18,850 SALADS

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Addictions? Oh, yes. When it comes to food, I tend to have addictions in cycles. There was one summer, many years ago, when I was in the throes of a love disappointment, that I lived on frappucinos and plain bagels. I craved them. I went through a broccoli and baked potato phase. And I just finished a peanut butter and apples addiction.. I cannot look at peanut butter and apples now. NO. But that's after a many-month love affair.

When it comes to clothes, I'm clearly addicted to black. If you look in my closet, it's like being in a silhouette. Black, black, black. I just did a little shopping, and even the store clerk could not contain her amusement when I arrived with my choices in the dressing room. "The Hank Collection," she announced. "Black, black and black."

But if I had to finish the sentence: Not a day goes by that I do not have______"-- hmm. What would that be? I would certainly miss coffee. And my brain-alarm absolutely rings when it's time for the six o'clock news--it's actually kind of scary.

But the wonderful mystery author Kathleen George knows how she'd finish the sentence. And her answers might surprise you!

What would she miss?


Eighteen Thousand Eight Hundred and Fifty...Salads!

KATHLEEN GEORGE: I have addictions: Ice cream, chocolate, baseball, football, reading, writing, and salad. By this I mean that if a day goes by (sports in season) in which I do not do or have these fixes, I’ll feel restless, funny, unfinished. Also, let it be noted that there are a few weeks in autumn in which it is possible to get both baseball and football on the same day.

The salad thing started when I was a child. The elder, helpful child, I got a daily assignment (beyond practicing the piano and cleaning the upstairs). I was to make the family’s salad for dinner. I learned later than many Lebanese people are addicted to salad dressed in lemon and olive oil and that they have to have it daily. There was once a secretary in my department who was married to one of my countrymen and she exclaimed, “He says he needs a salad every day. He makes it.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “Lemon and olive oil.”

Lately one of my brothers in law, said, as if he could surprise me, “ “Vivie makes a huge salad every day, I mean huge.”

“I know,” I said.

In summer the salads are glorious with the lemon and tomato juices mingling. In winter, we eat the salad anyway. Lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions, sometimes mint, dressed in lemon, olive oil, lots of salt, coarse black pepper. Everything tastes better—steak, pork chops, salmon, chicken wings, lentils and rice, everything.

When I traveled on Semester at Sea, I bought a bowl in one port and thereafter each time I hit a port, I stocked up on vegetables I could store in my cabin refrigerator. In France, Cape May, Provincetown, Mexico, wherever I go, I make salad.

I read. I must read. Every day. No exceptions.

My husband taught me about writing every day whether I felt like it or not—whether I felt I was doing something good or not. “Ten years later,” he assured me, “you can’t tell the bad days from the good days.” After I started writing every day, that was it. And addiction for sure. If a doctor’s appointment can’t be rescheduled and I have to be out of the house in the morning, I am pretty growly for the day.

So I write, bad or good. I check the baseball scores. I make a salad, winter and summer. I might read or have chocolate midday. I definitely have chocolate in my ice cream at night. I definitely read before I go to sleep. Some of these are ordinary addictions, I know. Some aren't particularly healthy.

On the other hand, I think of the poor folks who need alcohol, heroin or crack. I write about them substituting one fix for another. Alcohol and Valium in combination are what keeps my character in FALLEN going, alcohol buffers the pain and guilt in AFTERIMAGE, heroin and booze mark two characters in THE ODDS, and I have a fellow who needs crack in HIDEOUT. My detective friend and mentor tells me that substance abuse us contributed to a huge amount of crimes. Might there almost be no crime without it? Wikipedia (we don't rely on it, of course!) says:

“One survey shows that in about 67% of child-beating cases, 41% of forcible rape cases, 80% of wife-battering, 72% of stabbings, and 83% of homicides, either the attacker or the victim or both had been drinking.

Addiction, the mystery writer’s friend . . . .What’s your fix?

HANK: Or--because summer's almost over: What's your favorite salad? Continuing the Jungle Red win-a-book-a-day this week: A copy of Kathy's brand new HIDEOUT to one lucky commenter!

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Kathleen George is the editor of PITTSBURGH NOIR and the author of TAKEN, FALLEN, AFTERIMAGE, THE ODDS (Edgar finalist, best novel), and HIDEOUT.
Her website is www.kathleengeorge.com

And let me add: *HIDEOUT got a starred review from PW!

In Edgar-finalist George's stellar sequel to The Odds (2009), Cmdr. Richard Christie and Det. Colleen Greer of Pittsburgh Homicide look into a late-night hit-and-run, in which a young woman died. Meanwhile, brothers Jack and Ryan Rutter, the two young men in the truck that fatally struck the woman, skip town and break into an unoccupied house in Perrysville, a nearby summer community. Jack is a hapless, sweet-natured kid, but Ryan is an angry, drug-addled coward who's looking for an excuse to hurt someone. The suspense grows as the innocent people of Perrysville go about their business--and the owner of the brothers' hideout heads home for the season. An expert at handling investigative details and pacing, George makes readers care about the people who are about to confront each other. The inevitable violence hurts because it matters. Told in lean, efficient prose, this is a top-notch, emotionally satisfying police procedural. (Aug.)