A new Type M for Murder project proposal!

by Rick Blechta

I really enjoyed Aline’s post yesterday. Being a musician by training, of course I worked in the restaurant trade along the way when musical work was scarce. Instead of front of the house — the place you find most aspiring between-gigs musicians — I was in the kitchen. Why? Because I like to cook and I’m good at it, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, when Aline mentioned food in books, I immediately thought of Nero Wolfe. Food is a huge sidebar in those novels and Rex Stout was very adept in its use to amplify the character of Wolfe and to allow Archie to make comments and observations about his boss. Fritz Brenner, Wolfe’s resident chef, also became a source of “colour” as the series went on. The whole food fixation in these stories helped to give the lives of the characters more shape and background and made them seem more real.

But that’s not what I’m talking about today.

Aline’s post gave me An Idea, and I hope it’s a good one. I’m sure most of the authors here have used food in their novels at one point or another. How about we share recipes for one dish that we used in a story?

First, we give a bit of background, and then the recipe. Who’s game?

I’m going to kick it off with this:

Spaghetti alla Carbonara
(makes two servings)

Ingredients
200 gr dry spaghetti
2 eggs, beaten
1-2 Tbs olive oil
4 oz guanciale* or pancetta, diced
2 Tbs dry white wine (I prefer Orvieto)
4 Tbs grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
2 Tbs grated Pecorino Romano
1 tsp black pepper

*Wondering what the heck guanciale is? It’s dry-cured hog jowl and it is a lovely thing — but it can be hard to find. Find a very good Italian grocer and inquire about it. In a pinch, you can use pancetta which is more widely available, but it’s merely a substitute. For heaven’s sake, don’t use bacon! Garden variety bacon won’t work because it’s cured with lots of sugar.

Method:

1. Heat a medium-size skillet over a low flame and put a pot of water on to boil. (Never put anything in a cold skillet. Heat it first!)
2. When the skillet is hot, add the olive oil and when that’s warm, add the guanciale. If you’re substituting pancetta, you might want to use the larger amount of olive oil. (Guanciale is fatty, so you don’t need the extra olive oil.) Cook slowly while the pasta water comes to a boil.
3. Meanwhile mix the beaten eggs, two cheeses and black pepper together. Set aside.
4. Salt the now-boiling water well, and cook the spaghetti to your preferred level of doneness. While that’s cooking, add the white wine to the guanciale and simmer slowly.
5. Scoop out a half-cup of pasta water when the spaghetti is half-cooked. Add it to the skillet with the meat and wine and turn up the heat to medium high. Stir well as it boils.
6. This next thing is important! Before you drain the cooked pasta, grab another half-cup of pasta water. You might well need it.
7. Drain the spaghetti when it’s done, but don’t shake it. You want it to be a bit wet. Add it to the skillet where your other ingredients are cooking. Turn down the heat to low.
8. Working quickly, toss the spaghetti in your “sauce” to coat it, then add the egg/cheese mixture and continue tossing. You want it to make a creamy sauce as the eggs cook and the cheese melts. If it’s beginning to thicken too much, add more reserved pasta water. How much to add can be a bit tricky the first time or two you make it. It’s a feel thing. You don’t want this dish to turn into spaghetti with scrambled eggs!
9. Plate the dish and add a bit more grated parmigiano on top along with more black pepper. The term “carbonara” refers to black pepper — which works very well with the cheese/egg sauce. Use pepper generously with this dish. The Romans add a ton!

Spaghetti alla Carbonara appears in my novel, The Fallen One,  at the point where the two main characters share a home cooked meal for the first time and their friendship begins to blossom into romance. I supplied one of my family’s favourite Italian meals to help spur on the growing attraction!

Buon appetito!

Location, location, location! (part deux)

by Rick Blechta

My post last week was a riff off one Aline had published the day before.

The importance of setting is indisputable. Every story is set someplace. If it’s a made-up land, then the writer is free to indulge themselves to the max, but what they write must firmly set their location in readers’ minds. The same is true if a writer is using actual locations — or portions thereof. Job #1 remains the same whether you’re utilizing pure fantasy or reality.

There is a large difference, though, when reality is used, either partially or completely: the writer should expect mail, good and bad. Anyone who knows that location well enough will certainly feel the urge to correct errors — and they may act on it. “There’s no bar on that street corner!” “That’s a one-way street and you have a car going the wrong way!” The answer to the first quote might well be that the writer needed a bar to be on that street corner for plot purposes so that’s what was done. Tough boogies. The answer to the second quote might be that the author boobed on the research. If one is using actual places for setting, it is critical that errors are kept to the bare minimum. Much can be gotten away with if the setting is not known to many, but get something wrong in Times Square and you risk being flooded with irate comments. Of course that would mean the book is selling well, which would make responding to irate comments much more enjoyable.

Which brings me to my own experiences. As I mentioned in last week’s post, I used the living room and garden of a good friend’s home in Scotland for the climax of When Hell Freezes Over. I didn’t think of asking if this was okay with him. I described the location of the house pretty specifically (it was critical to the plot). Only later did it dawn on me: “What if this book becomes a bestseller, a classic if you will, and people start showing up on my friend’s doorstep?” Don’t laugh. It has happened. (And I should be so lucky to write a classic thriller…)

Since that time, if I’m using real places for setting, I weigh my considerations more carefully. Two of my novels, The Fallen One, and its sequel, Roses for a Diva have my protagonist living in a large apartment block in downtown Toronto. It is easily identifiable. To my mind, that’s not an issue. It has concierges at the entrances. However, I would never use a specific apartment number. A private person does not need to dragged into my scribblings.

I always try to use real places for setting. It helps me to have a fixed image (plus reference photos) in my mind as I write. But now I’m more circumspect in being too specific (or shall I say 100% accurate if I’m using a private individual’s residence or a small business. If I set something in a public space, I consider that fair game.

To finish off about locations, I recently watched the second series of the Netflix production, Jessica Jones which is shot in and around New York City. The final episode used two locations with which I am very familiar. One is a diner in Ossining, NY that my mother-in-law really likes and we’ve eaten there frequently over the past two years. While watching, I’m thinking, That looks like Route 9 in Ossining. As the camera moved around I thought, That’s gotta be DD’s. A minute or two later my guess was confirmed when Jessica escaped from the place (after ripping out a table top and throwing it at two cops. Funny thing was, the signage out front was changed for the shoot, and unless one knows the specific area, you wouldn’t be able to find it. (I wonder if the owner’s didn’t want the notoriety.)

The climax in that episode, though, was the real kicker for me, It takes place at Playland, an amusement park in Rye, NY and is fully identified in the episode (the title of which is “Playland”). What’s really incredible is the climactic action takes place on the park’s Ferris wheel, which my future wife and I rode moments before she told me she loved me — and the location of that event appeared in one of the final scenes in the movie Big.

How’s that for locations with real impact — well, for me at least.

Where is your favourite place to read/write in summer?

by Rick Blechta

The weather here in Toronto is slowly turning nice. We’ve had/endured/enjoyed what I have been calling a “slow spring” in Ontario this year. The end of our winter was well above seasonal norms, but then at the end of March, the cold, wet weather decided it wanted another go-round. It’s been lovely for all the spring bulbs and flowering trees, but I was beginning to feel like “Come on! Let’s get things moving here.”

Anyway, when the weather turns fine and temperatures finally warm up, I begin thinking of reading and writing al fresco. For me that’s a lovely thing to do.

Beethoven sketching while walking with Heiligenstadt
in the background (and yes, it did look like this at the time).

Beethoven’s bucolic Symphony No. 6 in F Major (The Pastoral) was composed over a summer holiday in the countryside near Vienna, Heiligenstadt to be particular. (To show how things have changed since Beethoven, the city of Vienna swallowed up Heiligenstadt many years ago, although the area surrounding it still has a rural feel.

Having visited Heiligenstadt while in Vienna researching Cemetery of the Nameless back in the ’90s, I could easily see why the Symphony No. 6 turned out the way it did. The great composer would head out in the morning with his sketch book, walk through the woods and eventually find a lovely spot to sit and contemplate nature while laying out his melodic and harmonic ideas. It was only natural that his surroundings would leak into the music he envisioned. If you haven’t listened to it lately, it’s worth a replay.

We have a lovely, though small backyard with two small trees which are pruned to provide shade for our patio. When I can’t go out to my own personal Heiligenstadt to write or read, you’ll find me in a comfortable chair with my laptop or current book, enjoying the breeze, the garden flowers, the birdsong and the sound of the waterfall in our small water garden (which helps to distract one from the car noises and far-from-occasional sirens of a nearby thoroughfare.) It’s a small slice of heaven.

But my favourite places to indulge in al fresco reading and writing is somewhere out in the country. We have a very generous friend who owns an 1830s log house in the eastern part of Ontario (which I used as a location for the opening of The Fallen One). I have written goodly parts of several novels while sitting on the screened porch or living room of this lovely old building with the windows opened wide. (The birdsong is spectacular.)

I don’t know what it is, but the words just flow for me in surroundings like that. When I tire of writing, or just need to step away and let an idea “mature”, I pull out whatever book I have on the go and enjoy myself that way. (I should also confess that I find it a great place to practise for a few hours. Since that usually means trumpet, I’m sure the birds, not to mention any neighbours within hearing don’t appreciate my presence!)

So, your turn to confess, where is your favourite place to read or write (or both!) in the warmer weather?