SPRING IS HERE AND FRESH TASTES ABOUND

Betty Jo Schuler

Have you planted your Spring garden yet?  Lots of good eating from the season…and some of it is ready to pick and eat 

I’ve always loved reading and can lose myself in a good book.  I got my first bee sting when I was a preteen sitting in a porch rocker and a pesky ‘fly’ kept bothering me and I kept swatting at it.  Yeow!  I still read a lot but open my eyes to buzzing sounds.

Another passion of mine is collecting recipes and preparing new dishes.  There were a lot of steps between the book and the bee and the book I wrote that launched my new career. 

My husband and I self-published it (an adventure in itself), had it printed and sent out flyers.  Creative Dieting, reviewed by a major tabloid, sparked a lot of interest and assignments for other publications. It was a science to write an appealing seven day diet with the exact calories and fat but I loved doing it. Then after a few years, Healthy Foods took center stage and the word “diets” almost disappeared, taking the fun and challenge out of writing them.

However, I still love recipes and I’d like to share them with you.

One of my favorites. 

CARAMELIZED BROILED ASPARAGUS   This great recipe caramelizes the sugar of the asparagus and really brings out its sweetness. Ez-Peeze to prepare.

1 pound asparagus (thicker spears)

2 tablespoons olive oil

Kosher salt and pepper

Preheat broiler.

On a baking sheet, toss the asparagus with the oil and ¼ teaspoon each of salt and pepper to coat. Arrange the asparagus in a single layer and broil 6 to 8 minutes, shaking the baking sheet occasionally until the spears are tender and slightly charred.

OVERNIGHT SALAD (So handy for picnics and potlucks)

½ lb. bacon

1 head cauliflower

1 head lettuce

1 C. Mayo

¼ cup sugar

2 or 3 green onions

Salt, pepper, grated Parmesan

Clean vegetables. Break cauliflower into small pieces. (I mostly remove the hard stem part.)  Cut up lettuce and green onions. Toss (no dressing yet).

Microwave the bacon. Break into bits.

Mix sugar and mayo (or Miracle Whip). Spread across the top. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, grated Parmesan, and bacon. Cover and refrigerate for the next day. Toss when ready to serve.

CUCUMBERS IN SOUR CREAM (refreshing side dish)

2 medium cucumbers, thinly sliced

1 medium onion, thinly sliced

½ C. dairy sour cream

1 T. sugar

1 T. vinegar

½ tsp. salt

            Combine cucumbers and onion.  Stir together sour cream, sugar, salt, and vinegar.  Toss with vegetables.  Cover and chill, stirring occasionally.  Makes 3 cups.  (I like to use red wine vinegar and fat-free or “light” sour cream.)  Enjoy!

MINTED NEW PEAS

½ C. chopped green onions with tops

3 Tbsp. butter

2 cups shelled peas or 10 oz. pkg. frozen

1 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh mint leaves

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp. lemon juice

¼ tsp salt and ¼ C dried rosemary, crushed

Cook onion in butter till tender. Add peas and rest of ingredients plus 1 Tbsp. water. Cover and cook till peas are just tender (10 to 12 mins)., adding a little more water if needed. Garnish with mint leaves and lemon twist.

So here’s one more dish that you might want to make for company…

LETTUCE WRAPS OR CUPS   So versatile and less calories than burritos, they’ve become quite popular. This is a recipe my sister-in-law used to serve with Fritos for dipping. But you can serve it over lettuce and it’s more like a main dish.  I like shredded lettuce.  There are so many types of lettuce and then there’s spinach and other kinds of greens.  If you need help distinguishing between them, ask the produce manager.

PARTY CHICKEN SALAD

4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves.

½ C minced celery

¼ C. minced onion

2 big dill pickles, minced (or sweet if you prefer)

½ C. sour cream (regular or fat-free)

½ C. mayo or mayo-type salad dressing

Salt, pepper, dash sugar

Dash of dill pickle juice  

            Cook chicken and cool.  Process or grind chicken, celery, onion, and pickle.  Mix sour cream, mayo, salt, pepper, and sugar together, then stir into the chicken mixture. Chill for several hours so flavors blend.  (I use fat-free sour cream and fat-free Miracle Whip in this recipe and it tastes delicious. (I just can’t ditch the diet director role. LOL)  

Male Wanted by Betty Jo Schuler

Link: http://amzn.com/B005G5VCRY

Taylor Gayle advertises in The Town Crier for a male to date, but Max Stuart misprints her ad to indicate she’s looking for a “sadomasochistic male to mate” and includes her address. To atone for his mistakes, Max becomes her live-in protector. Now, who’s going to protect this high school librarian from the unbelievably sexy newspaper editor? And who’s going to save Max from this feisty Plain Jane’s charms?

            IS your mouth watering YET?   Thanks for reading and “eating” with me. Betty Jo 

Schuler 

.

New Releases at Books We Love, and don't forget to enter our contest to win a Kindle Fire while you're visiting. www.bookswelove.com

We've had some terrific new releases this past month.  From the story of a plantation owner's son who sets out on a terrifying and perilous journey, determined to find the Ohio River and freedom for his best friend and his friend's parents, despite the fact that all three of them are slaves that belong to the young lad's father.

Then we have another of Juliet Waldron's amazing historicals.  This one, the first of a two book set, is based on the early years of Alexander Hamilton, first Secretary of the United States Treasury

Cheers, Chocolate, and Other Disasters will be sure to delight young adults, and with the way the smart and timely way this book deals with issues like bullying and BFFs, it's sure to be appreciated by young readers and parents alike.


For historical fans, Diane Scott Lewis' historical mystery, suspense is an absolute treat.  Readers love Diane's books, and this one is really special.  I'm a mystery reader myself, and I can tell you that this is one book you're going to really have to work to figure out the puzzle before the author finally reveals all.

And Fantasy is definitely on the table. Jane Lane-Walters treats us to two more of her flights to other worlds.  Temple of Fyre and Dragons of Fyre, take us to the mysterious and very scary Island of Fyre.  You won't want to miss these two treats for Fantasy fans.

Frank Talaber, a new to Books We Love author has thrilled us all by bringing his novel based on a legend direct from Haida Gwaii culture.  Set in what was formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, this Native mystery will have you turning the pages as fast as you can.  Raven's Lament is based on a legend as old as the culture.

The second book from ever more popular romantic suspense author Kelly Janicello is sure to delight romance and mystery fans alike.  If you've read, Remember Me? then you're already well acquainted with this authors sharp and witty style, and if you haven't read it yet, then this is a perfect opportunity for you to click the cover of Roses are Red, and get them both.  All BWL new single releases are released as Amazon exclusives and priced at only $2.99.

Last, but definitely not least,  the long awaited Lee Killough, second edition update to The Doppleganger Gambit has finally been released at Amazon.  A very realistic police procedural science fiction... talk about rare, and from a  Hugo nominee, it's a real treat.  As one reviewer said: 

“Police Procedural SF is rare — that makes Ms. Killough’s fun romp all the more appreciated. The characters, plot, indeed the whole future society are very well developed in this novel.” SF Review 34  

CLICK TO BUY		CLICK TO BUY		CLICK TO BUY

I Dare You. I Double-Dog Dare You! by Tia Dani

Time's Enduring Love, our historical time-travel is a 

Books We Love 2014 best seller.

http://amzn.com/B00EVXABV0

The fact we've been writing together for a very long time still amazes us how well we work together. The reason? There's a strong bond of trust between us and, as we've always said, "Our friendship is imperative", beyond any other emotion or personal quirks.

What's one of those quirks, you ask?

Well, we're a bit competitive.

Pushing our limits has become a challenge. For example, we are "dogged" determined to dig deeper and deeper into our current story in progress. Which makes it kind of difficult since, at the moment, we're working on two stories at once. One is a paranormal and the other a futuristic. Talk about opposite ends of the spectrum. Have we mentioned before we're eclectic? Yep, it keeps things interesting for us.

Anyway, back to our competition. We call it our Double-dog Dare. Here's what happens.

An initial story gets written.

So far, we're good with what's on the pages, but it really needs to zing.

Tia, ever thirsty for drama and spine-tingling action, takes off and inserts all kinds of spooky, weird, unusual, and not your run-in-the-mill happenings. "Hmmm," she chortles and rubs her hands. "What disaster can be added to intensify the story?"

Dani, however, forever the romantic, plunges into the protagonists' love quandary. How she can push the boundaries and build their relationships. She loves to dream about how passionate our hero and heroine can have it and build the sexual tension. She smiles and asks…"What incredibly sweet or spicy thing can I do to them before disaster strikes?" With that, she blissfully types away.

Dani calls this the fun stuff. Tia calls it the gooey, hooey stuff. Uh-oh, our personalities are showing.

Working together and daring each other to push harder is how we create realistic characters, strong emotion, and a story line that keeps our readers entertained all the way until the end.

Take for example our paranormal story we're working on right now. The story involves quite a bit of Apache Indian culture and Arizona history. The story didn't start out that way. It originally started with the hero and heroine meeting on a guest ranch in northern Arizona. 

Okay, simple, but not exactly a hand wringer.

Then we into competition mode. And one chapter developed into another.

The hero and heroine soon find themselves drawn into a battle of metaphysical beliefs. Two Apache lovers have been trapped in time by a shape-shifter's curse. The lovers? Well, Dani won that round…lots and lots of emotional and physical love scenes.

Once Tia gives in to Dani, she insists there has to be a twist. Ensnared within her own spell, a jealous Apache woman vows that no one will ever free her captives.

Sounding stronger…BUT…the bar has to be raised higher. Tia pushes for the past-life regressions to be dangerous and scary. Dani agrees, but insists the heroine and hero must find themselves strongly bound together through time and other lives.

Kinda of a draw wouldn't you say? Round one to Tia. Round two to Dani. Round three. A mutual agreement: The love between the hero and heroine must be strong enough break the curse cast by the evil one.

To find out how it happens...you'll have to read the book.

One more thing though.

Before this book is ready to send to our publisher, we have one more step to achieve. Make sure our historic storyline stayed believable all the way through. So, off we went the world acclaimed Heard Museum in Phoenix for research. It ended up being a wonderful adventure. Not only did we discover some Apache objects to enhance our story, we also learned that many of the incidents we wrote were darn near spot on. (Spine tingling and lifting neck hairs hit us both.)

Some of the Native American jewlery on display at the Heard Museum.

 Apache wedding dress.

Navajo blanket robes. The Apache traded for goods and would very likely have blankets like these.

Apache footwear on display.

It was a perfect day to enjoy lunch on the patio and make some notes. We have learned the hard way...write it down while fresh in our minds.

We also enjoyed a glass of Twisted Cedar Native American Wine. http://heard.org/

Final round to the competition? To our powerful channeled spirits who helped us become one with the book.

As far as the futuristic…that's an article for another time…After we manage to say farewell to our Apache spirit guides and attempt to contact our space-aged, highly-advanced guardians for more help. Won't that be fun?


To find out more about the writing team Tia Dani and our books visit us at:
http://bookswelove.com/authors/dani-tia/  
http://tiadanismusings.blogspot.com/

Twitter:   https://twitter.com/TiaDani 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tiadani.author

Bio: 
Tia Dani is the multi-published writing team made up of good friends Christine Eaton Jones and Beverly Petrone. Together they create endearing and realistic characters, humorous dialogue, and unusual settings. And…best of all…they’re having the time of their lives.

Storytelling has been a passion for Christine (Tia) since childhood when she regularly enthralled the neighborhood children with make-believe fairy tales and wild adventures.

Always the lover of a good romance, Beverly's (Dani) goal is for you to step into the shoes of her heroine, fall head-over-heels in love with her hero, and most of all believe in the magic of love.

Tia Dani happily calls Arizona home where they play in the sunshine and dance in the twilight of the beautiful Sonoran desert.  

If It's Monday, It Must be Roast Beef by Gail Roughton

Say you’ve decided to get off the Interstate and take a drive along some back country roads.  The road twists and curves through tree tunnels dappled with streams of sunlight, one leading to the next. Bridges provide passage over creeks and streams with fabulous names, names like Turkey Creek, Stone Creek, Dry Branch. Time’s gotten away from you, and the sun and fresh air and changing scenery have made you and your passengers hungry.  You look around but there’s not a McDonalds or a Wendy’s or a Dairy Queen to be found.  But if you’re lucky, there’s something better.  Something special.  Something a Burger King or a Taco Bell or even a Zaxby’s can’t even dream of touching. A small town country café.

Now, I’m a little more intimately familiar with the inner workings of such an establishment than most.  Whether  I consider that a blessing or curse depends on the particular memory recalled at the particular moment I’m reminescing.  See, back in 2006, when my husband Randy was a small-town businessman already running a combo small-town business in a store where one side was a Mom-n-Pop video store (this was before Blockbuster and Netflix pretty much slammed the lid on such enterprises) and the other side was the local laundry, the owner of a cute little restaurant by the name of The Courthouse Café decided to sell it.  Randy wanted to buy it.  I managed to delay the inevitable for a little while. “You’re already breaking your back to break even,” I proclaimed. “A restaurant’d just be one more thing to break your back over!” And he listened.  For about a year.  Until the day he called me up at work and announced he’d just bought it. 

Thus began one of those true love-hate relationships that you look back on with simultaneous feelings of fondness and true horror.  The Courthouse Café occupied a prime piece of real estate in Jeffersonville (aka J’Ville), Georgia – right across from the Courthouse and right beside the local grocery store.  Meals were served cafeteria style.  Judy, the head cook, stood behind the steam counter, spoons at the ready to dish out the patrons’ choice of one meat and three vegetables from that day’s menu.  It wasn’t called all you could eat, but with the amount of food hitting the plates, it might as well have been. Each day’s menu sported two meats and seven vegetables from which to make your choice, complete with either cornbread or biscuits.  Homemade.  With dessert (frequently homemade, though that wasn’t one hundred percent guaranteed).  And choice of beverage.  Soft drinks were available, but down here in this neck of the woods, most folks don’t even consider any beverage but sweet tea (and I do mean sweet) as an option with either lunch or supper.  Some folks even drink it for breakfast.  Pam, Judy’s assistant, kept the kitchen moving, threw more chicken in the fryer, fetched and toted.  Not only were the biscuits and cornbread homemade, no instant or frozen mashed potato would have dared show its face in that kitchen.

Lunch started cooking while breakfast was still leaving the kitchen short order style, frequently by means of the breakfast crowd sticking their head through the swinging kitchen doors and hollering out for two eggs, bacon, grits and a side of hotcakes.  Or two sausage biscuits.  Or whatever.  Big pots of vegetables simmered on the gas range, liberally seasoned with salt meat,  that staple of southern cuisine.  There was a set menu for every day, as dependable as a calendar.  Mondays were roast beef, Tuesdays were beef tips over rice.  Wednesdays were spaghetti, and Fridays were catfish. Every day was delicious, but Thursdays were always Thanksgiving.  Turkey, dressing, sweet potato soufflé, macaroni and cheese, broccoli casserole, peas, collard greens.  If you weren’t in the mood for turkey, you could have fried chicken.  Everybody was always in the mood for the dressing.  That dressing was ambrosia from Olympus.  Judy and Pam tried on occasion to substitute out the Thursday menu so it didn’t just scream “Thanksgiving!”  It never worked, though, not even in the high heat of the summer.  That’s what everybody wanted on Thursdays and that’s what everybody got.   

I formed the habit of leaving for work early enough to run into the backdoor of the kitchen.  First order of business was a hug from Judy and then a hug from Pam.  Or vice-versa, depending on who was closest to the door.  Then I’d head to the dining room and see who among the regulars needed a coffee re-fill.  Grabbing my own coffee, it was back to the kitchen, where I maneuvered to the grill between Pam and Judy, both of whom moved in an intricate ballet between grill, stove, and refrigerator, frequently in time to the black velvet voices of Southern gospel playing on the radio.  The best mornings were the mornings when they joined their voices to the radio.  I’d soft fry an egg, sometimes two, grab a big spoonful of buttered grits from the pot warming on the stove (hot, cooked, fine-grained corn based cereal not generally well-known outside the South and usually truly appreciated only by Southerners), and add several pieces of the bacon standing ready on a corner of the grill.  There was something so decadently luxurious about being able to just grab ready-cooked bacon, you know? 

Before I left, I’d fix my lunch.  Why not?  I was in a commercial kitchen, right?  Fried chicken salads, sometimes.   I’d throw some chicken fingers in the deep fryers and they’d be ready by the time I was done with breakfast.  One of the legendary quarter-pound hamburgers, maybe.  They re-heated just fine at lunch if they were fresh-cooked that morning on the grill.  The fixings for a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich.  If there were no left-overs from lunch, then there was no supper waiting at home that night, but there most always was just enough for our suppers and  Pam and Judy’s suppers.  It wasn’t enough to save, and our customers didn’t expect re-heated food the next day.  We didn’t plan to ever give them any, either.  I can taste that roast beef, those beef tips over rice, that spaghetti sauce, that fried chicken, those hamburger steaks now. 

In the end, though, guess what?  Randy broke his back and didn’t break even, though that had to do with the economy that summer more than anything else.  The Courthouse Café was always packed. Customers weren’t the problem.  Gas skyrocketed to over $4.00 a gallon (the first time, I mean), impacting trucking and shipping with the force of a meteorite striking Earth. The potatoes we used went from $19.00 for 40 pounds to $40.00 for $40.00 pounds.  In the space of months.  The rest of the staples followed suit.  Between rent, food, utilities, payroll, taxes, we couldn’t raise the price of the plates enough to cover the costs of putting them on the table even though the crowds remained consistently large.  The Courthouse Café closed its doors for the last time on August 31, 2009.  A few hearty and optimistic folks attempted to start another restaurant in the building. They stayed only a few months each. Small restaurants are back-breaking, heart-breaking businesses.  Y’all remember that the next time you’re lucky enough to be in one.  Even so, in more favorable economic times – say, even the ones in which Randy Branan in a fit of optimism had purchased the thing – I’m pretty sure it would still be open.

But there’s one thing y’all should have figured out by now about writers.  We never waste anything.  We never forget any experience.  We remember bits and pieces of here and there, now and then.  And we blend those bits and pieces into things we hope will be as special for our readers as they were for us.

So, even though the Courthouse Café is no more, other than in these pictures scattered around, it lives on in another world. The e-book world. The Courthouse Café was the glimmer of an idea, the glint in a writer’s eye, that became as much an individual character in a certain novel titled Country Justice as its hero and heroine.  Y’all want to read the Courthouse Café’s full menus?  You can find them in the Country Justice. Y’all have any idea of what goes on the night before an anticipated visit from the Health Inspector? You do if you’ve read Country Justice. Right down to taking the kitchen fans apart and cleaning them with bleach.  Which, by the way, is one of those things I don’t miss. 

I hope y’all enjoyed this little tour of the two cafés, one real, one fictional, but both mine.  Keep an eye out.  There are still Courthouse Cafés scattered around the countryside to enjoy, right along with homemade biscuits.  If you’re lucky, you can find one now and then.  And if you don’t, well, there’s always the Scales of Justice Café.  All you have to do is drop in on Turkey Creek, Georgia, located within the pages of Country Justice and go set yourselves down at a table.  And coming in 2015, I’ll be revisiting Turkey Creek in Black Turkey Walk, the second in the Country Justice series.  So y’all come back now, hear?  

Country Justice

Find all Gail Roughton titles at

Books We Love

And at Amazon

You can also visit at her Blog

and on Facebook

Ten Minutes Ago I Met You...A Cinderella Retrospective by Jamie Hill

Holidays are a great time to think back on old family traditions and memories. This year, with the release of the Cinderella remake, I'm reminded of a tradition my family had for a chunk of my childhood.

First, some history from Wikipedia:

**In the 1950's, television adaptations of musicals were becoming all the rage. One of the most popular come in 1955, when NBC broadcast the Broadway musical Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin. It was so popular that the network  looked for more family-oriented musical projects.

Cinderella is the only Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written for television. It was originally broadcast live on CBS on March 31, 1957 as a vehicle for Julie Andrews, who played the title role. The broadcast was viewed by more than 100 million people. It was subsequently remade for television twice, in 1965 and 1997. The 1965 version starred Lesley Ann Warren, and the 1997 one starred Brandy Norwood in the title role. Both remakes add songs from other Richard Rodgers musicals.

After the musical's success as a stage production, the network decided another television version of Cinderella was needed. The 1957 premiere had been broadcast before videotape was available, so only one performance could be shown. CBS mounted another production in 1965 with Richard Rodgers as Executive Producer. This re-make, commissioned by Rodgers (Hammerstein had died in 1960) and written by Joseph Schrank, used a new script that hewed closer to the traditional tale, although nearly all of the original songs were retained and sung in their original settings. 

The 1965 version was recorded on videotape for later broadcast. The cast featured Ginger Rogers and Walter Pidgeon as the King and Queen; Celeste Holm as the Fairy Godmother; Jo Van Fleet as the Stepmother, with Pat Carroll and Barbara Ruick as her daughters Prunella and Esmerelda; and Stuart Damon as the Prince. Lesley Ann Warren, at age 18, played the title role.

The first broadcast was on February 22, 1965, and it was rebroadcast eight times through February 1974. The 1965 debut had a Nielsen rating of 42.3, making it the highest-rated non-sports special on CBS from the beginning of the Nielsen ratings until 2009.**

I think my siblings and I watched all eight broadcasts of this movie, because I still remember the words to some of the songs. When I discovered them on YouTube, I could even sing along. "In My Own Little Corner" was a particular favorite. I've since seen Lesley Ann Warren in lots of other things but this role, one of her first, will always be special to me.

In My Own Little Corner

I'll admit it seems a little cheesy with the passage of time, but it might have been cheesy back then, and we just didn't care. It was a feel-good movie, and the world can use more of those.

I also remember vividly the scenes with the prince (who now just makes me think of General Hospital after his thirty years of portraying the character Dr. Alan Quartermaine.) My brother would dance around the room with my sisters and I as we sang along. (He's not reading this, is he?) 

 Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?

But my favorite song would have to be "Ten Minutes Ago". That one I could sing to this day, and even got most of the lyrics right. "My head started reeling, you gave me the feeling the room had no ceiling or floor."

Ten Minutes Ago

The age of family-oriented programming is mostly gone and I'll admit, I get into the gory Walking Dead and the breast-filled Game of Thrones. But part of me will always enjoy young adult novels and cheesy movies like 1965's Cinderella. My husband and I were going to watch Frozen just to see what all the hype was about (Let it go!) but sadly, we've just never made time for it. Ah, for another ten minutes...

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Happy Easter to those who celebrate it!

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It's no Cinderella story, but if you're a sucker for romance check out my Blame Game series, beginning with the first novel, Blame it on the Stars. No prince, but a sexy man we got! Click the cover to read more about it at Amazon, also available at most sites where ebooks are sold.

Find all my Books We Love titles here: http://bookswelove.net/authors/hill-jamie/