Tag Archive for: Amy Alessio

“Fudging” Cooking Ability

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by Amy Alessio

Thanks so much to Evelyn David and the Stiletto Gang for
letting me return to guest on this blog. Evelyn told me she loves old recipes,
and once started on that topic I find it hard to stop!
I love vintage cookbooks, and own over four hundred and
fifty of them. I unleash them on the unsuspecting public when I give talks on
themes I notice from my collection, like Jello, pies, cookies and cakes. All
the food groups are represented – that is, the important ones. What I’ve
learned is that most people have memories closely tied to recipes. I can’t
believe how many people associate Jello recipes with certain holidays. In my
family every holiday has a Jello concoction and we call it salad when it should
be called dessert.


My series of short stories feature Alana O’Neill, a
bookkeeper at her uncle’s antiques mall. She has a booth of kitchenalia and
does not like to sell many of her cookbooks. She, like me, loves to try recipes
from decades past, even if we are not good at making them. In Blast From the
Past, Alana tries to make fancy chili chocolates after a professional baker
makes fun of her old cookbooks. Alana is distracted when her teen son slams the
door and ends up dumping way too much chili powder into the candy. Blast From
the Past is one of three novellas featured in Hearts and Daggers, a collection
of romantic suspense. Authors Mary Welk http://www.marywelk.com
and Margot Justes http://www.mjustes.com provide
the other two stories, and all of our characters connect in the stories.

I also included over twenty recipes with my story, though
none are for chili chocolates. They are from my collection of handwritten
recipe boxes. I do have a few from my own family, and I want to share some with
you today.

Here is my Grandma Curtin’s Fudge Recipe. This was
handwritten, and lacks some key steps.

5 cups sugar (How can you go wrong with a recipe that begins
with this?)¼ lb. butter1 large can Pet Condensed Milk3 pkg. Chocolate Chips (Nestles 6 oz.)1 jar Marshmallow FluffAbout 1 cup walnuts, chopped
Combine sugar, butter & milk. Bring to boil, let boil
for 9-10 minutes low. Pour this mixture over choc. Chips & fluff. Beat
until smooth. Add nuts, pour into greased pan and refrigerate. Cut in about 1
hour.


Then there’s my Mother’s clipping for Chocolate Marshmallow
Fudge. I was intrigued by the note that it “Makes 5 pounds.” Perhaps that is
what is gained on your scale after eating this one.

½ cup butter, or margarine2 pounds (4 ½ cups) sugar1 can (14 ½ oz.) evaporated milk½ pound marshmallows2 oz. unsweetened chocolate2 packages (6 oz. each) semi-sweet chocolate pieces3 packages (4 oz. each) sweet chocolate2 cups chopped pecans, walnuts, or other nuts1 tablespoon vanilla
In a large heavy saucepan mix butter, sugar, and evaporated
milk. Stir over medium heat until sugar dissolves. Cook to boiling, cover, and
boil for 5 minutes. Add marshmallows; stir until melted. Add chocolate, one
kind at a time, stirring until melted. Stir in nuts and vanilla. Pour into
buttered 15-by-10-inch jelly roll pan. Cool until firm before cutting fudge
into 1-inch squares. If desired, press pecan half into each square. Fudge
freezes well.
Get out your defibrillator. Notice I don’t do shows on
“Healthy Vintage Recipes,” as it would not last more than about five minutes.
Do you have a favorite family recipe? Comment with your
email address or email me at amyalessio.com and I will send you some Jello
recipes.

Amy Alessio is a teen librarian and an author. She is also
an adventurous and unskilled cook who is trying to train her young sons to cook
dinner. She is obsessed with Vintage Cookbooks and Crafts and you can share
that obsession by reading her blog at http://www.amyalessio.com
.

Felled by Fruitcake – Amy Alessio

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Thanks for letting me stop by the Stiletto Gang today. I was thinking about Joelle’s great blog from earlier this week about the freedom to cook without a recipe. If she ever needs some cookbooks to get inspiration from, I have over 450 in my house. That’s right. And I won’t even count the Retro Crafting section.

I’ve been blogging about Vintage Cookbooks for the past five years, something I did to teach myself some new technology for my job as a teen librarian. (http://www.stdl.org) My cookbook collection spans from Civil War through 1980, and I have some modern cookbooks as well. No, they aren’t arranged by Dewey. Having these older recipes means there is always Crisco in my house, though no Spam currently. I also collect handwritten recipes in boxes. I can’t stand to see someone’s prized clippings and recipes sitting lonely on an antiques store shelf when it could come be with lots of friends on my shelves.
Two years ago a friend suggested I do programs on my cookbooks “as you’re always talking about them.” True enough. I’ve now done over 100 shows on 23 different topics. Who knew so many people like Jello? This was supposed to be a little hobby to pass time while my agent sent my YA mystery around. I now have a VINTAGE WARDROBE. A month ago I had to give a librarian talk – and I didn’t know what to wear, since I was unable to don any of the polyester a-lines I am now used to wearing.  I now answer email about recipes folks want to track down or how to make retro crafts like woven oven mitts. Admit it – you still have some of these…
Amidst the Moon Pies and Fruitcake, I’ve managed some writing. My YA mystery, Taking the High Ground, will be out in 2013, and I have a new reference book out with another coming next year. I’ve also written some short stories about a woman who has a booth in an antiques mall. Alana solves local cases with the help of her smart teen son while trying unsuccessfully to cook some of the things in her beloved cookbooks.  Write what you know, right?
I’ve recently put up the Alana stories on Amazon for Kindle with recipes. The first story is Treasures, the second Missing Andy, and the third is Felled by Fruitcake.  In Felled, Alana is trying to find out what is in some mysteriously popular fruitcakes and what happened when a local church is robbed. A Valentine’s Day adventure with Alana will also be coming that will be published with novellas by Margot Justes (http://www.mjustes.com) and Mary Welk (http://www.marywelk.com).   

As for Fruitcake, I serve it at my Vintage Holiday shows, mail ordered from an abbey in Kentucky (http://www.gethsamanifarms.org) . I’ve converted quite a few non-fruitcake eaters. My Grandma Curtin used to make it with the tiny amount of spare money she had.  She’d begin at Halloween and baste it with bourbon right up until Christmas, when she would give it to the neighbors. She left no recipe, but my Mom insists this one is just like hers.  That’s good, because while there are a lot of things I would do for this new career that came out of waiting for publication, but basting a cake with bourbon for two months is not one of them.
__________

Amy Alessio is an award winning librarian and an author. She has presented at RT, ALA, RWA, PLA and more. Her young adult mystery Taking the High Ground will be published by 4RV Press. Her reference titles include the co-authored A Year of Programs for Teens 2 (ALA Editions, 2011) and Mind Bending Mysteries for Teens (ALA Editions, 2012). She is a regular contributor to Booklist, Teenreads.com and Crimespree Magazine.   http://www.amyalessio.com

Secret Messages & Mysterious Codes

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Mr. Stratton straightened. His smile faded. “Now, who is to be spokesman?”

“I am,” said Trixie. Jim was co-president of the Bob-Whites, but Trixie usually did the talking.

“Trixie, the School Board doesn’t want secret societies to exist in Sleepyside schools, when clubs – really gangs – can be the source of so much trouble. The board feels…that your club will have to disband.”

“We couldn’t!” Trixie almost shouted…

Most people can think of a book that impacted them. In my case, Trixie Belden forever changed my fiction reading, and especially #7, The Mysterious Code. The section above is from the back cover. The series, first from the 60’s and 70’s, featured spunky Trixie, her brothers, their wealthy friends, lots of horseback riding and the crimes they solved in their Sleepyside town. Trixie had a crush on Jim, and in #7, he gets her a corsage for a Valentine’s Day event. Here began my love of a few things including romantic suspense and codes.

The Trixie books seemed more real than Nancy Drew, as Trix made lots of mistakes and got in trouble a lot. She was terrible at household chores. I won’t say why that seemed more real. No one can say these books are multicultural or politically correct, especially the Asian brothers portrayed in #7, but it was a beloved series for me and many other. Author Denise Swanson has a Trixie Frayne (what her name would have been had she married Jim) in her series as a tribute. I even saved up the back page ads of those books when I was young for a t-shirt. I see those now on Ebay for big bucks.

My favorite Sherlock Holmes is The Adventure of the Dancing Men. I still have an old copy of the children’s book Alvin’s Secret Code by Hicks. Puzzles and codes always fascinate me, and I busily made strips of paper to wrap around sticks with my friends when I was younger (to read vertically). I set some papers on fire trying to brown lemon juice messages on them.

While my handwriting now seems like a code to lots of folks, I miss the note passing and other forms of coding I did when I was younger. Texting is not the same! I was delighted that the cover of Missing is a jigsaw puzzle, and I promptly had a puzzle made from the cover photo when it came. Puzzles are the closest I get to my secret message days.

What got you into mysteries?

-Amy Alessio

Amy Alessio is a YA librarian and author. Her most recent short story is featured in Echelon Press’s new mystery anthology, Missing. Amy has a personal blog, Vintage Cookbooks. She also blogs for the Love is Murder conference and for Echelon Press’s Teen Scene.

Too Much of a Good Thing … is Filling My House

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I’m Amy Alessio, a YA librarian and an author. I was delighted to meet half of the fabulous Evelyn David team at the Love is Murder conference. I told her to hurry up with the next book, and she suggested I help with a guest blog spot.

I have my own blog on Vintage Cookbooks to share my addiction to old cookbooks, and I have fun failing to make some of the old creations. (Think lots of lard.) I also blog for the Love is Murder conference and for Echelon Press’s Teen Scene.

Blogging is an excellent way to procrastinate writing my own fiction. I have some librarian books published and I have a short story published in The Heat of the Moment, an anthology by Echelon Press which benefits the victims of the CA wildfires (anthology pictured on the nightstand). My YA mystery is with an agent.

I read almost as voraciously as I eat baked goods. In addition to books I review for Teenreads.com and Crimespree magazine, I bring home several books a week from the library. To narrow it down, I love romance, mysteries, especially those with Chicago authors like Michael Black, J.A. Konrath, Tom Keevers and Julie Hyzy, fantasy, teen books, any kind of chick lit, anything with a librarian character or by a librarian, anything written up in People magazine, anything with food on the cover and maybe the occasional non-fiction. Cookbooks also of course.

This week I’ve had the flu, so I’ve been reading 3-4 books a day. Yes, even with my four year old at home some of those days. It’s amazing how much you can read during a Backyardigans episode. Sounds like a dream, right? One was a romance anthology on chocolate. Another was the new Carole Matthews Chocolate Lovers Club or something like that – it had to go back before I ate it. I also read Mary Kay Andrews’ new one about two cooks who fall in love, complete with tomato soup cake recipe. Yesterday I broke down and made a chocolate cake. Really – you can’t read that stuff forever and not eat something really naughty.

I’m also reading Kate MacAllister’s Aisling Grey series. I like the occasional paranormal romance, like a MaryJanice Davidson, or Jayne Ann Krentz/Jayne Castle (who used to be a librarian), but I think this is my first dragon series. These are great spicy fun. I think she’s writing mystery under a pseudonym too. Having a pseudonym is like waving a red flag in front of a librarian, by the way. We love tricky questions.

So you see it’s imperative that I have an entire library at home. On top of the nightstand is what I want to read soon. In the nightstand are my all time favs and autographed books. Under the bed are mainly YA I want to read less soon. Then – there are the 300 cookbooks. They are in 5 locations, that I can remember, in the house. Most of those cost very little at antique or used book stores. Who else would want a Blender or Meat Stretcher cookbook from 1970?

It’s interesting that while my son is adopted, he has similar book habits. Next to his bed is the first pile, photographed here. Then there’s the dresser and the bookshelf. He may have to clean them up soon, though – to make room for more of my cookbooks!

How many books are in your nightstand? Ok, now how many are hidden in your house?

Amy Alessio