Last week I talked about being 'hungry' for good characters and good writing. This week I thought I would expound a little on being hungry. lol
You see, one of my favorite types of book to read is something with cooking. My next favorite thing next to reading and writing is cooking. My daughters want me to do a cookbook of all the recipes I've adapted, (I'm big on low fat and low sugar cooking) and I possibly will. But until then, I like to read about cooking.
A couple of years ago, one of my favorite authors, Josi S. Kilpack started writing a book series with food in it. I was thrilled! I was even more excited when they were just as good as her other books, and keep getting better with each one. My only sorrow is that I'm unable to afford all of them, I've only got two. Sigh. Mother's Day is coming, darling daughters...hint hint.
Anyway - another reason I was thrilled with her starting this series is because I've been reading books by another author that are similar, but honestly? Not as good. Not even close. And it's a shame, because they are cute, but it's like she's reaching for subject matter now. Anyway - I love mixing suspense with food. Nothing wets the appetite faster and gets the fingers itching to cook than a book with recipes. My husband always thinks I'm trying to find a way to poison him, since the other series always has the word 'murder' in the title. I even played around with writing a book series with a specific type of cooking in mind and having murder and mayhem going with it. (I still need to talk to you about that one, Keith.) But I've always had other project and now I"m afraid it would be looked at as a copy cat thing. Oh well.
Stories with recipes in them are a whole different genre than cookbooks in general. Novels with recipes don't require photos. Cookbooks -- if they want me to buy them -- need to have large colored photos that make you want to immediately start cooking.and trying out every recipe.
The next best thing is a cooking blog. There are several hundreds of them on the web, and I have my favorites, which I'm sure you do as well. They flourish with many photos of how to cook each item as well as the finished product. It puts my little cooking blog to shame, so I don't post as much as I used to because I don't have the patience to take a picture of each step of the process. I'm too wrapped up in what I'm making.
Have you ever thought about writing your favorite thing to read? Or is what you read what you write anyway? Well...I thought I'd leave you with a favorite recipe from my house. Enjoy!
Parker Family Killer Cake (no murder intended...lol)
- Water, tap, 1.25 cups
1 large box sugar free chocolate pudding, (8 servings)
egg substitute, .75 cup
Hershey’s semi sweet chocolate chips, 1/2 C
devils food cake mix, 1 box
Fat Free Sour Cream, 1/2 container
Mix all dry ingredients add wet and blend 2 minutes. Add chocolate chips, blend then pour into greased and floured bundt pan. Bake at 375 for 35 minutes, or until sides spring back - do not over bake! Take out and cool for 10 minutes, then tip over and rest on cooling rack. Can drizzle with chocolate or sprinkle with powdered sugar -- too rich for frosting. Enjoy!
(alternative - use pudding instead of frosting on top...worked good too)
