Drinks with Reads: Restaurant Weeks Are Murder

It's Restaurant Week on Drinks with Reads and author Libby Klein says murder is in the air. Libby Klein graduated Lower Cape May Regional High School sometime in the ’80s. Her classes revolved mostly around the culinary sciences and theater, with the occasional nap in Chemistry. She has worked as a stay at home mom, climbing the ladder up the ranks to the coveted position of Grandma. She also dabbles in the position of Vice President of a technology company which mostly involves bossing other people around, making spreadsheets and taking out the trash. She writes from her Northern Virginia office while trying to keep her cat, Figaro, off her keyboard. Most of her hobbies revolve around eating, and travel, and eating while traveling.

Libby has a special drink to match with her new book, Restaurant Weeks are Murder. Let's see what it is...

Poppy McAllister is working hard to transform Aunt Ginny’s Victorian manor house into the Butterfly Wings B&B—but being a professional pastry chef has always been her real dream. For a short time, her dreams seem like they’re coming true as she teams up with her former fiancée, Tim—and his condescendingly perky partner, Gigi—during Cape May’s first annual Chopped style Restaurant Week Competition. Misfortune is dished up with every mystery basket until the panel of judges is served a pinch of murder with a dash of death. 

Fans of Chopped and all of its spinoffs will be familiar with the mystery basket style cook off. Chefs are surprised with four seemingly random ingredients to test their culinary prowess, and for three rounds they have to serve something fabulous enough to impress the fussiest of judges. Only the best can pull together something delicious out of the madness. 

The perfect drink to pair with Restaurant Weeks Are Murder should come from a mystery basket. The ingredients don’t make sense at first, but they often have one of every category of Sweet, Salty, Sour, and Bitter. Poppy decided to invent a drink to honor the Chopped challenge, and Aunt Ginny was devious enough to put together the mystery basket. We’ve combined bitter grapefruit and sour lime with sweet Orange Vanilla Syrup and Marshmallow Fluff Vodka. Aunt Ginny thought she would trick us with the Cotton Candy Pop Rocks, but we had the last laugh. 

Taste testers insist this beautiful pink drink tastes just like birthday cake. If - like me - you’re not much of a drinker, you can make this a Mocktail by substituting one ounce of marshmallow syrup for the vodka.

Cotton Candy Sizzle

3 ½ ounces of unsweetened pink grapefruit juice

2 ounces of Marshmallow Vodka

2 ounces of orange vanilla syrup

1 pack of cotton candy Pop Rocks

Lime wedge for rimming

Lime twist

Ice

Combine grapefruit juice, vodka, orange vanilla syrup, and ice in a shaker bottle or martini shaker. Shake well. Rim a martini glass with the lime wedge and dip into the Pop Rocks until the edge is covered. They will begin popping and snapping immediately. Pour cocktail into your martini glass and add your lime twist. Enjoy the popping.

You can find Libby on Facebook, Twitter , The Cozy Mystery Crew, Goodreads, BookBub, Pinterest, and Instagram. 

Skin Game and The Bloody Beam

JD Allen is here making wild drinks, with quite a kick, to match her new book, Skin Game. J.D Allen's Sin City Investigations series launched with 19 Souls in 2018, Book 2, Skin Game followed February 8th. She is a  Freddie Award-winner and has short stories in the Anthony Award-winning anthology, Murder under the Oaks. She’s past chair of the Bouchercon National Board, a member of MWA, PI Writer’s of America, and president of her local Sisters in Crime chapter. She’s an Ohio State Univ. Alum with a degree in forensic anthropology and a creative writing minor. Now let's hear about her new book, Skin Game...

Jim's not a fancy guy. And his choice of adult beverages is no exception. He spends many a hungover morning at the Coffee Girl Diner which had been taken over by a mad vegan and ruined breakfast. The place is across the street from his townhouse so he never bothered to change his routine. Jim Bean stars in the Sin City Investigations books. Yes. Bean. Not Beam. His favorite waitress at the diner across the street likes to send him a zinger about his name occasionally. One particularly rough Sunday morning she switched out the traditional vodka with Jim Beam in his 'hair-of-the-dog' go to and accidentally started a tradition. To go with the fake egg omelets and seventy-grain toast, Jim found the Bloody Beam helps the health food go down. 

THE BLOODY BEAM

INGREDIENTS

2 Basil Leaves

1 shot Jim Beam® Bourbon

3 dashes Tabasco® Sauce

Black Pepper

4 parts V8® Light Mix

4 dashes Worcestershire Sauce

Sandy sticks in a couple of olives and a pickled green beans just to be funny.

PREPARATION

In a mixing glass muddle the sauces, spices, and basil. Add all remaining ingredients and roll back and forth with ice in a mixing tin. Pour over ice in a glass rimmed with Cajun spice.

In Skin Game,  private investigator Jim Bean has worked hard to create his new identity in Las Vegas. Now his life’s on cruise control, destination nowhere.  He’s got clients enough to pay his bills, a cat, and a stash of whiskey and scotch. 

But life’s not as static as he’d like. His tragic past collides with a dangerous present when ex-fiancé Erica Floyd walks into his investigation. She’s looking for her missing sister. Bean can’t refuse her, and the clues lead him to human traffickers and one of Vegas’ biggest hotel moguls. 

He’s got to face ghosts of his past, his anger of the present, and a brand new enemy to save four women from a fate worse than death. 

Island of the Mad and a G&T with Bitters

We're matching Laurie R. King's latest in the Mary Russell series, Island of the Mad, with her choice of beverage - a Gin & Tonic and Angostura Bitters. This is one of my favorite series - where the character of Mary Russell matches intellects with her older husband, Sherlock Holmes, as they solve crimes in Victorian England. The series as a whole is great fun and this book in particular.  

Here's a little about the book...

The last thing Mary Russell and her husband, Sherlock Holmes, need is to help an old friend with her mad, missing aunt. Lady Vivian Beaconsfield has spent most of her adult life in one asylum after another, since the loss of her brother and father in the Great War. Although her mental state seemed to be improving, she’s now disappeared after an outing from Bethlem Royal Hospital . . . better known as Bedlam. Russell wants nothing to do with the case—but she can’t say no. To track down the vanished woman, she must use her deductive instincts and talent for subterfuge—and enlist her husband’s legendary prowess. Together, the two travel from the grim confines of Bedlam to the murky canals of Venice—only to find the shadow of Benito Mussolini darkening the fate of a city, an era, and a tormented English lady of privilege.

When we asked Laurie what drink she thought might go with this book, she said...

Gin & Tonic with Angostura Bitters

• 1 oz Gin
• 2 oz Tonic Water
• 6 dashes Angostura bitters

I tried it and it's a fabulous way to have a gin and tonic and it pairs really well with the book.

Although, if you are new to this series, you may want to start with the first book, The Bee Keeper's Apprentice. That way you get to see how Mary and Sherlock began their relationship.

Katherine Kellgren: A Homage to the “Dame” of Audio

TK Starr is here with us today paying homage to one of her favorite audiobook stars, Katharine Kellgren, for a special Drinks with Reader standing in for Drinks with Reads. 

The Tongue Can Paint What The Eye Cannot See

-Chinese Proverb

Katharine Kellgren was indeed a painter.  But her artistry did not involve a brush. Instead, her voice was the tool with which she sketched a scene, layered a character, or colored a mood. A good storyteller will ensure you “get” the story, a great one will move you, but a Master will make you part of it, taking you so far into the story’s world that you may never leave. Katherine Kellgren was a Master.  She passed away far too young on January 10, 2018.

I came to know Ms. Kellgren’s talents through the Royal Spyness series by Rhys Bowen. It was a hopeful Hail Mary choice for a long car drive. Choosing an unknown for travel is risky, as a poor orator can ruin even the best story and make a long commute miserable (been there, suffered that). But since I knew I had a back-up, an Agatha Christie narrated by Hugh Fraser,  the very dependable and much beloved Captain Hastings, I took the chance.  

I needn’t have worried.  Within the first few minutes of Spyness, I was hooked. The Spyness series itself is quite well-written (see my review of “Malice in the Palace”, Mystery Playground, Drinks with Reads, November 13, 2015), but the writing was not what initially captivated me. It was the life breathed into the characters by Ms. Kellgren that drew me into Lady Georgiana Rannoch’s pre-WWII Britain and held me there. She had a wide creative range easily shifting from male to female, cockney to aristocratic, young to old as well as an expert command of context and rhythm. Her creamy inflections and smooth cadence made the story an easy ride. I was so into the series by the end of Book 1 that I downloaded Book 2 for the return trip (sorry Captain Hastings).  The later Spyness books had Ms. Kellgren stretching her vocal abilities even more with Russian, German, Spanish and various American accents (among others). 

It may seem a bit much to be gushing about how well Ms. Kellgren “got” British accents, since, after all, she was British, right?  I certainly thought so. But she wasn’t! Katherine Kellgren was born and raised in New York City. She did, however, study and perform in London.  After many years she returned to the U.S. and settled into voice acting. Over her career, Ms. Kellgren narrated over 250 books of all genres set in a myriad of locations. There are several young adult series (a favorite of hers), romances, general fiction and even non-fiction (see link to Audible list below). Now, is it true that, for example, Lady Constance in the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place sounds a bit like Belinda in Royal Spyness? Of course. Ms. Kellgren was brilliant, not limitless. But it doesn’t matter.  Each series stands on its own and within each story Ms. Kellgren stayed true, keeping the audience inside the tale with her. 

I’ve experienced an expansive array of narrators and audiobooks over the years, the result of a daily 80-mile commute and regular cross country trips. Most readers were fine, many excellent. But Ms. Kellgren stands alone for making characters, settings, and eras come alive as no other. I’ve even chosen books, such as The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane or Every Secret Thing, simply because Ms. Kellgren was the narrator. So, no matter how talented the new narrators for any Kellgren series, such as Spyness, will undoubtedly be, I will still “see” Georgie, Darcy, Queenie and the rest as Ms. Kellgren originally painted them in my mind. Her artistry abides. It’s just the way of a Master. 

Ms. Kellgren’s official obituary can be found here and here is a list of Ms. Kellgren’s 250 plus audiobooks.

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Although this is usually Drinks with “Reads”, this week it’s Drinks with “Reader“ in honor of Ms. Kellgren. What could be better on a wintry February night than rich hot chocolate mixed with sultry red wine and spiced with cinnamon. Take a mug (or two), settle in the easy chair, put on the headphones and get ready for an adventure. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Red Wine Hot Chocolate (serves 4-can be halved or doubled -make more and save for later!)

• 2.5 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped

• 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

• 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon (to taste)

• 2 cups whole milk or Half/Half

• Pinch of salt

• 3/4 cup fruity red wine 

• Cinnamon sticks, additional cocoa powder, whip cream, marshmallows for serving (optional)

Whisk the chocolate, cocoa powder, sugar, and cinnamon together in a large saucepan. Add the milk product and bring to a simmer over medium heat, whisking occasionally, until hot and smooth, about 5 minutes. Stir in the salt.

Remove from the heat and add the wine. Garnish with a cinnamon stick and a dusting of cocoa powder (or whip cream or mini-marshmallows), if desired, and serve.

TKStarr is also on Facebook (TKStarrmysteries) and TKStarrmysteries.com