Confessions of a BBQ Widow on Memorial Day Weekend.

Yes! This is a test. Is This a BBQ?
How about this?
Well depending on who you’re married to, your answer will be different. All across America this weekend, men are taking up charcoal, refilling propane tanks and, in the case of my beloved, well let’s call him Rib-Rack Rich, like they do at the Smokersmeetings.
You see…with a rack you can cook lots MORE ribs! Ten times what you and your company can possibly eat…which is then taken to his job on a railroad ramp and used to feed the masses! He’s thinking of taking up golf and I’m encouraging him because I think a country club membership would be cheaper! Not only do you have to buy a massive amount of meat each time, sometimes you’ve taken your extra smoker(s) up to your cabin and will be dragging your wife off to the local Traeger dealer to buy another VERY expensive toy because you can’t fit 9 racks of ribs, a full briket, and 2 ducks purchased in Chinatown by the neighbor who is his cohort in crime…on the one giant BIG TEX grill he has.

No…he doesn’t have the one pictured above yet, but he will, I have faith! See why I encourage golf?

On the plus side, once the meat is on the grill (and the cursing of preparation over) he’s in smoky nirvana all day long. Blissed out with a beer in one hand and a cigar in the other. And of course all I have to do is clean the house for the company he’s invited and make all the side dishes. Then serve, try to minimize the bones the dogs get so they aren’t bound up all week, and clean up. Yep, nirvana for me too…well, I do like him happy!
Here’s my rib roast recipe: Take a boneless or bone in rib roast, 7-9 pounds and bring to room temperature. Wipe dry and rub with a misture of salt, garlic and pepper. Place in smoker and cook at 200 degrees for approximately 4 hours or until an instant read thermometer reads 116 degrees, baste with olive oil approximately every hour to keep from drying out. Preheat oven to 450 and as soon as roast is at temp, place in oven and turn off the heat. Let sit without opening oven door for 40 minutes. This will create a crisp outside and juicy interior, medium rare finish! It’s really my favorite thing we smoke, but all kidding aside, he’s an incredible BBQ chef and the neighbors come running as soon as they smell the smoke! I’m a griller…but he swears only a smoker is a real BBQ. And with his fan club, I must defer to him.

In an hour or so he’s dragging me off to buy that next smoker…his eyes spinning in opposite directions, a silly grin on his face. So happy. Tomorrow, he’ll be hung over, he’s already told me he can’t take me to see MIBIII until Monday, because of that.

And I don’t care what he says…he can chop the feet off his own ducks! He used to hunt them for heavens’ sake…!

Happy Memorial Day Weekend all…and if your husband is a hardworking veteran like mine, indulge his whims! He deserves a little fun.

Gale Force Passion

What to do when your fiancé dumps you for a bimbo, right before a vacation of a lifetime to a luxurious Bahamas couples resort? If you’re lucky, like Terese, the reservations clerk can refer you to another resort, even nicer, and suggests you contact the fabulous Madame Eve at 1Night Stand—for a replacement date!

David is Terese’s date. Very tall, ebony dark and handsome, he’s also starting to yearn for more connection than career has allowed. After years of working at various resorts, he can settle in and enjoy his position as Castillo Resorts’ newest manager right in his native Bahamas.

Add in a hurricane with a sudden change in course, and David and Terese may have a more exciting date than either of them planned. In more ways than one.

The Virgin and the Playboy

Julie, accidental virgin, has waited longer than she ever planned to lose her virginity and join everyone else she knows in dating reality. Embarrassed at her plight, she has made arrangements with 1NightStand.com to meet with a handsome stranger for one night of no commitment required sexuality, without having to admit she’d never made love before.

Mark is the one single guy left in his group of friends. As such, he is known for the bevy of lovelies he dates, and his stories of wild exploits between the sheets. His participation in 1NightStand.com is on a dare, and he has no idea that his date is…less experienced than he is used to. And so much more…

When they enter the penthouse suite in Las Vegas, they enter a chamber designed for luxury and booked for a 1NightStand.

Classic Easter Jello!

Every Year I have to make my mom’s Jello salad. I know it’s gone out of fashion, but if I don’t make it, my brother might not come to dinner. This year Mom will be at my other brother’s so she’ll be making it for them. You know how it is with families, some people like green bean casserole…we need this. But since even my husband is hooked, I thought I’d share it!

Easter Jello
2 packages ‘red’ Jello (Any flavor of red will do) prepared according to package directions…but do not chill yet!
Add 2 small packages frozen strawberries or 2 baskets fresh, smashed up.
3 bananas, also smashed up
and 1 14 ounce can crushed pineapple, drained
Ladle half jello into a 9″x13″ pan and chill until firm. Leave remaining jello at room temp, you don’t want it firming up just yet.
Remove chilled Jello from refrigerator and add 1 8 ounce container of sour cream, smooth into an even layer.
Ladle remaining Jello carefully over sour cream.
Chill.
Eat.
This works well with regular or sugar free Jello.

Let me know if your crowd likes it. With a guy in the house who shouldn’t eat sugar, Sugar Free Jello makes my life good when he’s looking for goodies. I think I’ll see how many of those old-time recipes he likes!

Let’s Get Naked With Kate Richards

Today is the Let’s Get Naked Blog Hop with Olivia Starke, D.L. Jackson, Ashlynn Monroe, Stephanie Beck, and more! Leave a comment on this blog between now and April 5 and one lucky commenter will win a $10 Amazon Gift Card and their choice of two of my Decadent Publishing backlist books…because my story for The Edge, The Milkman Cometh, won’t be out til June!

But here is a taste of The Milkman Cometh
Who would it be today? Senora Atkins or Senorita Jones. Either one would be pleased to receive him.
Roberto patted the steering wheel of his faithful Divco delivery van. The logo on the side matched the one embroidered on the pocket of his white shirt. The scent of freshly ironed cotton accompanied him; was that the aphrodisiac that made the women fall one by one at his feet? The only factor limiting his conquests was time. He couldn’t fit more than one…on a good day two…women in or he would be late and his activities questioned. But as a considerate man, he preferred to limit the number rather than short any of his clients. And his boss and coworkers wondered about his excellent Christmas tips. He just smiled and pointed to the six foot high letters on the side of the barn. Excellent Service from Milkmen who Care.
Pleasant thoughts…Senora Atkins, twenty-five years old…her breasts were like creamy scoops of vanilla ice cream with nipples that turned the color of a ripe red cherry when he took them into his mouth and sucked them. She welcomed him into her big, soft bed, and between her softly rounded thighs. Maybe I will go there…But of course….
Senorita Jones. Thirty-five, he’d have to go there early, before she went to her secretarial job in the aerospace plant. He could fit her whole breast in his mouth, and she always wanted to drop to her knees and suck him off. Sometimes he didn’t even fuck her; she seemed satisfied to provide him with pleasure and always drank down his cum like it was the finest cream, with gulping sounds and whimpers that drove him mad and made him want to stay for another round.
He had a little time to consider his choice. His first half dozen stops were homes where the husbands were always home, waiting at the kitchen table or upstairs in the bathroom shaving…and he moved quickly through those, dropping the bottles on the porch or handing them to the bathrobed, curler-haired women and wishing them a good morning. No, his ladies were the ones whose hubands worked odd hours, left early for the office, or were often out of town.
And today, he decided to pay a visit to Senora Atkins of the mouth-watering breasts. She was third from last on his round and he hurried, anxious to leave time to linger. She liked the foreplay and he liked to suckle her until she cried out and bucked against him, begging for his bicho, his cock. He shifted in his high seat, the always open sliding van door providing an excellent view of the bulge in his pants—maybe.
He forced his thoughts to other things, less sexy things and managed to calm his hard-on enough to walk up to the fourth to last house, Senora Alice. Her gossipy neighbor, the elderly Senora Simons had insisted he hear the tale of how Alice’s baboso husband left her for his disgraciada secretary. A shame. She’d been loyal to the bastardo, never once availing herself of Roberto’s services, despite his less than subtle hints.
By far his favorite of all the women on his route, her green eyes, like a gato, a cat, drew him. If she ever put a little effort in to her appearance, men would fall at her feet. But he hadn’t even seen her in weeks, the lights were never on when he made his reduced deliveries.
That’s how milkmen knew when things went bad. More cottage cheese and only half a dozen eggs a week. A single woman’s order.
But today, as he lifted his lightly loaded rack from the truck and started up her concrete pathway, a light flicked on upstairs. He whistled softly, in case she didn’t hear the clanking bottles. Perhaps now that she was single, he would try again. Only once more. Roberto Cruz would not beg.

Stop by Olivia Starke http://romancingthepentoday.blogspot.com/
D.L. Jackson http://backwardmomentum.blogspot.com/2012/04/happy-april-fools.html
K.T. Grant http://kbgbabbles.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Beck http://plotmamas.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/lets-get-naked-the-blog-hop-stop/
Erykah Wyck http://erykahwyck.blogspot.com/
JoAnne Kenrick http://talesfromthecoffin.blogspot.com/
Ashlynn Monroe http://www.ashlynnmonroe.com/apps/blog/

Let’s Get Naked Chat at Coffeetime Romance!

Olivia Starke, Stephanie Beck, Ashlynn Monroe, KT Grant, DL Jackson, Joanne Kenrick, and I are getting naked tonight! Join us, we’ll be talking about The Edge, our giveaways during the blog hop, and whatever other fun topic we can come up with ;;)

Let’s Get Naked Chat

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/karendevinkaren/

Writing Menage while Making Meatloaf – A blog with a recipe!

This just made me laugh, then frown, then realize how many dinners I’ve burned lately.

Why a woman who is elbows deep, fingers flying in a menage between a sexy Argentine brain surgeon, a lion shifter, and a woman under a wicked stepmother’s spell should be trusted to fry bacon or clean a toilet, I’ll never know! My characters want to keep the action going, and it’s hard enough to keep track of whose toes are in whose navel without having to notice that the water has all boiled away and the nasty smell of scorching potatoes is filling the room!

I love cooking, but not when the muse is in full-speed-ahead mode. Smoke alarms are not sexy! At least my story people don’t seem to think so! That’s why I have taken to coooking things that are more forgiving. Like meatloaf. I’m not an especially precise cook, but here’s how I do it

Meatloaf
2 lbs. ground beef
1 egg
1/2 chopped onion
1 chopped carrot (veggies!)
1 stalk celery chopped
1/2 small sweet pepper chopped (more veggies! It’s a health food fiesta…ok, not)
I handful of cracker crumbs, bread crumbs, oatmeal, or 2 slices actual crumbled bread
garlic salt and pepper to taste

Squish your nice clean hands in the mixture, don’t squish too hard, you don’t want to compact it…then add tomato sauce or ketchup to moisten, a quarter of a cup usually does it.
Pat mixture into greased loaf pan and paint with more ketchup or the rest of that can of tomato sauce. Top with two or three slices of bacon and slide into oven at 350 degrees. It’s nice if you preheated, but you probably didn’t because you are still writing in your head. But it’s fine either way!

Bake about an hour and a half along with a few giant russet potatoes. They take about the same length of time so you don’t have to stop writing again for an hour and a half. By then your husband should be home, have checked the oven and reminded you that it’s looking pretty done. Put him in charge of finding veggies, although we did put quite a few in the meatloaf and I have been known to add more. Even if you forget (and setting a timer is kind of smart) this dinner will survive for a bit longer and has that homemade appeal that all authors’ husbands look for.

After all…we’re home all day eating bon bons, surely we can throw together a little dinner!

Epicon 2012 -Networking, workshops and a haunted hotel!

< I just returned from San Antonio yesterday afternoon. Conferences are amazing. They get authors and editors out of the house and out pajamas and allow us to associate with one another and with readers and bloggers, reviewers…there is no better opportunity for feedback…and hugs!
But the Menger Hotel, where we were treated like royalty, is haunted. Yep, and some of us saw ghosts…I heard one! Standing in an elevator where my partenr in crime Valerie Mann had been aware of a presence the day before I decided to try something. It was about 11 at night and I was all alone in this very old, very slow car when I turned to the corner where the ghost had stood and said “Hello”. My bravery fled when the corner said. “Yes.” No…I didn’t try to claw my way out, but I did begin to stare at the numbers and pray that the elevator wouldn’t break down. Although an hour alone in an elevator with a ghost would have provided an opportunity to as a few questons…

Somebody Else’s Baby

After a year of being a Series Mama to 1Night Stand and now The Edge…I was a little nervous about writing in someone else’s series. After all, I know how protective we are of ours, how careful that the stories be just right and that none of our actual characters lose their personality. We’ve been fortunate to have incredible authors who went with the spirit and wrote story after story that we loved.
But still…think bear mama…cute cubs… yeah.

But when one of my favorite people in the writing world and some of her favorites opened Musa Publishing last fall, I was so excited for them. And when they presented their baby, a brand new series, Wiccan Haus, I was dying to write for it. Still, I wanted to be respectful of the main characters, make use of the wonderful details, and maybe contribute a little something of my own. So…finally…I submitted my story and received a contract! So…I’m involved with someone else’s series and I sure hope my story, An Apple Away, adds to the legends of The Wiccan Haus. Or at least makes readers smile a little.

The Magic Castle

Last night the hubs and I were invited by friends to go to The Magic Castle in Hollywood. It’s a private magicians’ club and that’s the only way you can go..by invitation. It was so much fun! The food was great and the show was awesome. Anyone who watches “Pawn Stars” will recognize the name Murray the magician. He put on a great performance and my husband tried and tried to guess how he did it all. Okay, so did I. But on the way home we found that all four of us were trying and each of us had seen something that made the others’ theories crash and burn.

As an author, everything is inspiration. What do I know about magicians? Nothing. But I love research and this is going to be a lot of fun! It may be a year or two before it goes into a book, but it will eventually. Now, here’s what I’m really wondering…just how flexible does a magician’s assistant have to be? Because if our theory is right, she had to bend like a pretzel to avoid being sawed in half!