Today I am happy to welcome Pamela S. Meyers to my blog. Pam is a long-time friend, and fellow ACFW author. Her book, Thyme for Love, was a delightful read, and I’m anxiously awaiting the release of the follow-up book, Love Will Find A Way.
Pam has graciously agreed to give away a copy of Thyme for Love and Love Will Find A Way. If you leave a comment at the bottom of this blog page, you will be entered in a drawing for both books. Thyme for Love will be awarded to the lucky winner at the end of this week, and Love Will Find A Way will be sent as soon as it becomes available.
Since every author’s approach to research is a bit different, Pam has graciously allowed us to peek into her world and catch a glimpse of some of the procedures she did to research her stories. Talk about suffering for your craft!! Pam got to play with new and exciting recipes to figure out how her character created culinary treasures. Prepare to be tempted.
And without further ado–heeeeere’s Pam:
Who Says Research is Boring?
It doesn’t matter if your story is contemporary or historical. An author still needs to research. For my contemporary romantic mystery, Thyme for Love (released November 2011), I researched poisons and also interviewed a mortician friend to learn what happens in Walworth County, Wisconsin when someone dies the way my character in the story died. I learned the process and also other tidbits of information I hadn’t counted on.
Love Will Find a Way, the sequel to Thyme for Love, will be releasing soon. During the writing of the novel, I researched depression-era gangsters who hid out in Wisconsin during the depression, which I do find fascinating, but other research was far more fun, even if it was a bit unkind to my waistline! April Love, my main character, plans to open a catering business in an old Victorian House, and when she isn’t involved in renovations to the house, or trying to find out who doesn’t want her business to open, she is testing recipes for her catering menu.
I needed to decide along with April which dishes to include by studying tons of recipes and watching hours of cooking shows. I wanted to include several of the recipes in the book, which meant not only finding recipes that would fit the story and trying them out for myself first, but putting my own spin on the dishes to satisfy copyright laws. To my way of thinking, this kind of research beats getting kinks in my neck from sitting in front of microfilm machines, reviewing old newspapers as I’ve had to do for my historical novels.
Most of last winter and spring, I spent hours sautéing mushrooms
and spinach for a side dish, whipping up decadent desserts, and baking pasta dishes. I would often snap a picture of my latest creation and post it on Twitter and FaceBook with a fun comment related to the story. When it came time to submit my manuscript, I’d prepared so many tasty delights it was difficult to choose which three recipes to include.
I’ll let you wait until the book releases to try those recipes out. But, I’m happy to share a recipe for Apple-Cherry-Cranberry Crisp. The dish is a perfect accompaniment to your holiday table as a side dish or desert with ice cream, but it works well anytime. A friend enhanced the original I’d found on line by adding cherries and a few other tweaks. She brought it to Bible study for testing and we all devoured it. I think it is even better than the one I used originally. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a picture of dish before we gobbled it down.
NANCY’S APPLE CHERRY CRANBERRY CRISP
Filling:
5 medium apples – 3 McIntosh and 2 Honey Crisp
1 ¼ C Morello Cherries drained (in a jar at Trader Joes)
2 C fresh cranberries, uncooked
¼ C salted butter – cut in little pieces (to put on top of assembled fruit)
3 T flour
1 T ground cinnamon
¼ t salt
½ C raw sugar (I used the raw sugar in the brown box labled ‘Raw Sugar’)
Wash and cut each unpeeled apple in half – then cut the halves into quarters. Cut out the seeds and core. Then cut each quarter into two chunks. Rinse and drain cranberries. Drain Cherries (save the juice if you like, as it is good for drinking). Mix dry ingredients together: flour, cinnamon, sugar and salt. Mix all the fruit together and pour dry ingredients on top and mix well with fruit. Put the fruit mixture into a 9 x 13 dish. Dot the top of the fruit mixture with the small pieces of cut up butter
Topping:
½ C all purpose flour
½ C packed dark brown sugar
1T ground cinnamon
¼ t salt
½ C butter – melted in microwave on low for about 2-3 min.
1 C quick cooking plain oats
1 C chopped pecans
Mix dry ingredients, then pour melted butter into the dry ingredients and mix well. Sprinkle topping over fruit mixture. Bake in preheated 350-degree oven 40 minutes – cool on wire racks. Serve warm or room temp, plain or w/whipped topping or vanilla ice cream.
About Pamela: A native of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, Pamela S. Meyers currently lives in the Chicago suburbs, an hour’s drive away from the Southeastern Wisconsin setting of most of her stories.
Her debut novel Thyme for Love, Book One in her On the Road to Love series, released November 2011, and Love Will Find a Way, Book Two will be releasing soon. Her historical romance, Love Finds You in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, will release in April 2013. When she isn’t busy cooking up a storm for research or writing her next novel, you can find her coordinating the ACFW Genesis Writing Contest for Unpublished writers.
You can find more information on Pam at www.pamelasmeyers.com or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pamela.meyers
♥
9 Responses to RESEARCH CAN BE FUN!