My sentiments exactly

Of all the things I've seen posted in the wake of the shooting in Newton, CT, this pithy comment made the most sense to me.

Kattomic Energy Holiday Gift Guide--part 3

This one's for the foodies...
The best thing about giving gifts to your favorite foodies is that the range of options is wide. One of the best gifts I ever got was from my best friend's mother, who gave me one of those little cylinders you roll garlic cloves in to remove their skins easily. I use that practical, low-tech little gadget almost every time I cook. (Yes, I use a lot of garlic. Not only is it good for you, it keeps vampires at bay.)

Stocking Stuffers--You can get little gadgets at any grocery store or drug store, and that's a good place to start--a jar of some exotic spice mix; color-coordinated citrus squeezers--but don't stop there. San Francisco chef Ranjan Dey has developed a whole line of spice mixes for sale through his New World Spices company.  The authentic Indian blends include a variety of heats (I am in love with their Madras Tamarind Hot Curry blend), packaged in attractive canisters. Individual spices are priced at $3.99 (which is cheaper than those large containers of chrome yellow, generic curry) and sets are available.

Once you go beyond vanilla and almond extracts, it's almost impossible to get pure flavor essences in even the best-stocked grocery store. If you want coconut, for example, you have to make do with artificial coconut flavoring. Unless... you know about a site called Avanti Savoia. This is a place where good foodies go when they die.  Their goal is to provide "the world's best food from the world's smallest producers" and the items available are one of a kind and all of them sound droolingly delicious. (Low Country Sweet Potato Butter? I am SOOO there, at less than $8 for a jar.) But they also carry a full line of natural extracts including coconut, cherry and peach (all available for $10.50 a bottle, which is about what Madagascar vanilla costs.)

The riddle of steel--the worst cuts I ever got while cooking weren't from sharp knives but from dull ones (and one incredibly sharp tuna fish can lid). Most of the knives in my drawer are the kind you buy at supermarkets, which is to say, pretty low quality.  Any serious cook would be thrilled to get a really good knife--the kind of knife you register for when you get married. You've got your choice of German or Japanese here, and one place where you'll find pretty much anything you want is at Cutlery & More.

From: Frankencutter

For the baker-- Years ago, Martha Stewart Magazine ran a cover with a series of fabulous oversized cookies--glittery crescent moons and a penguin. You could buy all the cookie cutters (she had a full range of cutters that were gorgeous but  hideously expensive) EXCEPT for the penguin. I coveted that penguin cookie cutter. Now, if I want one, I can have it. (This is why I love Etsy.)  Ashley Wehrman will custom-make a cookie cutter from any design you send her, for only $18. You can also order custom cutters from Frankencutter in Michigan. As you might expect from a business located in Michigan, they do cutters shaped like cars as well along with more traditional designs. They already have a full line of Greek Letter Cutters (ranging in price from $18 to $28 depending on how elaborate they are). My favorite though--and I can see these cookies at a Valentine's Day party--is the broken heart cutter.

Gourmet Bacon Assortment from Nueskes

For the love of bacon--I did not know that there was a site called Bacon Today that is "all about the world of bacon." It features bacon news, bacon recipes (today's is "Bacon eggnog" but one of their favorites is bacon cinnamon rolls) and a bacon shop where you can buy Maple Bacon lollipops (which sound kind of tasty and priced for impulse buys at five for $3.75) to bacon-flavored soda (urk). For the hard-core bacon lover, consider a gift from Nueske's. You can sometimes find their bacon in high-end grocery stores (with a price tag to match), and it's worth sampling. A gourmet assortment of bacon will run you about $28.  If you love the taste of bacon, but can't eat it, check out Bacon Salt, a vegetarian, zero calorie product that the sellers claim "makes everything taste like bacon."

Food of the Month Clubs--Back in the day, before every little town had a farmer's market and grocery stores stocked a bewildering variety of fruits and vegetables year round, companies like Harry and David  were great options for sending festive fruit gifts to friends and clients. (My parents always got pears from one far-flung relative.) These days, though, food of the month clubs have gone way, way beyond fruit. There's even a gateway site, Amazing Clubs, that has links to a bazillion "gift of the month" clubs that include cigar of the month, dog treat of the month, and beer of the month. There's the Jam and Jelly Club ($19.95 a month) and Ice Cream Club of the Month; Hot Sauce of the Month Club ($18.95 a month).



Cooking by the book--I basically just use a couple of cookbooks (including my mother's favorite, Joy of Cooking), but I love reading cookbooks and they always make terrific gifts for cooks because they're often kind of expensive and these days, when every dime has to stretch to a dollar, it's hard for cooks to justify the indulgence of yet another cookbook purchase. So maybe instead of buying a lot of little stuff, buy a book like Julie Richardson's Vintage Cakes (one of Epicurious' best cookbooks for 2012 and available on their site for only $115.11. Diane Morgan's Roots made a number of "best cookbook" lists this year, and while not cheap (around $27) it is billed as "the definitive

The Next Big Thing

Nuyorican Noir writer Richie Narvaez tapped me for The Next Big Thing (read what he had to say about HIS next big thing here). If you haven't read his outstanding short story collection Roachkiller and Other stories, do yourself a favor and buy it for Christmas. Or you can sample his story "Hurricane" for 99 cents.

The idea is that everyone on the blog tour answers the same questions, then taps another five writers to move it forward. Here are my answers:

1) What is the working title of your current/next book?  Misbegotten.

2) Where did the idea come from?  Several years ago I wrote a story about a vampire with senile dementia for John Donald Carlucci's Astonishing Adventures Magazine. The protagonist of the story was a crime reporter named Kira Simkins and I really enjoyed the world of the story (a not-so-normal Los Angeles), so much so that I've written around 20 or so stories set in the world since then, some with Kira and some without, but all about supernatural crime.  I decided I wanted to write a larger story for Kira, who is a "misbegotten," a not-quite-human born of a mother who was bitten by a vampire while pregnant with her. That's where the title came from. 

3) What genre does your book fall under? Urban fantasy melded with mystery with a dash of noir.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?  Liv Tyler or Selma Blair for Kira. The vampire in charge of L.A. in my story is a folksy, avuncular guy who hides his evil under a bland exterior so that you only get glimpses of what he's really like. Scott Wilson or Beau Bridges would be perfect. For Michael Etebari, the head of a security company and the alpha wolf of a local werewolf pack, I'd love Oded Fehr. Kira is older than she looks (a benefit of her "Misbegotten blood" that means she's slow to age), so her on-again/off-again love interest, John Dannon (head of LAPD's paranormal crime unit) is the same age but looks older. Idris Elba would be wonderful.

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?  A paranormal crime reporter is caught up in a power struggle when war between vampire factions breaks out in Los Angeles.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? I've had a nibble of interest from an agent but the book will be published under the Dark Valentine imprint that I run jointly with Joy Sillesen. (Dark Valentine's latest books are the Nightfalls anthology and Christine Pope's fantasy romance Dragon Rose.)

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft?  I've been working on it off and on since forever, it seems like, but once I got started in earnest, about six months. I hope to have it done by January 15 at the latest.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?  Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake series; Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series; Carrie Vaughn's Kitty Norville books.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?  Well, isn't everyone writing a novel? Basically I wanted to stretch my boundaries. I'm  pretty comfortable writing short stories, but I really wanted to explore my supernatural city and my characters. I also wanted to write a paranormal book that made these creatures seem real and not just fantasy objects with tattooed shoulders and shimmering skin. That was how the first story about the senile vampire (called "Tired Blood") came about. I wondered how a really old vampire's mind would hold out.

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?  I think I've created a spin on the tired old tropes, offering an Urban Fantasy about characters that have a ring of reality about them whether they're human or not. There are no tramp stamps here and no emo longings for forbidden love. Kira has a very practical attitude toward the paranormals in her circle (who include shape-shifters and were-bears and goblins and fire demons, not just the usual vamps and weres)--they're all monsters. Sleeping with monsters never ends well, in her opinion. You either end up a monster yourself, or you end up dead. 

The writers I'm tagging are:  Canadian horror writer G. Wells Taylor, whose vanpire novel Bent Steeple is one of my favorite books.

Christine Pope, whose lush fantasy romances and zippy contemporary novels are entertaining and smart. Check out her latest, Dragon Rose.

Kat Laurange who's a double menace--a writer and an illustrator who balances a career, a life as a wife and mother, and half a dozen other responsibilities. I'm a hard worker but she makes me look like a slacker. 

Steven Luna, a friend of a friend whose story for the Nightfalls anthology ("Last Shift") was just superb. Check out his Joe Vampire stories.

Joanne Renaud, also a writer and illustrator whose romance novella, Question of Time, has just been published by Champagne Press.

I can never spell graffiti right the first time...

Holiday Freebies--the Kattomic Energy Edition

I will be participating in my colleague Dale T. Phillips' holiday book give-away. I'm offering three different books--Toxic Reality, The Poisoned Teat, and 12 Nights of Christmas. All you have to do is post a comment, letting me know which book you'd like and I'll pick winners on December 20!  Be sure to leave me a valid email address.
And bop over to Dale's site to see who else is participating and what else you could win! Tis the season and how better to celebrate it than with some dark fiction?

Chocolate Bread Pudding Recipe--You're welcome!

Every holiday,the upscale grocery store I live near adds a couple of seasonal  items to their already much-too-tempting take-out offerings. For about six weeks you can get a pumpkin trifle, a pumpkin pudding, noodle kugel, and my favorite, chocolate bread pudding with caramel sauce. Yes, it tastes just as decadent as it sounds.

Every time I buy a chunk of this deliciousness, I feel guilty though.  Because I make an incredible chocolate bread pudding.  If you want to dress it up, you can hit it with some whipped cream, but adding sauce would just be gilding the lily.  Here's the recipe.

INCREDIBLE CHOCOLATE BREAD PUDDING RECIPE

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Enough bread to fill a baking dish—torn into small pieces

2 cups milk

¼ cup butter

2/3 cup light brown sugar

3 eggs

¾ cup chocolate chips

2 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the milk and butter in a saucepan, stirring until the butter is melted.  Cool slightly.

Beat the sugar and spices into the eggs until frothy.  Add the vanilla extract.

Combine the egg mixture and the milk mixture slowly.  (Make sure the milk isn’t too hot or the raw eggs will curdle.)

Mix in the bread and turn everything into a baking dish that has been greased or treated with non-stick spray.

Don’t pack the bread down too tightly or the “pudding” will compact and get really dense instead of staying moist and fluffy with those delicious buttery, crunchy bits.

Bake for 45-55 minutes until the “pudding” is set. 

I've Been Tagged!

Over at his blog, Nuyorican Obituary, writer R. Narvaez (author of Roachkiller and other stories) is participating in The Next Best Thing blog tour. Read what he had to say here. And tune in next week for my answers. (Also, there's an interview with Narvaez coming soon to Kattomic Energy.