Pat Montella Is Laughing At Me

Pat's the protagonist in my Possessed Mystery Series. When I was developing her character, she needed a hobby. Cooking, I decided--the kind of necessary but creative past time someone doing drudge work for corporate America could delve into at the end of a frustrating workday.

This wasn't a matter of write-what-you-know. When I penned the first book, By Blood Possessed, my repertoire in the kitchen consisted of brewing tea, nuking frozen dinners, and frying up the occasional French toast.

My mom had been the quintessential Italian cook. So was her mother before her. My brother Tom not only took after them, but figured out the art of great homemade bread. They weren't gourmets, mind you, but I grew up well fed. I never needed to learn to cook. For Pat's gastronomic creations, I had my family recipes to draw on.

In 2008, I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance. All of a sudden, my diet had to be cleared of wheat, barley and rye products, and of anything else processed with those grains. I lost my major food groups: pizza, pasta and Italian rolls. My brother's bread was taboo. No more cake, donuts or other baked goods. No more of my usual breakfast cereals. Nothing breaded. No beef or turkey gravy. No Philly cheesesteaks or hoagies.

After a frantic couple of months wondering what I could safely put down my gullet, I made my mind up to learn how to cook and, especially, bake without gluten. At first it seemed like alchemy--like I was trying to make gold from inferior metals. Slowly, though, I learned about flours made from other grains: rice, tapioca, etc. I learned to mix them to make a better baking flour than wheat. I learned to change the mix or add specialty flours like buckwheat (not a wheat grain) for really great new tastes. I even learned to use xanthan gum, which Pat had actually made fun of in the first book.

I found out that I love cooking and baking. Oh, I still have a lot to learn. I haven't mastered yeast bread yet, for instance. But I can happily spend an hour throwing together quick breads or cookies or biscuits, and my gluten tolerant friends tell me they're better than most wheat baked goods. Last month, I made my first cake from scratch, something my mom was a whiz at and I thought I'd never do. I've even posted a bunch of my gluten-free recipes at Sparkrecipes.

The main reason Pat's laughing at me is that this month I'll be teaching cooking classes. Me, who five years ago couldn't do much more than boil water. If you're interested and are in my area, classes will be August 20th and 27th. For more info, go to the Really Cooking With Robin website

And look for Pat to be learning gluten-free cooking herself soon. I can't let her have the last laugh.

Buon appetito!
Elena

A Parody That's Good For The Heart

Time for a break from my usual yawp about writing.

My protagonist, Pat Montella, loves to cook. Since so many other authors have food-related blogs, I feel obligated to add my voice to the cacophony.

Here's something Miss Maggie likes to sing while Pat's whipping up a batch of fagiole. The song is from that famous movie Gentlemen Prefer Beans:

A beet in the pan may be quite continental
But legumes are a cook's best friend.
A beet may be canned but it won't taste like lentil
in a three-bean soup,
Or navies in brown sugar goop.

Meat goes cold and meals grow old,
Even cheese will grow mold in the end.
But lima or kidney, from Stockholm to Sydney,
Legumes are a cook's best friend.

Peace,
Elena

Pat Montella in the Kitchen

Snow is blowing sideways past my window at the moment. We already have a foot of the white stuff on the ground and the storm won't be over for another 10 hours. Yesterday at noon, our local TV news showed the masses of humanity in the grocery stores, loading up not only on Super Bowl munchies, but on milk, bread and eggs. Something about the thought of being snowed in makes people want those 3 items handy. A friend of mine deduced from this that snow=french toast.

The news made me do my own inventory. Lots of eggs, but only 4 slices of bread and slightly more than a cup of milk which was beginning to develop enough of a personality, I knew I'd be throwing it out today if I didn't use it up (I made pudding last night). Did I rush out to the store? No. A few days, even a week, without milk and bread isn't going to kill me. Milk and bread aren't worth fighting those crowds.

But it got me thinking about food. Frankly, it doesn't take much to get me thinking about food.

My protagonist, Pat Montella, loves to cook. When I began the series, I wasn't much of a chef myself. My mom was supreme and undisputed empress of our kitchen when I was growing up. Once in a while, she'd indulge me if I wanted to try a recipe, but I never got those urges often. Why should I when she was such an amazing cook?

But when I was developing Pat's character, I knew I needed to give her some creative outlet for stress and boredom. She couldn't just slog back and forth to her dead-end job each day and watch TV at night. She'd be as dull as she thought she was.

I considered hobbies I'd done first, simply because I knew about them--needlepoint, embroidery, macrame, woodworking, music. Nothing seemed to be a good fit for Pat. Cooking kept niggling at the back of my mind, but I resisted it. For one thing, since Pat was Italian-American, it seemed stereotypical. For another, I'd have to do RESEARCH. You can't make someone sound like a good cook if you have no clue yourself.

I didn't decide for sure until I was writing Pat's first scene with Miss Maggie. All of a sudden, Miss Maggie asked if Pat could make tomato sauce and Pat said yes. That recipe, Grandmom Montella's Zucchini Sauce, I got from hanging over my mom's shoulder at the stove, taking notes as she made it, writing down her measurements for ingredients--that is, a palmful of oregano, a fistful of basil leaves, etc.

My mom died a couple years ago, and about the same time, I was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance (meaning a lot of packaged foods are taboo), so I had to, at last, learn to cook. I found out that I love it as much as Pat. I now have some of my recipes online. You can view them at http://recipes.sparkpeople.com/more-about-me.asp?user=5404215 (or just google Sparkrecipes ElenaSan).

As I get time, I'll be putting Pat's recipes up on the site, in a virtual cookbook titled "From the Pat Montella Mysteries."

As for today, I plan to make a big pot of chicken corn soup. I also remember my mom saying how her mom would lean out their window, scoop fresh snow off the porch roof, add vanilla and sugar, and voila, Italian water ice. Well, the snow on my porch roof now is already up to the window, so....

Who needs milk and bread?

Mangia,
Elena