I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
Captain’s Log, Stardate 10.31.2011 While doing research on a new book proposal, I was reading a book set at Christmas and was inspired to make hot chocolate. But not just any hot chocolate--I wanted to try to reproduce the orgasmic (yes I just said orgasmic) hot chocolate that I had with my friends Allie Pleiter and Danica Favorite at City Bakery in New York City. Allie blogged about it at the bottom of this post. It was seriously that good. So I found several recipes and cobbled together this one: Pour 2 cups milk into a saucepan, whisk in 1 teaspoon cornstarch. Heat on medium heat until steaming, then add 12-13 ounces bar chocolate (not baking chocolate) chopped into small pieces. Whisk to melt the chocolate, enjoy with pretzels in lieu of the wonderful pretzel croissant we had at City Bakery. Unfortunately, while good, the hot chocolate was not thick enough. The City Bakery stuff literally globbed into the cup, it was that thick. Next time, I think I will add less milk an...