The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "The German Heiress" by Anika Scott, Served with a Recipe for Julia Child's Homemade Mashed Potatoes (with Butter & Parsley)

Happy Aloha Friday. Hope you are well and hanging in there this week. I am maintaining--dividing time between work and home and trying to focus on reading whenever I get a chance and can stay awake. Luckily I had no trouble staying up to finish the tense and absorbing The German Heiress, World War II historical fiction by Anika Scott. Accompanying my review is a recipe for Julia Child's Mashed Potatoes (with Butter and Parsley) inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Blurb:

Clara Falkenberg, once Germany’s most eligible and lauded heiress, earned the nickname “the Iron Fräulein” during World War II for her role operating her family’s ironworks empire. It’s been nearly two years since the war ended and she’s left with nothing but a false identification card and a series of burning questions about her family’s past. With nowhere else to run to, she decides to return home and take refuge with her dear friend, Elisa.

Narrowly escaping a near-disastrous interrogation by a British officer who’s hell-bent on arresting her for war crimes, she arrives home to discover the city in ruins, and Elisa missing. As Clara begins tracking down Elisa, she encounters Jakob, a charismatic young man working on the black market, who, for his own reasons, is also searching for Elisa.

Clara and Jakob soon discover how they might help each other—if only they can stay ahead of the officer determined to make Clara answer for her actions during the war.
Propulsive, meticulously researched, and action-fueled, The German Heiress is a mesmerizing page-turner that questions the meaning of justice and morality, deftly shining the spotlight on the often-overlooked perspective of Germans who were caught in the crossfire of the Nazi regime and had nowhere to turn.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (April 7, 2020)

My Review:

I do love my World War II historical fiction and I am always on the lookout for books that give me a different look or perspective of the war. The German Heiress certainly does that, told from the point of German characters after the war has ended. The main character is Clara, known as The Iron Fräulein, a young German woman who ran her family's ironworks during the war and was held up as an ideal by the Nazis even if she didn't share their beliefs. Clara has hidden away for two years and is looking for her friend while on the run from a dogged British officer who seems to have a personal interest in her capture. There's Jakob who lost his leg and much of his family to the war and is trying to support his two young sisters, one with a baby on the way. There is also Willy, a teen boy who has been hiding in an abandoned mine and thinks the battle is still raging eighteen months after Germany's defeat. These three characters are dealing with the repercussions of choices they made during a time where there were really no good or easy choices to make, and they are brought together in a story full of secrets, mystery and steadily rising tension that kept me turning the pages to the end. 

This is Anika Scott's first book and it is well researched and vividly told. Being the geek that I am, I was delighted to find a mention of the author's blog Postwar Germany | 1945-1949 (where she's gathered together much of her research) on her website. If you are interested in World War II history and the German experience, both The German Heiress and her website will have you fascinated. 

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Author Notes: Anika Scott was a journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chicago Tribune before moving to Germany, where she currently lives in Essen with her husband and two daughters. She has worked in radio, taught journalism seminars at an eastern German university, and written articles for European and American publications. Originally from Michigan, she grew up in a car industry family. This is her first novel.

Find out more about Anika at her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.


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Food Inspiration:

There is food in The German Heiress but not a lot--it is after all a time of war. Mentions included: bread, peppermint candy,schnapps, chestnuts, coffee and cake, pork (a character dreams of roasts, sausages, and stews thick with bacon), black bread, zwiebeck, noodles, rice, Linz marmalade, ersatz honey, turnips, dried pudding, coffee flavored chocolate, potato soup, ham, canned chopped pork, peas and carrots, soup,  fruit, beans, sugar, fish and dried meat, Knorr pea soup, sardines, vanillia pudding, eggs, bread with margarine, thin potato soup, canned carrots, turnips, chocolate, coffee with milk and biscuits, cognac, whiskey, Cadbury's Fruit and Nut bars, cookies--vanilla crescents, cinnamon stars, biscuits dented with anise and chocolates in sparkling paper, walnuts, oranges, cans of bully meat, condensed milk, oatmeal and hard biscuits, boiled sweets, wrinkled apples and lemons for tea, spices--cloves, nutmeg, peppercorns, caraway seeds, a cinnamon stick, hot toddy, marmalade and honey, and sausages. 

For my bookish dish, I decided on potatoes. When Jakob offers to get Clara lobster, oysters, and caviar, she instead asks for pork, potatoes with butter parsley sauce and white wine "as dry as a bone." Later in the book she is served a meal of meat in a bland sauce and heavenly mashed potatoes that warmed her stomach. I decided to combine the two potato dishes by adding parsley to Julia Child's Mashed Potato recipe.

Julia's Garlic Mashed Potatoes seems to be her more popular recipe but I found this one on Cookstr.com and felt like it was more in keeping with the book inspiration and my mashup of dishes. 

Cookstr says, "This easy mashed potato recipe from Julia Child will teach you everything you need to know about homemade mashed potatoes! Mashed potatoes are a staple on any holiday table, so this is an essential recipe to have in your arsenal. One of the secrets to this Homemade Mashed Potatoes recipe is to heat the milk or cream in a saucepan. Many people add cold milk to their hot potatoes, but this recipe will teach you to avoid that. Ricing the hot potatoes also help them to incorporate seamlessly with the milk, resulting in perfectly fluffy potatoes that the whole family will love." 

Julia Child's Homemade Mashed Potatoes
Slightly Adapted from The Way To Cook via Cookstr.com
(Serves 6)
4 to 5 large baking potatoes (I used 5 large Yukon Gold Potatoes)
salt
1/2 cup milk or cream, heated in a saucepan
2 or more Tbsp softened butter (I doubled the butter)
freshly ground white pepper
(I added 3 Tbsp chopped parsley)

Preliminary Cooking: You may bake or steam the potatoes whole before mashing them, or boil them in pieces as suggested here. Wash and peel the potatoes and cut into quarters. Set in a saucepan with lightly salted water to cover (l½ teaspoons salt per quart of water). Bring to the boil, cover loosely, and boil 10 to 15 minutes or longer, until potatoes are tender when pierced with a knife. Cut a piece in half and eat a bit to be sure they are just done; undercooked potatoes will not mash properly. Drain the water out of the pan (you may wish to save it for soup making); toss the potatoes over moderate heat for a moment, until they begin to film the pan; this is to evaporate excess moisture.

Mashing: While still warm, either put the potatoes through a ricer (my preference) and return to the pan, or place in the large bowl of your electric mixer and, using the wire whip attachment and moderate speed; puree them with ¼ cup of the milk and/or cream.

Seasoning: Beat in driblets of hot milk and/or cream, alternating with ½ tablespoons of butter—careful not to make them too soft. Season with salt and pepper to taste. The sooner you can serve them, the better.

Make Ahead Note: If you cannot serve at once, beat in only a minimum of milk, etc. (Turn the potatoes into a saucepan if you have used an electric mixer.) Set in another pan of hot but not simmering water, and cover the potatoes loosely—they must stay warm to retain their fresh quality, and they must have air circulation or they develop an off-taste. At serving time, bring the water to the simmer, beating the potatoes with a wooden spoon; then beat in more hot milk or cream and soft butter to your taste.

Notes/Results: Oh yeah, there's nothing wrong with super buttery, super creamy mashed potatoes and these are definitely that. Excellent comfort food and the leftovers (yes I did leave some) are going to be mixed with canned salmon, coated in panic and fried up as fish and potato cakes. I love garlic mashed potatoes and will try Julia's recipe at some point but I'd be perfectly happy making these again.

Linking up with I Heart Cooking Clubs where this month we are featuring Needs Must Cooking making any recipe we want from our current featured chef, Julia Child and/or any of our other 19 chefs, and adjusting ingredients to what we have on hand.

I'm also sharing it at the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "The German Heiress" was provided to me by the author and the publisher Harper Collins via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for my review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.  You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.

 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "Ghosts of the Missing" by Kathleen Donohoe, Served with a Recipe for Potato Salad

Happy Aloha Friday! it's been a long week with the first few days of the week sending off house guests and a busy work week. I am looking forward to the weekend and kicking it off with being today's stop on the TLC Book Tour for Ghosts of the Missing, a new novel by Kathleen Donohoe. Accompanying my review, is a recipe for potato salad, somewhat inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Blurb:

In the vein of The Lovely Bones and The Little Friend, Ghosts of the Missing follows the mysterious disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl during a town parade and the reverberations of this tragedy throughout the town.

On Saturday, October 28, 1995, a girl vanished. She was not a child particularly prized in town…When questioned by reporters, those who’d known Rowan described her as ‘quiet’ and ‘loner’ and ‘shy’ and even ‘awkward.’ Words for pity.

Culleton, New York has a long history—of writers, of artists, and of unsolved mysteries. It’s where Adair grew up before she moved to Brooklyn to try to make it as an artist. But after years away from her hometown and little to show for it, Adair decides to return. She moves back in to Moye House, the old mansion, and current writer’s retreat, imbued with her family’s legacy.

Ciaran is a writer staying at Moye House in the hopes of finally solving the mystery of what happened to Rowan Kinnane—his sister, and Adair’s childhood best friend. As the two begin investigating, secrets long buried rise to the surface, complicating their sense of themselves and their understanding of what happened on that fateful day.

With her “knack for capturing heartbreaking moments with a gripping simplicity” (Village Voice), Kathleen Donohoe lures us into a haunting world of secrets and obsessions and shows just how far people will go in search of the truth.

Paperback: 320 pages  
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (February 11, 2020)

My Review:

I went into this book drawn by the publisher's blurb and comparisons to The Lovely Bones, and the mystery tag. It wasn't quite what I expected going into it, there is a mystery but it proves to be more atmospheric and tragic than suspenseful. It's a beautifully written story that meanders along and ties in Irish folklore with a more modern disappearance of a twelve-year-old girl (Rowan) in 1995 and then goes back and forth, mostly between that time and 2010 when her best friend (Adair) comes back to the small town of Culleton, New York and her home there--Moye House, a writer's retreat--wanting to regroup and to find out what happened to Rowan. There are family curses, many family secrets, and characters from both past and present to understand and unwind. Reading it reminded me of trying to put together a puzzle on a lazy afternoon; trying different pieces to see how they fit together, and having the picture slowly unfold. The prose and pacing lean more to literary fiction than mystery, so if you want the thrills, look in another direction but if you want a misty, almost fairy tale vibe, it's a lovely read.

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Author Notes: KATHLEEN DONOHOE is the author of Ashes of Fiery Weather. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Recorder, New York Stories, and Washington Square Review. She serves on the Board of Irish American Writers & Artists. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.

Find out more about Kathleen at her website, and connect with her on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.



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Food Inspiration:

There was very little food and therefore food inspiration in the book but mentions of food and drink did include red berries (rowan berries), wine, Campbell's tomato soup, tea, roast beef sandwiches and potato salad, beer, coffee, pumpkin carving and bobbing for apples. coke, orange juice, slicing vegetables and lettuce, strawberries, and apple-cinnamon donuts.

Since the there are Irish characters and culture in the book, I thought about making an Irish dish as my bookish dish but ultimately I decided to go with potato salad--passed around with roast beef sandwiches at a funeral towards the beginning of the book. I'll be honest, I made it more because I wanted potato salad than its meaningful presence in the story. ;-)

I kept in simple--an old-fashioned potato salad but I made it pop a bit with some sweety drop peppers from the olive bar at my local grocery store (purchased along with the cornichons) as a nod to the red rowan berries.

 

Potato Salad
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen
(Makes 4-6 Servings)

About 2 lbs white or Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled
3 hard boiled eggs, peeled and coarsely chopped
3 green onions, chopped, white & green parts separated
1/3 cup sweety drop peppers or pimento
1/4 cup cornichons or baby dill pickles, sliced 
1 Tbsp capers, rinsed
2/3 cup mayonnaise of choice
2 tsp yellow mustard or to taste
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
1/2 tsp celery salt
1/2 tsp smoked paprika
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cut the potatoes into quarter or large chunks and place in pot of cold, lightly salted water. Bring to a boil and simmer 10 minutes, or until potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork. Drain. Run potatoes under cold water to cool. Drain, chop into 3/4-inch chunks and set aside. 

Place the eggs, white part of onions, peppers, cornichons and capers in a large bowl. Add mayonnaise, mustard, apple cider vinegar, celery salt, paprika, and salt and pepper to taste. and gently sir to combine. Fold in the potatoes and most of the green onion tops. Garnish with the remaining green onion tops and a sprinkling of paprika.

Cover the potato salad and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving--if you make it ahead, it tastes even better on the second day. Keep refrigerated in an airtight container for up to one week.

Notes/Results: Just a simple potato salad with lots of bright tang from the mustard, vinegar, peppers, cornichons and capers--just the way I like it, and creamy without being gloppy. I made a relatively small batch because otherwise I would sit and eat potato salad for days. ;-) I will happily make it again.

Linking up this potato salad here at Kahakai Kitchen for this week's Souper (Soup, Salad & Sammie Sundays). We share soup, salad and sandwiches each week--join in if you have one!

I'm also sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "Ghosts of the Missing" was provided to me by the author and the publisher via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.  

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.

 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "The Hollows" by Jess Montgomery, Served with Corn Pone Cakes with Apricot Jam

I am very excited to be a stop on the TLC Book Tour for The Hollows by Jess Montgomery, the second book in her Kinship series of historical mysteries. Accompanying my review are some Corn Pone cakes, topped with jam, inspired by my reading. 

Publisher's Blurb:

Jess Montgomery showcases her skills as a storyteller in The Hollows: a powerful, big-hearted and exquisitely written follow-up to her highly acclaimed debut The Widows.

Ohio, 1926: For many years, the railroad track in Moonvale Tunnel has been used as a shortcut through the Appalachian hills. When an elderly woman is killed walking along the tracks, the brakeman tells tales of seeing a ghostly female figure dressed all in white.

Newly elected Sheriff Lily Ross is called on to the case to dispel the myths. With the help of her friends Marvena Whitcomb and Hildy Cooper, Lily follows the woman’s trail to The Hollows–a notorious asylum–and they begin to expose dark secrets long-hidden by time and the mountains.

Series: The Kinship Series (Book 2) 
Hardcover: 352 pages 
Publisher: Minotaur Books (January 14, 2020)

My Review: 

I will confess that because I enjoyed Montgomery's The Widows, (the first book in her series) so much, I was bitterly disappointed that I somehow missed being on the tour for The Hollows and made my disappointment known on TLC Book Tour's Instagram page. Thankfully, Lisa was able to get me a last-hour e-book copy and a tour date. (While not dignified, pouting can work!). ;-) It does mean no pretty book cover shots so I had to cut and paste a bit, but needs must. So with that start, in the back of my mind was whether this second book would be as good as the first and worth the fuss, and I am happy to report that it is. The Hollows turned out to be even better than The Widows, and an engrossing read. Set in 1926s, Lily Ross is still the sheriff of Kinship, Ohio (due to her husband's murder the previous year, covered in the first book) and is facing a contentious reelection, when she investigates a woman hit by a train by the Moonvale Tunnel, outside of town. When it turns out that the elderly woman was very likely pushed to her death, Lily's investigation starts unraveling long-buried secrets just as her campaign is heating up, the local mine is integrating, and a group of the Women's Ku Klux Klan (WKKK) is stirring up violence and trouble in the community. 

I think what made this book so fascinating to me was the WKKK as I knew almost nothing about these women who used the suffrage movement to advance their recruitment, and used their political power, protest, and violent acts to promote traditional roles and values and preserve their white protestant rights and privileges. I ended up looking up additional information on the WKKK and its activities, prompted by this book and that is something that I love about historical fiction. Montgomery's afterward mentions that although she did not find direct evidence of the WKKK in the location the book is set, Ohio has a state with a strong presence of the group in the 1920s. I enjoyed getting back to the characters of Lily Ross and her friends Marvena and Hildy. Montgomery makes their stories compelling, and I appreciate both their strengths and the fact that they are not perfect--each struggles with the constraints put on them from the era but fights hard for her beliefs and for justice. The mystery in the book was good and kept me guessing--(although I did successfully predict some parts), and the tension built kept me not wanting to put it down until the end. If you like historical fiction and mysteries, strong female characters, and rural America in the 1920s, the Kinship series is excellent. Start with The Widows so that you get all of the back story of the characters and their relationships.

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Author Notes: Jess Montgomery is the Literary Life columnist for the Dayton Daily News and Executive Director of the renowned Antioch Writers’ Workshop in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Based on early chapters of The Widows, Jess was awarded an Ohio Arts Council individual artist’s grant for literary arts and the John E. Nance Writer-in-Residence at Thurber House in Columbus. She lives in her native state of Ohio.

You can connect with Jess on her website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Food Inspiration:

There is a good amount of food mentioned in The Hollows including pawpaws, coffee, sorghum cookies, sandwiches, a garden full of tomato, squash and pole beans, soup beans, corn pone and dried-apple stack cake, sassafras, elderberry, chamomile, and peppermint teas, canned peas, tomato aspic, bacon and buttermilk biscuits, 
a sandwich of ham, butter and greens between sliced corn pone, applesauce,
scrambled eggs and fried green tomatoes, chicken and dumplings with biscuits, Campbell's tomato soup all the way from Columbus, apple cake, a bologna sandwich, vinegar pie, hot milk with a dollop of brown sugar, ham salad sandwiches, briny pickles, penny candy, a jar of licorice, biscuits and jam, string beans, sugar cookies, lemonade, fried chicken and potato salad, a breakfast of leftover corn pone and buttermilk, a taffy pull cookies and tea, strawberries, eggs, potato pierogies and a poke salad, canned late harvest tomatoes, sorghum and sugar cream pies, a meal "heavy and exotic" in an Italian restaurant in the city of "soup with meatballs and spinach, salad with black olives, lasagna rich with mozzarella cheese, garlicky breadsticks, and a dessert she's never heard of before: a slice of zuccotto, a cream-filled sponge cake topped with chocolate icing," chicken noodle soup and a roll, ham, green tomato pie, bone broth, and a four-tiered wedding cake. 

Recipe Inspiration:  

I ended up picking corn pone (an eggless cornbread, fried or baked) or my bookish dish as it appears throughout the book as a side, breakfast, sandwich, etc. and I had all I needed to make this simple staple food. I decided to make it into round, biscuit-like shapes (a nod to all of the biscuits in the book) and top them with jam. I had a jar of apricot jam open, so that's what I used.There were a plethora of recipes on line but I went with a really basic one from Cookstr from Southern Chef, Edna Lewis.

"The rather stiff batter would be shaped with both hands, fingers closed, to make a large egg shape — the shape of your hand. The pones were about 3 inches wide, and were placed an inch apart on a baking sheet. Baked in a fairly hot oven, when done they were golden brown in color and very crusty outside, which made them more delicious. We would cut them in half and butter them."

Corn Pone
Recipe from The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis, via Cookstr.com
(Makes 4 Pones--about 3-in wide, 1 1/2-in tall and 4-in long)

2 cups water-ground white cornmeal
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp melted lard or butter

Sift the meal, baking powder, and salt into a mixing bowl. Add the water and milk. Stir well, add melted fat, and let the mixture rest for 10 minutes.

Then take the batter and shape it into pones by cupping both hands together and patting it into form.

Place each pone upon a baking sheet an inch apart from the others and bake in a preheated 375 degrees F oven for 15 to 20 minutes — no longer or the bread will dry out.

Notes/Results: OK, I am more a fan of the softer, bready cornbread than this tougher biscuit, but warm, buttered and topped with apricot preserves, these were a tasty little snack. I can see how some of the recipe additions like milk or bacon fat would be appealing in upping the corn pone flavor profile. Still, quick and easy and if you keep cornmeal in your pantry, a good biscuit substitute when you *need* one.

I'm sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "The Hollows" was provided to me by the author and the publisher via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for this review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own.  

You can see the stops for the rest of this TLC Book Tour and what other reviewers thought about the book here.

 

The Book Tour Stops Here: A Review of "St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets" by Annie England Noblin, Served with Sweet Potato Waffle Fries with Two Dipping Sauces

I am happy to be today's stop on the TLC Book Tour for St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets, a new novel by Annie England Noblin. Accompanying my review are some Sweet Potato Waffle Fries with recipes for two dipping sauces--Smoked Paprika & Garlic Aioli and Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce, inspired by my reading.

Publisher's Blurb:

If you love Susan Mallery and Jill Shalvis, you won’t want to miss this new novel of second chances, dogs, and knitting, from the author of Pupcakes and Sit! Stay! Speak!

Laid off, cheated on, mugged: what else can go wrong in Maeve Stephens’ life? So when she learns her birth mother has left her a house, a vintage VW Beetle, and a marauding cat, in the small town of Timber Creek, Washington, she packs up to discover the truth about her past.

She arrives to the sight of a cheerful bulldog abandoned on her front porch, a reclusive but tempting author living next door, and a set of ready-made friends at the St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets, where women knit colorful sweaters for the dogs and cats in their care. But there’s also an undercurrent of something that doesn’t sit right with Maeve. What’s the secret (besides her!) that her mother had hidden?

If Maeve is going to make Timber Creek her home, she must figure out where she fits in and unravel the truth about her past. But is she ready to be adopted again—this time, by an entire town…?

 Paperback: 384 pages 

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks; Reprint edition (January 14, 2020)

My Review:

I signed up for the tour based on the title, the description and the cover because I like a good small town, rebuild-you-life, animal-filled story with secrets and while that is in the book, the pets take a backseat to the drama involving the main character Maeve, her birth mother Annabelle and some of the people Maeve meets when she travels from Seattle to Timber Creek Washington to attend Annabelle's funeral. Maeve's life was in disarray before she receives a call from Alice, her birth mother's best friend, letting her know Annabelle has died and inviting her to the funeral. Maeve had never met Annabelle and is bitter because she tried to reach out to her when she was a teenager and her letters were returned but she heads to Timber Creek for closure and to find out more about this mysterious woman who gave her away. Upon her arrival she finds out Annabelle has left her house and worldly possessions and becomes involved with the people who knew her best, uncovering more about Annabelle and about the people in the small town she is quickly becoming attached to. 

Although not quite as light as I thought it was going to be because of some darker themes of abuse and domestic violence, St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets was an enjoyable read. There is humor, a few pets wearing sweaters, romance and mystery worked in. I liked Maeve and her sense of humor as well as the supporting characters. The story is told from Maeve's point of view with chapters from Annabelle's past woven through the story, helping the secrets unfold. I wanted a bit more from the book's ending--although things were wrapped up, it happened rather quickly and I felt it could have been drawn out a bit more given the investment of pages building to the conclusion. Also, and not to be picky because I did receive an uncorrected proof for review, there was a big plot continuity error that threw me off and had me going back to reread what transpired multiple times, and then questioning some of what I read after that chapter to reconcile it in my mind. I can't imagine that it made it into the final version, but it will have me grab the published book when I see it and check. Despite these things, the story-telling and characters made the book for me and the darker spots are not overwrought or excessive. I found myself caught up in the story and not wanting to leave it. This is the first book I have read from this author and I will be checking out her other titles. I'd love to see more set in Timber Creek too. If you like women's fiction, drama, books set small towns with quirky characters, and a good balance of humor and poignancy, I'm sure you will like it too.


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Author Notes: Annie England Noblin lives with her son, husband, and three dogs in the Missouri Ozarks. She graduated with an M.A. in creative writing from Missouri State University and currently teaches English and communications for Arkansas State University in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She spends her free time playing make-believe, feeding stray cats, and working with animal shelters across the country to save homeless dogs.

Find out more about Annie at her website, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

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Food Inspiration:

There was food mentioned in St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets, but not a lot of it. Mentions did include hot dogs, and chili dogs, cake and ice cream, red wine, Bud Light, pizza, white wine, a dainty salad with vinaigrette dressing on the side, pork chops smothered in gravy, salad with ranch dressing, mushrooms, Doritos and Pepsi, Tab and Corn Nuts, hamburgers, sweet potato fries and draft beer, a bagel and a glass of orange juice, "powdered eggs and sad looking bacon," energy bars, avocados, fruits and vegetables, Toaster Strudel, Diet Coke, barbecue, an energy drink, donuts and coffee, a granola bar and tea.

For my book-inspired dish, I went with food that was mentioned several times from the local bar and restaurant--Three Sheets. It seemed like hamburgers and sweet potato fries ruled the menu in the town of Timber Creek. Since I don't eat meat and hamburgers, I decided to focus on the sweet potato fries and more importantly some good dipping sauces. I know that I could bake or fry up my own sweet potato fries but frankly, it seemed too much bother and I really like these Alexia Waffle Cut Sweet Potato Seasoned Fries and they just happened to be on sale this week at my local grocery store. That meant I just needed to bake them crisp and make some sauces. 

I love garlic aioli and make a spicy sriracha version that I have featured before. I decided to leave some of the spice out of this one and season it with garlic and smoked paprika instead. or my second sauce, I prefer honey-mustard when it is slightly mellowed out and creamy with some mayo in it. My toss-together recipes are below.

Smoked Paprika Aioli 
by Deb, Kahakai Kitchen
(Makes 1/2 Cup)

1/2 cup of your favorite mayonnaise (you can sub in sour cream or yogurt if preferred)
1 tsp fresh lemon juice or to taste
1 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp roasted garlic powder
1 tsp smoked paprika, or to taste
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper


In a small bowl, stir all ingredients together until well mixed. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve. 


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Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce
By Deb, Kahakai Kitchen
(Makes About 2/3 Cup) 

1/2 cup mayonnaise of choice 
1 Tbsp spicy deli-style mustard
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp yellow mustard
1 1/2 Tbsp honey, or to taste
1 tsp lemon juice

In a small bowl, stir all ingredients together until well mixed. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Notes/Results:  Yeah, I ate a half-bag of the waffle fries for dinner and wished I'd made the entire bag! ;-) They went down too easily dipped in the sauces. The aioli is my favorite as smoked paprika and garlic are two of my favorite ingredients but the honey mustard was tasty too and will make an excellent salad dressing thinned out a bit. I would happily make both sauces again.

I'm sharing this post with the Weekend Cooking event at Beth Fish Reads, a weekly event that is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share. For more information, see the welcome post.

Note: A review copy of "St. Francis Society for Wayward Pets" was provided to me by the author and the publisher, Harper Collins, via TLC Book Tours. I was not compensated for my review and as always, my thoughts and opinions are my own. 
 
You can see the other stops for this TLC Book Tour and what other bloggers thought of the book here.