Lucy Burdette's Kitchen Publishes This Week!

LUCY BURDETTE: Long before I imagined I’d write a foodie mystery, I fell in love with Diane Mott Davidson’s series featuring caterer Goldie Schultz. Davidson didn't just dump descriptions onto her pages, food and cooking were woven into the pages to become part of her story. I always finished a book wishing I could have been friends with caterer Goldy, sitting in her kitchen, tasting her food. She and her detective husband Tom believed that serving good food demonstrated comfort and love. Plus, a lot of good detective work occurred while they cooked and ate.

 With fourteen books so far in my Key West series, each with recipes at the back of the book, I've had to do a lot of cooking to keep up with Hayley. I loved the idea of pulling them all together along with snippets from each book. Luckily for me, Crooked Lane Books agreed and LUCY BURDETTE'S KITCHEN will be out this week! To celebrate, I thought I would share the first recipe with you today: Key lime pie.

Key lime pie is the official dessert of the City of Key West, so naturally it makes frequent appearances in these mysteries. In the first book in the series, An Appetite for Murder, food critic Hayley Snow doesn’t actually make this pie but she becomes a suspect when her boss is murdered by key lime pie. She attempts to prove she couldn’t be the culprit. There are traces of pie found on the knife near the murder victim: She would never bake a bilious green colored confection like that.

The celebrated pie also looms large in the 10th book, The Key Lime Crime, when murder strikes down a pastry chef in a pie-baking contest. The trouble begins at the contest:

Off to the left of the stage, I saw a flash of movement. Before my brain could fully register what was coming, Claudette Parker marched to the display table and picked up the pie from the Key Lime Pie Company, the one that had been touted as extra-creamy, with whipped cream piped joyfully around the edges. She slammed it into David Sloan’s face. The pie tin slid off his nose and chin and clattered on the floor in a puddle of filling. Sloan’s eyes blinked like windshield wipers in heavy snow, working holes in the whipped cream. 

The pie pictured above came from the Old Town Bakery, made with whipped cream rather than meringue. Below is my recipe using meringue, but you can switch that out!

Ingredients for the crust

10 sheets of graham crackers, should measure 1 1/4 cups

5 tablespoons butter, melted

1/4 cup sugar

Whir the graham crackers in a food processor until they make fine crumbs. Mix in the sugar and the butter. Press the mixture using the back of a spoon into your nine or 10 inch pie plate. Nine is probably better as my pie was a little low. Bake the crust at 350 for 10 minutes until it starts to brown. Remove it from the oven and reduce the heat to 325.

Ingredients for the filling

1/2 cup key lime or lime juice, freshly squeezed

Four egg yolks

1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk

2 teaspoons grated lime zest

Squeeze the limes until you have 1/2 cup of juice. (4-5 regular limes, more key limes.) Make sure to strain out the seeds. 

Whisk the egg yolks, then whisk in the sweetened condensed milk, lime juice, and lime zest.  

Add the filling to the pie crust and bake for six minutes. Remove from the oven and set this aside while you make your meringue.

Ingredients for the meringue

Four egg whites

1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 cup sugar

One half teaspoon vanilla

Using a clean bowl and mixer, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until they hold soft peaks. Gradually beat in the sugar until the egg whites hold stiff peaks and appear shiny but not dry. Beat in the vanilla. 

Attach the meringue to the hot pie, beginning by adding globs all around the edge of the crust and smoothing them into a circle. (That's the  technical culinary term--add globs.) 

Then add remaining meringue to the center and smooth or shape into peaks as desired. Bake the pie for another 20 minutes. Cool on a rack. Refrigerate until serving.

And now serve yourself a nice piece of pie and start reading...

Lucy Burdette's Kitchen will be out in ebook format on Tuesday (July 23), and December in large print hardcover. I'm still working on convincing them we need the paperback! To celebrate, I'm giving away a dish towel printed with Lucy Burdette's roasted shrimp recipe. Leave a comment to be entered in the drawing!

Reds, have you ever made a recipe from the back of a novel? Which one?

The Key Lime Crime is here! @LucyBurdette

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today's the day! We know a lot of you have been watching, waiting, and dying to find out what's happening with Hayley Snow, her new husband, Nathan Bransford, their family, friends and always, shall we say, distinctive Key West neighbors. 

It's always a treat (in more ways than one) to dive into Lucy's world of tarot-card readers, gorgeous scenery, houseboats, romance and recipes. (OMG, the food. Do NOT read one of Lucy's books on an empty stomach, y'all.) But escaping to Key West seems even more important this year, when we're all, for the most part, staying close to home. 

Back in March, when the lock-down was new, I reread most of Lucy's backlist (previous books) because when I'm deep in her feels-so-real fictional world (more on that from her, later) it's almost like being in Key West with old friends. I can feel the warm breeze, listen to the crowds on Duval Street - everything except taste the Key Lime Pie. For that, I'm going to follow the recipe in her latest novel...


LUCY BURDETTE: With a longer than usual wait between books and a postponement due to the pandemic and this past week the interminable power outage from Isiais, I wondered if THE KEY LIME CRIME would ever arrive. But now it’s here and I’m thrilled about the reviews and excited to share the story with you! As I was writing this post, and thinking about telling you what kinds of real-life events triggered parts of the story, I was kind of shocked to realize how many of them there were.

I got a little giggle from an early reviewer who said she hadn't thought she could enjoy a book based on key lime pie. However, not only did she love the book, she was now craving pie…(in case this should happen to you after reading, I did post a recipe on Mystery Lovers Kitchen.) I had to wonder how she’d feel if she’d had to taste all those pies? John informed me after we’d eaten our way around town, that he doesn’t even really like key lime pie! He’s such a good sport.

KLP from Old Town Bakery

I didn’t only taste—I also took a key lime baking class with three super fans who happened to be in town that week. It couldn’t have been more fun and of course it went right into the new book as a scene.

At the Key Lime Pie Factory

I’ve added a couple of new characters this time out. Hayley’s mother-in-law has come to visit. Since this is the tenth in the Key West series, I’ve learned that the best way to start a new book is thinking about what’s happening in my characters' lives, and also which characters I will focus on. With this book, I went in realizing that some readers felt unsatisfied about Hayley's relationship with her new husband. I wanted to figure out how to show why he is the reserved man that he is, and why his family has been mysteriously missing from his life. Aha! Enter his mother, who has descended on the island with no advance notice and a definite axe to grind. Add the gruesome murder of a pastry chef dressed in a Santa costume and the new crime-solving team is off...

Speaking of that body in a Santa suit, this display triggered the plot this time. How could a mystery writer not imagine what might have happened if the stuffed Santa was actually a real person, a dead body?

Back to new characters, David Sloan, a real pie baker and key lime entrepreneur, is a big part of this book. He lives in Key West, writing books, running ghost tours, organizing events such as the Cow Key Bridge Zero K run. He graciously agreed to be part of THE KEY LIME CRIME, but perhaps I’d better not turn my back on him… 

Lucy and David at Key West Island Books

I'm so sad that I won't get to see any of you in person, but I have several wonderful online events set up--they are all free, but you'll need to register to attend. I hope you'll support these amazing independent booksellers:

August 9, 5 pm: At RJ Julia Booksellers with my sister, Susan Cerulean, moderated by Hallie Ephron!

August 11, 5 pm: At Copperfish Books, Punta Gorda FL!

August 18, 6 pm: Books and Books, Key West, interviewed by Deborah Crombie!

August 22, 5 pm EST: At Poisoned Pen Bookstore with all of the Jungle Red Writers!

And finally, Suzanne Orchard at Key West Island books will happily ship you a signed copy.

And should you want to know more about the book, writing, or me, this wonderful article by Pem McNerney tells all... 

And finally T-bone reminds you that he makes his debut in this book too, and he requests that each of you read about him...

Reds, how do you feel about real life mixed into your fiction?

JULIA: You know, one Jungle Red Writer is good, but two are better! In today's Red Hot News, you could win a copy of Hallie Ephron's CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR starting today! Use this link at Goodreads for a chance at one of 50 copies. Contest ends on August 25, so get your entry in soon.

CHEF MARTHA’S SPONGER KEY LIME PIE

Analise with Martha

LUCY BURDETTE: When John and I went on the seafood tasting tour that served as inspiration for A DEADLY FEAST, the first stop was to visit Chef Martha Hubbard at Isle Cook Key West. Our guide Analise told us we'd be eating dessert first--Martha's sponger key lime pie. 

Oops I ate too fast

My mind was running amok during the entire two hours of yummy eating and Key West history...Where could I find a body? What's the best murder weapon? Will these dear women consent to becoming characters--suspects perhaps? They did agree, and even better, Martha shared her recipe for pie...

Chef Martha's Sponger Key Lime Pie

½ cup Ol’ Sour (See Below)

½ cup key lime juice

2 14 oz cans sweetened condensed milk

3 egg yolks

1 tsp salt

Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix well. Divide into small canning jars. Serve with crumbled Cuban crackers on top.

Ol'Sour in process

Ol’ Sour

1 Qt Key Lime Juice

1 ½ Tbsp Table Salt

Mix Key Lime juice and salt

Let sit at room temperature for two weeks, disturbing daily for first week.

Martha with Feast

You'll recognize a lot of this background as you read the new Key West mystery. And if you visit Key West, be sure to look up these two wonderful foodies. Analise Smith runs Key West Food Tours and Martha Hubbard offers classes and dinners through Isle Cook. Thank you, fabulous women!

Red readers, have you ever taken a food tour?

Yet One More...Key Lime Pie!

LUCY BURDETTE: You all know by now that I've got a thing for Key Lime pie. And you probably know I'm addicted to Facebook too--you meet the most amazing people! A couple of weeks ago, a Jungle Red friend, Denise Terry, allowed me to post her gorgeous pie on my FB page. And this led to talk about other recipes. And then I heard about one I had to share. I'll let my new friend Judy Waters tell the story of her famous pie and where she got the recipe.

JUDY WATERS: Back in the lates '60's, we would always stop at this little place in Marathon (FL) called Ted & Mary's.  They only served breakfast and lunch, but it was a perfect stopping point on the trip up the Keys to wherever we were going.  Directions for making their Key Lime pie were printed on the paper place mat and I cut it out and have had it all these many years. 



I thought you would get a kick out of the "recipe" I use.  I never worried about salmonella, even without baking the pie.  ( If you have concerns, use organic eggs--there's never a worry about it with them.)  Just mix it all up and put it in the freezer.   Take it out a little ahead of time so you can cut it and top with whipped cream or Redi-Whip.  I usually make my own graham cracker crust.  

I've always thought this was the original, traditional Key Lime Pie.  Before food got fancy.
Enjoy!



(If you can't read the small print, it says 1/2 cup key lime juice, 3 egg yolks, 1 can sweetened condensed milk)

Key Lime pie a la David L. Sloan

LUCY BURDETTE: I know I've bombarded you with Key West things this week, but it's hard to resist when the place is so full of interesting people! 

As many of you already know, I have a particular fondness for Key lime pie, as it became the murder weapon in the first food critic mystery, AN APPETITE FOR MURDER. Naturally Hayley Snow is suspected when the victim turns out to be her ex-boyfriend's new squeeze. 

“Are the cops looking at any other suspects?” I asked.

“Not that they’ve mentioned. You are in the unfortunate position of having a decent motive and no alibi. And you’re a cook with more than a passing knowledge of key lime pie.” 

So what do we do now?” I asked. “I swear I never touched the girl. Or fed her any poison. I’ve never even made a key lime pie. To be honest, I’m totally freaked out by the idea of meringue.” 

So you can understand that when the Key West Citizen publicized a booksigning last week for THE ULTIMATE KEY LIME PIE COOKBOOK, we had to go meet David Sloan and buy a couple of signed books. I told him about our JRW blog and how we love food and recipes and he was happy to share a pie from the cookbook. He offers hundreds of options for combinations of crusts, fillings, sauces, and toppings, but I've chosen a traditional crust with a classic filling.

TRADITIONAL GRAHAM CRACKER CRUST

1 and 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup white sugar
6 tablespoons butter, melted

Combine the crumbs and sugar in a medium bowl. Stir in the butter until crumbs are coated. Press evenly into a nine-inch pie pan. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before filling.

CLASSIC KEY LIME FILLING

1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup Key lime juice

Preheat the oven to 350. combine eggs and milk and mix well. Slowly mix in the Key lime juice. Pour mixture into the prepared crust. Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes. Cool, then chill until firm.

Serve topped with whipped cream or meringue and enjoy your little taste of Key West!


 

  

Stepmom's Meat Loaf from Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: When Julia so graciously asked me if I'd like to share a recipe from DEATH IN FOUR COURSES, I was delighted! But enough with Key Lime pie and Conch fritters--it's Sunday, maybe time to think about an old-fashioned family supper?

One of the things I most enjoy writing in the food critic mysteries are the scenes where Hayley is cooking up something delicious for her family and friends. She uses that time to take care of the people she loves, burn off nervous energy, and sift through clues, of course. In this scene, her mom, Janet Snow, is cooking dinner on the houseboat. She's been in Key West on what seems like a very loooong visit and everyone's relieved that "the case" has been solved. Hayley's friend Connie is newly engaged and looking for cooking tips.

From DEATH IN FOUR COURSES:

Mom was kneading meat loaf in a red pottery bowl in Miss Gloria's galley kitchen. She dumped a sleeve of Ritz crackers into my food processor, whirred them into crumbs, and added them to the mix.

"There's no point in trying to make this dish low-fat or otherwise too healthy," she explained to Connie as she worked the crumbs into the meat. "You serve it once in a while, it makes your man happy, end of story. So skip the ground turkey and the quinoa. You need ground beef, some pork if you want to be fancy, plus chopped onion, carrots, and green pepper, cracker crumbs, a few tablespoons of Lipton's Onion Soup mix, half a jar of Bone Suckin' barbecue sauce. And an egg to bind it all together." 

She shaped the red mass into an oval, tucked it into an oblong glass pan, slathered more sauce on top, and shunted it into the oven. 

"If you girls could get started on the mashed potatoes, I'll go freshen up."

Connie looked up from the notes she was taking at the kitchen table. "From Janet Snow's Kitchen" was written across the top of the note card. 

"This is an old family recipe, right?" Connie asked.

"Hayley discovered this one," my mother said. "I never did much care for my own mother's meat loaf." She winked and left the kitchen.

"Don't you dare tell her," I whispered. "It's my stepmother's recipe. One of the few edible things she can make."

Connie snickered; crossed out Janet and penciled in "Stepmom's Meat Loaf."

Stepmom’s Meat Loaf
1.5 lb ground beef (or beef and pork, organic preferred)
½ sleeve Ritz crackers, ground to crumbs
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green pepper, finely chopped
3 large carrots, peeled and chopped fine in food processor
1 egg
½ jar Bone-sucking barbeque sauce, more for glaze
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix meat well with all the other ingredients, reserving some sauce for topping. Shape the mixture into a loaf in a 9 x 13 glass baking pan. Bake for 1 and ¼ to ½ hours until meat is no longer pink. Drain grease halfway through baking; douse loaf with BBQ sauce, return to oven.
 
Serve meatloaf with mashed potatoes or oven-roasted potatoes and carrots and a green vegetable or salad.

What about you, Jungle Red Readers? Do you have a special meat loaf recipe?

(And Hank and I thank you for all your support during our release week! We couldn't do it without you!)

Wrapping Up with Key Lime Pie

LUCY BURDETTE: We're going to wrap up this week with a taste of Key West, beginning naturally, with a recipe for Key Lime pie. This one was adapted from AllRecipes--and it's pretty standard to the breed.

KEY LIME PIE

5 egg yolks, beaten
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup key lime juice
1 (9 inch) graham cracker crust
(I use the recipe in the Joy of Cooking--it's as simple as whirling graham crackers in the food processor, then adding some sugar and melted butter and pressing it into the pan.)

Directions for filling and baking:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
Combine the egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk and lime juice. Mix well. Pour into unbaked graham cracker shell.
Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes. Allow to cool. Top with sweetened whipped cream and garnish with lime slices. Or you can make a meringue as topping, but neither my character Hayley nor I have had the nerve to try that!

And by the way, the photo to the right is the actual KLP dessert served by Louie's Backyard, a well-known restaurant in KW.

Now, while your pie is in the oven, you have time to make a cup of coffee and watch Dominique the cat man and his flying house cats.

http://youtu.be/nyKxbua9miM

And finally, while there have been giveaways of AN APPETITE FOR MURDER on various blogs this week, we haven't done one here. So all commenters today will be entered into a drawing for a signed copy. Good luck!

The Debut: An Appetite for Murder!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Champagne for everyone! Yes, we know, it’s too early in the day..but then again it’s never too early to celebrate. All the Reds are applauding, cheering, jumping up and down—because our dear Red Lucy has a new book—AN APPETITE FOR MURDER, a Key West food critic mystery--and it’s out today! Can’t wait one more second to have it in your hot little hands? Click here!


And in honor of a An Appetite for Murder, here at Jungle Red we’re also having all kinds of Key West delicacies: conch chowder and fritters and flying fish and margaritas and plantains and sea bass a l’orange (is there such a thing?) and deserts, oh the desserts—frothy chocolate mousse with raspberries, and blood orange soufflé, and of course,….Key Lime Pie! With extra whipped cream, and shaved chocolate, and …



But do let us say—even though our mouths are full--how completely thrilled we are. Lucy (some people call her Roberta, but not where the Key West series is concerned!) is poised to make a huge splash in mystery world with her new series..and you read it here, first!



It’s all about ..well, let Lucy tell it.



First question, Key West! HOW did you pick that? And give us the scoop on this new series.

LUCY BURDETTE: Thank you for all the kind words Hank! My sweet husband and I visited Key West about five years ago and fell in love. The town has so many layers, reaching from the richest of the rich at one end to a significant homeless population on the other. There are folks who were born and raised on the island and lots of others who come to party or who come because they don't quite fit into a traditional lifestyle but find they feel comfortable here. There's a thriving artistic scene, great food, and a fabulous literary history. So when thinking about pitching a new series, Key West was a natural!

The series follows aspiring food critic Hayley Snow, a transplant from New Jersey who's invited to town by a man she barely knows. By the time that relationship sours, Hayley's fallen in love with the island--she'll do anything to stay. Would that include murder? The cops, of course, believe it might.


HANK: Hayley Snow (I love the name..) is a brand new person for you. You've created golfer Cassie Burdette, and psychologist Rebecca Butterman..what's it like to create a compete new person? Kind of fascinating, really, huh? Here's someone who did not exist, not at all, until you brought her to life. I always think about that, with all my characters. Anyway! What is it about Hayley that makes her unique?

LUCY: Great question Hank....but it makes me wonder, maybe these characters
did exist, we just have to carve the excess words away--chip away whatever doesn't fit, like a sculptor works with marble?

HANK: Ah. That's kind of ...cosmic. And when we need them, we just have to figure out where to look? I'll have to think about that. (And it's interesting, too that some characters seem to ping into existence, as if they were just waiting to be found. Others have to be coaxed out. Anyway! Hayley.

LUCY: Yes, Hayley. She arrives in Key West because a man invites her. She barely knows him when she moves to the island, so not a big surprise when the relationship blows up. But then what's a girl to do--return to her mom's guest room in New Jersey? In November? No way! She has to figure out a way to make a new life here on this island--and it has to do with her passion, food.

Working with this new person is so interesting because it's not only Hayley that I have to develop, it's all her friends and neighbors and nemesises (nemesi?) as well. I didn't really have the time to work out all the biographies in advance (and if I'm being perfectly honest, I'd tell you that I wouldn't do that even if I HAD all the time in the world!), so I'm constantly being surprised at how these people evolve.

HANK: Oh, I'm with you. Sometimes I sit at my computer and smile at the magic. Other times..well, other times I could use some PIE! Okay, now, if we're true to your new series, we should have a recipe here.

LUCY: I'm going to cheat a little and give you a link to Emeril Lagasse's Key Lime Pie. You're going to need a piece of Key Lime Pie when you're finished with AN APPETITE FOR MURDER because it's central to the story. I would mail a pie to each of you, but they simply won't hold up well in transit!


HANK: Are you a great cook? The book is so infused with cooking-not just
recipes, but genuinely thoughtful and educated references to the joy of food and eating -how did you get ready for that? Has it changed your life? Next time we go out to dinner-or next time I have you guys over!--should I be afraid?

LUCY: Oh no, please don't be afraid! I'm really an expert eater but not an
intimidating cook. And I'm not big on eating weird stuff--I nix anything with tentacles, for example. Plus entrails and offal and eyes.

HANK: Again, I'm with you. Liver, okay. Snails, yes caviar, yes...but I'm ever wary of calamari when I get the parts with the suckers and tentacles. Oooh. Probably easier (if it ever can be easy...) to write about than actually do..

LUCY: I don't think I'd enjoy being a food critic in real life--have you noticed how often the New York Times food critic position turns over? Looking at that and reading about a critic's life, it seems as though food criticism could eventually ruin the pleasure of eating. And let's face it, when I go to a restaurant I want to order what I want to order, not what I think someone else might want to try.

But I've had so much fun reading about food to get into Hayley's mindset--foodie memoirs, food blogs, fiction chockablock with food, and always, always recipes. Some of my friends are genuine gourmet cooks (Hallie's one of them) so I study how they cook and think about food. However, all the recipes in the book come from me.

HANK: SO, finally, do you look at the world differently now? Has this book changed your life?

LUCY: Don't you think every book changes your life? It's like you've made a whole new set of friends and been somewhere completely new…now I feel like a foodie in paradise!


HANK: Hungry for more? Here’s just a nibble to tempt you..from Chapter 1.



“A hot dog or a truffle. Good is good.” James Beard

Lots of people think they’d love to eat for a living. Me? I’d kill for it.

Which makes sense, coming from my family. FTD told my mother to say it with flowers, but she said it with food. Lost a pet? Your job? Your mind? Life always felt better with a serving of Mom’s braised short ribs or red velvet cake in your belly. In my family, we ate when happy or sad but especially, we ate when we were worried.

The brand new Key Zest magazine in Key West, Florida announced a month ago that they were hiring a food critic for their style section. Since my idea of heaven was eating at restaurants and talking about food, I’d do whatever it took to land the job. Whatever. But three review samples and a paragraph on my proposed style as their new food critic were due on Monday. Six days and counting. So far I had produced nothing. The big goose egg. Call me Hayley Catherine “Procrastination” Snow.

(Read more here.)

HANK: So, dear Reds—let’s talk food today! Did you have anything delicious over the holidays? Any new year’s food traditions? Have you ever actually tried a recipe from a mystery book? And Yay, Lucy!

LUCY: And ps, Hank, I have tried recipes from mysteries--I still remember Diane Mott Davidson's manicotti. And don't they always sound so good???