Left Isis
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November 1st, 2015

Happy November, all. I hope you had a fun Halloween, and a lovely Day of the Dead holiday. We had more trick-or-treaters than we have had in years. We came within a nonce of running out of candy, which has NEVER happened. I think kids were being hauled into the neighborhood by bus. I didn’t get one piece of chocolate, which is heartbreaking, but just as well, considering my plan to lose 20 pounds by next weekend.

All Men Fear Me, the eighth Alafair Tucker mystery, is officially released as of November 3. It’ll be available in both paper and e-formats, and eventually it will be released as an audio book and even an iTunes download. I put the buying links on the “About this Book” page as soon as I know about them.

Shona Patel (l), Anne Wilson (m), Yours Truly (r)

Shona Patel (l), Anne Wilson (m), Yours Truly (r)

I’ve already started doing promotional appearances–well, one appearance thus far. On Oct 28 I went up to Peoria, AZ, and did an event with Anne Wilson and Shona Patel. It was a great way to kick things off. Next Sunday, Nov. 8, I’ll have a charity event where I’ll be demonstrating how to make War Cake (the recipe for which is on the “Recipe” page, above), and the day before I’m doing a talk on dialog for a bunch writers at our local chapter of the Historical Novel Society. If you live in Arizona, be sure and click on the “Events” page, above, and see if I’ll be appearing anywhere near you.

Last month I wrote that I have added a page of old-fashioned country recipes to this site. My intention is to add at least one recipe per month, mostly taken from the books, but some originals as well.  A couple of weeks ago, I began with the WWI austerity recipe for War Cake, from All Men Fear Me (delicious), and with Buttermilk Biscuits, from The Old Buzzard Had It Coming.

This month, Dear Readers, Cooks, and Eaters, I’m posting recipes for an entire Thanksgiving Dinner, from turkey to dessert. And as you know, if you have read any of my novels, I’m not just giving you the recipe, but how to cook it like Alafair did. I created this menu at the request of my publishers for their November newsletter, and it turned out so nicely that I’m immortalizing it here. Now, I didn’t write the instructions for killing and cleaning your own turkey, which is what Alafair would have done, but my guess is you don’t really need that information. So I’m starting out with a cleaned and featherless bird that has already met its maker. We also have cornbread dressing, mashed potato puffs, creamed onions, greens and dumplings, and two kinds of pie. The turkey, dressing, and pumpkin pie recipes do not appear in any of the books–yet. The pumpkin pie never will. This is my mother’s recipe for Miracle Pumpkin Pie and is a bit too modern for Alafair. So click here to read all about it, and eat well!

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