The Southern Foodie, Book Review

Author Chris Chamberlain has written about

100 Places to Eat In The South Before You Die

(And The Recipes That Made Them Famous)

Southern food, like its hospitality, traditions and stories are well established and comforting. As the Baltimore born granddaughter and niece of two wonderful Southern cooks I was introduced to hearty breakfast plates that included a homemade biscuits and jams, fried chicken or fried pork chops and sometimes sausage, gravy, eggs ... and pie. For one week each summer in July my world took on a different hue and taste.

Dinner was served at noon and the produce was fresh and plentiful from the garden. It is easy to recollect the large brightly cloth-covered tables and platters of corn on the cob swimming in butter, meats (often more than one kind),  potatoes that were mashed or boiled or fried, steaming bowls of succotash, crisp coleslaw, peaches, slices of watermelon and mounds of freshly baked dinner rolls. All homemade and hearty and proudly served.

Reading The Southern Foodie (and looking at the pictures) makes it easy to remember sitting at my favorite aunt's table.  Her name was Irene Moore and she was beautiful, charming, and a gifted cook. She made is seem effortless, one minute she would be sitting on the back porch snapping green beans from the garden and in the next sharing the foods of her labor.  Her meals were only one reason I considered my three cousins as extremely lucky.

The food and the stories gathered in this collection make it a great addition to any cook's book shelf. There are recipes for cornbread, tomato corn chowder, coconut pie, peach cobbler, tomato gravy, grits, and pot roast.  Take an afternoon and spend it with Chris Chamberlain ... you won't be sorry. If you're planning on traveling in any of the "thirteen Southern states" check out their most celebrated restaurants.

Chris Chamberlain is a food and drink writer based in Nashville, Tennessee. He has served as a culinary judge at numerous competitions around the South and consulted with several restaurants regarding menu creation and marketing. One of his favorite things in life to do is to put a shoulder on the smoker and watch SEC football all day long while waiting for his pork to reach "pig-picking" temperature as slowly as possible.

A copy of The Southern Foodie was provided by the publisher Thomas Nelson for review purposes. The words are my own.

Band of Sister by Cathy Gohlke Blog Tour

Review
Band of Sisters by Cathy Gohlke

If you've ever wondered about the lives of earlier family members, those related by birth, marriage and story who traveled in hopes of finding a better life you will enjoy reading about Maureen O'Reilly and her younger sister Katie Rose, "the lily flower of her family."

Fleeing from  Ireland their hardships are immediate, nearly overwhelming and very vivid.  In author Cathy Gohlke's capable hands this is a story that hits the ground running.

The details will lift you away from your current place neatly dropping you 100 years in the past.  There are secrets to contend with, grief to be shouldered and always hope for change. The characters and their lives are a window into our past.  If you enjoy reading creditable historical novels you will want to read this one. The flow, pace and character development are spot on here. The would be historical novelist will want to pay attention here.

But Miss Gohlke has also written an important novel for those of us who know little about human trafficking.  Surprisingly the numbers are far greater today. What if anything can we to bring attention to this horrendous practice?

You can begin by reading and considering the stories in Band of Sisters. Then recommend this novel to your friends, family members, and neighbors. Offer to hold a book discussion in your home, or with your Church group. Or both, even if you do not regularly meet as a book club.  Do online research to learn more about this modern day problem. Visit IOM's website http://www.humantrafficking.org/   . Be prepared to share the information as a call to action. This is an opportunity to raise awareness and perhaps money for this cause.

Cathy Gohlke is the two-time Christy Award–winning author of the critically acclaimed novels Promise Me This, William Henry Is a Fine Name, and I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires, which also won the American Christian Fiction Writers' Book of the Year Award and was listed by Library Journal as one of the Best Books of 2008.
Cathy has worked as a school librarian, drama director, and director of children's and education ministries. When not traipsing the hills and dales of historic sites, she, her husband, and their dog, Reilly, make their home on the banks of the Laurel Run in Elkton, Maryland.


 Here is a link to Cathy's website:  http://authorcathygohlke.com/

The publisher supplied me with a copy of this book for review. The words are my own.

Learning More About Human Trafficking

UN General Assembly President Calls
                For Redoubled Efforts To End Human Trafficking


Reports of child trafficking cases are rising. Child victims of human trafficking helped by International Organization for Migration increased to 2,040 in 2011, up 27% from 1,565 in 2008.

The President of the 66th United Nations General Assembly His Excellency Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser today called on Member States, civil society, the private sector and the media to step up efforts to bring an end to human trafficking, calling it "an appalling form of human rights abuse". 

To learn more about this problem and how you might help please visit this website:
http://www.humantrafficking.org/

Two-time Christy Award - winning Cathy Gohlke's newest novel Band of Sisters "was born of a passion to end modern-day slavery and most of all ask: What can I do to help....?

To begin reading Band of Sisters please visit Cathy's website:
http://authorcathygohlke.com/

Joanne Bischof's First Novel ... Review Coming

Look what the postman delivered today. Advance Reading Copy ...

Be Still My Soul

Book 1 The Cadence of Grace Series

by

Joanne Bischof

Release Date: October 2, 2012

Rocky, Monday Evening

Stop taking my picture!

Publishings Biggest Lie

"This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. "  Publisher's Note

~~~~~~~~

Dear Reader, this is not a true story ... is of course the biggest lie in publishing.  Unless of course of it is a memoir ... then perhaps the words are a product of the author's imagination. 

Just saying.

Building Character

Anatomy Of A Novel

According to Syd Field "the story has to move forward, from beginning to end, whether in a linear or a nonlinear fashion. The way you drive your story forward is by focusing on the actions   of the  character.  ... every scene in a screenplay should fulfill one of two functions:  Either it moves the story forward, or it reveals information about the character."   From The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field

The story I am writing first appeared to me as a series of plot points complete with a handful of what ifs. That was the easy part. Populating the story with real characters was a little harder, but not impossible. I quickly recognized the antagonist and the protagonist and a bunch of supporting characters.

The main character arrived with two young sons and a whole lot of baggage. She's determined, overwhelmed, and single. She's also attractive, nice, energetic and a lot more unsure of herself than she was willing to admit. She has a ex-husband and an ex-boyfriend and isn't sure what had happened in either relationship. She sorta  knows what a relationship should look like.

I treated her as the main character. After all she was the one who caused things to happen in the story. I made a list of plot points, gathered my characters together and started writing. By page 52 I was less sure of myself.

Instinctively I knew that there was a problem with this story. Was it the order of events? The chapters did seem to be choppy and sloppy. I kept moving the index card into different patterns. It just didn't seem to matter. Did I have too many scenes? too many characters? Maybe.

I was so sure I knew what the story was about; the dramatic premise. I took another look at the characters. All of the characters ... and slowly realized that I had failed to recognize the main character. It wasn't her  at all, it  him  and his name was Dominic.  His problems are bigger .... deeper and more difficult to fix.  Dominic needs something (or someone) to resurrect him. 

He needs her. And she is the last thing he wants.  She is so obviously wrong that he is unable and unwilling to look beyond the complications. And suddenly this new information provided a different opening.  And a new direction. A new twist on complications.