THE JAMES MASON COMMUNITY BOOK CLUB discussion

Today Paula Petty, on Paula's Coppers, is interviewing two of my characters, one from each series at http://www.paulapetty.com/paulas-copp.... I hope you have a moment to stop in and leave a comment, because it was a lot of fun to do and I think you'll enjoy the interview.

Thank you,

Marja McGraw

I write a blog about vegan lifestyle, recipes, fashion and a little traveling. You can read it at

www.carrottopvegan.com

Thanks for reading
Farrah

I have a blog that started out as a way to help authors promote their books, featuring book reviews, interviews, giveaways etc. Now that I am published, it does have some info about my writing as well :)

Juniper Grove http://junipergrove.wordpress.com

New story on my blog:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

This week I put up kind of a silly blog (not the subject, but the way it's written). It's about judging books by anything other than the quality of the writing and story. If you have a moment you can find it at http://blog.marjamcgraw.com/ .

Have a great week!

Marja McGraw

as usual - great blogs all!

Farrah wrote: "I write a blog about vegan lifestyle, recipes, fashion and a little traveling. You can read it at

www.carrottopvegan.com

Thanks for reading
Farrah"

very interesting blog Farrah
just wanted to post link so others can click on it

http://carrottopvegan.blogspot.com/

Baby Lisa Case: Things Do Not Add Up

Please see my blog and share your thoughts:
http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

Thanks,

Michael Tabman

Rick wrote: "Farrah wrote: "I write a blog about vegan lifestyle, recipes, fashion and a little traveling. You can read it at

www.carrottopvegan.com

Thanks for reading
Farrah"

very interesting blog Farrah
j..."

Thanks Rick! :)

Michael wrote: "Baby Lisa Case: Things Do Not Add Up

Please see my blog and share your thoughts:
http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

Thanks,

[author:Mi..."

quite excellent insights Michael! commented on your blog

Farrah wrote: "Rick wrote: "Farrah wrote: "I write a blog about vegan lifestyle, recipes, fashion and a little traveling. You can read it at

www.carrottopvegan.com

Thanks for reading
Farrah"
very welcome Farrah!

very inter..."

If you need something to brighten your day, please check out Paula Petty's guest blog at http://blog.marjamcgraw.com/ . She interesting and she's funny.

Thank you,

Marja McGraw

Hi all,
I just wanted to let you know that I'll be hosting a series of guest visits at my blog by fellow Colorado and/or mystery authors. Last week romantic mystery/suspense author Terry Odell answered my interview questions, and this week Wyoming quilting mystery author Barbara Graham will do so on Wednesday.

See: http://bethgroundwater.blogspot.com/

The current post that's up is the cover art for my May, 2012 release Wicked Eddies. I'd love to get your feedback on it!

Hey everyone, I got two blogs for you to check out.
The first is my profile here on Goodreads which includes a Q&A section, blog posts and stories and my own personal website.

Justin Bienvenue

Http://jbienvenue.webs.com/

My blog (Visions and Revisions) is mostly writing related. I do author interviews sometimes, and guest posts, book promotion, etc., but it's still mostly about writing! :-D

http://marionsipe.blogspot.com/

If you have a chance to stop in today at http://socratesbookreviews.blogspot.c..., I have a blog up about books I wish I'd written. Please leave a comment, and I hope to see you there.

Marja McGraw

My blog is The Great Raven, http://suebursztynski.blogspot.com. I review mostly children's and YA books and publish the occasional interview with a YA writer (those, so far, have been done by my students as a Book Club activity and there are two girls in my English class who have prepared some questions for a writer as a creative response to a novel they read for Literature Circles). Now and then I even promote my own books. ;-)

This site will raise eyebrows and probably have me thrown out of the club.

http://sites.google.com/site/yachtsenta/

My wife and I have crossed the Indian Ocean three times under sail. Yah, just the two of us idiots. Our children grew up and left home, so we left home too. On the cheap.

Not quite a blog, but there are 40 stories on the site and over 100 photographs covering our adventures. All put together by Faith, my other half.

Including pink porpoises in the South China Sea off the coast of Borneo.

No, my nose is not growing like Pinochio's. We photographed them and their pix are in the Kuching to Kinabalu voyage. But bubble-gum pink hey. The pic is a bit blown out.

I have also been snorkling under the boat, checking the rudder, when a sea snake swam over my head and passed within six inches of my face. I didn't get a photo of that and it didn't help to wet my pants because they were already wet.

The boat is 33 years old and we live aboard. We get by on about $1200 per month. My son calls me a beach bum, tee-hee.

Pierre.

Pierre wrote: "This site will raise eyebrows and probably have me thrown out of the club.

http://sites.google.com/site/yachtsenta/

My wife and I have crossed the Indian Ocean three times under sail. Yah, just t..."

WOW! what a great site! loved the pics- and still so many more to go through- must be amazing to have the freedom to sail to all those amazing places!

your son may call you a beach bum (lovingly I am sure!)Pierre- I call you a very lucky man!! A wonderful wife, great books and the joy that sailing and the ocean brings!

Seven Billion (new blog post)

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

I'm only recently in the Blog Scene.
http://behindamillionandonepages.blog...
Thoughts and Suggestions welcome

This week I'm offering something a little different. Meet Michelle Randall, who's a reader, not a writer. You might enjoy some of her comments, so please stop in at http://blog.marjamcgraw.com/ and leave a comment.

Marja McGraw

Pierre wrote: "This site will raise eyebrows and probably have me thrown out of the club.

http://sites.google.com/site/yachtsenta/

My wife and I have crossed the Indian Ocean three times under sail. Yah, just t..."

What an interesting life you have...

I look forward to reading the blog!

Why I Go Somewhere Else For Thanksgiving Dinner

One year, Maggie and I decided to host the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
Although we were both in our sixties, neither of us had done it before, but how hard could it be. I'd watched my mom and grandma do it for years.
The special day finally arrived.
“Ok, I’m ready to tackle this beast,” I proclaimed, and I ripped into the shrink-wrap.
After the bird was fully exposed, I noticed the corner of a bag sticking out of his rear end.
“Hey, somebody hid something inside our turkey,” I exclaimed.
Maggie came over to take a look. “Oh silly, nobody hid anything. Those are the giblets.”
“The what?”
“Giblets! You know, some of the inside parts of the turkey.”
“What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Well, I think you can make things with them, like stuffing and gravy.”
“Hold on a minute. I don’t EVER remember Grandma putting giblets in her gravy. That just doesn’t sound right.”
So I dried my hands, grabbed my dictionary and looked up ‘giblets’. According to Mr. Webster, “giblets are the edible offal of a fowl including the heart, gizzard, liver and other visceral organs.”
I nearly fainted.
“I’m sorry Maggie, but no giblets will ever be eaten in my house or in my presence. I hope that’s not a deal breaker.”
“I think I can live with that,” she replied.
I returned to the turkey, shoved my hand up his butt and pulled out the bag of giblets. For curiosity’s sake, I cut open the bag to take a look.
I shouldn’t have done that. There’s just some things that ought not be seen.
Sure enough, the inner plumbing of Tom Turkey spewed forth onto my countertop --- and something else too.
A stiff piece of grisly meat about six inches long sat there staring me in the face.
“Holy Crap!” I exclaimed. “Come here and look at this! That looks like --- No! Surely they wouldn’t put a turkey’s ----- in the bag!”
“No, silly” Maggie replied. “That’s his neck.”
“This is just WRONG in so many ways.”
After disposing of the offending offal, I turned my attention to the cooking instructions I had pulled off the Internet.
“How To Cook A Turkey in 3 Easy Steps.”
Step 1: Preheat oven to 325 degrees and select a 3-4 inch-deep roaster pan with lid. Cooking time: 15 minutes per pound.
Step one seems pretty easy.
Step 2: For golden brown skin, spread butter evenly and season to taste with salt, pepper, garlic or rosemary.
No problem.
I dipped into the ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter’ tub and under Maggie’s watchful eye, started lathering the bird’s ample breasts.
“Hmmm, this feels kind of good,” I murmured and gave Maggie my ‘sly, whadda you think’ look.
“Don’t even THINK about it, Buster,” she shot back.
“OK, OK, I’ll be good. Can you get me the salt and pepper and see what’s in my spice rack?”
“Nothing here but crab boil and taco seasoning. But you do have salt and pepper.”
“Well it says ‘season to taste’ and we both love tacos. How about we make Mexicali Turkey?”
I’ll bet nobody’s tried that before.
So I liberally coated the buttered breasts with salt, pepper and Old El Paso, and he was ready for Step 3, bake and baste.
“What about the stuffing? Aren’t you going to make stuffing?”
“O yea, stuffing. I almost forgot. How do you make it?”
Seeing the blank look on Maggie’s face, I muttered, “Well, back to the Internet.”
After an exhaustive search, we discovered there were two methods of stuffing preparation, pan and bird.
We went back to the kitchen and took a look up Tom’s rear end.
“Isn’t that where the offal came from?” I asked.
Getting an affirmative nod from Maggie, I made an executive decision on the spot.
“Pan it is!” I said.
Maggie didn’t argue.
Besides, I can’t ever remember my grandma digging stuffing out of the turkey’s butt.
Satisfied with our preparation thus far, we plopped the bird in the oven and turned our attention to the stuffing.
“OK, it says to chop up onion and celery and sauté in melted butter. Let’s see what’s in the vegetable bin.”
I had an onion, but the only other green thing was a head of lettuce.
“Aren’t celery and lettuce in the same food group?” I asked. “I mean they’re both green and both a vegetable.”
How can you argue with logic like that?
So we chopped up the onion and lettuce and while they were boiling in the butter, we checked out the next ingredient, bread. More precisely, stuffing bread.
“What’s stuffing bread?”
Another blank look.
I checked the breadbox and found a loaf of Wonder White Bread fortified with vitamins and minerals.
“If we use this in our stuffing, doesn’t it then become ‘stuffing bread’ by definition?”
Again, how can you argue with the logic?
So we cut the Wonder Bread in little cubes and added them to our boiling vegetable mix per the instructions.
Next step, ‘add two cups of stock’.
“What’s stock?”
“Well, I think it’s some kind of meat juice or gravy that comes in a can. I remember seeing cans of ‘beef stock’ and ‘chicken stock’ on the grocery shelf next to the soups.”
We looked in the cabinet and found a can of Campbell’s Beef Barley soup and a can of Campbell’s Creamy Chicken Noodle soup.
“Since this is a fowl dish, I vote we go with the chicken noodle.”
More culinary logic.
We opened the can and sure enough there was a creamy liquid.
“Looks like stock to me,” I said.
“Are you going to drain it?”
“Why? Aren’t bread and noodles almost the same thing? We’ve got a huge crowd coming today. This will add a little more body to the dish.”
So into the pan went the soup.
The final step was to add poultry seasoning.
Having already exposed the deficiencies in my spice rack, we knew the only thing left was crab boil.
We looked at each other.
“What do you think?”
“Well, it’s going to be pretty bland without some kind of seasoning.”
So into the pot it went.
After mixing the gooey mess, we plopped it in a baking pan. Ready for the oven.
So far, so good.
The remainder of the morning was spent with last minute cleaning, showering, shaving and make-up sandwiched around our hourly basting duties.
The directions said to remove the lid during the final hour of cooking to ensure a golden brown skin. So off came the lid.
Our creative recipes had produced a rather unusual aroma that permeated the apartment. There was the essence of Taco Bell laced with a hint of Joe’s Crab Shack. Not exactly what I remembered from Grandma’s kitchen.
By 12:30, it was time for the bird to come out of the oven.
Beautiful!
Guests would be arriving soon, so it was time for the final preparations.
Then it hit me.
GRAVY!
I can’t ever remember a Thanksgiving without turkey gravy.
OK, think. How did Grandma make gravy?
I remembered seeing her add three ingredients, milk, flour and the greasy stuff out of the bottom of the turkey pan. We have all of that --- I think.
We pulled Tom out of the pan and several inches of rich, greasy turkey broth covered the bottom of the pan.
I went to the cabinet to look for flour and came up empty. I couldn’t remember when I had bought flour. I don’t bake.
But there on the shelf, next to my Top Ramen Noodles was my answer --- Aunt Jemima.
OK, so it’s pancake mix, but flour is flour, right?
I kept dumping Aunt Jemima in the turkey grease until I had a thick brown paste. I put the pan on the stove and added milk. I was ready to cook it down to a rich smooth texture. It made my mouth water.
At last everything was ready.
Our guests had arrived, each with their own special dish, and sat expectantly awaiting the holiday feast.
I looked at the food on the table: Mexicali turkey, Wonderbread crab paste, Aunt Jemima gravy, hockey puck rolls, chitlins, and enough pumpkin pie with strawberry Cool Whip to feed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
And, of course, we had the perfect wine paring, Arbor Mist. It goes good with everything.
Not exactly the traditional Thanksgiving I remembered from my youth, but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world.

*************************************************************

An excerpt from Robert Thornhill’s Lady Justice mystery/comedy series
For more information and reviews, go to http://BooksByBob.com

Submitted by:
Robert Thornhill
21312 E. 37th Terr Ct S
Independence, Mo 64057
660-383-6011
[email protected]

I don't think I have ever laughed so hard. Thank you for that!

My pleasure!

Justin Bienvenue-Goodreads

Http://jbienvenue.webs.com/

Robert wrote: "My pleasure!"

Hilarious! Would you consider catering Thanksgiving dinner at my house?

If you're into Mexicali turkey and Aunt Jemima gravy, I might consider it!

Here's my blog: http://cliff1974.wordpress.com

Hello everyone.

Just interviewed fabulous James Thompson on my blog, and would love to share it here. Please pop in for a chat here: http://www.junyingkirk.com/

Thanks!

Robert wrote: "Why I Go Somewhere Else For Thanksgiving Dinner

One year, Maggie and I decided to host the traditional Thanksgiving dinner.
Although we were both in our sixties, neither of us had done it befor..."

I agree!! wonderful post Robert!!

Junying wrote: "Hello everyone.

Just interviewed fabulous James Thompson on my blog, and would love to share it here. Please pop in for a chat here: http://www.junyingkirk.com/

Thanks!"

excellent interview!! Graham Greene references facinating

Thank you so much for reading and commenting on my blog post. It's great to have such a wonderful writer like James who has great stories to tell and offers insights into the life of a crime fiction author, as well as many sharp observations.

If you have a moment, please stop in at Susan Whitfield's Blog today at www.susanwhitfield.blogspot.com. She's done an interview with me, and you might learn a few new things about me and my books.

Thank you,

Marja McGraw

Marja wrote: "If you have a moment, please stop in at Susan Whitfield's Blog today at www.susanwhitfield.blogspot.com. She's done an interview with me, and you might learn a few new things about me and my books...."

Thanks for popping in to my blog, Marja. I visited yours as well, and it's very interesting. I've got a few Harlan Coben books on my reading list too :)

Thanks to this list, I've read some pretty good blogs. You did a great job with this one, Junying.

Marja wrote: "Thanks to this list, I've read some pretty good blogs. You did a great job with this one, Junying."

Thanks. Yours is pretty cool too:).

My blog is random thoughts and book reviews (mostly book reviews) http://monkspoint.wordpress.com/

Hey everyone, check out my books FB page @ http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mac...

Im always posting stuff on what im doing so if your interested please feel free to follow, and comments are always appreciated!

Did you know that Kaboucha Squash is considered an aphrodisiac? Check it out at http://carrottopvegan.blogspot.com

Dorothy Bodoin talks about her Plot Notebook and where some of her story ideas came from this morning. I hope you'll check it out at http://blog.marjamcgraw.com/ and leave a comment while you're there. It's a pretty interesting idea, and one I think I'll work on myself.

Thank you,

Marja McGraw

On my blog, I post about my writing, I review books, and hold interviews with other authors. Please check it out!

http://www.worldsoftheworlds.blogspot...

Http://jbienvenue.webs.com/ , Check out my website which features my book, The Macabre Masterpiece: Poems of Horror and Gore

New blog post:

http://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_...

I'm conducting my first Giveaway! Please enter for a chance to win a copy of my Christmas novel and a guest Interview on your blog!

http://wordsoftheworlds.blogspot.com/...

You're more than welcome to pop in to The Slightly Odd World of Phil Whiteland at http://philwhiteland.blogspot.com/

This week Sally Carpenter is visiting my blog at http://blog.marjamcgraw.com/ . She has some interesting things to say, and she's a lot of fun. I hope you'll stop by and leave a comment.

Marja McGraw

Me, again. Just learned that I have a blog up on Chris Redding's site about The Writing Process. I hope you can stop by and leave a comment at http://chrisredddingauthor.blogspot.c....

Marja

I maintain two blogs- one for me as a writer http://www.pjballantine.com/ and one where my husband, Tee Morris and I have fun with our steampunk http://www.ministryofpeculiaroccurren...

Also we do a writers podcast called http://www.theshareddesk.com/ where we shoot the breeze on being a writer, collaborating and anything else that takes our fancy.

Cheers
Pip