LUCY BURDETTE: Would you believe that the most recent recent thing I've written is an agonizing list of possible titles for the seventh book in the Key West series? If you are my friend on Facebook, you will know that I haven't been doing this myself. (If not, why not? Let's be friends.)
But before that excitement, I was polishing the last possible draft of FATAL RESERVATIONS. I love this book--it's Lorenzo the tarot card reader's story, coming in July. I hope you'll love it too--here are a few snippets from Hayley...with photos to read them by...
My eye caught on pimento cheese with spiced saltine crackers and a plate of fried green tomatoes--was it too early in the day for pimento cheese? My mouth watered at the prospect, which I interpreted as a definitive no.
Of course our team shirts were homely, but to me, they were like a badge and a blue polyester uniform were to a cop. They meant we belonged. They meant we were on the case, on the hunt for the best food--the best everything--in Key West. The brotherhood of Key Zest.
“Maybe it wasn’t only his personality that I disliked,” I added. “Probably anyone juggling on a high wire would make me nervous. Never mind that the utensils he was lobbing around were on fire.”
“Aha! That's how I feel when you get involved with police work,” said Torrence. “Like you’re on a high wire tossing flaming objects with not one nanosecond of training or experience.”
Lorenzo had built a Zen garden around his home, with a wash of small white rocks taking the place of grass. The rocks were punctuated by short spiky palmettos and tropical bushes and trees, including sea grapes, shortleaf figs, and an autograph tree--the totally cool plant I’d seen in the botanical garden with actual autographs on its smooth green leaves. People scribbled on those leaves as if they writing on the wall in a public bathroom stall. “Anything I left out that might be a specialty of the chef?”
“Grouper fish flambe, of course,” the waiter said. “The owners caught the grouper themselves last night. And we went out with Chef early this morning and gathered the seaweed from Smathers Beach.”
I had to bite my lip to keep from snickering: Hard to picture the restaurant staff moving among the early spring break revelers, scooping up seaweed.
We crept closer to the grave and she shone the beam into the crevice. A large green iguana darted out of the hole, causing us all three to screech in unison and leap backward. I tripped over the wrought iron gate and crashed to the ground. Instead of the cheerleader I’d anticipated, she was watching me like a pastry chef on salted caramel. As if I would turn on her at any moment.
(I bet Hank wouldn't post this photo, but it cracks me up--and reminds me of how deliciously amazing the salted caramel tasted...The photo is from a chocolate shop in Adelaide, part of our foodie tour with Feast on Foot) That's it for now--back to work. I know snow is still covering the ground for many of you, but July will be here before we know it, bringing the sixth Key West food critic mystery, FINAL RESERVATIONS.
You can pre-order it here.
