulcan Spice Tea is a close second. It’s a reigning favorite of Captain Janeway, who has been known to share a cup while meeting with her Vulcan head of security, Lieutenant Tuvok. I started this blend with spiced mate tea, a high-caffeine Brazilian tea flavored with cinnamon, ginger, and orange. I paired it with orange honeybush to increase the zesty flavor and honeybush hazelnut to compliment the toastier notes in the mate. Definitely the perfect blend to sip while watching the adventures of the starship Voyager!
For my Lord of the Rings bonus recipe, I loved the idea of making the cake from Bilbo’s birthday party. It’s not expressly mentioned in the book, but it’s hard to imagine a birthday without one. As you may recall, the one in the movie is huuuuge—2 giant tiers with 2 layers each, enough to fit 111 candles and a host of fresh flowers. I thought about doing a recreation of that same cake, but I’ve seen enough other bloggers do it that I wanted to try something different. Plus, I just finished making a giant chocolate chip cookie, and I made a 10-inch 2-layer double chocolate cake last month. They were fun (and delicious), but I think I’m done with giant desserts for a while. I was in the mood for something mini, but not JUST mini. I wanted a unique, creative element to make this dessert just a little bit special. And that’s where I got the idea for these cupcakes!
The cake in the movie appeared to be white cake with vanilla frosting. I decided to stick with the white cake for the cupcakes themselves but went with a lemon frosting on top, garnishing with candles and edible flowers just like the movie. Inside, I added a surprise: homemade blackberry curd! It’s super delicious and easy to make—an invisible surprise, just like at the end of Bilbo’s party!
Howdy, folks! Sorry about the mix-up earlier today. Those of you who were paying close attention probably already know what I’m talking about. I’ve been trying to work ahead on my posts and accidentally scheduled next Tuesday’s post for today! EEP! >.< It was only up for 10 minutes before I caught the mistake, but those of you who follow through email probably still got an update about it….so I guess you got a sneak peak at next month’s menu! I can trust you to keep it a secret until June for everyone else, right? 😉
Anyway, THIS is the post that was supposed to go up today: my Top Ten Tuesday linkup! Below I’ve shared a list of my top 10 favorite fictional worlds. Hopefully they’re all worlds that are forgiving of bloggers who try to work too far ahead and get their wires crossed! 😉
The round, green door of Bag End is one of the strongest icons in the stories of Middle Earth. It represents so much—home and journey, beginnings and endings, comfort and adventure—and it holds all these otherwise contradictory ideas in effortless resolution. It’s the door through which Bilbo greets his unexpected guests and leaves for adventure in The Hobbit. It’s a symbol of the home that Frodo longs to return to in The Lord of the Rings, but when he does, he finds that although we can go home, we can never go back. It’s a door that, when opened, leads to the promise of good company, a full larder, and a kettle of hot tea. It holds a special place in my heart (and that of many other Tolkien fans as well), so I knew my Lord of the Rings menu wouldn’t be complete without a tribute to it.
I’ve made giant chocolate chip cookies in the past, and I loved the idea of making one to look like a hobbit door. So here it is! The recipe is the giant chocolate chip cookie recipe from Tollhouse. I love how it turned out, though if I’d been thinking ahead, I might have tried to create a wood grain effect with my smoothing knife as I spread out the frosting for the base. I love the yellow doorknob and Gandalf’s rune in the corner. The quote around the border comes from Bilbo and Frodo’s traveling song, and it couldn’t be more perfect! 🙂
Normally I make just one tea for my Book of the Month, but I’ve been known to make multiple teas for books I’m really excited about. I knew The Lord of the Rings would be one of those books long before I even started planning the menu. For one thing, it’s a trilogy, so it’s only fair to have one tea for each book, right? Plus, there are just too many awesome potential teas to choose just one. I actually made FIVE originally, but that seemed excessive so I narrowed it down to my three favorites: Ent-Draught, Breakfast at Bag End, and Sam’s Garden Tea.
Ent-Draught was the most obvious choice, since it’s arguably the most iconic drink in the story. There are two versions, and I decided to make the refreshing, less savory version. Breakfast at Bad End is a slight variation on a hobbit tea I designed for my cookbook (the one in the book uses English breakfast and chestnut, while this one is Irish breakfast and hazelnut). And Sam’s Garden Tea is a tribute to orchard, herb, and flower bed with a refreshing blend of peach, chamomile, and spearmint.
“A Short Cut to Mushrooms” is one of my favorite chapters in Fellowship. It’s when we get a really good look at the nature of hobbits. When Pippin first suggests crossing Farmer Maggot’s land, Frodo doesn’t want to because he was caught stealing mushrooms from Maggot as a child. However, we see a glimpse of hobbit-y good humor when Maggot laughingly remembers the thefts…and his wife later sends a basket of mushrooms with them just for Frodo! We also see the stout-heartedness of hobbits when Farmer Maggot volunteers to take the travelers to the ferry, even though he knows there are dangerous men out looking for Frodo. He stands up bravely to what they think is a Black Rider (but turns out to be Merry in the end). It pulls at my heart that the farmer is willing to risk himself for his neighbors when he owes them nothing.
Long story short: from the moment I first started planning this Lord of the Rings menu, I knew I HAD to have a mushroom recipe. I wanted something quick and easy with only a handful of ingredients—a literal short cut to mushrooms! This recipe is one of my favorites. I use it all the time at home. Just throw the ingredients in a bowl, stir, spread it on a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes. It works well in a skillet on the stove top too!
Not gonna lie, creating this reading kit was downright intimidating. There are just SO MANY cool Lord of the Rings items out there! Choosing felt like such a huge task. I actually put off writing this for a week to give me time to thoroughly sort through everything and make sure my kit included only the really good stuff.
I did my best to avoid items that were too obvious or super easy to find, since I figure people don’t need anyone to tell them about Frodo Funko Pops or One Ring replicas. I also avoided super expensive stuff (with two carefully considered exceptions). I focused my efforts on creative, high quality, mostly fan-made items that would make great gifts for the hobbit, wizard, shieldmaiden, or Heir of Isildur in your life. Enjoy! 🙂
We’re doubling up on recipes today! There are SO many awesome foods in Lord of the Rings, so it was the only way I could fit in everything I wanted today make. ^.^ For the stew, I combined a method I found on The Spruce Eats with my own list of ingredients and created what is now one of my new favorite recipes. The meat is savory, mild, and tender (it falls right off the bone!), and the broth is perfectly seasoned. It’s definitely a dish Sam Gamgee would be proud to serve Mister Frodo!
For the lembas, I used a recipe featured on Tea with Tolkien as a jumping off point and experimented with it from there. The original recipe makes a thicker, slightly sweeter cookie with almond pieces in it—which sounds delicious, don’t get me wrong—but I was in the mood for a thinner, simpler cookie. It took a few tries, but I FINALLY came up with a version I loved. It’s delicate and faintly sweet, almost a cross between a cookie and a savory biscuit. The almond-lemon flavor combo is just the sort of subtle, fresh, back-to-nature flavor you’d expect to find in Elven food. Husband and baby loved it too! 🙂
