Flowers and bee

Flowers and bee

Saturday, February 21, 2009

More Home Cooking

What can one say about Laurie Colwin's More Home Cooking? Bright, well composed essays on a variety of food topics with cunning recipes stashed in between the start and finish. The joys of gingerbread - got it. The raspberry addict - got it. The love of roast chicken - got it. The pleasures of simple but good food - got it.

She makes the reader want to run home and make some simple but elegant dish. Such zest of life, such honest enthusiasm, humor and love of food. Such fun to read. A very good read.

P.S. Read her first one - Home Cooking, too!

McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire

Jeffery Rothfeder's book McIlhenny's Gold: How a Louisiana Family Built the Tabasco Empire is not just a book about a business. It is a book about a family - the McIlhenny's, a place - Avery Island, Louisiana, and a time - the Civil War reconstruction era. Rothfeder does an excellent job of explaining how the product Tabasco - has been intertwined since the beginning with these three.

The business was begun as a post war enterprise. It grew to engulf the island - which is also home to salt mines. It helped create one of the first "company" towns. And it helped change the culinary culture as the appreciation for hot foods has grown. Tabasco has become an icon.

The McIlhenny family is full of bankers, naturalists, and soldiers and their family-run company has, in some ways, become an extension of themselves. Rothfeder does a nice job keeping the story going through the decades. An interesting story of history, food and a family run business. Don't blame me if you run out and get some hot sauce. A very good read.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Paper Scissors Death

Paper Scissors Death is the start of a new mystery series by Joanna Campbell Slan. Kiki Lowenstein's husband is found dead and naked in a hotel room. Kiki is in a state of shock, but tries to keep it together for her daughter Anya. She also finds out their finances are a mess, and she is going to have to start over. The good thing is she has a mother-in-law who loves her granddaughter, and Kiki never really felt comfortable in the gated community she lived in anyway. The bad news is the mother-in-law hates her, knew about her husband's affairs and Kiki has a self-esteem problem. But she just can't accept that George would just die of a heart attack. He was too young, and who were the women he was dinning with just before it happened?

Slan gives us a heroine to be proud of. Kiki is forced to grow and get out of her comfort zone - just so she and her daughter can survive. The ironic part is - she gets more help from her "lower-class" friends, then the community she once was a part of. And she manages to get the attention of a police detective who is also not sure this case is over. Her well written friends and their support system are the type of folks that you want behind you when the chips are down.

For anyone who loves scrapbooking, Slan really has the crafting part down pat. Kiki ends up using her scrapbooking skills to earn money, and Slan - an author of non-fiction scrapbooking books, knows her stuff. She flavors Kiki's story with reasons why people love scrabooking. And she writes about the amount of emotion there is in the craft. And best of all she gets it right.

I'm looking forward to the next adventure. Forensic scrapbooking indeed! A great read, for mystery and scrapbooking fans alike.

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Crewel World: Cozies Ain't For Sissies

There are those that say certain kinds of mystery books are cozy. I think they categorize cozies, by having amateur sleuths, lovely little towns, and having folks getting murdered "off stage". So what happens when you have a series that has a little Minnesota town, the main character owns a needlework/craft shop, solves mysteries on the side, but the killings are not necessarily pretty. How's getting tossed off a balcony (Crewel Yule), cut by the throat (Cutwork), and having a knitting needle pushed into your brain (Sins and Needles)? Cozy? I think not.

Monica Ferris has created a great character in Betsy Devonshire. And she has given her a interesting group of friends and neighbors. Betsy has a talent for figuring out the little things that solve cases. And she is not so sure she likes this talent. It does bother her that some of these killers are people in the community. Folks that she knows. (Now, that is why I always find these "malice domestic" books creepier - these are not strangers doing the killing!)

She's embarked on this path by accident. She really was just intending to stay with her sister and help her in the store, while she was getting over her divorce. And then her sister was murdered. And she inherited the store and estate. So she stuck around for awhile. And got more involved with her employees and her customers.

Ferris does a nice job fleshing out the secondary characters throughout the series; it is a rare "cozy" that has a regular character that is gay. But Godwin grows and develops through the series. He becomes more than the guy who can match the right thread colors. Various members of the store's regulars - the Monday Bunch - get their own spotlight in the books in the series.

And then there is the needlework. Cozy? Maybe. It has been considered an art form for years. This series is a great way to see how Ferris mixes it in with the mystery. One book has Betsy trying to identify a certain bobbin lace pattern, the next has her researching symbols on a church tapestry. And the store is used as a place where folks in the community can gather. Actually, I wish we had a store like Crewel World locally. These books make me want to take up my cross-stitching again!

So do yourself a favor - start with the first three books in order, and then you can mix them around a bit. And discover the world of Excelsior, Minnesota. A fun series.

Monica Ferris' mystery series featuring Betsy Devonshire:

Thai Die (2008)
Knitting Bones (2007)
Sins and Needles (2006)
Embroidered Truths (2005)
Crewel Yule (2004)
Cutwork (2004)
Hanging by a Thread (2003)
A Murderous Yarn (2002)
Unraveled Sleeve (2001)
A Stitch in Time (2000)
Framed in Lace (1999)
Crewel World
(1999)