She knows how to work a room, she’s always impeccably dressed, and no matter how hard you might try you just can’t seem to break her confidence. Hate her or love her, everyone wants to be her. Here are 10 tactics to achieving your own Girl on Top status:

  1.

    Know what you want and have the guts to ask for it. There’s nothing worse than being completely tongue-tied when you finally get face time with your boss.

  2.

    Never offer up too much information—maintaining an air of mystery is always better than being an open book. If you show all of your cards too soon, there’ll be no incentive to keep listening to you.

  3.

    Know the difference between being nice and being respected, and always opt for the latter. This isn’t high school. There’s more at stake than a seat at the “cool” lunch table.

  4.

    Don’t make excuses. If you mess up, take the blame and move on. After awhile, people won’t remember the mistake—but they will recall how you tried to weasel out of it.

  5.

    Live by the rule of One Sexy Thing and pick one body part to flaunt each day. A little leg goes a long way and there’s a fine line between subtly sexy and streetwalker.

  6.

    Quit badmouthing in-house competition, but always be kept in the gossip loop. It’s fine to know what’s going on, so long as you aren’t the one whose lips are moving.

  7.

    Don’t waste half a second on those who just aren’t that into you. For every one employer who doesn’t want you, there are 10 who do. Don’t waste your energy on those who don’t appreciate your talents.

  8.

    Never let yourself become complacent. When it comes down to it, no one is indispensable.

  9.

    Always have other more attractive options. When the time comes to move on you’ll want that to be your decision, not your employer’s.

  10.

    Never, ever, let them see you sweat. Leave the room, leave the building if you have to, but never let on that you’re in over your head.

©2009 Nicole Williams, author of Girl on Top: Your Guide to Turning Dating Rules into Career Success

About the author
Nicole Williams, author of Girl on Top: Your Guide to Turning Dating Rules into Career Success, is the best-selling author of Wildly Sophisticated: A Bold New Attitude for Career Success and Earn What You’re Worth, and the founder of WORKS by Nicole Williams, the first media and content company marketed toward young professional women. Her advice is featured regularly in major media outlets including Elle, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Marie Claire, the Wall Street Journal,and the Financial Times. Nicole also regularly appears on The Today Show, ABC’s Primetime, Good Morning America, Fox News, and CNN.

You can visit Nicole’s websites at www.NicoleWilliams.com and www.GirlOnTopBook.com.

Here is my recipe.  It’s an old Russian cutlet, featured in my husband’s and mine latest book, On the Edge, as the “Edge Burger”

1 1/2 lbs of ground beef
1 cup cooked long grain rice
2 garlic cloves, put through the garlic press or 1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp minced green onion
1 egg
Salt and pepper
1 1/2 - 2 cups bread crumbs ( I use Progresso Italian Style but any variety will do)
Oil for frying

Warm about an 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a frying pan on medium.  Mix first four ingridients in a large mixing bowl.  Add salt and pepper, as if to eat.  Add the egg and work it through the mixture.  It’s important that the egg is completely mixed in.

Place bread crumbs into a dish.

Shape the meat into small oblong patties about 3/4 of an inch thick, roll them in bread crumbs, and pan fry in oil on both sides.  The bread crumbs burn fast and the cutlets will take at least 3-4 minutes to cook on each side, so medium temperature works best.  A cooked cutlet should be dark brown in color and crisp.  Traditionally these are served with onion, sliced very thin and pickled in a mixture of equal parts water, vinegar and a spoon of sugar, but I found that my kids vastly prefer plain ketchup.

The cutlets will keep well and make good left-over snacks.

When doubling the recipe or cooking for a crowd, the good rule of thumb is to have about equal amounts of rice and meat. 

About the author

“Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team. Ilona is a native-born Russian and Andrew is a former communications sergeant in the U.S. Army. Contrary to popular belief, Andrew was not an intelligence officer with a license to kill, and Ilona was not the mysterious Russian spy who seduced him.  They met in college, in English Composition 101, where Ilona got a better grade. Andrew is still sore about that! Andrew and Ilona currently reside in Pooler, Georgia, with their two children and two dogs, one of whom is clearly neurotic and the other who believes herself to be a thirty-pound wolf.

Yummy crab cake goodness! Today’s recipe comes from author Paige Cummings and is featured in her book, Under the Liberty Oak.

1 Pound of fresh, picked crab
¼ cup diced onion
¼ cup of chopped red pepper
(Trulee chops 1-2 Ssotch Bonnets and uses sweet red pepper
for the rest of the ¼ cup)
1 Cup of Bread Crumbs
¼  Cup Cream Cheese
½ Cup Mayonnaise
1 T. Dijon Mustard    
Pinch of Cayenne Pepper
1 large egg                  
1/8 t salt
1T chopped parsley

Mix everything together and let it rest in the fridge for at least one hour.

Roll into bitesize (heaping teaspoon) balls and roll them into more breadcrumbs.

Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.

Serve with Trulee’s crab sauce

Mix 1 C Mayonnaise with ½ cup of Pepper Jelly and 2 shakes of Liquid Smoke

About the author

A native of coastal Georgia, Paige now lives in Athens, Georgia with her husband, Mike and three home-schooled cats. She is a founding member of The Southern Scribes and The Harriette Austin Writers. Twice retired, as a naval officer (our Navy) and a Red Cross executive, Paige volunteers her time with programs for the homeless and medically indigent, when not writing or staring out of the window thinking about writing. She is currently working on a historical prequel as well as a sequel to Under the Liberty Oak. Under the Liberty Oak is available at http://www.Amazon.com. She would love to hear from readers at PaigeCummings.com

Photostyling by Kandy Duke, photos by Ken Duke

Ginger cookies were popular during the Civil War. Historical author Jessica James shares an easy, mouth-watering recipe for them today at Book Addict.

All sorts of ginger cakes or breads were popular in the 19th century - both soft and crisp. It was also common to cut them into shapes and hang them on the Christmas tree. The recipe below is for crisp, sugar-coated cookies.
Ginger Cakes

3/4 cups shortening

1 cup sugar

1 beaten egg

1/4 cup molasses

2 tsp. soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. ginger

2 cups flour

Cream shortening and sugar. Add the egg and molasses and mix well. Sift together the dry ingredients and add to the shortening mixture. Mix until combined. Roll into walnut sized balls and roll in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 7 - 10 minutes.

About the author

Jessica James is the author of the award-winning historical novel Shades of Gray. During her latest book tour, James will give away a basket of goodies. Find out details about the tour - which will be from Nov. 30 to Dec. 14 - are available at her blog. Here is a trailer for her novel:

The old saying goes that the only sure things in life are death and taxes, and sometimes that feels all too true. It’s hard to hold onto faith when all around us we see wars, natural and man-made disasters, hardships, broken families, major illnesses, substance addictions, abuse of all kinds—and the list goes on. We all know families or individuals going through difficult times, and we’ve encountered our own personal times of brokenness as well. I certainly have. The truth is it’s hard not to become disillusioned and cynical when faced with these things.

Over the years I’ve questioned how we can find purpose, strength, and healing when it feels like our world is out of control. One of the main ways I try to make sense of life is to write stories about it. That’s what led me to write my contemporary novel One Holy Night, which grew out of my wrestling with the kinds of gritty issues that impact our lives every day. At one point my character Julie asks: “Why don’t we have a God who always answers our prayers, especially if it concerns the welfare of someone we love, especially someone who also happens to be a believer?” That’s truly one of the hardest questions we have to deal with. If there is a God and He is good, why does He allow suffering?

We tend to blame God for evil things that happen when, except for natural disasters that are a part of our world, these things are all caused by human beings, whether intentionally or not. Obviously God didn’t cause the suffering in these cases. People do things that hurt others and themselves. But time and again we see God repairing what people have destroyed. We pollute the earth and divert natural resources in ways that harm the environment, but God set in place natural processes that cleanse the earth and restore it to its natural state once pollution ceases. People do things that violate others and break relationships, but reconciliation and healing take place in situations where pride and anger and willfulness stand in the way. Against all odds, hearts change.

That still leaves the question of why God allows suffering, however. Why did God give humans free will, which allows us to do evil things, when He could have made us to be good? The hard truth remains that we don’t know the answer because God doesn’t choose to reveal it to us—and our human minds couldn’t encompass it even if He did. So at the end of the day, the will and ways of the Creator remain inscrutable. We’re left with the choice to have faith, to trust the Giver of Life and His ability to use every circumstance for our good—or not.

In Mark 4:35-41 Jesus’ disciples are out on the sea with Him. That alone should have given them supreme confidence when a raging storm threatened to swamp their small boat. After all, they had watched Jesus heal the lame, sick, blind, and deaf and even raise the dead. They had all the evidence they needed to be confident that Jesus was in control! But when the winds suddenly beat down on their boat, they did exactly what most of us do when a crisis threatens our well-ordered lives. They panicked! “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” they demanded. So he raised his hand and said to the storm: “Peace, be still.” Instantly the gale dissipated and the waves became smooth as glass. An unearthly calm possessed the once troubled sea.

When we’re overcome by trouble and distress, we can find peace in the assurance that in the midst of our stormy seas we also have Jesus in the boat with us. Although we do not know the way ahead and where unseen dangers lie, God does. And our heavenly Father, more than any other, cares deeply that we are perishing and reaches out to save us. In John 16:33, Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

When we face devastating situations, the cross is our assurance that Jesus has been where we are and that God sees our circumstances and is working on our behalf. The only one who can overcome the tribulation we experience is the One who set the universe in place and still holds it in His hand.

About the author
J. M. Hochstetler writes stories that always involve some element of the past and of finding home. Born in central Indiana, the daughter of Mennonite farmers, she graduated from Indiana University with a degree in Germanic languages. She was an editor with Abingdon Press for twelve years and has published four novels. Daughter of Liberty (2004), Native Son (2005), and Wind of the Spirit (March 2009), the first three books of the critically acclaimed American Patriot Series, are set during the American Revolution. One Holy Night, a retelling of the Christmas story set in modern times, is the 2009 Christian Small Publishers Fiction Book of the Year and a finalist for the 2009 American Christian Fiction Writers Long Contemporary Book of the Year.

Hochstetler is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Christian Authors Network, Middle Tennessee Christian Writers, Nashville Christian Writers Association, and Historical Novels Society. She and her husband live near Nashville, Tennessee.

You can find Joan online at www.jmhochstetler.com or at this book’s blog http://oneholynight.blogspot.com

In general, there are only two kinds of people: stars and planets. Those who give off an autonomous, inner light, and those who are forced to reflect a borrowed, exterior light; those who illuminate the lives of others with an intrinsic inner glow and those who are so inwardly dark that they become a black hole, soaking up every last speck of light so that none is left for others to enjoy. The irony of Hollywood is that nearly all our celebrities are planets rather than stars. Lacking an inner radiance, they become dependent on the external spotlight. Soon they become its prisoner and, bereft of a connection with the Source of all Light, they suffer the corrosive effects of celebrity sunburn, which usually manifests itself in the form of moral degeneracy, irredeemable loneliness, and deep unhappiness.

A close friend of mine who is a television producer called me up after Michael died and told me that he was profoundly disappointed in my refusal to get back into Michael’s life to try and help him. “It seemed so unlike you, Shmuley, to give up on someone.”

What my friend did not understand was that salvation must always involve some act of personal redemption. One cannot rescue someone who is not prepared to exert any effort to rescue themselves. I knew that if I went back into Michael’s life it would be me who would end up needing rescuing. Michael would have dragged me back into his orbit and the dysfunction and chaos would have ripped me from my moorings. I would have been one sinking ship trying to save another.

Do you really believe that all the hucksters who surrounded Michael at the end of his life—the publicists who served as apologists for his most reprehensible behavior, the doctor-pushers who fed him his constant supply of drugs, the agents and managers who sucked his blood dry—were all bad people? I assume many or all of them were once quite decent. But they got slowly pulled into the unethical world of supercelebrity until they were compromised by it. A doctor would start by trying to resist Michael’s entreaties for more sedatives. But Michael would seduce him by making him feel that he needed him so badly. And it’s heady stuff to be needed by a global superstar. It makes you feel important and special and soon you close your eyes to all you know to be righteous. The glow of fame is too bright, the gravitational pull of celebrity too difficult to resist, until you have become nothing but a satellite in its orbit. All resistance has been quelled by the superpowerful narcotic of superstardom.

So, was Michael Jackson beyond redemption? I am loath to answer that question. I am a rabbi, for goodness sake, and with the exception of cold-blooded killers, terrorists, and violent rapists, I believe in the divine spark of every human being. And it was undeniable that Michael had a luminous soul that once shined brightly.

But having said this, I believe that short of the most profound and gut-wrenching intervention, Michael’s early death was almost inevitable. The reason: He had lost any real reason to live. Yes, there were his children, and he loved them dearly. But that was all. Other than that, his life had become so riddled with pain, his existence so directionless, his everyday routine so vacuous, that, aside from watching his children grow up, he had nothing to took forward to.

It remains a mystery to me why the precious responsibility of caring for his children was not enough to make him choose life. But what is clear is that everything else that was important to him—being loved by the public, helping the world’s children, having relationships that were not mutually exploitative—were, in his mind, out of reach forever. In this sense, dare I say it, Michael was beyond redemption because he could not summon the strength or energy to redeem himself. He was lethargic, burned out, and drugged into a near comatose stupor, all under the watchful eye of people who claimed to care for him.

The above is an excerpt from the book The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2009 Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation

About the author
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, author of The Michael Jackson Tapes: A Tragic Icon Reveals His Soul in Intimate Conversation is one of the world’s leading relationship experts and spiritual authorities. His twenty-one books have been best-sellers in seventeen languages, and his award-winning syndicated column is read by a global audience of millions. He is the host of TLC’s award-winning Shalom in the Home and was Oprah Winfrey’s love, marriage, and parenting expert on Oprah and Friends. He served for eleven years as rabbi at Oxford University, where he built the Oxford L’Chaim Society into the University’s second largest student organization. Today, Newsweek calls him the most famous rabbi in America. The winner of the highly prestigious London Times Preacher of the Year award, Rabbi Shmuley is also the recipient of the National Fatherhood Award and the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Debbie, and their nine children.

Learn more about The Michael Jackson Tapes at www.michaeljacksontapes.com and www.shmuley.com.

Follow Rabbi Shmuley on Twitter: www.twitter.com/RabbiShmuley and on Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/9la3tw.

I don’t enjoy cooking so when I find a recipe that is both full of delicious ingredients and easy to make, it’s a hit with me. Our niece Megan’s Cornbread Pizza is both. Cornbread is a favorite at our house and it is the foundation of this recipe. As with all pizza, you can design your own taste combinations. This crust makes a yummy “chili” pizza as well, Top it with chunky chili and your favorite cheese (I use cheddar) and bake. It’s a fun way to use up leftover chili plus it’s fast and delish. I want to thank our niece Megan for the recipe and Angela for letting me not only share a fun recipe, but also for giving me a little bit of bragging space - I am so proud of Megan!

Corn Bread Pizza
Recipe from Meal Planning Mommies

Ingredients

  * 1/2 cup corn meal
  * 1 cup flour
  * 2 t baking powder
  * 1/2 t salt
  * 1/2 cup water
  * 2 T extra virgin olive oil

Toppings

  * Tomato sauce ( 1/2 a jar)
  * Pepperoni
  * Mozzarella
  * Parmesan
  * Pinch of italian seasoning per pizza
  * Whatever else your little heart desires

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 8 inch cake pans and sprinkle with corn meal.
  2. Mix dry ingredients (corn meal, flour, baking powder and salt)
  3. Mix water and olive oil in a separate bowl.
  4. Make a well in the dry ingredients. Add water/oil mixture into the well and stir until a soft dough forms.
  5. Refrigerate until ready or divide in half and roll each into an 8 inch circle. Place in prepared cake pans and top with tomato sauce, cheese, pepperoni and parmesan. Sprinkle with Italian seasoning and put in the oven.
  6. Bake for 12-16 minutes, rotating half way through. Remove from the oven when cheese is bubbling. Using a spatula or two, transfer to a plate. Eat like you mean it.

* This recipe can easily be made to apply for 3 people or doubled for 4 people!

About the author
Joy DeKok is the author of 5 published books, a professional speaker, and an author coach. She lives with her husband Jon on thirty-five acres of field and forest where they enjoy exploring. Two of Joy’s favorite things are spending time with the kids she loves and her dogs Sophie and Tucker. You can find her online at www.gettingitwrite.net  www.joydekok.com  and www.believe4kids.com

Seventy years ago, Raymond Chandler published The Big Sleep, his first novel, and the opening salvo in a bibliography that would eventually legitimize the hard boiled genre as a true literature. Though he’s been dead for some time, I thought it might be fun to interview him. Undeterred by his interred remains, I’ve rifled through his collected essays and correspondence, and have arranged them in Q and A format. Though he might not have much to say on the war, or health care reform, his thoughts on literature and the crime genre are as refreshing now as the day he put pen to paper.

Hard boiled fiction has come a long way from the Black Mask days. How did an genre once dismissed as a dime store distraction earn its literary merit?

When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over the ball.

Literary critics were slow to recognize this.

The average critic never recognizes an achievement when it happens. He explains it after it has become respectable.

So what is the crime writer’s secret to success?

The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.

There’s a famous letter you dashed off to your editor at The Atlantic…

“Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split, and when I interrupt the velvety smoothness of my more or less literate syntax with a few sudden words of bar-room vernacular, that is done with the eyes wide open and the mind relaxed but attentive.”

Describe the private eye according to Raymond Chandler.

The private detective of fiction is a fantastic creation who acts and speaks like a real man. He can be completely realistic in every sense but one, that one sense being that in life as we know it such a man would not be a private detective.

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.

The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor—by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.

He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks—that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

The story is the man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

How does crime fiction stack up? Has it seen its Ulysses?

There are no ‘classics’ of crime and detection. Not one. Within its frame of reference, which is the only way it should be judged, a classic is a piece of writing which exhausts the possibilities of its form and can hardly be surpassed. No story or novel of mystery has done that yet. Few have come close. Which is one of the principal reasons why otherwise reasonable people continue to assault the citadel.

Any parting advice to writers?

When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.

—

All of Raymond Chandler’s above dialogue comes from The Selected Letters of Raymond Chandler, Trouble Is My Business, and The Simple Art of Murder. Care has been taken to preserve the context and intent of the quotations.

—-

The opening of Trouble Is My Business, by Raymond Chandler.

Anna Halsey was about two hundred and forty pounds of middle-aged putty-faced woman in a black tailor-made suit. Her eyes were shiny black shoe buttons, her cheeks were as soft as suet and about the same color. She was sitting behind a black glass desk that looked like Napoleon’s tomb and she was smoking a cigarette in a black holder that was not quite as long as a rolled umbrella. She said: “I need a man.”

I watched her shake ash from the cigarette to the shiny top of the desk where flakes of it curled and crawled in the draft from an open window.

“I need a man good-looking enough to pick up a dame who has a sense of class, but he’s got to be tough enough to swap punches with a power shovel. I need a guy who can act like a bar lizard and backchat like Fred Allen, only better, and get hit on the head with a beer truck and think some cutie in the leg-line topped him with a breadstick.”

“It’s a cinch,” I said. “You need the New York Yankees, Robert Donat, and the Yacht Club Boys.”

“You might do,” Anna said, “cleaned up a little. Twenty bucks a day and ex’s. I haven’t brokered a job in years, but this one is out of my line. I’m in the smooth-angles of the detecting business and I make money without getting my can knocked off. Let’s see how Gladys likes you.”

She reversed the cigarette holder and tipped a key on a large black-and-chromium annunciator box. “Come in and empty Anna’s ash tray, honey.”;

We waited.

The door opened and a tall blonde dressed better than the Duchess of Windsor strolled in.

She swayed elegantly across the room, emptied Anna’s ash tray, patted her fat cheek, gave me a smooth rippling glance and went out again.

“I think she blushed,” Anna said when the door closed. “I guess you still have It.”

“She blushed—and I have a dinner date with Darryl Zanuck,” I said. “Quit horsing around. What’s the story?”

“It’s to smear a girl. A redheaded number with bedroom eyes. She’s shill for a gambler and she’s got her hooks into a rich man’s pup.”

“What do I do to her?”

Anna sighed. “It’s kind of a mean job, Philip, I guess. If she’s got a record of any sort, you dig it up and toss it in her face. If she hasn’t, which is more likely as she comes from good people, it’s kind of up to you. You get an idea once in a while, don’t you?”

“I can’t remember the last one I had. What gambler and what rich man?”

“Marty Estel.”

I started to get up from my chair, then remembered that business had been bad for a month and that I needed the money.

I sat down again.

“You might get into trouble, of course,” Anna said. “I never heard of Marty bumping anybody off in the public square at high noon, but he don’t play with cigar coupons.”

“Trouble is my business,” I said.

It’s been more than two years since The Grand Albino of podcasting burst forth with Black Shadow. We managed to catch up with the elusive Steve Saylor to find out what he has been doing, and a little bit about his new project!

It has been almost two years since the release of Black Shadow. What have you been up to in the intervening time?

It’s been interesting.  After the release of Black Shadow, I knew I wanted to keep writing, and I had a ton of cool ideas, however nothing really stood out.  Then I went away for school in Toronto and my writing stalled completely.  I just didn’t have the same motivation anymore to keep going.  It’s not that I was running out of ideas, it was I always thought big.  I wanted to do something bigger than Black Shadow was.  I’m always into experimenting with my writing, and I wanted to try something new.  It wasn’t until this past summer that it dawned on me that maybe simpler is the way to go, and so I started writing short stories.  This was what I was doing before I started writing Black Shadow.

What was the biggest lesson you learned podcasting Black Shadow?

Editing the manuscript.  I was so anxious to get Black Shadow out there that I didn’t take as much time editing it as I should have.  The story I was okay with, but the way things were written, sentence structure, simple stuff, I didn’t have the time or knew anyone that could edit the manuscript.  Plus I didn’t feel comfortable giving the manuscript to someone who could edit, and not be able to pay them for a project I was basically doing for free.  Another thing I learned was record everything before you release episode one.  I learned the hard way that it took a lot to put one episode together and I wished I had taken that extra time to record.

Tell us about your new project, The Caffeine Collection. How did the stories in this anthology come about?

Well as I mentioned, this past summer I went back to the basics.  I wanted to experiment with my writing again.  Before Black Shadow, I was writing a ton of short stories, but none of them I felt were good to publish, however there were a few that I looked at and said, “Hey these are not that bad.”  So, I went to my local Starbucks and started writing.  I don’t know what it is about that place but when I sat down to write, the ideas just kept flowing out of me.  I felt like I was watching movies on a big movie screen and I was desperately trying to write down everything that I saw.  I was motivated to write again, and it was fantastic!

At first I was just going to release the short stories as a podcast, much like Black Shadow, however, it wasn’t until I interviewed Geoff Smith at RingtoneFeeder.com that the idea of publishing them became a reality.  Geoff is an awesome musician, and he released his latest album “Ones and 0’s” as a paid podcast subscription.  When Geoff and I started talking after the interview was finished, we started talking about maybe putting out short stories in the same way.  And so The Caffeine Collection was born.

What format do you prefer, the short stories of The Caffeine Collection, or the novel length of Black Shadow?

I like both for different reasons.  I love short stories because I don’t have to be really complex with the story.  It allowed me to “cut the fat” so to speak of a story and get it to its basics.  With a novel length project, I love taking a story and molding it, expanding on it, and allowing it to take me along for a journey that I couldn’t do with a short story.  Right now, I prefer short stories, only because I can write a whole bunch of them, but who knows?  In the future I may prefer a novel length project and go with that for a while.  It depends on how I’m feeling really.

This project has some interesting differences from a traditional podcast. Can you tell us what makes The Caffeine Collection unique?

Well this project is unique because it is what I call a “dynamic audiobook”.  With a regular audiobook that you get through iTunes, or audible.com, or even books on tape/CD, you get just the audiobook and nothing else.  No extra content.  With the dynamic audiobook you get the entire short story collection in MP3 format, but you also get not only a full PDF of the book, 2 ringtones that will work if you have an iPhone, and full length audio versions of the entire collection; but you get the ability to receive bonus content over the course of a year.  You will get bonus behind the scenes videos, video blogs from me, plus of course bonus short stories.  It is basically a paid podcast, which as far as I know this is the first time a podcast fiction project is being released in this way.

Can you give us any hints about what you will do to promote The Caffeine Collection? Do you have any more contests planned?

There are a few things planned that I’m still working out, but some of the contests I have ideas for deal with what I call, “The Power of 10” That’s all I can say about that.  Haha

Who are the podcasters you try to emulate? What are the things you have learned from listening to other podcasters?

I try to listen to as many podcasts as I can, but the ones I try to emulate I take certain aspects of them and meld them into my own projects.  First is Leo Laporte, I love his honesty and the fact that he is the same off mic as he is on mic, so I try to add that to myself.  Next is Cali Lewis, she makes what she does sound like so much fun, so I try to have as much fun as I can with my podcasting.  There are a few podcast authors I emulate as well, Tee Morris’ tenacity to think big, J.C. Hutchins’ marketing-fu, Scott Sigler’s ability to keep creating content all the time, and Mur Lafferty’s writing experiments that turn to gold.  There are other podcast authors that I just love, such as yourself Drew, that I take a lot from, and that is the boldness to put a project as intimate as your writing and putting them out in a public forum.  I love that about this medium!

You have worked with some of big names in the new media field. What first got you interested in this area?

Hands down, I can sum it up with one name; Leo Laporte.  I started watching TechTV around 2002 and I was hooked.  I loved technology at the time and seeing that there were other people that were making a living telling other people what cool tech to get, made me want to get into it more.  When TechTV went by the wayside and Leo was asked to come to Toronto to host Call For Help, which was an awesome show he did on TechTV, that I had the opportunity to meet him at a TechTV meetup.  When I did, I didn’t plan on saying this but I blurted out, “I would love to work with you someday.”  When I said that, Leo jumped at the chance and said, “Well we are looking for an intern.” Eventually I did become an intern, which was probably the best time of my life.  I look up to Leo, and I’m glad I can say he’s my friend and that he got me into this whole new media arena.

Do you consider yourself a writer who is a new media specialist, or a new media specialist who writes?

I say I’m an amalgamation of both.  If I had to summarize what I am, it’s that I’m a creative person.  I love creating new ideas and experimenting with them in the new media field.  I think writing is an aspect of my life that I enjoy a lot, but it’s taking that along with acting, speaking, web design, and any other aspect of creativity and putting a new media spin on them that hasn’t been done before is what I love the most.

Where can our readers find you online?

The best place to find me is at http://stevesaylor.net

These quick and easy mini party cakes are great for kids’ parties. Make them yourself from 2 to 24 hours ahead of time, or have your party guests make them up at the top of the party.

To serve 8, you’ll need:

2 4-packs of short cakes (found in the pre-made boxed pastry aisle or near the fresh strawberries)
2 boxes of flavored gelatin (2 complementary flavors or colors)
8 oz. container of frozen whipped topping, thawed
5/8 cup of boiling water

STEP ONE

Set the cakes out on plates. Boil the water. Pour water into a bowl with one of the packages of gelatin. Stir for 2 minutes until gelatin is dissolved.

Drizzle the gelatin over the cakes. Make stripes or drench the cakes. Then refrigerate for 15 minutes or a half hour. Or, just keep going to the next step if you’re in a hurry or if you’re letting the kids do it.

STEP TWO

Pour the second box of gelatin into a clean, dry bowl. Add the whipped topping. Gently fold the whipped topping into the gelatin until blended. (Too much stirring will cause the fluff to fall.)

Drop a couple of big spoonfuls of the fluffy gelatin into the indentation of each short cake. Spread like frosting on tops and sides. Work quickly as the fluffy topping sets quickly and becomes harder to spread.

STEP THREE

Refrigerate for at least 2 hours before serving. This allows for the gelatin to set and for the sugar in the fluff to melt. If your guests refuse to wait, it doesn’t matter. It still works—the sugar in the fluff may just be a little crunchy and the cake a little soggy!

Additional tips:

1) To make igloos, use vanilla pudding mix for the fluffy topping. Add an extra half cup of cold water to the mix along with the whipped topping. Draw rectangles on the fluff with a knife once frosted to simulate blocks of snow.

2) Match your fluff color to your party theme.

3) Top with fruit or a piece of candy that matches your party theme.

4) Try unusual Jello Brand flavors like Melon Fusion (light green) and Tropical Fusion (pink).

5) If kids are making their own, provide each one with a toothpick/name flag so they can mark which one is theirs before it goes into the refrigerator.

About the author
Linda Thieman is the author of the non-fear-based children’s chapter book series Katie & Kimble: A Ghost Story. The third book in the series, Katie & Kimble: The Golden Door, will be out in early 2010. Visit the Katie & Kimble blog (http://www.katieandkimbleblog.com) for lots of free activities like coloring pages, word puzzles and Katie & Kimble e-cards, plus complete sets of classroom materials for teachers and homeschoolers to download free of charge.

Author Marilyn Meredith shares her recipe for a quick and easy - and yummy - pizza today at Book Addict.

Ingredients

Boboli Pizza Shell
Marinara or Pizza Sauce from a jar or can
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese or Cheddar
Olives
Pineapple Rings
Crumbled Bacon
Fresh Basil

First cook the bacon, drain the fat off and crumble into pieces.

Put the sauce on the pizza shell.

Sprinkle the cheese on evenly.

Put the pineapple on.

Scatter the bacon and the olives over the top.

Bake in a 425 oven for 15 or 20 minutes, until the cheese melts.

Put cut up pieces of the fresh basil onto.

Let sit for about five minutes before cutting into slices.

About the author

Marilyn Meredith is the author of over twenty-five published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Dispel the Mist from Mundania Press. Under the name of F. M. Meredith she writes the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series, No Sanctuary is the newest from Oak Tree Press.

In Dispel the Mist, while investigating a murder, Tempe has an encounter with the Hairy Man, a local Indian legend.

She is a member of EPIC, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. She was an instructor for Writer’s Digest School for ten years, served as an instructor at the Maui Writer’s Retreat and many other writer’s conferences. She makes her home in Springville CA, much like Bear Creek where Deputy Tempe Crabtree lives. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com

Thanksgiving is the one meal hosts can feel the most pressure about preparing. The entire celebration is centered around the meal, THE Thanksgiving feast. Messing that up could make for a household full of unhappy guests. For a beginner, the pressure could be off the charts! I believe anyone can learn to host fabulous gatherings in their home, even if they have never done so in their lives.

If you are new to entertaining (or not so new), concentrate on doing a few important things well. Here are a few tips to help you pull off your Thanksgiving meal with delicious style. Sharing your hospitality with family and friends makes happy memories that last long after the holiday is over. Your family will have one more thing to be thankful for…you!  I have also included no-fail recipes for plump, Roast Turkey and rich Pan Gravy. Even a beginner can accomplish these recipes. There are more delicious, doable recipes including Herb and Apple Pecan Stuffing in the “My First Thanksgiving” chapter of my book, Easy Entertaining for Beginners.
Happy Entertaining!

Patricia Mendez

• Write down your guest list and invite your guests 3-4 weeks in advance. Either invite them by phone or send a free online invitation. http://www.Mypunchbowl.com or http://www.pingg.com offer beautiful e-vites. Guests can RSVP online and get a map to your home.
• Choose your recipes and read through them. Make a shopping list and purchase your frozen turkey by Monday. Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday. Defrost your turkey in its original wrap in a baking pan in the refrigerator when you bring it home from the supermarket.
• Do not choose a complicated menu. Choose some recipes you can make in advance and prepare a traditional meal with items such as turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, veggies, rolls and pumpkin pie.  Most people only eat a Thanksgiving meal once a year, so they look forward to well-prepared basics!
• If this is your first time to host Thanksgiving, take guests up on their offers to bring side dishes, drinks and appetizers. This frees you up to concentrate on the main entrees. Also, when guests offer to help clean up after a large meal like Thanksgiving, graciously accept!
• Feel free to fill in your menu with purchased items. Pumpkin pies purchased from a reputable bakery can be a timesaver.
• Serving your meal buffet style is the easiest. Set up a separate table in your dining room or kitchen and place all the food on it. Guests can line up and dish their own plates. Be sure to put salt and pepper, rolls and butter at both ends of the dinner table. Need an extra table? http://www.LifetimeProducts.com carries a handy 6 foot fold-in-half buffet table that stores easily.
• Using a cloth tablecloth in fall colors sets your dinner table apart from the everyday. If you have a beautiful tray or clear bowl, fill it with fruits, gourds, mini-pumpkins and nuts for a festive centerpiece. No flower arranging experience necessary!
• Have a kids’ activity table for children who are attending. Print out free Thanksgiving coloring pages from the internet and have a basket of mini-pumpkins with markers or stickers for the kids to decorate.
• Pace yourself! Do not wait until Thanksgiving morning to do all of your food prep. Prep some of your recipes the day before. This will take pressure off of you on Thursday. Set the dinner table Wednesday evening.
• Offer light appetizers such as cooked shrimp with cocktail sauce, crudités & dip, etc. Serve a chilled Riesling wine with dinner.
• Last but not least, do not take any mistakes you might make too seriously. Some hosts think everything has to be perfect and that is stressful. Even the most seasoned hosts make mistakes. The ability to solve them and move on is a plus. Kudos to you for giving the gift of hospitality to your family!

Roast Turkey with Pan Gravy
Makes 8 to 10 servings

1 turkey, about 12 pounds, defrosted
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick), softened to room temperature
2 tablespoons dried turkey seasoning (see Note)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 can (14 ounces) chicken broth (soup aisle)

Gravy

4 cups water
2 medium carrots, each cut into 2 or 3 pieces
1 large onion, quartered
1 bay leaf
1 can (14 ounces) chicken broth
Reserved turkey neck and giblets
1/4 cup drippings from roasted turkey
1/2 cup white wine
3 tablespoons all-purpose unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Special Equipment

Instant-read thermometer

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Remove the giblets (heart, kidneys, and liver) from the turkey (they are usually packed in a bag in the neck cavity). Remove the neck from the opposite cavity inside the turkey. Reserve for the gravy. Rinse the turkey inside and out in cold water and pat dry. Starting at the neck cavity, loosen the skin from the breast and drumsticks by inserting a tablespoon, upside down, under the skin, gently pushing it between the skin and meat to separate the skin. In a small bowl, combine the butter, turkey seasoning, salt, pepper. Rub the mixture under the skin onto the breast meat and both drumsticks.

Place the turkey, breast side up, in a shallow roasting pan. Pour the broth over the turkey. Place in the oven and turn the oven temperature down to 325 degrees F. Roast for about 2-2 ½ hours.

While the turkey is roasting, make the stock for the gravy. Combine the water, carrots, onion, bay leaf, chicken broth, and neck and giblets in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and cook until reduced to 2 1/2 cups. This will take 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Using a sieve, strain the stock into a medium bowl and discard the solids. Reserve stock for gravy.

After the turkey has roasted for 2 hours, place the instant-read thermometer in the meaty part of the thigh, making sure not to touch the bone. The turkey is done when the thermometer reads 175 to 180 degrees F. If it hasn’t reached this temperature, roast it for 15 minutes more and check again. Repeat until the thermometer indicates that the turkey is done. If the skin is becoming too browned, you can tent the turkey with a piece of aluminum foil until it is finished roasting.

Take the turkey out of the oven and put it on a heatproof surface. Remove 1/4 cup of the turkey drippings from the bottom of the pan, cover the turkey with aluminum foil, and let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes before you carve it.
To make the gravy, while the turkey is resting, combine the flour and turkey drippings in a bowl and stir with a whisk until smooth. Whisk drippings/flour mixture into the wine in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce and simmer for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in the 2 1/2 cups of strained stock, salt, and pepper to taste. Simmer over low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. You should have perfectly lump-free gravy.
To carve the turkey, cut through the skin between the drumstick and the body. Pull the leg outward to locate the joint at the body and cut through the joint to remove the leg. This includes the thigh and the drumstick. Remove the other leg and both wings in the same way. Cut between the joint to separate the thigh and drumstick. Slice the meat off the thigh and drumstick and put it on a platter. Insert the carving fork to steady the turkey and slice the breast into thin slices, cutting parallel to the rib cage. Continue on both sides until you have enough turkey carved to serve.

Pour the gravy into a gravy boat or bowl and serve with the turkey.

Notes: The spice section of most grocery stores has prepared turkey seasoning, or you can mix together 2 teaspoons each of dried sage, dried thyme, and dried marjoram.

For ease, in this recipe the turkey is not stuffed. The stuffing is baked separately in a casserole dish. If you wish to stuff your turkey, lightly spoon the stuffing into the cavity and be aware that your turkey will take a longer to roast.

For more tips, visit www.ezentertaining.net

Copyright 2009
Used with permission