A chance to win a Nook or Kindle before Christmas
I’m giving away one Nook and one Kindle this Christmas season. All you have to do to be eligible is join my mailing list. Go here:
https://www.facebook.com/awriterafoot?sk=app_4949752878
Just noticed that the digital price for A Piece of Heaven has dropped to $4.99. Check it out at
Barnes and Noble Nook Store
Amazon Kindle Store
First Chapter
Filler from The Taos News: Full Moon FactsThe full moon is the phase of the Moon in which it is fully illuminated as seen from Earth, at the point when the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the Earth. The full moon reaches its highest elevation at midnight. High tides. Names …
A reader wrote to me recently with these comments:
I just finished another of your books and I really enjoy them……In your stories the women drink a variety of teas…..I’d like to find a good breakfast tea to replace coffee in the morning, is there one that you would recommend? So many choices on the shelves its
confusing……
Although I didn’t realize the characters in my novels drink a lot of tea, it really is not surprising, since I am a serious tea drinker. Always have …
If you only read my blog here, you would think I had disappeared into the far reaches of Tasmania, but in fact, dear readers, I have been blogging twice a month at The Lipstick Chronicles, with a group of very entertaining and interesting women writers. I am posting there the first and third Friday of every month, and here are the opening paragraphs of the most recent three. Stop by!
Ian and the Blue Gill
Three women, ranging in age from senior to ancient, are settled in a half circle at the end of the dock. The …
Time sensitive! Bids must be in by March 20! Writers for the Red Cross auctions are going on this month, and we can all see what an amazing job they are always doing, but even more so when something like an earthquake or tsunami wipes out cities.
Help raise funds and get a How to Bake a Perfect Life package for your book club. Go to http://www.writersfortheredcross.org/baking-a-perfect-life-in-a-box/#respond to make a bid on a package that includes: 5 signed copies of How to Bake a Perfect Life, a celebratory signed apron, a sourdough crock and …
You may not know that I blog regularly in several other places. One of them is at The Lipstick Chronicles, every other Friday (alternating with such luminaries as Joshilyn Jackson and Diane Chamberlain). This morning, I have posted a story of my grandmother, a garden we grew, and my hatred of rhubarb. Don’t miss the recipe for rhubarb pie in the comments.
I also blog regularly on random topics at my long-time blog, A Writer Afoot, where I write about travel, gardens, food, books, writing….pretty much everything. Here is a recent post about …
Chicken and Dumplings
I had an aggravating day yesterday and decided I wanted something soothing and delicious for supper. There was a whole chicken in the fridge, so I took it out, washed it, and threw it in a big pot. You can do the same.
1 whole chicken, washed and entrails removed
Water to cover
10 peppercorns
2-3 stalks of celery (I keep them in the freezer, cut up, for just this sort of moment)
1 medium red onion
3-4 cloves of garlic, sliced thin
2 tsp of thyme
1 tsp sage
2 tsp kosher salt
Put everything into a …
(A recipe from How to Bake a Perfect Life. )
These are actual texts from my sister a few days ago:
Feb 5, 2011 7:13 pm
Making sunshine fruit and honey bread 
Feb 6, 2011 12:36 pm
OMG OMG OMG. That bread is soooooo good I could prolly eat the whole thing!!!
Feb. 7, 2011 12:26 pm
I can’t stop eating this bread ! I feel like the guy in the window in Chocolat. LOL
———
I can’t promise you will like it as much as she does, but it’s one …
The Brits get a bad name over food, but I’m here to say there is a lot that’s lovely about British cooking. Saveur Magazine has a feature
today on their website about British Pub Food. I receive their emails and clicked right through to find this lovely menu:
Welsh Rabbit, which I thought for years was Rarebit, no idea why, and is only cheese and toast. How simple and lovely is that?
Roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, served bloody rare, which I loathe. Not a fan …
My publisher had a few of these aprons made for How to Bake a Perfect Life. You can win one of them (autographed if you like) by simply posting a response here on this page (or on Facebook).
HOW TO BAKE A PERFECT LIFE
by Barbara O’Neal
Available TODAY in trade paperback from your local retailer, or these on-line venues
Also available as an ebook for Kindle, and Nook and other formats.
“O’Neal’s third novel is, like its predecessors (The Lost Recipe for Happiness, 2008; The Secret of Everything, 2010), a dramatic, emotional story with honest characters and a warm heart at its center.”
At ABC.com and the Huffington Post, a beauty of a review: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=12442774&tqkw=&tqshow=
How to Bake a Perfect Life will be in stores in 4 short days (Tuesday!), and in honor of that date, I’m going to start giving things away. This is the first one, a sourdough crock and either fresh or dried (you choose) starter from King Arthur flour. To win, just post to the comments and I’ll draw a name tomorrow morning.
Good luck!
This made me very happy indeed!
Library Journal
(Starred review) O’Neal, Barbara. How To Bake a Perfect Life. Bantam. Dec. 2010. 398p. ISBN 9780553386776. pap. $15.
“Forty-year-old bread maker Ramona Gallagher owns a boulangerie in Colorado Springs, though independence from her restaurateur family members has put a crimp in her financial well-being and in their relationships. Pregnant with her first child, Ramona’s 24-year-old daughter, Sofia, flies to Germany when her soldier husband, Oscar, is burned in an explosion in Afghanistan. Katie, Oscar’s 13-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, comes to live with Ramona after her mother is arrested and forced into rehab for …
Three years ago, we lost Leo, the liveliest cat on the planet, to a fox. He was eleven. He went the way he lived, and as much as I miss him, I know it was a death of honor for him.
Then we lost Sasha to old age in January. Which left us with Esmerelda, the 22 year old Siamese; Athena, a very fat 13 year old silver tabby, and Jack, who isn’t that old at 8, but has had a couple of knee surgeries and other ailments, and was slowing down.
For months I’ve …
Today, I harvested two handfuls of red potatoes from a black potato sack. I’ve never grown potatoes before, afraid of them for no reason I can really pinpoint, maybe just because they grow deep in the mysterious earth and you have to dig them up. How would I ever know when I should harvest them? What if I spent all that time growing them and they were rotten when I dug them?
But when we visited CR’s mother in the UK, she had potatoes growing in a soft-sided bag. The local garden …
Very happy to report that last weekend in Orlando, Florida, the Romance Writers of America awarded THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS their highest honor, the RITA. Every year, nearly 1200 books are entered and judged, and only a handful win the RITA. Thrilled!!
I have spent the past month walking around England and Spain. If you would like to read more, go to www.awriterafoot.com. For now, I’ve cross-posted this blog to both sites.
The molecules of my body and brain are drifting home a handful at a time, plugging in the holes left by the challenges of actually moving one’s body thousands and thousands of miles
across time and space and cultures and landscapes. For once, I’m trying to be patient with the process. I did not get a cold this time, which is often …
Almost finished with the new book. In the meantime, I thought you might like this picture. The Book Babes book club read The Lost Recipe for Happiness and sent me some pictures of their feast. Thanks, Diane! (I love the attention to detail, don’t you?)
I’d love to post more. Send me yours!
Sorry to be absent so much lately. I’m working hard on the 2011 book. It’s the most ambitious I’ve undertaken so far, and requires all my writing huevos to get it on the page. I did write a post on setting for Writer Unboxed yesterday, and it has generated some excellent discussion. Please join in.
IN OTHER NEWS: I am delighted to let you know that THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS is a …
Dinner in Suburbia by Make Less Noise
When I was a child, we ate dinner together nearly every night. I did not necessarily love the whole ritual, especially when my mother made hamburger pie, covered with mashed potatoes, or when I was in trouble for one thing or another (which was a lot), but I can see from the angle that it was a good thing. Our kitchen was large and we ate there, gathered around the white melamine table with its painted edging …
In THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING, Tessa is an amateur photographer. So am I, though in typical writerly fashion, she is far more gifted than I. Still, I do love getting a good shot.
One of my great desires has always been to have a greenhouse. In a corner of my dining room is a small conservatory, a Victorian imitation, and within are a cyclamen and African violets. This morning, this cyclamen was blooming and I spent an hour admiring it, shooting the light on its …
I had a special request for this recipe, since the weather has been so cold in so many places. This is from The Lost Recipe for Happiness, and it is Elena’s favorite soup:
Abuela Maria Elena’s Posole
2 cups dried posole (dried whole hominy)
2 – 3 lb boneless pork shoulder
1/2 cup mild fresh green chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded, chopped
2 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 onion, chopped
1 -2 peeled, seeded, chopped tomatoes (about 1 cup)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
Salt to taste
Rinse posole in cold water until water runs clear. Soak overnight.
To cook pork, put it in a heavy pan on the stove …
Raisin Nut Bread, made from a pate Viennoise starter, a little rye flour, and the liquide levain I’ve been working and working with. I also soaked the raisins in orange juice and a little bit of vanilla. Isn’t it beautiful? I know what I’ll be eating for breakfast tomorrow!
THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING is out today! To celebrate, a love song to breakfast.
PANCAKE KISSES, BACON HUGS
Why breakfast is the secret of everything
I suppose I should confess upfront that I am a morning person. I wake up cheery, chatty and at the very first fingers of sunlight creeping over the horizon. I know you find this annoying. I know you wish I’d stop humming under my breath as I crack eggs and start the coffee, but I can’t help it. …
12 days until the release of THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING (Tuesday, December 29), and to celebrate, here is another little giveaway.
The Secret of Everything is centered in a little town that has, quite by accident, become a center of food culture. One of the characters in the book is 8-year-old Natalie, who is very particular about food, but not in a traditionally child-like way. Natalie reveresfood–the flavors and smells, the combinations and the colors–and she hates it that hardly anyone takes her passion seriously. She is working her way, one menu item at a time, through the menu at The 100 Breakfasts Cafe (including the eggs Benedict and huevos rancheros, thankyouverymuch), and she has a passion for salt, and that passion weaves a thread throughout the story. Below is an excerpt to introduce you to one of my favorite characters ever, but first, the giveaway.
In the comments, post a story about a favorite food from your own childhood. Next Wednesday, I’ll choose a name and send you a Salt Sampler Collection that includes some of Natalie’s favorites, including Himalayan Pink Salt (pictured left), Fleur de Sel de Guérande, red Alaea Hawaiian, and two others. It was inspirational and delightful to explore the textures and flavors of these salts for the book, and I know some of you will enjoy it, too. (And I know we will enjoy your food stories, too!)
EXCERPT, from THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING, by Barbara O’Neal :
Before Natalie’s dad had to work on Saturday, rescuing somebody who wasn’t supposed to be climbing on the rocks anyway, they were all suppose to go on a picnic. Instead, they got stuck at Grandma’s, eating fish sticks and ketchup, and now they were going on a picnic today and it was hot, hot, hot.
Natalie sat in the shade beneath the tree in the plaza, holding her sister Hannah’s hand, waiting for her dad to come out of the drugstore with sunscreen. They had to walk to the lake, naturally, because nobody could ever just drive anywhere around here. Already her skin was prickly down her back. Her grandma said she should wear a hat, but Natalie just did not see how that would make a person cooler.
She would rather stay right here in the shade all day and read a book. Climb up into the tree, maybe, and then come down later and go into Le Fleur de Mer and look at salts from the Dead Sea, which she imagined was probably a desert, all glittery in the sunshine like diamonds even though it was big crystals of gray salt. The lady in there didn’t like Natalie to come in by herself, she said it was nothing that would interest a child, but she didn’t know Natalie. Or that she had her own salt cellar and was just waiting to find the right salt to put in it.
THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING will be out in 27 26 days! Reader feedback so far has been extraordinary (check out the comments at GoodReads.com), and I’m very excited for everyone to read Tessa’s story.
To celebrate, I’ll offering a some little contests and giveaways over the next few weeks. This is the first one. I am giving away FOUR free ARCs of THE SECRET OF EVERYTHING. As soon as I draw names, I’ll run to the post office and mail them out, so you will have it by next Friday.
Technically, I suppose, apple butter is smooth. I originally made this recipe last winter and pureed it afterward. Since, however, my main use for this particular condiment is in my morning oatmeal, I have found I much prefer it to be left chunky. Recipe is adapted from one I found at The Art of Homemaking.
This what one of the things I love about dogs. She isn’t wailing about the impending end of her days on the planet. She’s fully engaged, living today, living with excitement. She doesn’t mourn the long walks she used to take when she was a younger healthier dog, she just charges out there to do what she can do now. She doesn’t get all stressed out about the diaper or her funny walk. On bad mornings, she waits patiently for one of us to carry her down the stairs, and we gladly do it, and when she gets down …
In The Lost Recipe for Happiness, by Barbara O’Neal, chef Elena Alvarez has good reasons to celebrate The Day of the Dead with great gusto. Here are two recipes, one for Mayan Hot Chocolate, and one for Pan de Muerto.
At CR’s urging, I decided to give the deconstruction of fish & chips a try. (For background on the Top Chef deconstruction challenge, read about it here.)
My challenge was to create a dish that would deconstruct fish & chips and end up tasting like the original. Since the only ingredients in the traditional offering are white fish (usually cod or haddock, depending on your locale), and potatoes, both fried and heavily salted, then served very hot, it wasn’t easy. But it was intriguing.
THE PLAN
Really good fish and chips are served very hot, very greasy, and very salty. There’s a …
Barbara O’Neal is enjoying the bounty of farmer’s markets, making jam, and lazing around before getting back to work
The Lost Recipe for Happiness made the list of Foodie Beach Reads by the Philly Inquirer. Check it out.
I’m sure everyone in the world has thought of doing this but me–but you know how it is when you discover something stunningly simple and delicious: Hey-sanna, Ho-sanna, Sanna-sanna hey!* I’ve been grilling lemons with chicken breasts and it is amazingly delcious. And easy.
Chicken breasts with Grilled Lemons and Sauteed Spinach
Serves 4
Olive Oil
4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 whole lemons, sliced; save the ends
Thyme
Rosemary
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper
4 cups fresh baby spinach, picked over and thick stems removed
Open the chicken breast into butterflies and sprinkle one side with thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper. Cover the bottom of a very large cast iron …
It’s a cold winter afternoon, the kind when winter blisters past the windows, turning everything blue. Inside, I am kneading bread. Not in a bread machine but with my own palms and wrists. The dough is whole wheat, heavy and thick, and it takes muscle to punch it down, to knead and fold and press, then turn it, fold it, press it again. Over and over. For such a glutinous dough, it will take ten minutes to break it down, then a couple of hours to rise and lighten, another round of kneading before I …
Two news tidbits this morning:
Monthly blog post up at Writer Unboxed: The Last Month of a Book (or “I am pregnant beyond all ability to describe it” ). Which I wrote Monday.
Tuesday morning, the Pikes Peak Writers Conference called with an emergency. One of their keynote speakers is unable to fly and they asked if I could possibly fill in. I said yes so fast I think the organizer was startled, but I think I’m starved for the company of my tribe, and it will be good to drink it all in, and for some reason, teaching and …
My new book will be out in January, and I’d love to include some reader recipes. Post one to the comments or email me with one to have a chance.
To my astonishment and delight, THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS has now gone to six printings!
It has also been featured with a cluster of other dog books in Barnes and Noble, to my delight. (Including a writer I love very much, Patricia Gaffney.)
I’m finishing up the next book, working title 100 Breakfasts. Look for it in January.
Come chat with me about Top Chef and food television at http://www.romancingtheblog.com/blog/2009/03/20/bloodless-franchise/
A great review from a kitchen professional on THE LOST RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS by Barbara O’Neal.
Readers of The Lost Recipe for Happiness who live outside the southwestern US might not know how to roast chiles. A simple recipe to roast a small batch, along with a link to a good recipe for green chile stew.
I needed to bake something today (to make up for my distastrous muffins last week) and decided upon scones. Apricot scones. They were so pretty we stopped everything, made a pot of tea (with PG Tips, sent quarterly from England by CR’s mother), cream and jam.
Pretty, no?
Have you baked something beautiful recently?
Week before last, TOP CHEF had a challenge that involved cooking the “last supper” of a group of individual famous chefs. Fascinating idea. Someone then asked me on Twitter what my last supper would be and I popped off with “a southern breakfast.”
It’s not an easy challenge. I’m still running through the possibilities. I don’t think it would be something rich and gourmet (neither were most of the chef’s choices–they tended to want their childhood favorites). I might want macaroni and cheese and whole grain rolls. Or chicken fried …
I actually thought I’d posted this recipe already, but I must have posted it on a private loop somewhere.
As promised on Twitter: the recipe I’ve been following for slow-cooked apple butter. It’s a joy to make because it fills the house with its heady fragrance for hours and hours and hours. Easy, too, aside from the time-consuming angle of peeling and cutting up the apples. I found the recipe on the Internet somewhere, but can’t find the original anymore, and the printout is gone. I’ve tweaked it a bit anyway, as you must feel free to …
The Lost Recipe for Happiness is the book of the month on W Network television in Australia. Join the discussion!
Joan Didion, the celebrated writer, went to Columbia Elementary School for awhile. The old building, made of red sandstone (as well as I can recollect), not the modern version that occupies the lot these days. I have been drunkenly reading her work, admiring the western cleanness, the spare and unsentimental way she captures the world, my world, the west. I was electrified to read her casual mention of the school, a brief sojurn while her father worked at Petersen Field, and even though I now wish to find the exact reference, I can’t. It was small and not very important.
Is …
Check out a podcast of an essay I wrote about a restaurant I worked in when I was a teenager: Pining for Michelle’s
I think you’ll enjoy this little glimpse into my world.
Women’s fiction writer Barbara O’Neal tells a story about her scavenger dog, Sasha.
Join me this Saturday for a food, a reading, and plenty of conversation at:
Beth Anne’s Book Corner
1532 N. Circle Drive
Saturday, January 17 1-3 pm
Can’t wait to see you!
I’ve drawn two names in my highly scientific fashion: by asking Christopher Robin to choose two numbers. So, Yvonne Erwin #9, and Angela #16, you are the winners of the promised baskets. Email me with your addresses and I will send them right out!
A recipe from The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O’Neal. How to bake pomegranate baklava, including a step by step guide in pictures on how to open a pomegranate easily.
I’ve just learned that The Lost Recipe for Happiness is going back for a third printing, thanks to all of you.
Thank you!
Book signing and readings for The Lost Recipe for Happiness, in Pueblo and Colorado Springs.
Contest to celebrate the release of The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O’Neal. List your top food memories for a chance to win two elegant gift baskets including a cookbook, chile-infused chocolates, and chile powder from Chimayo, nearby Elena’s hometown of Espanola.
Welcome to the new barbaraoneal.com website. Help me celebrate the December 30th release of The Lost Recipe For Happiness.
Come celebrate with me! Two launch parties for Colorado Springs and Pueblo (since I have so many ties in both cities!) Sample pomegranate baklava and Mexican hot chocolate, and enter a very special drawing for each signing.
