Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Deborah Crombie's A Bitter Feast is here!



LUCY BURDETTE: Today our dear Deborah Crombie's book A BITTER FEAST is on sale everywhere! We couldn't be more excited! Rather than wax on about how much we loved this book and this author, I'll get right to questions for Deb:

I know well how hard writing is and especially writing a complicated police procedural with long running characters. But I kept thinking about how much fun you must have had with the background of the story – inventing the food and the gardens and the dogs and describing Melody’s parents’ country home. And at the lunch, the table settings, the local produce, the gin cocktails…

Do you mind starting with the lunch menu? That special luncheon was so divine! I really hoped that the murder wouldn’t ruin the meal before the guests got a chance to enjoy it. Roasted lamb with white beans and fennel, local smoked trout pate, pickled veggies with seeded flat bread—you had me absolutely drooling. Even the salad was stunning with pears, blue cheese and a drizzle of caramel. 

 But now inquiring minds need to know, did you actually cook this menu? And how did you choose it?

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I wish I had cooked all of those things! I’m hungry just reading your list.

I’ve made leg of lamb, although not in a smoker, and fennel and white beans, although not together with the lamb. And I’ve experimented quite a bit with the fermented veggies. (As for the gin cocktails, I think I can claim to be an expert!)

The main inspiration for Viv’s menu was a dinner given by a local McKinney chef, Robert Lyford.  It was my first trip to the Round Top Antiques week down in Brenham, Texas, and Robert was the featured chef for an outdoor dinner at a place called Rancho Pillow.  The guests were seated at one long table, set much like the tables in the book. We were served pickled vegetables and spicy pimento cheese with crispbread, then Robert’s main course was “pork and beans” served in camping tins.  And the deserts were in little jars, as are Viv’s in the book. All the food was amazing. So that part of the menu is totally down to Rob, except that I switched pork to lamb because the Cotswolds is sheep country. The pears and blue cheese were based on a recipe in our local foodie magazine, Edible. Yum! The smoked trout I just threw in because I love smoked trout spread, and if fit with the local foods.

LUCY: You had wonderful descriptions of your character Viv deciding she’d be a chef and then what it was like in the world of the kitchen, the sexism, the hard work, the pressure of seeking a Michelin star—even the tattoos the chefs got to celebrate. Here’s a snippet from p. 270: It was so tenuous and indefinable, the synergy of the kitchen. When everything worked, it was an almost liquid thing—one station flowed smoothly into another and the communication on the line was seamless.” (Of course, everything is not working!)

Tell us about the research you did to get this right?

DEB: I had lots of help and advice, not just from Rob Lyford, but from my chef friend in Phoenix, Sean Currid, and chef Nik Chappell at the Slaughters Manor House in Lower Slaughter. Both Sean and Nik gave me restaurant kitchen tours and answered lots of questions. And then I read and read and read. Chefs’ bios and memoirs, books about professional cooking and about the restaurant world. I also ate a lot! Research was my excuse to go to a lot of restaurants in London and the Cotswolds that I would normally have considered out of my budget. Now I have to figure out a way to justify those meals on the next trip.

LUCY: I’ve been thinking a lot about your chef characters and remembered an interview I did on the blog with psychologist Scott Haas about his book, THE BACK OF THE HOUSE. I asked him if he ever felt like a psychologist to the chefs, and he said:

“There is a profound superficiality to the way some chefs regard the depth of their emotional lives--an avoidance, a calcification, part of why they cook instead of developing intimacy.  Cooking is much easier than working on relationships.  Certainly the chef told me extremely personal things, but this is not an introspective profession. On the contrary.”

Did you find this to be true as you were talking with chefs? I can imagine this description fitting at least one of your characters…

DEB: The chefs I spoke to seemed to make a great effort to lead balanced lives, and they guard their days off ferociously. But, yes, I think you can safely say that the chefs in my book have a hard time maintaining a work/life balance. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have much of a story!

LUCY: You make a wonderful comparison between the work of a gardener and a chef—how in both professions, people work so hard to achieve something that is fleeting, such as a wonderful meal or a perfectly weeded garden. And that brings us to gardens. We can picture the roses and the hedges and can imagine the landscape architect at work. Will you tell us about your interest in this and how your gardens compare?

DEB: This book let me indulge both my passions. I am an enthusiastic if not particularly good gardener (the same could probably be said of my cooking…) and I have an obsession with English roses. I’ve also been fascinated for as long as I can remember with English gardens, and with Arts and Crafts gardens in particular.  A wonderful book on the restoration of the Gertrude Jekyll garden at a Surrey house called Upton Grey inspired the gardens at Beck House.  I even drew diagrams of all the beds and plantings.  Although my own garden is tiny in scale compared to something like Beck House, I do use a lot of native perennials in a natural way—a very Arts and Crafts design template.

LUCY: You were spinning so many plates with your plots and subplots and it surely must’ve been difficult to decide which characters to bring forward and which new ones to introduce. With a series that has run to 18 books, can you tell us more about that process?

DEB: I’m usually thinking a book ahead about what characters will lead the next story. In A Bitter Feast, I knew I wanted all four of my main characters, Doug and Melody as well as Duncan and Gemma, to be working the same case in the same place, and the setting followed from that. But because there is such a big cast of continuing characters in the series, my biggest problem in planning a book is deciding who to leave out, rather than who to put in.  And sometimes the characters don’t cooperate.

LUCY: You’ve mentioned that you go to England most years to do research for your books. What did you do and see while planning A BITTER FEAST? (Now we’re all dying to visit the Cotswolds.) Do you know what you’re looking for before you go? And where are we headed next?

DEB: I visited the Cotswolds on my very first trip to England with my parents, in the late seventies, and I had never been back, although I had for a long time thought the area would make a great setting for a novel. I made three trips for this book. The first was sort of a fact-finding mission, trying to find the perfect village (or villages) for the story. On that visit, I decided on the Slaughters, which I’d seen all those years ago with my folks. I’m sure we even stayed at Lords of the Manor in Upper Slaughter, when it had just opened as a country house hotel.

On the second and third trips I stayed in both Lower and Upper Slaughter, and I do think I could work for the Slaughters tourist bureau! The landscape and the villages in this part of England are just breathtakingly beautiful.  I’m quite downcast now at not having an excuse to go back—but maybe I will think of one. Beck House and the Lamb are, after all, still there.

The next book, however, is set in London, in Bloomsbury and Soho, and I’ll be off for three weeks writing and researching in London right after Bouchercon! And as usual, I can’t wait!

LUCY: Readers, do you know that all 7 of the Jungle Reds will be at Bouchercon in Dallas in a couple of weeks? Two of our Reds are Guests of Honor--Debs and Hank! Don't miss the annual Jungle Red game show on Thursday the 31st at 2:30. 

And I have the honor of interviewing Debs on Thursday morning at 9:30. What questions would you like me to ask???

And most important, you can buy A BITTER FEAST wherever books are sold...




66 comments:

  1. Happy Book Birthday, Debs! I really enjoyed reading this book; I loved the descriptions of the gardens and wished I had the recipes for all those yummy dishes . . . .

    When you travel to England, do you research only for the next book in the series or do you visit other places with a thought to perhaps using them in a future book? Have you ever stumbled onto a place that made such an impression that you decided to add it to the
    book?

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    1. Most of my settings have been stumbled across, Joan! And I'm usually think about the next book while working on the one in progress, so will often try to sneak in a trip or a bit of research on what I think might come up next.

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  2. So many things I loved about this book, Debs. It is certainly one of my favorites in the series, but then I start thinking about all the other books, how much I loved each one, and I wonder that I could ever play favorites with them. I can't begin to imagine my reading life without Duncan and Gemma in it.

    And, now I need to get to sleep, as Lesa Holstine and I will be traveling to St. Louis tomorrow to spend the night and attend your tea on Wednesday. Can't wait to see you. Happy Book Birthday!!!

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    1. That sounds like such fun Kathy! Hello to Lesa and Debs!

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    2. Can't wait to see you both, Kathy! I think it's fabulous that you are coming to my tea!

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  3. Happy book birthday! I can't wait to read it. And I can't wait to see you all in Dallas!

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  4. Happy book birthday Debs! I devoured -- get it? -- A BITTER FEAST in a couple of sittings, and are your fans ever in for a treat. They will eat it up!

    Upon Debs' recommendation, we were in the Cotswolds this time last year, paying special attention to Lower Slaughter. It is just as lovely as her description, except the entire population drives on the wrong side of the road, which makes little difference as everyone drives down the middle anyway.

    Looking forward to seeing you in Dallas in three weeks! It's been too long. xox














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  5. This was an excellent interview, Lucy! Debs, I love that chefs let you into the kitchen and were forthcoming for your research. The book was SO good, and all your background reading helped make it so.

    I am completely bummed that I'm going to miss you all in Dallas!

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  6. Congratulations on your book, out today, Deborah. It just arrived on my Kindle — Yay! But like Edith, I am totally bummed at missing all the Reds together at Bouchercon. I was in Toronto and loved the Reds panel there.

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    1. We loved meeting you there--sorry you won't be in Dallas!

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    2. We'll miss you at Bouchercon, Amanda. Hope you enjoy the book!

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  7. congratulations! Looking forward to Gemma and Duncan's continuing adventures.

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  8. I feel a little guilty. Like Ann, I devoured A Bitter Feast. Tried to pace myself to make it last longer, but just couldn't do it. And now, well now, I am anxiously awaiting the next book--like a glutton, can't get enough. I will say, to those of you who haven't read it yet, that the experience of reading this book stayed with me for several days afterwards--as if I had taken a trip to the Cotswolds myself, met the people, ate there, walked the countryside and village streets. Quite extraordinary writing!!

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    1. Read it again, more slowly. It stands up to that.

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    2. I advise the same thing as Gigi. I enjoyed it just as much the second time as I could focus on things other than plot!

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    3. I know it sounds a little weird, but I am actually looking forward to reading it myself--now that I'm not editing or revising or copy-editing, and can just enjoy the story. And I just downloaded the Audible version--can't wait to start listening to that!

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  9. Happy Happy Book Day! My copy just appeared in the Kindle today. I am so excited. I am saving it (if I can make myself) to read next week on my long weekend out of town when I will be all by myself.
    Can't wait to read all about the food and the gardens, two of my passions. I love traveling vicariously! Thank you!

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  10. This is so completely exciting! Applause applause applause… And I have to say, your longevity is astonishing. We all salute you! Is it still fun? where is it… Even more fun than it was at first? and that cover is gorgeous… So luminous!

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    1. It is still fun, Hank. Except the part when I'm writing frantically to meet my deadline:-)

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  11. Debs, happy book birthday! Very much looking forward to catching up with Duncan and Gemma again.

    My husband and I are thinking about going to the UK next year, and I think our focus should be on places from books we've read, including the Cotswolds and Cornwall. Not sure we'll make it to the Shetlands!

    As I was reading your blog post I kept thinking about the UK TV show Delicious, and wondering whether it gets the kitchen atmosphere right. Having a restaurant seems like a glamorous enterprise, but the sheer intensity of providing many meals every single night sounds like anything but.

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    1. I've seen most of the first season of Delicious, and from what I remember, they do. Restaurants only look glamorous to the diners. It's incredibly hard work.

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    2. I think there are three seasons. It gets better!

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  12. I loved this book so much!!! I hope Viv, the chef will come back in future books ... great character

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    1. I have a few little ideas about that, Hallie. Hmm. At least I think we will see or hear how she's doing.

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    2. Maybe she can be cooking at some restaurants you want to eat at, Debs... :-)

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    3. Maybe she can have a winter special chef position in Key West???

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  13. Congratulations of the book, Debs. I'm so looking forward to reading it - but not on an empty stomach!

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  14. Congratulations, Debs! I can't wait to get my hands on A Bitter Feast.

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  15. Congratulations on Book Day, Debs! And thank you so much!!! Like a few others, I am holding off a week to read it when I can fully focus on it and savor it. But even so, I remarked to my husband on my morning walk that today was the day it was coming out, because it is that big an occasion in my life!

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    1. What a lovely thought, Susan, and what a (well-deserved) compliment to Debs!

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  16. Congrats on the new book, Debs! Can't wait to see you all in a couple weeks!

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  17. My copy is arriving today (trumpet flair)! I am so looking forward to reading it! I hope to meet you in Dallas, Debs, if I can’t make it to Murder By the Book.

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    1. I hope you can make it to MBTB, Pat! It will be such fun, and they are doing gin cocktails in honor of Viv's luncheon!

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  18. Some of the happiest days as a reader are those when a wonderful book appears. I wish I had .001 % of the Gates fortune so I could help publicize A Bitter Feast. You would be dining in splendor in Tampa in a heart beat.

    Great questions for Deb Roberta/Lucy thoughtful as always.

    Does anyone have Star Trek transporter technology so I could beam in for the interview and for the panel on Thursday? The dogs would be okay if I left for an hour or two. As you can see I am missing you in advance

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  19. Happy book birthday Debs !
    For months , I thought that I would buy my copy at Bouchercon and get it signed but, right now , all
    I want to do is download it and begin to read it. Will I be able to wait ? Not sure...
    Lucy, after reading this post, I am very sorry that I will miss your interview that will take place while I'll be arriving, but not early enough.
    At least,I'll be there for the REDS's panel, Youppi !

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  20. Congratulations on the new book! I know how hard you worked on it, but you still manage to make it look easy. Safe travels. I'll see you tonight.

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  21. Yay, see you tonight. Our flight is delayed, so fingers crossed all goes smoothly this afternoon.

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  22. I loved this book. The Cotswolds have always been one of my favorite places. And my question for Debs would be how and what the attraction for all things English started.

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  23. Happy book launch day!! I will have mine on my kindle app tomorrow. Shalom.

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  24. Deborah,

    Congratulations on your new novel, A BITTER FEAST. I am on the waiting list at the library for your book. I think that I am number 8 on the waiting list. I loved the Cotswolds. When I was at Oxford, our class visited a house in the Cotswolds that was at least 500 years old. To my surprise, the house has been in the same family for 500 years! This is so rare in the USA. How many houses have stayed in the same family since Colonial America? I wonder...

    And I have the same question as Rhys - how did the attraction for all things English start? I have my answers for why my attraction for all things English / Scottish started :-) . That will be for another post on my Instagram. And I just posted in my Instagram stories about your new book this morning.

    Diana

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    1. Diana, about American families staying in the same house - my grandmother lived in the house that had been continuously occupied by family since before the Civil War (somewhere in the 1840s, we believe.) Sadly, when she passed away, no one wanted to or was able to move into her small upstate New York town, so the house was sold in 1998. I don't think I've met anyone who can claim LONGER than 150 years for a single family - I'd be interested to hear of any.

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    2. Julia, you are the only family that I know of whose house stayed in the same family. I only knew of one other family who lived in the same house in California since 1959 when the couple were first married. The wife was my 5th grade teacher years later. Usually Americans buy a starter home then move up. How many American families still live in the first house they bought?

      Diana

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  25. Happy book birthday! Can't wait for another visit with Gemma and now I'm positively dying to visit the Cotswolds. I, too, adore English gardens and treated myself to some David Austin roses (with mixed results - poor things!) Hope to see your panel at Bouchercon.

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  26. And now I need to book a trip to the Cotswolds! Congrats on the release, Debs! Loved seeing you at the Pen last night!

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  27. Congrats, Debs! Loved reading this, and can't wait to get my hands on the new book. Maybe I'll look for it at - yay! - Bouchercon.( I already have the Reds panel on my calendar) I have been to the Cotswolds, first trip to England a lifetime ago, and will enjoy traveling back by book. And chefs. One of my sons-in-law is one, and yes, it si tough. He's trying to find another way to use his training. He'd like to see his wife and baby once in awhile!

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  28. Salad with pear and blue cheese, yum, and caramel? That was a surprising ingredient. I can't wait to get my hands on this book but I am trying to read the series in order, so I have a couple more to read before I catch up.

    You mentioned having the next book in mind while writing the current one, how difficult is it to keep characters and storylines from crossing between the two?

    I am so excited to be be going to Dallas, can't wait to meet everyone. I'll be honest, this trip is a huge departure for me and when I tell people I'm going to mystery writers conference, some ask actual ask if I'm writer. Smiling, the answer is no, but I've reading about the conference for awhile now and decided to go for it! And I do want to get that passport, England has been on my list for awhile and these books are making my unfulfilled travel itch itch even more. Have a great new book day!

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    1. Bouchercon is so special. I'm sure you'll like it and I look forward to meeting you there.

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  29. Congrats on book birthday, Debs! Following on the heels of my Cotswolds walking trip in July I’m eager to start reading tonight to see if any familiar places are included.

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  30. So I took the day off today, ostensibly because I had both a dentist’s and a doctor’s appointment, but more honestly so I could grab the book off my front porch and start reading it. I went to the dentist, came home and checked the porch ... no book. I went to the doctor, came home and checked the porch, no book. Ran some errands that had been piling up, came home and checked the porch ... a box! Forced myself to go in the house and do All The Things so I could enjoy a guilt-free read, went to the porch, picked up the box ... and it was thigh high stockings. No book yet! If I’d known all those weeks ago that I’d be taking today off, I could have added the bookstore to my list of errands and left Jeff. Bezo & Co out of the equation. Now, here I sit, scrolling through FB and waiting, waiting, waiting. Happy book birthday, Deborah! I’ll stop whining as soon as I hear the next delivery arrive ...

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  31. Just finished the book and enjoyed the descriptions of the food and gardens. Glad the kids found dogs to play with since their pets were left in London. I was in the Cotswolds many years ago. One of the prettiest places that I saw in England.

    Why aren't they working harder on that transporter? I don't like to travel anymore but would love to pop over to places or events for just a day.

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  32. I'm super excited to see you tonight, Debs, at Houston's Murder by the Book. A BITTER FEAST sounds delicious in oh so many ways. I visited the Slaughters once 20 years ago and was struck by their beauty. Thanks for taking me back there with your writing. Hugs, Kay

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