SUMMER 2020

Lake Michigan looms large in my memories of Chicago

Hi, friends! Hope you are all safe and well in what we might call the summer of our discontent. It would truly be easy to be overwhelmed by all that’s around us—the nuevo corona virus pandemic looming a like a huge, unseen monster waiting to pounce, some fierce heat and storms as if the weather has gone awry, the ongoing civil unrest, the bitterly divisive political campaigns. I hope you’ve been able to keep your head above water.

Are you quarantining? Because of my age—and at my youngest daughter’s insistence—I’ve been quarantining pretty severely since March 12. A few friends, who are also being careful, come for distanced, masked, BYOB happy hour, and I have seen each of my children, with their families, but that’s it. I have left the property maybe five or six times, mostly for doctor or dental appointments.

And I’m quite content, grateful that I am able to wait out the quarantine with my daughter and her family mostly taking care of life’s chores for me. I’ve developed a routine, spending my days in the clothes I’ve slept in and then cleaning up and “dressing” for supper. I never wear make-up, though when I saw myself at a few Zoom meetings, I realized lipstick would probably be a good idea. One of my sons once said I had a fetish about washing my hair daily, but I gave that up too and went to every other day, or sometimes (gasp!) every third day.

I work at my desk all morning and nap heavily in the afternoon. My family comes to my cottage most nights for supper, so I have plenty of companionship. And the nights I am responsible for dinner, I cook in the late afternoon. I haven’t read as many books as I had expected to. There is too much else going on.

A new mystery

In my last newsletter I mentioned taking a second look at the beginnings of a mystery I had started writing and then abandoned to work on historical projects. Now I’m happy to say the mystery is a reality. Saving Irene will be available September 16 on Amazon and other platforms and in print as a paperback. Here’s the blurb:

“Irene Foxglove wishes she were a French chef. Henrietta James, her assistant, knows she is nothing more than a small-time TV chef on a local Chicago channel. And yet when Irene is threatened, Henny tries desperately to save her, wishing always that ‘Madame’ would tell her the truth–about her marriage, her spoiled daughter, her days in France, the man who threatens her. Henny’s best friend, the gay guy who lives next door, teases her, encourages her, and shares meals with her, even as she wishes for more. Murder, kidnapping, and some French gossip complicate this mystery, set in Chicago and redolent with the aroma of fine food.”

This was lots of fun for me to write because it immersed me in the culinary world and research took my imagination back to Hyde Park, the Chicago neighborhood of my childhood. Of course, things have changed in the many years since I lived in Hyde Park, so I had to research restaurants, groceries, and so on—discovered a new boutique hotel and have my eye on it for a future visit. But some things remain the same, and I was delighted to re-visit Lake Michigan, the house I grew up in, the church that was the center of my high-school life.

Irene Foxglove has pretensions, there’s no other word for it. She claims French training, though Henny has her doubts. And she’s scornful of American food, decrying Sloppy Joe as peasant food and wishing to make gibelotte, a French stew usually made with rabbit. Henny has to tell her that Americans don’t like to cook the Easter bunny. Henny’s big challenge comes when Irene is coerced into compiling a cookbook. Henny must convince her that French has been done and American food needs attention. As I researched, I drooled over a lot of recipes, and food is a big part of the story. So is murder.

Here’s what one early reader said about it:

“It’s beignets versus bagels when Julia Child wannabe Chef Irene and her loyal gofer Henrietta (“Henny” to her friends) cross ladles over the contents of a planned cookbook. What follows is a nicely convoluted murder mystery and a glorification of America’s diverse cuisines, played out against the attractions of a lovingly drawn Chicago.”—Fred Erisman, In Their Own Words: Forgotten Women Pilots of Early Aviation.

I wrote Saving Irene as a stand-alone, but it may well be the first in a series as Henny continues to tell us about Irene’s various misadventures. Who knows? Meanwhile, watch for Saving Irene to be available for advance orders on Amazon soon.

My childhood home and my church. From a visit several years ago with my children.

Creating a Fictional Chef

My other big project of the summer and fall is an online course on creating a fictional chef that I will teach in October for Coffin Classes sponsored by Kiss of Death, the mystery/suspense chapter of Romance Writers of America. Here’s the course description:

“Culinary mysteries have an extraordinary shelf life—everyone likes to read about food. Combine a fascinating chef with a dead body, and you’ve got a winner. Wait! There’s a bit more to it than that. Your chef needs to be a real person, not just a Julia Child or Jacques Pépin knock-off. Did he or she cook as a child? Professional training or learn by doing? What kind of kitchen does your chef preside over? Upscale restaurant or greasy spoon café? Specialty dishes? Gourmet or down-home? This class will suggest questions you must ask yourself as you create the perfect chef-cum-sleuth and will suggest a reading list, both of culinary mysteries and books by well-known chefs. Put on your toque and join us for some fun.”

Once again I’ve had great fun researching and writing twelve “lectures” on such topics as American cooking in the 20th century, who’s in the kitchen with your chef, where did your chef train, the increasing prestige of women in the kitchen, and the chef as author—how to write a recipe.

For more information on this and other Coffin Classes, go to rwakissofdeath.org.

A fall-ish recipe

Hamburger Stroganoff

Stroganoff is a classy dish, the kind of dinner you serve your sweetie, by candlelight, with good red wine, on Valentine’s Day…or a special family treat. There have been two classic ways to do it: with beef tenderloin which cooks quickly and is tender but expensive or with a cheaper cut, like beef tips, which requires all day in the crockpot. I do it with hamburger, which is inexpensive and fast, and while the result is not as classy as tenderloin, it’s darn good.

• 2 lbs. ground sirloin
• ½ cup flour
• 1 tsp. salt
• ½ tsp. pepper (I don’t always use fresh ground—I like a finer grain in some dishes to avoid biting into a coarse piece of pepper)
• 4 Tbsp. butter, divided
• ½ cup finely diced onion
• ½ lb. mushrooms
• 2 cups beef stock
• 1 lb. egg noodles
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3 Tbsp. tomato paste
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce

Brown ground meat in 2 Tbsp. butter; if necessary, brown in batches. Stir in flour, salt, and pepper. Remove meat from skillet. Brown onion in remaining 2 Tbsp. butter (you may not need all the butter if the ground meat leaves enough grease in the skillet). When onion is translucent, add mushrooms and sauté until nicely wilted. Add beef stock and bring to slight boil, cooking until sauce thickens.

Meanwhile, heat a large pot of salted water for noodles. When you’re ten minutes away from serving, cook noodles and drain. While the noodles are cooking, mix sour cream, tomato paste (you know it comes in a refrigerator tube, don’t you? You don’t have to use a small can each time you need just a bit), and Worcestershire sauce. Return meat to burner and heat. Stir a spoonful of hot beef mixture into the sour cream, and then stir the whole thing back into the meat. DO NOT LET IT BOIL. If it boils, the cream will curdle. Stir to warm the sour cream mixture and mix thoroughly, and then dump it into the noodles. You may serve the two separately if you want, but the dinner stays warm better this way. Serve immediately.

A free book

Want to read some short stories about women of the American West, past and present? Sue Ellen Learns to Dance and Other Stories, my award-winning collection of fourteen stories, is now free on Kindle with Kindle Unlimited subscription; only 99 cents for non-subscribers. Don’t read on Kindle? I will give two copies to two people who send me the best brief statements on how they handled quarantining and the pandemic.

Speaking of which… Are you quarantining with your kids and they’re bored out of their minds and driving you crazy? I have a bunch of Young Adults books that might hold their attention long enough to give you some breathing space! Visit my Young Adult section.

Happy reading, happy cooking! Please feel free to write me with questions, ideas, recipes, whatever at 

Aaand that’s the tail-end of this newsletter! (See what I did there?)
Here, Sophie anxiously awaits the arrival of the new book!

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