CHECK OUT THE FOODIE FUN IN THE COMMENTS!
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- Foodie excerpt from your book (300 words or less, please!) – don’t forget a buy-link!
- Teaser and link to your food-theme blog post
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I’ll throw the first pie with an excerpt from A TASTE OF YOU!
“You want dinner? There’s plenty.” Carlo put a slab of prosciutto on the counter and began shaving off slivers of meat.
Garrett watched Carlo’s big hands expertly gliding the knife through the cured meat. Carlo mostly stayed out of the kitchen at Ransom. Garrett sometimes forgot that his partner was the product of four generations of Rotolo restaurateurs and an accomplished cook in his own right.
The aroma of cured ham filled the air, rich and sweet, exactly the way the meat would taste. His imagination automatically took him further, looking for flavor combinations, but all he could think about was the way Carlo’s fingers would taste after touching the meat. He imagined drawing them into his mouth slowly, sucking the sweetness off warm flesh. He could almost feel the texture of Carlos’s skin.
…More about A TASTE OF YOU
On my blog, I take you to a 19th century cottage kitchen, where the heroine of my forthcoming novel, Farewell to Kindness, and her maid-of-all-work cook, bake, and make jam over an open fire. How? Come and take a look – at the bottom of the post there’s an excerpt in which the hero and heroine pick strawberries and think of sweeter things.
Here’s a snippet from There’s Always Tomorrow, my short story in the new Food of Love anthology.
Iris was sure she’d missed something important, but table service began, and the waiter who’d brought their drinks placed a cream soup in front of them. Finn crinkled his nose at it, the way a child might if someone served him something he didn’t like, and she suppressed a giggle.
“Don’t look at it like that. I’m sure it’s delicious. This place has the best food outside of Toronto.”
“That may be, but when my mom gave me cream soup, it usually meant she’d cleaned out the fridge and put stuff in it I didn’t like.”
Her mother laughed. “And we thought it was a secret. I think all mothers do that, but in my case, it was the only way to get Reg to eat his vegetables.”
“I eat vegetables,” her dad said defensively.
“Sure you do, but none of the ones that are really good for you.”
“Says you. I happen to think peas are an excellent vegetable.”
“They are,” Rose said, “but there are lots of other veggies out there, Dad.”
“If you say so…”
Finn tasted the pale orange concoction before him. “This is good.”
Rose chuckled. “Of course it’s good. I got to set the menu. I chose this soup, knowing it was one of Iris’s favorites—spiced pumpkin.”
“I’ve heard of pumpkin pie, but pumpkin soup?”
Iris laughed for what she was sure was the first time in years. “People can make soup out of just about anything, Finn. I used to make a cauliflower and cheese soup Dad said was to die for.”
“Well, I love cauliflower and cheese. When can I come to dinner?”
You can pick up Food of Love http://www.amazon.ca/Food-Love-Solstice-Publishing-ebook/dp/B00T98IXR6/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1423229442&sr=1-2&keywords=Food+of+Love
Oh, I want to play! Here is a little tense scene from my newest romantic suspense, In the Shadow of Vengeance. My poor heroine is stuck in a small kitchen with two sexy as heck alpha male. Enjoy:)
“We can work this out.”
A shadow appeared across the entrance of the kitchen. “I think the woman asked you to leave.”
Noah’s large frame took up the doorway into the small kitchen, his eyes dark and his stance rigid. Erin, who stood behind him, slipped under his arm. She dropped her backpack into an empty chair and wrapped her arms around Elizabeth.
“Look who I found on our doorstep.” She gave a quick hug, then said, “Hi, you,” to Derek, with a big smile.
Shit. How much did Noah and Erin hear of their conversation? One glance at Derek and she knew the same thought was on his mind.
“How’s it going, Tinkerbell?” He grabbed his case, and with one arm, pulled Erin into his shoulder while eyeing Elizabeth over the top of the girl’s head. “I came by to drop some stuff off for your mom.”
Erin strolled over to the stove and lifted the lid of the Dutch oven. She took in a whiff and a big grin crossed her lips. “Carne Asada, my favorite.”
The tension in the room was palpable, but her daughter plowed right through it.
Before Elizabeth could catch her eye and give Erin a definite don’t you dare look, she blurted out, “There’s plenty. Detective McNeil and Derek, can you stay for dinner?” She turned to Noah. “You’ve met Derek before, right?”
This forced the men who were shooting angry glares at each other to at least pretend to get along.
“Sure,” Derek said, holding out his hand. “Detective McNeil, it’s good to see you again. What brings you back into the neighborhood?”
Noah ignored the hand, his demeanor growing more combative. It was as if he didn’t trust Derek. Again he was putting his nose in where it didn’t belong.
AMAZON: http://amzn.com/B00Q7HFXBQ
And you can find the recipe for my Carne Asado here: http://www.irenepreston.com/blog/2014/12/nancy-c-weeks-carne-asada-recipe/
This was fun!
Here’s a foodie excerpt from my new romance, A Swan’s Sweet Song. Sherry, my heroine, has just arrived at my hero, Carston’s house. He wants to show her how irresistable he is (they haven’t seen each other for months…)
“Are you hungry? You must be after all that traveling. How about if I make dinner?”
“You know how to cook?”
He almost looked offended. “Of course I do.”
“Don’t get huffy. It’s just fairly rare, you know. Men cooking.”
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” he scoffed. “How many top chefs are men? You think women have a special gene telling them, instinctively, how to put food together?”
“Of course not. Sorry,” she said contritely. “You haven’t forgotten I’m a vegetarian, have you?”
“And you figure I don’t know the slightest thing about vegetarian cooking.”
She shrugged. “I suppose that was just about what I was thinking, yes.”
“Well, I’m about to show you how wrong you are.” He marched in the direction of the kitchen, and Sherry tagged along behind him. Perching herself on a high stool, she watched him pull out a deep purple eggplant, olive oil, fresh fragrant basil, tarragon, parsley, coriander, and fat yellow lemons.
“Do I have the right to ask what’s on the menu?”
He nodded with satisfaction. “I don’t mind bragging. The starter is this eggplant, cooked in herbs and sprinkled with basil. After that, we’ll go on to lentils and fresh spinach simmered in coconut milk with coriander, cumin, and sage. How does that sound?”
“Incredible. Where did you learn to do stuff like that? Where did you learn about vegetarian cooking?”
“In books, on the Internet. Then I just started to invent my own recipes.”
“Oh,” she said, her eyes still following his every move. A little suspicion had begun growing inside her head. “Since when?”
The question had come so abruptly, he didn’t have time for adroit hedging. “Well…for a while now.” He concentrated on slicing the eggplant into small, perfect cubes and avoided her eyes.
“I see,” she said slowly. “And how long have you known I’d be coming here for dinner?”
“For a few months now.” He tried, quite unsuccessfully, not to look smug.
To read the first chapter of, A Swan’s Sweet Song, go to: http://www.j-arleneculiner.com
To buy the book:
http://authl.it/B00RVPIS88
http://www.wildrosepublishing.com
http://prod-www.kobobooks.com
This is a snippet from book one of the Dream Series, DREAM STUDENT. My heroine and her boyfriend are out on their first “official” date at a very fancy restaurant:
For a while we just stare at each other. He’s overwhelmed, and I can’t really blame him. After a while, I order the wine, exactly what Dad told me, and then the first course arrives: vanilla sorbet with mint. “To properly clear the palate,” the waiter explains as he sets it down.
We clear our palates and then the wine comes, brought not by the waiter but by–if I remember right–the wine steward. He opens it very efficiently, and sets the cork down atop a napkin on the table. Brian and I both look at it and then at each other–neither of us know if we’re supposed to do anything with it, so we just sit there and wait for the steward to do something. He comes over to my side of the table. “Would the lady prefer to sample the bottle?”
Yes, the lady would.
He holds the bottle to me so I can see the label. It looks like what I ordered, and I nod. He pours just a swallow into my glass, and–even though I feel ridiculous–I do what I’ve seen a hundred times in movies and on TV. I swirl the wine around in the glass, sniff it, and only then take a tiny sip.
And now I know what a $120 bottle of wine tastes like. It’s very good. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe it any better than that. The steward asks, “Shall I?”
I answer, “Yes, please,” and he fills my glass and then Brian’s. He then pours the remainder of the bottle into a crystal decanter and leaves it for us.
I raise my glass. “Here’s to dreams coming true,” and in the instant before he clinks his glass to mine, I add, “the good ones, anyway.”
http://getbook.at/DreamStudent
Of to a great start. I love these!
Red or green? Learn about New Mexico green chile at the Southwest Armchair Traveler http://swarmchairtraveler.blogspot.com/2015/01/red-or-green-new-mexico-chile.html
Enchilada Casserole Variation from New Mexico – http://swarmchairtraveler.blogspot.com/2015/01/enchilada-casserole-variation-from-new.html