I love cooking shows.  They give me new ideas, they make me drool over spices, pastas, breads and knife skills.  I dream of new kitchens and Vulcan ovens.  It doesn’t matter if they are cooking Italian (think Giada) or New Orleans style (think Emeril), they are a constant source of delight.

Recently, I was flipping through the channels and came upon a quirky cooking show on the new Cooking Network.  French Food At Home with Laura Calder.  It quickly became a must see, must DVR show for me.

A Canadian show, French Cooking At Home disarms the viewer immediately with a kitchen set that could be your kitchen or your neighbors.  Intimate and low key, Laura Calder introduces the viewer to easy to understand French cooking techniques and recipes.  With nary a modern kitchen appliance in view, Laura Calder shows us the simple way to clarify butter to making light as a cloud orange chocolate mousse.  It also helps that she is lovely, with a self-depreciating self of humor.

 

Here is her introduction to the recipe Mountain Duck:

“You’re probably picturing some poor lost mallard in hiking boots, yodeling his lungs out in the snowy Alps.  Actually, the mountain influence here is cured ham and the duck is just duck,…”.  See? So charming…

Accompanied by a soundtrack that seems to come from the movie, The Triplets of Belleville, Laura Calder builds each show around a simple topic like Puff Pastries or Butter. To keep things easy, she only demonstrates 3 things at the most.  Laura Calder will give even the most green of cooks the confidence to try something new.

I also got her first cookbook, French Food At Home.  Much like the show, it is simple and easy to understand.  There aren’t any pictures or glossy pages, just good recipes, amusing and wonderful descriptions and techniques to try. I love it!

So slow down, turn on French Cooking At Home and enjoy!

LGBT Romance Spotlight: Goodreads M/M Romance Group.I love Goodreads and stumbled upon the M/M Romance Group  quite by accident to my delight.

Here the discussions are lively, and thought provoking.  The members always interesting and they love sharing the books they read, just like me.

This interview with Heidi Cullinan, author and blogger of The Amazon Iowan, and Moderatorix Lori, our head whipsnapper on how it all started.  Great interview.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Here we are at book 4 of the series and I am still as seriously addicted as I became on Infected Prey. It is a good thing that I already know that another book is being written because if I thought this could even be the last book, I would pull a Roan, and roar at Andrea Speed at full volume. Lucky for all of us that will not be necessary. Andrea, can we talk Book 10?

Roan McKitchen (“….it’s Mc KEE an” as he reminds people) is one of those remarkable characters who is so large, so real, that they live beyond the page. His actions, thoughts, and words leap out at you, grab you by the collar, and shake until they get your attention. With each book, Roan continues to evolve, changes caused by the virus taking him into unknown territory physically and mentally. This is a fascinating take on shapeshifters and it has me hooked.

Paris, Roan’s love and partner, has been dead now for several years and Roan is still feeling the loss. But he has moved on enough to have a boyfriend in Dylan (artist and bartender) who is questioning their relationship. I like the character of Dylan but he’s no Paris and knows it (and the reader knows it). Engaging secondary characters like Holden Fox (prostitute, assistant), Murphy, Gordo, and Gabe from the Police Department – all present and accounted for which is a huge plus as Andrea Speed is as marvelous with these people as she is with her main characters.

Roan is juggling several cases again. The warring leadership of the Church of the Divine Transformation want’s Eli’s computer back, a client of Holden’s has died and it may be murder, and oh yes, there’s a rogue cat on a people eating binge. All demand his immediate attention as does his relationship with Dylan. Roan may deal with some of these issues with quips and pills, but his headaches are getting worse and so is his depression.
Tension and dread ratchet up with each turn of the page. By the time I was halfway through, I had as big a headache as Roan’s, mostly from my imagination. I won’t give any spoilers but the last section of the book was handled totally differently from the other 3. Don’t look for everything to be settled, there are still answers out there I hope to some of the questions posed in this book. But what a way to get the reader engaged and keep them there.

So here I am, on the edge of my seat……waiting and wanting….to see where Roan and the virus take me next. Please, Andrea Speed, don’t make me wait too long.

Blurb from Dreamspinner Press: “Conceived bearing the lion strain of the virus, Roan is the only fully functioning virus child in the country—maybe in the world. But that doesn’t mean he’s okay. He’s still struggling with the death of his husband and the guilt of finding new love; his old enemy, the Church of the Divine Transformation, is becoming increasingly hostile; and he’s taken on a tragic cold case involving a long-missing boy.

As Roan fights to control the lion inside him, his world explodes with all kinds of trouble. The leader of the church is ramping up the violence against him, calling Roan out as a traitor to his kind. There’s a loose Infected terrorizing the city. And Holden, male prostitute and Roan’s unofficial assistant, brings him a case involving the suspicious death of one of Holden’s clients, which puts Roan far too close to a murderer for his state of mind.”

Available from Dreamspinner Press, Amazon, All Romance, Fictionwise.

 

Bigotry is a Transitive Noun.

Romance Writers Ink, a chapter of the national organization Romance Writers of America, has banned same-sex pairing entries for theirMore than Magic contest in all categories. (the rules and information page can be viewed here: http://rwimagiccontests.wordpress.com/rwi-contests/2012-more-than-magic-rules-information/) (from Anne Tenino’s blog).

I find that in this day and age that the discrimination showed by this organization is despicable. The rules of the contest state:

RWA defines romance as A Central Love Story: The main plot centers around two individuals falling in love and struggling to make the relationship work.

It does not specify that it has to be m/f. Love and romance are not defined by gender nor should it be.  It is especially galling when you take into consideration the growing number of m/m ebooks and the excellence in writing so clearly demonstrated.

And then there is the sad sack answer given to Kari Gregg when asked for a rational reason, heck, any reason…

Here is the answer from RWI:

Kari Gregg: I emailed the contest organizer to ask why this change was enacted. The contest organizer replied that RWI chapter members were “uncomfortable” with accepting same-sex contest entries. “Same-sex was just too much.”

The attitudes, hypocrisy, and sheer stupidity of such a decision is appalling. This organization should accept LGTBQ entries and bring their organization into this century. Or lag behind and be left behind.

Write and voice your opinion to:

RWA at info@rwa.org and/or

email the contest coordinator at jackie.rwimagic@netscape.com

To sign a petition, go to http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/rwa-shouldnt-be-in-the-business-of-discrimination

The rules and information page can be viewed here: http://rwimagiccontests.wordpress.com/rwi-contests/2012-more-than-magic-rules-information/

I also urge you to go read the blogs listed below.  The more voices raised against discrimination and hypocrisy, the louder we become, the greater chance we have of being heard.

Sincerely,

Melaniem54

Other Blog Posts on this Contest:

http://annetenino.com,  “Personal Taste, Public Responsibilities & Discrimination #Rom4All #LGBT #RWA”

http://karigregg.com  “What Year Is This? LGBT Romance in the Trenches”

http://heidicullinan.wordpress.com  “RWA Shouldn’t Be In The Business of Discrimination”

http://stephanihechtauthor.blogspot.com  “Uncomfortable” = Discrimination

http://www.courtneymilan.com/ramblings/2012/02/04/dont-enter-more-than-magic/

Here is the reason I have not posted in a few days  – it kept me that involved.  Life After Death is like a fine Cabernet, my favorite wine.  Deep, full bodied, multi-layered and appropriately, the color of blood.  It is to be sipped and savored, not swallowed in one gulp.  So I took my time and finished it over several days. What a treasure!

Life After Death is the third book in the Infected series and, in my opinion, the strongest yet to date. Sometimes with a series, it loses momentum after the first book or two. Not so with the Infected stories. With Infected Life After Death, the story of Roan McKitchen grows in power and in depth.

As the story opens, Paris Lehane has been dead a year but for Roan McKitchen it might as well been one hour ago. Roan has retreated into depression and denial, rarely leaving his home, unable to deal with the loss of Paris. Only the support of friends who pay his bills and force him to eat has kept him alive. Roan is coasting along, full of pain and survivor’s guilt, until a case of a missing husband forces him back into the real world.

The real beauty of this story lies in the fact that the character of Paris Lehane was so real and so loved that here you grieve with Roan. The author pulls you through all the stages of grief as Roan lives them. When Roan is unable to cope with this monumental loss, it’s your loss as well. His tears are yours too. Keep that tissue box handy. As Roan gets wrapped up in the mystery of the missing spouse (and a wife’s grief), all too briefly you forget that Paris is gone and involve yourself in the case too. Until a song or a memory makes Paris’ death real again to Roan and the reader. The story keeps you on a rollercoaster of emotions along with Roan as the case gets more complicated, forcing Roan back to the living as he searches for answers.

The second part of the book takes place two years after Paris’ death. I loved that, for once, the fact that death and loss does not get better with time is addressed. Too often in life (no matter whether it is a story or not), people assume that grief has a time limitation on it, like a parking meter or a bakery good. You don’t get over something this traumatic, you just learn to deal with it better. And here Roan is trying to move forward while learning this basic truth. New characters come into his life that I just loved, such as a software executive with a surprising new job and a old acquaintance called Holden Fox who is as complicated as he is gorgeous. I can’t wait for their next appearance.

This series is full of mysteries, and not just the cases Roan takes on. There is the mystery of how the werecat virus was born. And why Roan is getting stronger as he ages while the other cats, like Paris, grow weaker and sicken. Plus the politics of being infected is always present much like Aids was in the 80’s and 90’s. The series and this book has so many layers that each time you read it, you make new discoveries. I love Roan’s voice. If the dialog here were a song, it would be on autoplay in my home. Roan McKitchen has the ability to make me laugh, and cry and snort in disbelief. He is as real to me as my neighbor next door. That is both a talent and a gift. Andrea Speed has both.

If you are looking for a book full of hot sex only, this is not that story. But if you are looking for a story of love, loss, and full of characters so real that they breathe, this book and this series is for you. I have one more published book to go….Infected Freefall, the fourth in the series. I think I am going to try and wait a week to get and start that one. I just don’t want to be finished yet. Luckily, Andrea Speed is working on book 5. So the end is not in sight. Lucky for all of us.

My rating is 5 stars.

Publisher Note: My ebook had formatting problems. At the end of each chapter was the notation to return to the table of contents. And sometimes the chapters started in the middle of the page. I have not had this happen before so I am not sure if it was just my copy or all the ebook copies. But that was the only jarring note here and unusual for this publisher.

In a world where a werecat virus has changed society, Roan McKichan, a born infected and ex-cop, works as a private detective trying to solve crimes involving other infecteds.

But when your heart is gone, it’s easy to fall into a black hole and never crawl out. Roan has been lost and alone for more than a year, and his best friends think a new case might be just the motivation he needs. Roan forces himself back into the game and discovers a dead man who might not be all that dead, a street hustler that wants to hustle him, and a dominatrix who is well prepared to take Roan’s orders. As Roan claws his way out of the darkness by diving back into his work, he finds himself in a race against time in the adrenaline-pumping realization that nothing helps a person want to live like helping someone else survive.

Available at: Dreamspinner Press, All Romance, Amazon and Fictionwise in multiple formats.

 

In between procrastinating on house cleaning and sitting down to finish my latest book I am reading, I thought I would post a new recipe that I just love.  The flavors are deep, subtle and mouthwatering.  And the chicken was even better the next day.

This calls for butterflying the chicken.  If you have never done this before, it is  easy.  I used kitchen shears although you can use a knife. Here is a good video on how to do it: www.ehow.com/how_2089420_butterfly–chicken.html

Now on to the recipe.  This will become a go to recipe. It has for me.