Bitchin' Blog Posts
: Food
June 13, 2011 | Monday | 49 Comments
First: This entire guide will be available as a PDF download, in large size and wallet-sized, for your convenience. Right click and download any PDFs, por favor! Let me begin by cluing you in on the TRUTH about New Yorkers, as best described by Meg Cabot: New York isn’t like Indiana. Well, you probably knew that. But I mean, it’s REALLY not like Indiana. In the town where I’m from, you don’t walk anywhere…. In New York, you walk everywhere. Nobody has a car - or, if they do, they don’t use it, except for trips out of the city.…
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May 04, 2011 | Wednesday | 31 Comments
There is a staggeringly small amount of media attention being directed at the horrific devastation and continued difficulties of the Southern US following hellabad tornadoes from storms that hit the region 25-28 April 2011. Over 300 people were killed from the confirmed 189 different tornadoes - excuse me, according to the NOAA, 305 tornadoes from the storm, and with flooding, destruction, rain, and so many missing, the situation isn’t getting better any time soon. But I haven’t heard anything about it on the tv as much as I have on Twitter. The news hasn’t changed since the storm, though things…
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May 03, 2011 | Tuesday | 78 Comments
I’m working on a a project for RWA this year to help everyone navigate their way to interesting places in NYC. But I need your help: what landmarks, museums, places of interest, stores, and different locations are MUST-SEE spots in Manhattan? Tell me tell me, so I can plot them out. Mwaaaahahahah, plotting. Among my list of spots to recommend to visiting romance writers: Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum (one of my absolute favorite places in NYC) Metropolitan Museum of Art Museum of Sex MoMA Central Park walking paths of awesomeness Woo Shoe (for all your shoe shopping needs) Bloomingdale’s Macy’s Herald…
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October 25, 2010 | Monday | 62 Comments
Oh, it’s a beautiful thing when food imagery is used in sex scenes. It’s all 9 1/2 Weeks spliced together with Iron Chef - wouldn’t that be the very best in a sensual interlude? Unless we’re talking snack foods, as Kathleen discovered: Thank you for pointing out the Books on the Knob website. I have had a lot of fun downloading the free ebooks. One of these was The Bite Before Christmas by Heidi Betts. In the story “All I Vant For Christmas”, I read something that belongs in the “The What Not to Write” category. Sex linked with food…
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September 26, 2009 | Saturday | 27 Comments
If this book were portioned out and divided into thirds, two of the thirds would be so outstanding, so fun and awesome and interesting and innovative that I could go on for awhile on the things I enjoyed about them. The remaining portion dulls the sparkle and joy of those other two, because the flaws are contained in a character and in the structure of the tension. Let’s start with the good parts: Edwards has created an absolutely fun new hero: the happy alpha. Adam Temple is the chef at the helm of a new restaurant, Market, specializing in locally…
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September 04, 2009 | Friday | 14 Comments
I love thieves. Not the real kind. I assume they’re not at all fun. I’m talking fictional thieves. They’re clever, they’re fun, and, most of all, it’s exhilarating to watch them break all the rules. So when my friend Christine Merrill told me that the hero of her Regency historical, A Wicked Liaison, would be the charming thief who appeared in her previous book, An Unladylike Offer, I was instantly hooked. Regencies are a great setting for thieves because the rules governing proper behavior are so strict and confining. It’s a ball to watch Anthony Smyth, the hero, pretend to…
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June 18, 2009 | Thursday | 13 Comments
Oh, Dear Lord, Level 1: According Kate Copstick, to the new owner of Britain’s Erotic Review, male erotica writers are wanted because women are “not straightforward enough about sex.” “It’s almost like writing about food ... Ladies who lunch, should not really write about food because they don’t really love food. They don’t salivate at the thought of a great steak.” She said she loved sex so could write about it in the “scratch and itch burst of endorphins” style in which it should be written. Oh, Dear Lord, Level 2: Annmarie reports that buses in Chicago are wrapped with…
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June 10, 2009 | Wednesday | 177 Comments
Kris Kennedy’s medieval historical novel made quite a splash on Twitter, particularly as it was hella-bargain at Books on Board. Jane and others had good things to say about it, and let’s face it - the medieval is not as frequently seen as it used to be. While emailing with Kennedy last week, I asked her about the historical details that few really want to experience in the course of a narrative, and she was kind enough to write up a list of historical details we rarely see in medieval romances. Bring on the hilarity, and thank you to Kris…
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April 17, 2009 | Friday | 2 Comments
If you’re seriously hankering for antiques, really good food, and farmy awesomeness (and those stomach-dropping windy roads that I love so much), head on over to Doylestown Bookshop tomorrow, Saturday 18 April, at 1:00 pm, for a reading and signing of Beyond Heaving Bosoms.
I’ll be reading from the book, signing copies, and looking forward to meeting the Bitchery members who have told me they plan to stop by. See you tomorrow!
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March 01, 2009 | Sunday | 28 Comments
Scrinnameless, who I call “Scrin” for short, is a 22 year-old geology student who is reading Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife: Beguilement. Bujold! (no, that is not going to get old any time soon) He finished the book! Chapter 11 So everyone’s warned Dag and Fawn away from each other. Apparently, Dag’s superior is afraid that if he opens himself up, he’ll take in love like a starving and thirsty man would take in food and water—and try to go too far, too fast. Still, I know they’ll end up together,…
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February 28, 2009 | Saturday | 11 Comments
Scrinnameless, who I call “Scrin” for short, is a 22 year-old geology student who is curious about romance, and at my suggestion has taken to reading Lois McMaster Bujold’s The Sharing Knife: Beguilement. Bujold! (snrk) We have an intermission and recap of the book. I’m halfway through the book, so I’m finding it appropriate that I recapitulate my views on the book so far. World-building: Given that this is a very small part of the world, seen from the eyes of two people (usually), what I’ve seen is pretty limited. Most of it’s actually been about the Lakewalkers. Of course,…
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February 16, 2009 | Monday | 15 Comments
Here at the NJ outpost of Smart Bitch HQ, we are big fans of America’s Test Kitchen. Though there are times when Christopher Kimball is a sanctimonious snotbag, and we wish his harem of excellent chefs would smack the smirk off his mug with a cast iron skillet, there is no denying that the recipes are so great, they bring new meaning to the words “never fail.” From the Best Recipe cookbooks to the America’s Test Kitchen show on public television—and the enormous and wonderful Cook’s Country magazine, we are acolytes at the altar of Cook’s Illustrated. So imagine my…
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February 03, 2009 | Tuesday | 9 Comments
It’s a strange thing to be hungry, amused, and oddly tempted all at the same time, but thanks to the purple prose wonderment of the Smart Bitch Recipe competition for our fourth birthday, we’re all three, though especially amused.
We have six winners, plus the grand prize winner, who is one seminally lucky individual! (snrk)
The Grand Prize: Your choice of one of the six appliances featured PLUS a luscious semen cookbook. Oh, you’re all on the edge of your seats, eh? The lucky winner is:
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January 27, 2009 | Tuesday | 16 Comments
A few people emailed me to ask why I was going on such a short cruise, and it was super short. I hadn’t heard of a cruise this brief- we left Thursday at 5pm and docked and disembarked by 9am on Saturday. Really, it was brief. I felt like I’d unpacked and repacked in less than 24 hours – probably because, now that I think about it, I had. One thing that wasn’t brief? My wardrobe. I’d packed for Florida. But as I seem to be The Bringer Of Cold Weather, it was beyond chilly there. The high on Wednesday…
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December 17, 2008 | Wednesday | 8 Comments
I love silliness. Specifically, the Uncycopedia’s definition of a romance novel. My top faves: A good cover must be able to instantly quell the buyer’s instinctive urge to ponder “Do I really need to read another one of these books?” Wow. I’m amazingly susceptible because I acquire new romance more often than I acquire food. It at once probes the dewy moistness of plot, while it throbs with purpose, knowing no bounds in which its authors will stop to please and sate their gentle reader…. Martin shed all of his declensions. But she could not help it but to stare…
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