COZY FOOD Cookbook BOOK BLOG TOUR

Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes 

by Nancy Lynn Jarvis

 

Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes 

Cozy Cookbook Good Read Mysteries (May 15, 2014) 

Number of Pages: 241 (167 of recipes, 70 of contributor bios and books) 

ISBN-10: 0983589178 

ISBN-13: 978-0983589174

Kindle ASIN: B00KGZSEQ6

What happens when 128 cozy mystery writers get together to do a cookbook? You get more than 220 recipes that are as varied and interesting as an amateur sleuth’s day job.

Regional recipes come from every part of the United States and England — a couple find their way from Australia and Italy, too — and from diverse times. There are recipes from people looking to keep gluten out of their lives, eat vegetarian, or make a treat or two for their furry four-legged friends. And yes, there are recipes that appeal to the sweet tooth, lots of them, in fact.

There’s no mystery about what happens when cozy writers get together. They bring the wit, inventiveness, and adventure found in their books right along with their recipes.

The recipes are introduced by their authors and linked to the writer bios in the back of the book. You can look up your favorite cozy writer and see which recipes are their favorites; they'll tell you what the recipe means to them. Or you can enjoy a dish and then link to the recipe's author's biography and books.

Either way you enjoy the cookbook, you're sure to find great new recipes to make and terrific new cozy authors to read.

Contributing Authors: Sparkle Abbey, Ellery Adams, (aka J. B. Stanley, Jennifer Stanley) Judy Alter, Marian Allen, Ritter Ames, Donna Andrews, Traci Andrighetti, Amy Beth Arkawy, Mignon F. Ballard, Sandra Balzo, JoAnn Bassett, Cynthia Baxter, (aka Cynthia Blair) Jenna Bennett, (aka Jennie Bentley) Sally Berneathy, (aka Sally Carleen, Sally Steward, Sara Garrett) Maggie Bishop, Cindy Blackburn, Juliet Blackwell, Susan Furlong Bollinger, Sheila Webster Boneham, Laura Bradford, Frances Brody, Duffy Brown, Joyce Ann Brown, Mollie Bryan, B.B. Cantwell, Laurie Cass, (aka Laura Alden) Nancy J. Cohen, Shelley Costa, Judith Cutler, Rebecca (aka R.P.) Dahlke, Kathi Daley, Kathleen Delaney, Diana Dempsey, Pamela Frost Dennis, Lesley A. Diehl, Leighann Dobbs, Vicki Doudera, Pamela DuMond, Carola Dunn, Jean Erhardt, Chloe Evans, Monica Ferris, (aka Margaret Frazer, Mary Monica Pulver, Mary Kuhfeld) Judy Fitzwater, Chris Forman, Kaye George, Sally Goldenbaum, Barbara Graham, Sarah Graves, Carolyn Haines, (aka R.B. Chesterton) Vinnie Hansen, Traci Hilton, Sibel Hodge, Valerie Horowitz, Mary Ellen Hughes, Linda Joffe Hull, Ellen Elizabeth Hunter, Dawn Greenfield Ireland, Melanie Jackson, Holly Jacobs, Miranda James, (aka Dean James) Nancy Lynn Jarvis, Heather Justesen, Pamela Kelley, E.E. Kennedy, Mary Kennedy, Josi S. Kilpack, Kelly Klepfer, (aka Michelle Griep, Ellie Marks) Barbara Lee Cool, Marilyn Levinson, Liz Lipperman, Gail Lukasik, Elaine Macko, Sylvia Massara, Sonja Massie, (aka G.A. McKevett) Edith Maxwell, (aka Tace Baker) Lorena McCourtney, Marja McGraw, Eileen Haavik McIntire, Staci McLaughlin, Catriona McPherson, Camille Minichino, (aka Margaret Grace, Ada Madison) Marie Moore, Ruth Moose, Amy Myers, Tamar Myers, Christa Nardi, Radine Trees Nehring, Kerri Nelson, Clare O’Donohue, Diana Orgain, Joyce Oroz, Elaine L. Orr, Helen Osterman, Gail Oust, K.B. Owen, Sharon Pape, Nancy J. Parra, (aka Nancy J. Coco) Allison Cesario Paton, Joanne Pence, Maggie Pill, Ann Purser, Melissa Bourbon Ramirez, (aka Melissa Bourbon) Nanci Rathbun, Rosalee Richland, Becky Lyn Rickman, Karen Robbins, Carolyn J. Rose, Pamela Rose, Cindy Sample, June Shaw, Connie Shelton, Clea Simon, Joanna Campbell Slan, Karen Rose Smith, Lane Stone, Maria Grazia Swan, Denise Swanson, Marcia Talley, Nancy Jill Thames, Sharon Burch Toner, Elaine Viets, Lea Wait, Wendy Lyn Watson, (aka Annie Knox) Christine Wenger, Gayle Wigglesworth, Lois Winston, Joan H. Young, Suzanne Young

About Editor Nancy Lynn Jarvis

Nancy Lynn Jarvis was a Santa Cruz, California, Realtor® for more than twenty years before she fell in love with writing and let her license lapse.

After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager for Shakespeare/Santa Cruz at UCSC.

Nancy’s work history reflects her philosophy: people should try something radically different every few years, a philosophy she applies to her writing, as well. She has written seven Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries; a stand-alone novel “Mags and the AARP Gang” about a group of octogenarian bank robbers; edited “Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes” and a short story anthology, “Santa Cruz Weird;” and even done a little insider’s book, “The Truth About Hosting Airbnb” about her first year as a host.

Her newest venture is “The Glass House” is the first book in a planned series of PIP Inc. Mysteries. Now she’s trying to figure out when to work on another series she’d love to do called “Geezers with Tools” about two older handymen who will solve mysteries in the course of doing their work, and setting up writer retreats at her house.

Editor Links Website – https://www.nancylynnjarvis.com/ Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn GoodReads – https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2918242.Nancy_Lynn_Jarvis Purchase – Amazon - Kindle - Amazon Paperback

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One of the truly wonderful things that happen when you start writing mysteries is that you find friends who write mysteries, too.
My background is real estate. I was an agent for more than twenty years and used real estate experiences to inform the Regan McHenry Real Estate Mysteries series that I write. I’m still friendly with some of the agents I met along the way, but real estate is about competition. It’s professionals too often find themselves in a confrontational stance with other agents as they vie for clients and then represent them against the other side of a transaction.

Nothing like that happens with writers. Writers are generous with their time, with their support, and with ideas to help their fellow writers. It’s out of that comradery that Cozy Food: 128 Cozy Mystery Writers Share Their Favorite Recipes was born.

My mysteries are cozy, but their book covers belie that fact. I was online looking for cover elements and ideas with it in mind that I should soften my covers when I happened upon the cover for Cozy Food. It had a woman reading while cooking and cats in the kitchen, wonderful cozy cues. Wow, I thought. If anyone ever wanted to do a cozy cookbook, this would be perfect. I bought rights to the cover on the spot.

Reality didn’t sink in until after I made the purchase. What was I thinking? I had no idea how to do a cookbook. I posted about my silliness on Facebook asking some writer friends to talk me down. They didn’t. Instead they asked if they could have a recipe from their cozy mysteries in the book. They told friends who were also interested. As interest grew, I decided to spam authors with an email touting what a great joint venture a small cookbook might be. My idea was to have the book be half recipes and have writer biographies.

Within a couple of months 128 cozy writers sent recipes from their books and their personal favorites, and we had a serious cookbook. The back cover with participants’ names is a who’s who of cozy mystery writers so readers who love cozies not only get recipes from all over the world and all the timeframes where cozies are set, they also get a reference list of other cozy mystery writers to discover.

Here's one of my favorites from Agatha, McCavity, IPPY, Lefty, and Anthony winner, Scottish born Catriona McPherson.

(Don’t Let Lady Macbeth Near The)
Lemon Posset

From the Dandy Gilver series by Catriona McPherson

You can’t really ask for a better pedigree than a dessert being mentioned in Shakespeare, can you?
 “I have drugg’d their possets, that death and nature do contend about them, whether they live or die.” (Macbeth, Act II, Sc2).

While I’m sure that Dandy Gilver’s cook – the devoted Mrs. Tilling – would be more likely to make syllabub (which is tricky) or soufflé (which is really tricky) I’ve always preferred flashy results from little effort. Lemon posset is too easy for words but goes down a storm. I’ve never served it to someone and not been asked for the recipe.

20 oz of heavy cream

5 oz sugar

Two drops vanilla extract

2 large lemons

Serves six

Serving suggestion: this is delicious with fresh shortbread. (Catriona’s recipe is also in Cozy Food)

·        Grate the zest off the lemons and juice them.

·        Reserve half the zest – ideally in long strips but it doesn’t matter.

·        Put the cream, sugar and vanilla into a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to the boil.

·        Add the lemon juice and the other half of the zest and whisk.

·        Bring back to the boil and keep whisking for about half a minute until the mixture changes consistency. The sound of the whisk will become more muffled.

·        Remove from the heat and pour into six glasses or teacups. (I like to serve this in pretty cups and saucers at lunchtime and in elegant glasses at dinnertime.)

·        Cool slightly, then add the reserved zest to the tops as decoration and chill in the fridge for at least three hours before serving.

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