Signals and signs ...

The number one signal for me (some might say warning) of the coming holiday season is fruitcake.  Not that dry, cakey stuff you get at the grocery store. The fruitcake I bake contains a kilogram of dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, cherries, blueberries, etc.), chopped nuts, a good amount of rum, and enough butter, eggs and flour to keep the whole thing together. I bake my cake at least a month early and feed the cake with more rum on a regular basis … to preserve the fruit, you understand.

If when you think of mincemeat, you’re picturing that horribly sweet glop from the grocery store, stop. Instead, conjure if you will a mixture of ground beef (yes, real meat, this stuff was invented to preserve sources of protein), apples, raisins, aromatic spices, and citrus peel all simmered to a velvety loveliness. My mum made this every year as did her mum and her mum. 

Shortbread cookies. Buttery, vanilla-y, flaky. I pretend I can remember Grammy in the farmhouse kitchen, rolling out the dough on the old, scarred table, using star and bell-shaped cutters, then sliding the cookie sheets into the monster wood-fired oven. All us grandkids gathered around the table waited impatiently for the cookies to cool enough to eat. I have no memory of her baking shortbreads, but I have many memories of my mum doing so.

Hm … these all seem food related … wonder what that says about me …

A non-edible sign that the holidays are upon us is my annual hunt for greeting cards to send to friends and relations. I used to see what was on offer at the usual stores, but with the advent of online shopping, the sky’s the limit. I came across an artist a few years ago who creates the most wonderful images – right up my alley. AND she uses some of those images for greeting cards. 

Nothing says festive season quite like holiday movies and books paired with a glass of eggnog – seasoned with more of that rum, can’t let it go to waste. Instant warm and cosy.

Luanna Stewart has been creating adventures for her imaginary friends since childhood. She spends her days writing many flavours of romance. When not torturing her characters, she’s in her kitchen baking something delicious. She lives in Nova Scotia with her patient husband and two hens. 

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Ice Cream: Comfort Food Then & Now

by Kristin Holt

I love ice cream. My #1 Comfort Food. Doesn't matter if it's snowing or 40 below. I never met an ice cream I didn't like (well, perhaps one flavor).

Ice cream may be produced in factories today, but it was originally a back-porch homemade treat.

"In 1843, New England housewife Nancy Johnson invented the hand-cranked ice cream churn. She patented her invention but lacked the resources to make and market it herself. Johnson sold the patent for $200 to a Philadelphia kitchen wholesaler who, by 1847, made enough ice cream makers to satisfy the high demand. From 1847 to 1877, more than 70 improvements to ice cream makers were patented." [source]

This bit of Americana history made it easy to slip cherry ice cream into The Menace Takes a Bride.

Excerpt: (California, 1895)

LUKE STOOD inside the kitchen, watching Garth and Mitzi through the screen door. They sat side by side on the porch swing. Garth moved the swing to and fro with a gentle push of his feet.

Luke couldn’t see Mitzi’s face from his vantage point, but he knew she enjoyed the ice cream immensely. He’d tasted the treat delivered by the creamery. Plump, fresh cherries, frozen in sweet cream with plenty of sugar. Mitzi had been delighted.

Satisfaction swelled in his old heart.

By Jupiter, it felt good to give the dear girl a bit of happiness.

Garth, idiot that he was, may have ordered Luke to cease and desist with the presents. Luke had thought about it, for all of about five minutes.

He’d believed that eventually Garth would do his duty and court his own wife. Until then, somebody had to do it for him.

‘You can’t teach an old man to suck eggs,’ Luke had wanted to say. Who was Garth to question his father’s experience? Did he think he could tell his dad something he didn’t already know?

Luke had lived through two wars and survived a gold rush. More importantly, he’d been a husband for twenty-two glorious years. A pang of loneliness tightened about his heart. He’d been around plenty long enough to understand how a courtship ought to progress.

Garth may have ordered him to stop giving presents, to stop meddling, but Luke knew better. Besides, ice cream didn’t count. It was food, not a bauble and certainly not meddling.

On the porch, he heard Mitzi’s moans of pleasure. Luke grinned at her little-girl delight. Until tonight, the poor thing hadn’t ever tasted ice cream.

Imagine that. Ice cream. He shook his head, amazed at the simple life she’d lived.

Silhouetted against the setting sun, Luke watched with pleasure as Mitzi rested her head on Garth’s shoulder. From this distance, he couldn’t quite hear what they talked about, but they were talking. That was good enough to ease an old man’s concerns.

Cora stepped up to his side, her tread light on the kitchen floor. She folded her arms and watched the young couple for a minute, perhaps two. “You did a good thing, Luke. A very good thing.”

Yes, he had. The more he saw of Mitzi and Garth together, the more he knew he’d done the right thing.

They looked like a husband and wife, and the image made Luke grin.

A husband. He’d made his boy a husband.

He wanted to jump up and down, hoot and holler with the thrill of victory—but that would interrupt the most domestic, tender thing he’d ever seen going on out on the porch swing.

An idea came to mind, a most exciting thought. It wasn’t a gift, he rationalized. Merely her due. Mitzi was a Wakefield, not a nun. She deserved more than a plain gold wedding band. If Garth had found Mitzi on his own, he would’ve wooed her with a diamond the size of a quail egg.

If Garth knew how to court properly, he would’ve bought Mitzi a diamond already. The boy would appreciate a little help getting the shopping done.

“I need a woman’s opinion,” he said to Cora.

“Oh?”

“Tomorrow morning, you and I are visiting the jeweler.”

 Copyright © 2013 Kristin Holt, LC

OLD FASHIONED ICE CREAM [credit]

1 c. whipping cream 1 c. milk 1/2 c. sugar 1 tsp. vanilla 2 children (or more) 1 lb. coffee can 3 lb. coffee can Ice 3/4 c. salt (rock or kosher works best) Put all ingredients in a 1 pound coffee can with a tight fitting plastic lid. Place this can inside a 3 pound coffee can with a tight-fitting plastic lid. Pack space between cans with crushed ice. Add 3/4 cup of salt over the ice. Place the lid on the 3 pounds can and roll back and forth on the cement or floor (that won't scratch) for about 10 minutes.Open the big can and remove the smaller can; wipe the outside of the can and lid and open to scrape down the sides and stir ice cream. Put the lid back on and put it back into the salt and ice and continue rolling for another 5 to 10 minutes. Open and enjoy. Serves 2 to 4.

 

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Comfort in the Kitchen by Kristin Wallace

This month on Romancing the Genres we’re talking “Comfort Foods”. Food is such an integral part of our life, and not just because we use it to ease our hunger or to get nutrients. Food is associated so intensely with our emotions. Baking cookies with your mother, recipes that were handwritten by your grandmother, dads on the grill, pizza parties with friends, late night junk food during finals, that first dinner date with “the one”. Every dish comes with a memory.

Birthday throwback/w the "cat" cake

For my comfort food, I chose cake…more specifically a birthday cake. Growing up my mom made a Coca Cola Cake every year, and yes Coke was an ingredient. It is delicious! Of course, it wasn’t just the flavor of the cake…it was the fact that my mom made it from scratch…with love. She’d even get fancy and make shapes. One year, she made a cat. It’s still my favorite kind of cake, and it always makes me think of growing up with a cool mom who always went beyond to make sure it was a special day.

Here’s the recipe so you can try for yourself:

Cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1½ cup chopped or small marshmallows

½ cup shortening

½ cup butter

3 Tbsp. cocoa

1 cup Coke

½ cup buttermilk

1 tsp. baking soda

2 eggs beaten

Directions:

Sift together flour & sugar, then stir in marshmallows (set aside)

In a sauce pan, put shortening, butter, cocoa & Coke. Bring to a boil & heat until butter and shortening melts. Remove from heat and pour over flour mixture. Stir in buttermilk, baking soda, and eggs (beaten). Pour into greased pan and bake at 350 for about 45 minutes.

Icing:

Ingredients:

½ cup butter

3 Tbs. cocoa

6 Tbsp. Coke

1 box powdered sugar

1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

In a saucepan, put butter, cocoa and Coke & bring to boil. When the butter has melted, remove from heat & add powdered sugar & pecans. (It should be runny.) Pour over cake.

CHANCE TO WIN! What comfort foods bring back amazing memories for you? Leave a comment & be entered to win a FREE ebook copy of my next book, Coming Home To Paradise.

Kristin Wallace is the USA Today Best Selling Author of inspirational and contemporary romance, and women’s fiction filled with “Love, Laughter and a Leap of Faith”. Look for her latest release COMING HOME TO PARADISE on April 11!

About the book:

Thirty years ago, desperation drove Elizabeth McCarthy to do the unthinkable when she abandoned her infant daughter, Layla, to the care of her mother. Now, after years of trying to outrun the memories and the guilt, Beth has come home to Shellwater Key to make amends. She has survived deadbeat relationships, becoming a single mother, and cancer, but now faces the most difficult battle of her life…finding a way to connect with the legendary mother she was never able to please…and earning the forgiveness of the daughter who has every reason to hate her. She might even have a chance to find the missing piece of her heart when Layla’s father arrives in town looking for answers.

Coming Home To Paradise is a powerful story of a woman who never felt like she was enough, despite being physically beautiful. It’s the story of a woman who has been broken by life, and by illness, and who now only wants to make things right. A story about discovering that it’s never too late to find true love…or more accurately…find the true love that slipped away.

For more info visit Kristin's Website