This is the Place Category:  Action/Thriller Type: Non-Fiction Copyright: 2002 Readers will love the recipes and excerpts. Writers will love this sample of cross promotion! Cooking by the Book is fun and FREE.  It is the effort of 27 international authors who share recipes that inspired scenes from their books.  Read excerpts that illustrate how food influences literature, short bios on the authors and, of course, recipes like Chicken with Dancing Tomato Sauce and my great, great grandmother who made Mustard Pickles for her polygamist husband! Attention Writers! This idea for this cross-promotional effort is one of my most successful.  Learn more about it in my how-to book full of nitty gritty practial ideas, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T.  Download COOKING BY THE BOOK at no cost at http://carolynhowardjohnson.com.        Excerpt This is a sample excerpt, recipe and biography. Gram Harry’s Home-Canned Raspberry Jam from "This is the Place" by Carolyn Howard-Johnson Just before Stella and Garret’s first Christmas as a married couple, the Eccles family was cracking nuts for Harriet’s infamous fruitcake. Over the years, more than one molar had been broken on shell fragments in Harriet’s cake. Stella was trying to pick the sharp debris from the mix in the bowl. “Hand me the nigger toes. I’ll crack those,” Bernice had said. Stella looked at the bowl, the assorted nuts hard and unyielding in shades of browns, like a bowl full of topaz gems. “What. Which... What are you saying, Bernie?” “Yes. The ones that look like nigger toes.” “They’re called Brazil Nuts, Bernice. Braz-il Nuts. There’s a whole lot in a name and these,”--Stella picked one up between her thumb and forefinger-- “are Brazil Nuts.” “Well, you don’t have to take it personally. You aren’t colored.” “No, just not acceptable.” Stella's face felt bloodless and her hands tingled. “Well, this is just like you. Uppity.” Stella picked up her uppity coat from the back of the chair she had been sitting in and tilted her head--a “let’s go” motion--at Garret. Harriet put a bottle of her homemade raspberry jam in Stella’s hand. “Take this,” Harriet said. “It will taste real good on your toast in the morning.” Garden-Fresh Raspberry Jam 2 quarts red raspberries. Gram Harry picked hers ripe from bushes behind her house 7 C. sugar ½ bottle fruit pectin 1 box canning wax Carefully select the best raspberries and wash them. Crush them with a potato masher but not so much that some of the little nodules in the berries aren’t intact. Measure out four cups. If there isn’t enough, mash more berries or add water to make up the difference. Add sugar and mix. Bring to full, rolling boil for one full minute stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in pectin. Skim the pink froth from the top (you can let the young cooks who want to help with this project taste this—they’ll remember it their whole lives!) and pour into hot, sterilized glasses leaving enough room (about ½ inch at least) for the sealing wax. For a real 50s look, use bottles you’ve saved from other products--preferably small decorative ones—or assorted glasses from your thrift store. Makes eleven 6 oz. bottles. Melt enough wax to cover the tops of each bottle. Pour the hot wax on top of the jam. Make sure the wax touches all the way to the edges of the bottles. Label the outside of the bottles for gift-giving. BIO:I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write a novel. I wanted to write “Gone with the Wind” only about Utah instead of the South. I wanted it to say something important and still be entertaining. I wanted to paint an authentic picture of both of my cultures—the Mormon and the Non-Mormon-- for one side was very different from, yet very much the same--as the other. Because I was raised with a window open on both religions, I was able to see how intolerance corrodes the soul of both those who practice it and those on whom it is practiced and to show how it turns back on itself in a cycle of destruction.

Cooking by the Book
COOKING BY THE BOOK
(Various Contributors Including Carolyn Howard-Johnson)

REVIEWED BY JAYCE CRAWFORD,
Author of The Pope and The Rainbow Sprinkles and Cup of Comfort Contributor


When I was in high school, I slogged my way through Remembrance Of Things Past. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of those mystical madeleines. I envisioned that tantalizing aroma wafting from the kitchen, those airy golden scallop-shell cookies arranged on a delicate china plate, and finally, the heavenly taste of butter and sugar and vanilla and…what else? Ahh!, I remember thinking. If only Marcel Proust had provided the recipe! Laura Esquivel had the right idea in her novel Like Water For Chocolate. A variety of culinary delights took center-stage along with the characters, and Esquivel courteously supplied the what-and-how. If only all my favorite authors were that considerate!

Now, in Cooking By The Book, I finally have the primer I’ve been waiting for all my life. For a foodie-cum-fiction-freak like me, this cookbook is a dream come true. Twenty-five novelists contributed to this collection of mouth-watering recipes, torn from the pages of the books that inspired them. In most cases, the casseroles and desserts and such are dishes cooked and served by characters in novels. As a bonus--or advertising tie-in, depending how you look at it--you get excerpts from the contributors’ books themselves. Thus, we read a scene from Catherine Karp’s Gilded, in which Mayor Brandenberg’s young wife Emma serves tea and cakes to her husband’s guests, followed by the recipe for “Emma Brandenberg’s Victorian Cream Scones”. And we see part of a chapter from Last Step, by Kathleen Walls, wherein drug counselor Hank cooks dinner for a deceased addict’s mother, after which we’re treated to the recipe for “Hank’s Cajun Gumbo”. I’ve read Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s novel This Is The Place, and I still remember how my mouth watered during a scene featuring a Utah family’s 1950’s-era picnic, hosted by memorable characters Garrett and Stella Eccles. So it was a real treat to find “Stella’s 24th of July Chocolate Cherry Nut Cake” featured here.

A few non-fiction writers got into the act, too. The book features some luscious cheesecake recipes from David Leonhardt, who penned the self-help tome Climb Your Stairway To Heaven: The 9 Habits Of Maximum Happiness. Mr. Leonhardt swears that his book mentions his favorite dessert no less than three times. And while I haven’t tried his “Harvest Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake” yet, it definitely looks like maximum happiness to me!

Most of the author-cooks involved in this project are romance novelists. Even with all that stirring in their loins, I guess beautiful buxom women and their swarthy handsome lovers still find time to eat. Which is great news for book-loving gourmands like me!