LeseLust & LeseLiebe

About four years ago, on a searing Southern California afternoon, I came out to Tricia Stewart Shiu. It was a workday. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the event except for one small detail, which I’ll get to in a second. She was driving on Pico Blvd. and making a left-hand turn into the Fox Studios Lot, when I sent out the news flash. As the information settled in, she managed to make her way to her parking spot, plod through the echoing NEB (New Executive Building) lobby and up to her reflecting fishbowl of an office. Wandering into the makeshift kitchen, her mind still abuzz, she filled the stainless steel electric kettle from the water cooler, pressed the button and waited for the rumbling boil. Coffee had always been our ritual. In fact, it might have been one of the first things we did together. Every high-level executive assistant needs her “outlet” and that was ours. We’d chat for hours about all things work-related. It was during such conversations that her most pro...

Grey Lore is really not at all about baking. It’s about a girl whose mother dies so she’s whisked away to live with an aunt she’s never met. It’s about a boy who’s lived in fourteen states in the last three years. It’s about wanting to fit in and not fitting in at all. It’s about trying to find your place with people who care. Also, it’s about werewolves (because you were totally getting that from the rest of my description, right?) It’s about a sleepy little town buried in secrets--a town that starts to wake up as Ella and Sam discover things about their pasts and themselves. But a lot of cookies get baked, too. That’s because one of the main characters, Zinnie, seems to subsist only on cookies and herbal tea. In my first book, Grey Stone , she brought us some amazing Cinnamon Oatmeal Crispies . Here's that snippet from the book: She got up and hobbled to what looked like a very old stove to retrieve the next batch of cookies. “You may call me Zinnie,” she said, even though Sam h...

H istory, Fantasy, and Food Take one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. At its peak it controlled vast swathes of land and many different cultures – and their associated cuisines. But what happens when you add a fantastical element to the mix? Hi all. I’m Assaph Mehr, and I write historical-urban-fantasy – or, as I like to call them, Stories of Togas, Daggers, and Magic. Though set in a fantasy world, the background tapestry is based on the culture of ancient Rome, and to give this world authenticity and richness I do a lot of research in to ancient daily lives. This, of course, covers food. My protagonist, cheapskate that he is, never passes on the opportunity for a free meal. And when invited to a feast, he very naturally, notes what delicacies were served – together with his somewhat deadpan reaction to them. This leads us to the meat of this article (pun intended), namely, Fantastic Beasts and How to Cook Them. The world, being based on ancient Rome and Greece, hosts ...