Gorgeous color, bright flavor, and filled with nutrients! < Back Spinach & Green Pea Dip/Sauce March 23, 2023 Prep Time: 5 minutes Cook Time: 5 minutes Serves: 10-12 (but it'll last all week) Tags: Dips and Sauces, Vegan, Vegetarian, Gluten Free About the Recipe I always keep spinach and green peas in the freezer, and fresh lemons in the refrigerator, so this is a quick, healthy dip that we also pour over rice or pasta. I've also thinned it with olive oil and sprinkled on pepper to turn it into a salad dressing. Ingredients 2 cups (or a hefty handful) fresh or frozen spinach 1 cup frozen green peas 1 TBPS roasted pine nuts ½ tsp salt 1 TBSP (or a good squeeze) of lemon Preparation Blend together. Pour over rice/pasta/other grains or serve with vegetables as a dip. We love it. Previous Next

When a young reporter comes to interview Margaret Kenyon, the oldest practicing nurse in the Texas panhandle, she tells him that he’ll have to listen to her story before she answers any questions. < Back Far From Uncertain: One Woman’s Life of Crime & Other Righteous Deeds Teddy Jones April 1, 2026 When a young reporter comes to interview Margaret Kenyon, the oldest practicing nurse in the Texas panhandle, she tells him that he’ll have to listen to her story before she answers any questions. It’s 2000, but her story begins in 1925, with Frankie, a beautiful 15-year-old who has never known anything other than violence, hunger, and fear. Frankie grabs the opportunity to escape her home with a charismatic gambler who shows her the world of bootlegging and uses her beauty for his own ends. After being violently abused, Frankie finds solace in a quite hospital laundry room and begins to rebuild her shattered life. Today we're discussing Far From Uncertain: One Woman’s Life of Crime and Other Righteous Deeds (Stoney Creek, 2026). Since completing a graduate degree in creative writing in 2012, Teddy Jones has made creating fiction her full-time occupation. She’s written six novels—including A Family of Good Women, which first introduced readers to Frankie—and a collection of short stories. Jackson’s Pond, Texas, was a finalist in the Women Writing the West Willa Award for contemporary fiction in 2014, and one of her short stories won the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition first prize medal in 2015. Marva Cope , another novel, was named as a finalist for the Sarton Award in 2024. Jones earned a degree in nursing and a doctorate in education, worked as a family nurse practitioner, and was the founding dean of the School of Nursing at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. She focused on rural health promotion and was a monthly columnist for The Farmer Stockman for thirteen years. When she and her husband decided in 2001 to leave their “real jobs” and begin farming, opportunity presented itself. “If you’re going to write fiction, now’s the time,” she told herself. She’s been at it ever since. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Lindsey Davis: Marcus Didius Falco and Flavia Albia Mysteries < Back Lindsey Davis Author of The Marcus Didius Falco and Flavia Albia Mysteries December 25, 2021 Lindsey Davi s was born in Birmingham, England, studied at Oxford, and worked as a civil servant for 13 years. After a romantic novel she’d written was runner-up for the 1985 Georgette Heyer Historical Novel Prize, she became a full-time writer. She wrote twenty delightful novels about an informer and all-around solver of problems (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries). Set in ancient Rome, her protagonist is delightfully human, happy when his hair looks good and disappointed in himself when he screws up. I loved his courtship of Helena Justina, the senator’s daughter who becomes his wife and the mother of his children. Now Ms. Davis is writing about Marcus and Helena’s British-born adopted daughter, Flavia Alvia, who solves murders when she isn’t taking care of her busy household, supervising slaves and planning family gatherings. These are action packed stories set in a violent society, but I loved spending cold winter afternoons back in Davis’s Ancient Rome. Ms. Davis won the 2011 Cartier Diamond Dagger for her outstanding contribution to the mystery genre. She was honorary president of the Classical Association and is a lifetime member of the Council of the Society of Authors. Previous Next

It's hard to resist snagging these from the cookie sheet while they cool! < Back Pistachio Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies December 22, 2020 Prep Time: 45 Minutes Cook Time: 12 Minutes Serves: 24 Servings Tags: Gluten Free, Cookies and Brownies About the Recipe Ingredients ½ cup unsalted pistachios ¼ cup olive or canola oil ¼ cup tahini ½ cup packed brown sugar (light or dark) 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 3 cups old fashioned oats 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking soda Pinch of salt 2 eggs ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate chips Preparation Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C and set out two cookie sheets. In a food processor, blend pistachios until roughly ground. Add everything except chocolate chips and blend 30-60 seconds until it’s all mixed together. Add chocolate chips and briefly pulse a few times to mix them in. Refrigerate for about 15 minutes while you clean up. With wet hands, form 24 balls and space them on the cookie sheets – they will spread. Bake for about 12 minutes until slightly golden, and remove. Cool for at least 5 minutes (If you try to nab one before it’s cool, it will fall apart!) Previous Next

< Back Rhys Bowen Molly Murphy Series, Royal Spyness Series Rhys Bowen Over twenty years ago, before e-readers and long before I considered writing mysteries, I'd randomly choose three or four books at the library each week. After picking up Murphy’s Law (on the new books shelf for 2001), I was swept into the world of Rhys Bowen. Since then, I’ve read many of the charming Molly Murphy books (about an Irish maid in early 20th-century New York City), and also enjoyed several of her lighter, Royal Spyness series, about sharp Lady Georgie, who is 35 th in line to the British Crown. Of her stand-alone books, the last one I read was Venice Sketchbook. Then, I went back to reading books in her series. Rhys Bowen (winner of Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity awards) is the pen name for Janet Quin-Harkin (b 1941 in Bath, England). She has won dozens of awards, is a best-selling author, and all my mystery-writing friends adore her. She and her husband, John Quin-Harkin, move between California and Arizona. I was delighted to meet Rhys (and her daughter Clare Broyles, who has continued writing the Molly Murphy series) in person at the 2023 Left Coast Crime conference in Tucson, when I was invited to join the Desert Sleuth chapter of Sisters in Crime for drinks. I usually don’t care about getting autographs or meeting famous movie stars and authors – I prefer to preserve the magic of their art – but the thrill of hugging Rhys Bowen will stay with me forever. Anyone who loves cozy mysteries or wants to learn how to write solid mysteries must read at least one of Rhys Bowen’s novels. Previous Next

Thetis, the sea goddess who tried to make her son Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the River Styx, is now faced with trying to shield him from being killed in yet another war. < Back Achilles's Wife Judith Starkston July 7, 2026 Thetis, the sea goddess who tried to make her son Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the River Styx, is now faced with trying to shield him from being killed in yet another war. She hides him on a tiny island disguised as a girl, but in Judith Starkston’s latest novel, Thetis transforms him into a physiological girl. As Phyria, he befriends the King’s daughter, Mia, but when he’s discovered, Thetis transforms him back. He and Mia marry and have a son before he goes, as promised, to war. Sadly, the son is a miserable human being and Mia must make some difficult decisions in this well-researched, entertaining twist on a little-known character in Greek mythology. Judith Starkston writes historical fantasy and mythic retellings set in the Bronze Age of the Greeks and Hittites. Her six novels bring women to the fore—whether Deidamia or Briseis from the Trojan War cycle of myths or a remarkable Hittite queen whom history forgot, even though she ruled over one of the greatest empires of the ancient world. Judith traces her obsession with the ancient world and its stories—both historical and mythological –to her undergraduate days as a classics major at UC Santa Cruz and her graduate work at Cornell, which included a focus on Greek epic and tragedy. It’s true, as a college freshman, she decided to take ancient Greek on a whim, but once drawn in, she has never escaped. She taught high school English, Latin, and humanities for about twenty years until she decided she could not face grading another stack of dubiously argued essays. She blames her shift from historical fiction into historical fantasy on the nature of the ancient world, where gods and goddesses, rites the modern world would call magic, sorcerous curses, and hybrid mythical creatures are all part of the “normal” fabric of life. So, to portray the ancient Greeks or Hittites accurately, “fantasy” will necessarily be part of the story. These elements also make her novels more fun to write and read. Within the ancient world, the period Judith finds most engaging is the Late Bronze Age, about 1200 BCE, both in the Mycenaean world revealed in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and in the Hittite world unveiled through the recent translation of excavated cuneiform tablets. Archaeology is another major source of knowledge about these two related cultures that flourished around the same time in Greece, the Aegean islands, and Anatolia. Researching these worlds requires specialized study and, fortunately, significant travel. From reading archaeological site reports and other archaeological analyses, examining museum collections, and visiting key excavation sites where her characters most likely lived, Judith researches and builds historically accurate, immersive worlds depicting both the intangibles like decisions and beliefs and the everyday items like food, clothes, and buildings. Learn more at JudithStarkston.com . Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Angus McDonald had to escape from Scotland or risk arrest. In 1838, he contracted with the Hudson Bay Company to trade in the Pacific Northwest. There he discovers majestic mountains, raging rivers, and buffalo. < Back The Shining Mountains Alix Christie December 5, 2023 Angus McDonald had to escape from Scotland or risk arrest. In 1838, he contracted with the Hudson Bay Company to trade in the Pacific Northwest. There he discovers majestic mountains, raging rivers, and buffalo. He meets and marries Catherine, who is related to Nez Perce royalty, and together they face competing claims of British fur traders and gold seekers, settlers and Native Americans who’ve lives for thousands of years in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. The real Angus McDonald left essays and articles, and newspaper clippings and official letters that describe his friendships, horses, passion for his wife, his trajectory as a trader and interpreter, and the rise and fall of the people he’s come to love. The Shining Mountains (High Road Books, 2023) is a brilliant, fictional exploration of a family’s clash between colonial expansion and native culture, based on the author’s blended Scottish and Nez Pierce ancestors. Alix Christie, a direct descendant of Angus McDonald’s brother Duncan, grew up in California, Montana and British Columbia. She is a prize-winning journalist and author of novels, reportage, and short stories. Her debut novel, “Gutenberg’s Apprentice,” the story of the making of the Gutenberg Bible, was shortlisted for the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, and long listed for the International Dublin Literary Prize. Her story “Everychild” won a Pushcart Prize and the 2021 Jeffrey E. Smith Editor’s Prize in fiction from The Missouri Review. As a longtime foreign correspondent based in England, France, and Germany, she has written numerous articles and stories set in other places and times, including “The Dacha,” a finalist for the 2016 Sunday Times (UK) Short Story Award. A letterpress printer and open water swimmer, she currently lives in Berlin, Germany, where she covers culture for The Economist. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

We were desperate for pancakes so I tweaked another recipe I was working on to make these. < Back Gluten-Free Pancakes January 24, 2021 Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cook Time: 20 Minutes Serves: 10 Pancakes Tags: Muffins and Breads, Gluten Free, Baking, Breakfast About the Recipe Ingredients 1 cup gluten-free flour 1 cup almond flour 1 tsp baking soda ½ tsp baking powder ½ tsp cinnamon 2 eggs 1 cup plain kefir or yogurt 1 cup water 1/3 cup canola oil 1 TBSP unfiltered apple cider vinegar 1 tsp pure vanilla extract Preparation In a medium bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Mix the wet ingredients together in a smaller bowl and pour wet ingredients into drive ingredients. Stir just until blended. Heat a large baking pan to medium high. Scoop a large spoonful of batter (it’s thicker than usual pancake batter), three or four at a time. Flip when bubbles form and bottom is golden brown. Place finished pancakes on a serving plate and cover lightly with a tea towel until all the pancakes are ready. We love eating them with Earth Balance and real maple syrup. Note: there is no sugar added to the batter. Previous Next

Mosely Albright works in a Mission house helping drug addicts, alcoholics and those who are down on their luck. The reverend has asked him to search for one of the men who isn’t capable of surviving in the freezing cold. < Back Speed of Dark Patricia Ricketts July 5, 2022 Speed of Dark (She Writes Press, 2022) by Patricia Ricketts opens with a black man getting off Metra train in Northbrook, Illinois to search for someone who might be hiding in the woods. Mosely Albright works in a Mission house helping drug addicts, alcoholics and those who are down on their luck. The reverend has asked him to search for one of the men who isn’t capable of surviving in the freezing cold. The man he finds is a different one though, and he’s gone when Mosely wakes up, stiff and frozen the next morning. He’s forgotten the way back to the station and knocks on Mary M. Phillips’s door to ask for a glass of water and directions. Mosely has the gift of seeing when people need help, and he knows that Mary Em is desperate. He wants to help her, but the lake, (Mishigami – its Ojibwe name) wants her in its icy waters. Told by Mary Em, Mosely, and Mishigami, Speed of Dark is a story about human connection, the plight of the great lakes, and the power of kindness, friendship, and love. Patricia Ricketts inherited a lifelong love of music, the written word, the visual arts, and healthy arguing from her Irish Catholic household. While teaching English to many wonderful students, Patricia raised two fine daughters and a stand-up son and now has six beautiful grandchildren who live in the Kansas City area. Throughout her life, she penned essays, short stories, poems, and novels; however, her passion for writing escalated after being awarded a scholarship for creative writing from the University of Edinburgh. Since then, she has had short stories published in New Directions, Slate, Meta, Blue Hour, Realize Magazines, and on NPR’s “This I Believe” website. The Peninsula Pulse awarded her third place among hundreds of entries in its short story contest. She is currently working on a new novel, tentatively titled The End of June. Patricia lives in Chicago with her partner, artist and photographer, Peter M. Hurley. Listen to Episode Buy Book Previous Next

Traditional recipes never tasted so good! < Back Challah August 20, 2019 Prep Time: 90 Minutes Cook Time: Varies Serves: 1 Large Loaf or 2 Medium Loaves Tags: Muffins and Breads, Baking About the Recipe When I first started baking challah, it came out looking like pita. I was pregnant and we’d moved to Colorado Springs. I had to go to the library to look up high altitude baking (this was in the eighties) and while I was there, I picked up an old book on a display shelf. I stood there reading about an eccentric detective in NYC who liked growing orchids, reading, and eating gourmet meals prepared by his personal chef. It was Rex Stout, and it was riveting, but I didn’t borrow the book. I considered myself to be a reader of literature, not mysteries. I learned how to bake challah at altitude and ended up borrowing four novels that day. I’d always loved reading and usually read between forty and fifty books a year. Mysteries were iffy because they often included violence or disgusting discussions about the trajectory of blood and the placement of body parts. Mysteries, I thought, were a lower form of literature, like romances. I was a reading snob. Ingredients 6 cups (720 g) bread flour (If you can’t get it, use all-purpose flour and start the night before) 2 room temp eggs, lightly mixed (plus one egg white if you wish to do an egg wash before baking) 1 ½ tsp (9 g) fine-grained sea salt ¼ cup (50g) canola or any olive oil 1 packet or 1 TBSP (9g) active dry yeast ¼ cup sugar (50g) or honey (85g) 1 ½ to 2 cups of room temperature or lukewarm water (More as needed) Preparation In a large mixing bowl, stir the yeast, sweetener, and 1 cup of flour into 1 ½ cups of lukewarm water. It should start to bubble in a moment or two. Add the rest of the flour, eggs, salt, and oil to the bowl Use your hands or a scraper to pull the dough into a ball, adding water as needed into the bowl. When it forms a ball, remove and knead until the dough feels like an earlobe (even though it sounds gross) I count up to at least fifty turns, each turn including the right and left side. Place in a large, lightly sprayed bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature (not in front of the window!) until it is double in bulk (about an hour), or in the fridge overnight, or overnight on the counter (a good method if it’s a pandemic and you can’t get bread flour). Once the dough is doubled (or the next morning), punch it down, cover the bowl loosely with a tea cloth or plastic wrap, let it double in size again for about an hour If you are making authentic ‘Challah,’ this is where you take an olive-sized piece of the dough and bake it in the toaster after saying the traditional blessing. This dough is enough for 2 good-sized loaves, 4 small loaves, or 8 personal loaves if you want to give each guest a separate loaf. For 2 loaves, divide the dough in half, and divide one half into the number of pieces you want to braid. There are plenty how-to braid videos, and you can get creative! I do 4, 5 and 6 braid challahs, but 3-braided challahs taste just as delicious. For beginners who haven’t raised long-haired children, divide each half into 3 pieces of dough and roll them into foot-long ropes. Set the three ropes of dough in front of you on the counter and pinch them together at the top. Now take the rope on the right and place it over the rope in the middle. Take the rope on the left and place it over the NEW middle rope (the one you already moved). Again, lift the rope on the right and place it over the middle rope. Keep going. Before you know it, you’ll have a braid! Tuck the ends of each loaf under and set them in place with a little water. Place your braided loaves on a silicone mat-covered or sprayed baking pan with space in between. The loaves will poof up more. Cover the loaves loosely with a tea towel for the last rise, for about an hour, or until you are ready to bake. Then, preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C OPTIONAL: Just before you set them in the oven, in a small bowl, stir the white of one egg with a teaspoon of honey and brush the loaves. You can also sprinkle the loaves with poppy seeds, sesame seeds, or chopped dehydrated onion. Baking time will depend on the size of the loaves and on your oven. If you bake 2 loaves, check at 25 minutes – if they aren’t golden brown and hollow when you tap, bake for an additional 5 minutes. If you are baking 4 loaves, check after 20 minutes. If you are baking 8 loaves, check after 15 minutes. And in each case, add an additional 5 minutes if needed. Final internal temperature should be about 200° – but the golden brown and hollow sound will tell you that the loaves are done. Previous Next

After a night in the refrigerator, it will be thick like a ganache. < Back Dairy-free Chocolate Frosting September 3, 2019 Prep Time: 10 Minutes Cook Time: Varies Serves: 2 Cups of Spread Tags: Vegan, Gluten Free, Baking, Dips and Sauces, Cakes & Pies & Icing About the Recipe P.11 Battered: A Whipped and Sipped Mystery Alene cut through the alley, unlocked the back entrance and stepped into Whipped and Sipped’s kitchen. The comforting smell of yeast, the enticement of cinnamon and the complexity of chocolate all soothed Alene, who realized she’d been holding her shoulders and neck in awkward stiffness. Ruthie approached with a steaming cup of her favorite espresso topped with whipped almond milk, cocoa and cinnamon powder.” Ingredients 1 ¼ cup water 1 small baked sweet potato (with skin) ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Higher quality powder will taste better!) 1 TBSP instant decaf or coffee powder or crystals 1 tsp cinnamon (optional – you can also just use 1/2 tsp) ½ cup pure maple syrup 1 tsp pure vanilla extract ¼ tsp salt Other options: replace ¼ cup of water with a liquor Replace ¼ cup of water with any kind of milk add a whole peeled orange add ¼ brown sugar for a sweeter frosting or sauce only 1/2 tsp of cinnamon replaced with extra 1/2 tsp of pure vanilla extract Preparation In a high-powered blender, use the soup setting to blend the ingredients (Stop blender when the chocolate begins to look shiny). If you don’t have a soup setting, blend until smooth, pour into a microwave-safe container, and microwave on high for about 20 seconds. (Don’t let it boil). Stir for 20 more seconds until the sauce is silky. Mix in a few spoonfuls of water for a more spreadable frosting. After a night in the refrigerator, it will be thick like a ganache. Zap it again if you need it to be easily spreadable after being in the fridge. Use it to frost a cake, or dip strawberries, or enjoy teaspoonfuls of it all week (if it lasts that long). Previous Next

Discover insightful essays by G. P. Gottlieb and explore a world of media. Dive into essays by G. P. Gottlieb today and get inspired. Essays & Media Porker, Fidgeter, Dulcitor We had advice columns and other such offerings back in the last century, but today, the advice is relentless and requires a monthly subscription. Also, I’ve apparently spent all these decades living incorrectly. Read More Book Q and As with Deborah Kalb Q: Charred is the third in your Whipped and Sipped mystery series--do you think your character Alene has changed over the course of the series? Read More Lessons Learned in Publishing: Reflecting on My Journey to Becoming a Culinary Mystery Author The moment I got the email offering to publish my first culinary mystery is unforgettable. I hurried into my husband's study, my excitement barely contained. After facing rejection and ghosting from over 100 agents for a year, it felt like winning the lottery. Read More An Introduction to Cozy Mysteries I didn’t realize I was reading an early cozy mystery when I first picked up a Diane Mott Davidson novel in 1990, but it was a pleasure to read about a crime that didn’t involve hardboiled grit, disgusting descriptions of blood and guts, and moments of spine-chilling fear. Instead, it centered on a divorced caterer worrying about the flakiness of her pie crust as she solved a tricky murder in a small, fictional mountain town in Colorado. Read More Culinary Cozy Mysteries and the Murder Rate Paradox Why are there endless murders in so many cozy mystery towns? Cozy mystery readers might eventually notice that safe and sweet fictional villages have very high murder rates. Those murder rates are even more distracting than the children who never grow older and cozy protagonists who never marry their sweethearts. As an avid reader and the author of the Whipped & Sipped culinary cozy mystery series set in Chicago, I probably think about murder more than most people. Read More What Makes me Buy a Cozy Mystery: Trusting Recommendations From Authors I Admire As a host for New Books in Literature on the New Books Network, I usually look for ambitious, character-driven fiction. These novels, whose authors I interview, span the decades and explore human suffering, resilience, and transformation. In between reading gorgeous novels for NBN, I like to refresh my palate with an excellent cozy mystery. Read More Almost as Interesting as Poop When I remarried years ago, I chose Villeroy and Bach’s Frutteto pattern for our dairy dishes. The beautiful porcelain plates, bowls, and serving platters edged with warm-colored fruits and vegetables, served us for over twenty-five years until many were scratched and chipped and no longer made me happy. Read More Ten Favorite Historical Mystery Series I love historic cozies because there’s something about diving into the protagonist’s community, eavesdropping on the protagonist’s inner thoughts, and watching her (because cozy protagonists are mostly women) solve what at first seems to be an unsolvable crime. Read More This is Good Long before I started writing books, when I was focused on creating, teaching, and performing music, I was plagued by a little voice continuously telling me I wasn’t good at any of it. That voice never shut up. When I was raising children, I never felt like I was the best mother, and years later, when I began inventing recipes, I questioned whether I had it in me to get the flavors right. Read More Five Cozy Mystery Series with Slightly Unusual Protagonists Cozy mysteries got me through cancer. Maybe medical intervention did most of the work, but I spent over a year exhausted, foggy, and barely functioning. I’d lie on the couch devouring cozy mysteries about aristocrats, ancient Roman informers, or butterfly collectors, and the hours would speed by. Tales of amateur sleuths baking a peach pie or cooking for a crowd could make me feel better. Read More Why I Couldn't Sleep Last Night Thanks to Claude AI I’m just recovering from a bad night filled with bad dreams about a short but enervating fling I had in the early nineties. I should have known the guy would turn out to be controlling when he commented on my hat the first time we met. Read More The Queen of Jazz and Me Unless you knew that we shared a birthday, you'd think that I have little in common with the First Lady of Song! Read More Interview with Alene Baron What words or phrases do you overuse? Alene Baron probably uses the word “annoy” a little to often (as does her creator). Read More How My Dad Inspired a Character The last time I saw my father, Alex, was in 2021 during the pandemic, when only hospice nurses were allowed inside. My parents lived on the third floor, so we only got to see Dad if our mom was able to wheel his chair to the window. That day, I stood outside the building, waving up at their balcony. He was too weak to wave, but I think he smiled. I’ve held onto that memory. Read More Respect and Other Ingredients Ruthie Rosin, the pastry chef in my Whipped and Sipped Mystery series, is sweet-natured, quick-witted, and spiritual. She observes centuries-old Jewish traditions but lives in the contemporary, real world with her husband and three children. Read More Load More