Thursday Recipe - Rachel Paddington's Cheesecake

I met Darcia Helle just over a year ago on BestsellerBound, a great community for authors and readers. She's a great friend and a wonderful storyteller. Our tastes don't always match, but I enjoy her characters and her stories. Check out her books and BestsellerBound. And don't forget to try this simple and delicious cheesecake recipe.

Max Paddington, the main character in my novel Into The Light, likes chocolate milk shakes. As readers get to know him, they will learn this little tidbit. What readers don't learn about Max is that he loves cheesecake. In fact, his wife Rachel would tell you that he is addicted to one specific recipe. She makes this cheesecake for him on every holiday and it's the only thing he asks for on each birthday.

Here is Rachel's recipe. I hope you enjoy it as much as Max did.

Graham Cracker Crust:

1 cup graham crackers, crumbled
3 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp butter, melted

Mix all ingredients together in small bowl. Press into bottom of springform pan. Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

Cake:

4 8-oz packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
3 tbsp flour
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 tbsp vanilla

Combine cream cheese, sugar and flour. Mix until well blended. Add eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. Blend in sour cream and vanilla. Pour over graham cracker crust.

Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce temperature to 250 and continue baking for one hour. Cool before removing rim of pan.

Cheesecake tastes great plain or can be topped with a variety of options, including canned cherry pie filling, blueberry filling or fresh strawberries.

Thursday Recipe - German Chocolate Pie From Belle

Magnolia Belle is another great author I've met on BestsellerBound. She shares a fun recipe and the story behind it.

"My first book, "Black Wolf: Lakota Man" also meant my first editor.  She lived in Connecticut and I in Texas.  The book is modern day adventure/romance about four Lakota Sioux brothers who form a rock band in Austin.  In the book, there is a scene involving the youngest brother's birthday.  His favorite cake is German chocolate.  The editor, not knowing that cake, insisted that I send the character to Germany to learn of the recipe.  I had to explain that the cake was invented by an American with the last name of German. 

Then she wanted me to use an authentic Lakota dessert for a birthday meal.  Again, I had to explain that the Lakota, and all North American tribes, didn't have sugar and typical desserts until Europeans came over.  I didn't think pemmican (lard with smashed berries) would be too appealing.  I laugh about it now.  At the time, I just had to shake my head. 

While this recipe is German chocolate pie, not cake, it's a tasty treat, good enough for anyone wherever they're from!"

my website:  www.blackwolfbooks.com
my smashwords page:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/MagnoliaBelle
my amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/Magnolia-Belle/e/B001U4SZR0/ref=sr_tc_img_2_0?qid=1286083020&sr=1-2-ent


German Chocolate Pie

Mix in a separate bowl and set aside:
3/4 c. sugar, 1/2 c. flour, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 c milk

Mix in a separate bowl and set aside:
2 TBS butter, 1 c. coconut, 1/2 c. chopped pecans, 1 tsp vanilla

Beat 3 egg yolks well and set aside

Scald 1-1/2 c. milk.  Add 8 oz of German chocolate.  Stir until chocolate is melted.  Add first sugar mixture and stir until thickened.

Add beaten egg yolks and stir on low heat for 2-3 minutes.

Remove from heat and add coconut mixture, stirring well.

Cool and pour into a 9" baked pie shell.  Chill and top with sweetened whipped cream.

This is very rich, so small slices do quite well.

Thanks for stopping by, Belle. This sounds absolutely decadent! Mmmm.... 

Thursday Recipe and Blog Tour Schedule

Yep, it's Thursday and that means recipe day. Now to decide what deliciousness to share...

Meanwhile, I have a blog tour scheduled next week. New author interview every day. Anyone who posts a comment is automatically entered in a contest to win a free ebook copy of my novel. If I get enough comments, I may add a real print copy to the pot. Or chocolate. How about a chocolate rat on a stick? (Our April Fools Day joke of the day was chocolate rats for school teachers.)

Here's the schedule for my tour:
Monday April 5 - Trisha Wooldridge
Tuesday April 6 - Lynn Flewelling
Wednesday April 7 - Brenna Lyons
Thursday April 8 - Tracy Morris
Friday April 9 - Kaz Augustin
Saturday April 10 - Pauline Baird Jones

Great women and great authors! Check out their blogs and their books. Links will be posted with each interview.

Now for the recipe:

Easy and Quick Cookies

1 stick of butter, softened
2 eggs
1 box vanilla cake mix
Add-ins (1/2 c of any or all): white chocolate chips, chocolate chips, craisins, macadamia nuts, shredded coconut, dried cherries, dried blueberries, chopped almonds, chopped pecans

Mix together. Add whatever add-ins you want. Dough will be sticky. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheets. Bake at 375° for 9 - 12 minutes, until set. Let cool on sheet. Makes about 3 - 4 dozen.

Reality vs. Wishful Thinking

So I'm doing one of my day jobs, those things necessary for paying bills and buying groceries - customer support for an iphone app company. I'm reading through emails complaining about our product. It happens. It's my job to try to fix problems and satisfy the customer. It's a frustrating racket most of the time for two reasons.

One, troubleshooting someone's internet connections on their iPhone when I have no idea what settings they use, who their provider is, or any of a million other variables, is a total crapshoot. Besides, I'm only supposed to troubleshoot our app, not their whole phone. That's what Apple support is for. But in the interest of keeping my boss and the customers happy, I do my best.

Two, customer assumptions about customer support are miles from reality. I've had customers complain that we are just too big and corporate, that we only care about raking in their hard-earned money. I fell off the couch laughing over that one. They assumed our customer support department was a large cubicle farm just full of eager customer support people, salivating over the chance to read their email the instant they sent it off.

Reality? It's me, on my couch, usually in my pj's, answering emails for about an hour a day. No, I don't answer them as they are sent. I have a life. I have three other jobs. I do my best to be polite, professional and helpful, but sometimes I just can't do what you want me to do. I can't send you a refund. I can't give you services that don't exist. I can't make an iPhone do something physically impossible.

So what does this have to do with my publishing career? Many new writers and most readers have misconceptions about the publishing world. I thought when I signed my first contract and did the final edit, my book would sell itself and I would be free to work on more writing. The truth? I spend two or three hours a day working on marketing, getting my book noticed, getting my name out there. Since I'm with a small press, I also deal with the automatic assumption that I'm self-published (a completely different topic and a very touchy one) or that I'm not really a professional because small presses don't offer large advances so therefore I must not be worth much as an author.

Truth is, I'm an author, as professional as any other. I write stories because I enjoy them. I publish them because I want to share them and make a living doing something I enjoy that doesn't involve customer support emails. I'm new, yes, to publishing and marketing. I'll make mistakes because I'm human. But if I want to be successful, it's up to me to sell my novel. And write the next one. And market that one. And so on.

So next time you make an assumption about an industry, it might not hurt to take a step back and look for the reality. And for pity's sake, give the poor person doing customer support a break. Courtesy is much appreciated in a usually thankless job.

Interview with Frances Pauli

Roarke by Frances Pauli

Published by Devine Destinies

Short Science Fiction Romance

Blurb: They have to be lying when they tell her she was dead. With no memory of her past, and no idea who she actually is, Nora has little options. Alone, and at the mercy of the Mercenary Defense Conglomerate, she searches for clues into her past, and the truth about her supposed demise.

If she is a prisoner, robbed of memory and held against her will, then she must trust no one. If she has, in fact, returned from the dead, then who could possibly help her? Armed with only her wits and her inexplicably sharpened senses, she is forced to play along, to search for the holes in their story, and to piece together the flashes of memory that serve only to taunt her.

But the visions seem to confirm the impossible. The man who is supposed to be her fiancé seems bent on confusing her, and the one person she is desperate to be near may very well be responsible for her death. If the silent Roarke is her enemy, why do her visions draw her closer to him? And why, when nothing else seems remotely familiar, does Nora find herself remembering, or wanting to remember only him?

Author Bio: Though she always held aspirations to be a writer, Frances originally chose to pursue a career in visual arts. Her stories, however, had other plans for her. By the time she entered her thirties, they were no longer content existing solely in her head. Compelled to free them, she set aside her easel and began to write in earnest

She currently resides smack in the center of Washington State with her husband and two children. When not writing she dabbles in insane things like puppetry, belly dance and playing the ukulele. She collects rocks, and is a firm believer in good wine, fine chocolate and dangerous men.

Her short fiction has appeared in Alternative Coordinates magazine.

More information on Frances and her writing can be found at www.francespauli.com

She offers a free online serial at: http://spaceslugserial.blogspot.com

As part of a blog tour, I had the opportunity to interview Frances. It's surprising how much we have in common.

On your website, you have a couple of books out and several more coming out this spring. Tell me about them.

My short story, The Alien Embrace was printed in two parts in the Summer and Fall issues of Alternative Coordinates magazine. The first novel in my Urban Fantasy trilogy, A Moth in Darkness, is due to be released in the fall. It’s set in a world where the boundaries between the Faerie and Mortal worlds have opened. My protagonist is a woman who has strong ties to the Fey races but suffers from an addiction to faerie food and reveling. This summer my futuristic romance, The Dimensional Shift, comes out. It features a maid who is hired to work in a hotel for inter-dimensional travelers. The sequel to Moth in Darkness is scheduled for release next summer, and of course, there is Roarke out now.

You mention romance in your descriptions. Do you write primarily romance or is it more of a sub-theme in your stories?

Most of my stories have at least a romantic sub-plot. I grew up reading Speculative Fiction, but sneaking over to Romance section from time to time when no one was looking. So I love mixing the two, but in some cases the book is definitely a Romance, and in others the love story is secondary.

I'm enjoying your free serial - Space Slugs (http://spaceslugserial.blogspot.com). What prompted you to write it?

Slugs is so much fun. I think of all the things I work on, the freebie is my favorite. I originally wrote the story as an incredibly short puppet play. I built a few of the puppets, in fact, and as I went along, the story kept expanding. When I started writing seriously, and decided to try a free serial, Slugs stood up and said, “Ahem, pick me please.”

You mention in your introduction that you have small children. With my own kids, I know how disruptive they can be. How do you balance writing and family?

Is hiding under the couch to write considered balance? Seriously, I steal writing moments every chance I get, but they come far too few and far between for my tastes. You learn to write in short sessions and to keep focused even when too much time passes between them. I also whine a lot and have a husband who takes what I do seriously and helps out…okay sometimes I have to cry a little. We’re lucky enough to have Grandma nearby as well, and she helps me squeeze in those mandatory work days when things absolutely have to be done on time.

I have to ask, what are your favorite bad 80's sci-fi movies? I'm also a fan with an extensive collection. What do you find most appealing about those movies?

My all time favorite would be SpaceHunter with Peter Strauss. I also love and own Ice Pirates, which may very well be one of the best of the worst. Honestly, I think the beauty in campy films comes from not taking themselves too seriously. They’re fun, and fun is rarely a bad thing in my book. There may be some nostalgia involved as well. I am a child of the 80’s. (where the good music comes from)

You write mainly science fiction, right? Where do you see the future of publishing in twenty years? Fifty? Five hundred?

That’s a can of worms waiting to be opened. I talk about this a bit on my blog, but usually only when I’m feeling “rant-y.” I think publishing will evolve, like all things do. Maybe it’s even a little overdue, in fact. And while I don’t believe that our generation will ever give up their print books, I have to lean toward the camp that says, eventually there will be a generation that does. Hey, I write Speculative fiction…I like to speculate. Print won’t go away easily, and it may exist for a very long time as a novelty. (Before the howling starts, I don’t think we’ll live to see it go away…) Still, I’m a Star Trek fan. I love the idea of the data pad—the slim, shiny all in one tablet. Even better if I can use it in space. If you still can’t imagine a world without print, hang out with some really young people—the ones who live by their I-pods and their hand held games and use their cellular phones to surf the internet. I believe we should be more worried about whether or not future generations will read than about how they will read. Personally, I think if stories plan on surviving, they’d better fit into that hand-held data pad.

Anything else you'd like to add?

We are running a contest along with the tour. Everyone who comments on the blogs gets an entry into the drawing. The more blogs you visit the more entries you get. You can find the details at my webpage: http://francespauli.com

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a true pleasure.

Thank you, Frances Pauli, for allowing us to peek into your life.