Purple Platter Meatloaf & other delicacies

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn Food12 Comments

Welcome to Vanilla Heart Publishing’s Dine-a-Round, a smorgasbord of posts featuring recipes for the culinary delicacies featured in our novels.

My contribution is an entrée from the Purple Platter Restaurant in my novel Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire. Jock claims to be a meatloaf kind of guy, but his dinnertime happiness level depends who made the meatloaf:

A Meatloaf Excerpt

The living room curtains were closed, and the front door was open slightly, and the aroma of meatloaf was wafting out onto the porch. Never a good sign.

“Honey, I’m home,” shouted Jock, stepping into the living room far enough to see no corpses were present.

“I’m in the kitchen, darling.”

Coral Snake Smith was heating up something in the skillet. He was wearing an apron with the strings untied. A basket with a towel on top, a Cabernet bottle and two glasses sat in the center on the kitchen table that had been set for two. One of the glasses had been used—excessively, from the look of the bottle. Jock put his camera bag on the floor and sat down at the table next to an empty plate and began munching on a hot Parker House roll.

“It takes balls breaking into a guy’s house to cook meatloaf,” said Jock.

“Lucinda told me to fix you something to eat,” said Smith.

He served up two Purple Platter sized helpings of meatloaf, whipped potatoes, and green beans and sat down without removing his apron.

“Why?”

“You missed Sunday dinner,” he said, then made a show of lifting his fork to signify it was time to dig in.

The meatloaf was surprisingly lousy. It was the kind of meatloaf Aunt Edna fixed Jock when he was an innocent kid on or about the time when she was losing track of things such as who he actually was and what ingredients belonged in the food.

The Recipe

(According to informed sources, Coral Snake Smith stole the basic recipe from Malcolm’s mother and then “punched it up” with extra herbs.)

An Elegant Dinner Party

http://bit.ly/gklZbA A complete menu from To Be Continued by Charmaine Gordon

Main Dish recipes

http://tiny.cc/6ocas Tranoc’s Lecho from Forest Song: Letting Go by  Vila Spiderhawk

http://bit.ly/g2ZWY3 OR http://bit.ly/dXQoTn Crispy Cobb Salad from No Easy Way by SR Claridge

http://bit.ly/hy7s5E Chicken Pot Pie from Within the Law by Chelle Cordero

http://bit.ly/f6XQKH Pot Roast from Appalachian Justice by Melinda Clayton

Dessert

http://bit.ly/glJHHT Pecan Pie from Sabbath’s House by Marilyn Celeste Morris

http://bit.ly/eoNgaF Poppy Seed Cake from Opal Fire Barbra Annino

http://bit.ly/dMNNTS Gingerbread from Frank, Incense And Muriel by Anne K. Albert

http://bit.ly/i2bI0m Creme Brulee from Conquering Venus by Collin Kelley

Beverage

http://bit.ly/gBBw4K Russian Czar Drink from Bartlett’s Rule by Chelle Cordero

I hope you enjoy the meal! Our characters like to eat well. The books are also quite tasty, whether in paperback or e-book form (multiple formats. including Kindle).

Click on the logo for our website, or look for our books on OmniLit, Smashwords, Amazon and other online booksellers.

Wicked Leeks Site Under Fire for Leaking Leek Recipes

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn satire11 Comments

by Jock Stewart, Special Investigative Reporter

Junction City, December 12, 2010–In a post-dawn raid of wild leek farmer Giles Asinine’s onion-domed mansion on Lady of Shallot Terrace here today, police found thousands of recipe cards stolen from the files of Gluttony Magazine and area restaurants including the Purple Platter and Kentucky Fried Scallions.

While charges have yet to be filed, police department spokesmen claim the recipe cache is the pièce de résistance within the Asinine-founded non-profit Wicked Leeks Publishing empire. In past years, Wicked Leeks has garnered a controversial reputation for publishing recipes stolen from magazines, restaurants and farm families as a “public service.”

“Junction City became a better town,” Asinine said in a 2009 news release, “when we learned Kentucky Fried Scallions ‘secret recipe’ claim was the work of mad chefs who were covering up the fact the restaurant was actually frying shallots.”

The first layer of the Wicked Leeks organization was peeled away when the Purple Platter Restaurant sued Asinine in state court earlier this year for stealing and disseminating the recipe for its famed cock-a-leekie soup. While news reports at the time focused on the difficulty of jury selection in a town where 98.6% of the residents think cock-a-leekie is British slang for using a restroom, the restaurant  successfully proved some $100,000 in damages once its famed soup du jour was “put in cans across the state.”

“Prior to the Wicked Leeks disclosure, nobody knew we put prunes in the brew,” said master chef Coral Snake Smith. “Fortunately, none of our sous chefs leaked our more-famous meatloaf recipe to any Asinine stool pigeons.”

Spokesmen for Junction City’s Gluttony Magazine said that the publication is on the cusp of bankruptcy because Wicked Leeks gives away for free what the magazine is selling.

“Our June issue featured recipes for chicken-leek casserole, fettuccine with leek sauce and leek quiche,” said vegetable editor Sue Jones. “We sold only one copy of the issue because everyone else in town surfed out to the Wicked Leeks site and got the recipes for free a month before we reached the newsstand.”

Informed sources say that Jones’ fine-tuned palate provided the foundation for her expert testimony in Platter v. Wicked Leaks that showed that “Giles’ Take-a-Leak Soup” was exactly the same formulation as “Coral Snake Smith’s Cock-a-Leekie Soup.”

“Jones is no spring onion,” said Smith. “She’s eaten so much food in her lifetime that nobody can sneak a recipe past her from soup to nuts.”

While giving due credit to Jones, Mayor Clark Trail claims that last summer’s expansion of the police department’s vice squad unit allowed it to cut the leeks off at the blender before they were pureed into a “free-for-all Internet Vichyssoise.”

“Our city council saw the wisdom of enlarging the focus of our vice quad from the more enjoyable vices of gambling and prostitution to include the more trivial moral faults of tattling and publishing stolen goods,” Trail said. “Righting a wrong with a wrong, shouldn’t be right.”

-30-

Coming December 17th: Purple Platter Meatloaf

Vanilla Heart Publishing’s authors will post recipes from their novels this coming Friday. Tune in here for the meatloaf recipe the Wicked Leeks site never found. Then follow the links to other great posts and recipes.

For more Jock Stewart, you are invited to partake of Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, available on Kindle for less than the cost of a dinner out on the town.

Whispers of Forever

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn beliefs, eternity, fiction4 Comments

We are immortal, and do not forget;
We are eternal; and to us the past
Is, as the future, present.
— Lord Byron, in “Manfred”

When one of the seven spirits makes this comment to Manfred in Byron’s dramatic poem composed in 1817, Manfred replies “Ye mock me.”

While most people are not tortured by unexplained guilt to the point of calling spirits (supernatural rather than liquid) to help them forget, I wonder if they believe in an eternal now. Looking at immortality, we can say that which we see confirms it or denies it.

I see it confirmed everywhere I look, from nature to myths to science to intuition. Perhaps I’m a “glass is half full” rather than a “glass is half empty person.” If I have a bias in my writing, it’s in favor of forever. In “The Sun Singer” and “Garden of Heaven,” the eternal now is a constant whisper deep within these adventures.

While earth ties us down to the concepts of space and time, the eternal now presupposes no time and no space. Seeing this possibility beyond the illusion of physical reality is, I think, part of the human quest. Fortunately, in writing fiction, I do not have to prove that immortality is real or even that it’s real for those who think it’s real. My imagination is my guide, so I am content to whisper about the probabilities on the pathways my characters are walking.

My challenge as a writer is casting a strong enough spell with my words to keep the listener from saying “ye mock me” when he hears my characters whispering about forever. I don’t expect to change minds, for I am a storyteller with entertaining yarns. However, when a reader considers that there truly is something else on the other side of the illusion, I am well pleased.

–Malcolm

Available in multiple e-book formats

Jock Stewart’s Christmas Carol

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn satire2 Comments

Coming December 17: Dine Along – Recipes from Vanilla Heart Publishing authors. Learn how to make Coral Snake Smith’s Purple Platter Meatloaf.

Yes, “Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire” is on Kindle at only $5.99.

“For those that like authors like Vonnegut or Miller, ‘Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire’ is a must-read. The book contains a lot of dark humour, moments of sexual tension, and characters that go back and forth between light and dark. Campbell’s play on words and original plot is sure to keep any reader on his or her toes.” — Nora Caron, “Journey to the Heart.”

Catty Definitions

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn satire2 Comments
    Catacomb – Grooming implement used to remove prospective fur balls from the exterior of a cat before they find their way inside the cat where they become yucky prior to being left on the rug while important guests are over for dinner.
    Catafalque – Actor Peter Falk’s pet.
    Catalog – Any unattended pencil left on any unattended surface in a room with one or more unattended cats.
    Catalyst – Position of a cat just before it tips over.
    Catamaran – A maran chicken running from your cat.
    Cat and Fiddle – Gossiping while playing the violin.
    Catastrophe – Any dead animal left on the doorstep by your cat which you are expected to bring inside and proudly display with the other wonders in the trophy case.
    Catapult – Means by which the cat got the remainder of a dangling piece of thread out of the sewing basket.
    Catbird – Your canary inside your cat.
    Catboat – Any vessel free of rats and canaries.
    Cat box – Sport involving one or more mail cats, often in an alley.
    Cat-call – Any of various silly sounds cat owners make while trying (usually in vain) to coax their cats back inside.
    Categorize – Method through which your cat sorts the contents just spilled out of a purse.
    Catgut – Processing area for Cat o’mountains.
    Cathode – Poem written by a lisping cat.
    Catnip – Love bite from your pet.
    Cat-ice – The round things that glow in the dark when tabby is near.
    Cat o’mountain – What you find in the litter box if you forget to clean it out for a couple of weeks.
    Cat o’ nine tails – Tom cat with his harem.
    Catsup – Ketchup thrown up by a cat.
    Cat’s Cradle – What unattended thread or string turns into while the cats are playing with it.
    Cat’s Pajamas – Any shawl or lap blanket draped over a human in a living room chair, usually during a TV show on a cold night.
    Cat’s Paw – Tabby’s daddy.
    Catwalk – Shortest possible route between the food bowl and the litter box.

–

–Author of the satire Jock Stewart and the Missing Sea of Fire, Malcolm R. Campbell lives in a house with four cats.

Glacier: One Hundred Beautiful Views

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books3 Comments

Regular readers of this blog know that my favorite place on the planet is Glacier National Park. I not only like visiting the “Crown of the Continent” in Montana, I like sharing the history, geology, flora and fauna with others. As Christmas approaches, I think of the books that will make great gifts.

Artist Roy E. Hughes’ 100 Beautiful Views of Glacier National Park, published last year, is high my list.

Hughes, who served as Glacier National Park’s artist in residence during July and August of 2005, uses Adobe Photoshop to create prints that look like they were produced by silkscreen or wood blocks. These, he calls digital block prints.

The results are stunning. For anyone passionate about Glacier National Park, the views in this 144-page book will bring back wonderful memories.
–

—Malcolm

Set in Glacier - Only $4.79 on Kindle

My favorite books become Christmas gifts

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn books4 Comments

As an author, I’m guiltily thankful for the readers who consume books the way movie-goers consume popcorn. From a sales and marketing perspective, authors and publishers like seeing giant sacks of books going out the door of the neighborhood bookstores.

My perspective is quite different at Christmastime when I am selecting gifts for family and friends. I want to give gifts that matter. Whether it’s fiction or nonfiction, my most pleasurable and meaningful reading experiences come from books that impact me in a profound way.

Such books are not like popcorn or even a shopping cart of the latest in glittering electronic gadgets and toys people lined up to buy on Black Friday. Most of those Black Friday gifts will be forgotten by year’s end. When I know a person well enough to give him or her a book I greatly treasured, then my hope is that they will treasure it and remember it many years into the future–just as one remembers the best dinners they ever had at their favorite five-star restaurant.

Some of the joy of giving books has been lost because the economics of the business has forced us into a world of paperbacks and e-books that are mere ghosts of what books used to be. Books once were more than the words they contained. They were visual and tactile experiences from the selection of the type fonts to the choice of paper to the binding.

That said, when I begin Christmas shopping, my favorite books of the past year are my inspiration for many of the gifts I give. A shared book is, in a sense, a very personal moment, somewhat like a deep conversation next to a warm fireplace fire on a cold winter’s night. We come to know and understand those we love, in part, through the discoveries of the books we have in common.

This year, I will think of Smoky Trudeau’s Observations of an Earth Mage and Vanilla Heart Publishing’s Nature’s Gifts anthology of stories, poems and essays for those who love the out of doors whether they be casual travelers of avid back country hikers.

For those who ponder spirituality and the psychological and transcendent experiences of life’s journey, I’ll be wrapping up copies of Patricia Damery’s Farming Soul: A Tale of Initiation.
 (See my review.)

Those who enjoy good storytelling with a touch of backwoods wisdom and magical realism, might well find a copy of River Jordan’s The Miracle of Mercy Land. (See my review.) Others will unwrap Melinda Clayton’s powerful Appalachian Justice.

I want to share my favorite books of the year at Christmas because they are important to me, and I can think of no better gifts to give.

—Malcolm

The Ever-Present Lure of Childhood

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn eternity6 Comments

When we’re children, we’re often in a hurry to grow up. To our young eyes, adulthood as a time of unlimited freedom.

Later, we look back to our childhood, real or imagined, and wish for those carefree days again.

I explore this theme, among others, in my novel “Garden of Heaven.” One of my favourite poets, though not well known these days, St.-John Perse, also explores this theme in “To Celebrate a Childhood,” a poem found in Éloges and Other Poems.

He asks, as I do, “Sinon l’enfance, qu’y avait-il alors qu’il n’y a plus?” (“Other than childhood, what was there in those days that is not here today?”)

Perse is not, I think, seeking a list of dates, events, inventions, names of kings and presidents. so much as the sense of things and the feeling of things. Childhood, as we look back on it, is a state of mind, perhaps more real in our memory of it, than it was when we first lived it.

In “Fern Hill,” Dylan Thomas suggests that we should celebrate childhood in all all its innocence before we grow old and follow the sun out of grace. Looking back, the poet writes, “Time let me hail and climb, golden in the heydays of his eyes, and green and golden I was huntsman and hersman, the calves sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold, and the sabbath rang slowly in the pebbles of the holy streams.”

Childhood in so many ways is our own personal Garden of Eden out of which we grow up and lose our innocence. Our journeys pull us away from that innocence perhaps, as Robertson Davies wrote in Fifth Business, “One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence.”

We cannot–at least for now–stay in the Garden. We have miles to go before we sleep and worlds to discover and ourselves to explore. But I wonder if part of growing up is learning hour to carry more of those old green and golden days with us into the practical world of adulthood.

—Malcolm

Thank you to everyone who stopped by on November 21 for Blog Jog Day.

Songs and Whispers of the Living Earth

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn conservation, ecology, writing28 Comments

“On a quiet day, however, those walking alongside the relatively recent Lake Sherburne reservoir may hear the voice of grandfather rock whispering a secret: within the scope of geologic time, all rivers are new, and the men and women who follow them are as ephemeral as monarch butterflies on a summer afternoon.” — Malcolm R. Campbell in “Bears, Where They Fought,” Nature’s Gifts Anthology

Perhaps you’ve heard the Earth’s Goddess call your name. If not, wade in the rolling surf along the edge of the sea or hike through the heart of a desert or wait quietly at the summit of a mountain where old stone touches the sky. Some hear the Goddess voice more clearly at night beneath a full moon.

If your own heart holds a strong passion for a place, then that is where you will best hear Earth whispering her secrets. Calm your breath and your mind’s ever-chattering thoughts. Then, take off your shoes and gloves and touch that which is ancient with the young soles of your feet and your neophyte fingertips.

Listen.

The songs and whispers of the living earth may come to you as a breath of wind, the roar of surf or a mountain stream, the faint rasp of sage brush against cooling sand, the hollow echoes of rain, or the sharp clatter of stone falling on stone. You may find a message within seemingly mundane signs.

Yet, what you hear, you may not hear with your ears. The Earth may speak to you with a voice inside your heart, clear and distinct from your own thoughts. When the Goddess speaks, you may hear her voice as you would recall a memory or the almost audible music within seemingly inert water, sand or stone beneath the watchful eye of the moon.

Your right-now sense of Earth’s message may be strong in the moment of contact or it may catch your attention later in dreams and daydreams. One way or another, you will know when the Goddess has called your name, for her song brings with it a great comfort whether she imparts a secret or asks of you a favor.

Like fluttering butterflies, we are momentary visitors upon the surface of a world that is incomprehensibly ancient, yet when we hear Earth’s voice, we know to a certainty that we are not separate from sand and water and stone.

—Malcolm

“Thank you for stopping by my Blog! Please explore all this Blog has to offer, then jog on over to “Mysteries and My Musings.” If you would like to visit a different Blog in the jog, go to Blog Jog Day.

Coming November 21: Blog Jog Day

On By Malcolm R. CampbellIn news2 Comments

Put on your running shoes this Sunday and be ready to race from post to post during the astoundingly awesome and deliciously overwhelming Second Annual Blog Jog Day. (It goes without saying that clothing is not required.)

After years of research and a few scrapes with demons, my Blog Jog Day post will be nothing less than splendidly tremendous.

Perhaps you will learn where all the bodies are buried.

Or the long-sought Confederate Gold.

Or Judge Crater (erroneously believed for years to be at the bottom of Crater Lake).

Or the meaning of the Beale ciphers of 1820.

Or why the world forgot about Burma Shave in in spite of those magical little roadside signs with jingles like The wolf is shaved so neat and trim, Little Red Riding Hood is chasing him.

If things get weird on Blog Jog Day, blame the full moon. If they don’t, then make sure to stay hydrated, and happy jogging.

—Malcolm

On Sale at Vanilla Heart Publishing