Mindful Musings Book Blog

In Post-Apocalypticon , the world ended six years ago, and no one was prepared. The Flying Monkey bombs came out of nowhere, and boy, it’s a hard fact of life that the apocalypse brought a whole host of problems: roving marauders, trigger happy survivalists, strange and life-threatening weather patterns, the occasional flesh-hungry zombie. In the face of such ever-present danger, it can be easy to view food as a necessity instead of a culinary art…but there’s no reason to lose our humanity just because humanity has been completely and totally lost. But to be clear, humanity has been completely and totally lost. When it comes to post-apocalyptic mealtime staples, your best bet is obviously going to be beans. Packed with protein and loaded down with preservatives that were once decried as dangerous but now praised as pure brilliance, most canned beans are still good, even now, six years after the end of the world. They’re probably reaching the end of their shelf lives, though, so now’s

Food was never the first item on the menu when I sat down to write a novel.   Action, yes, intrigue, definitely, but characters taking time out to enjoy a steak at a posh restaurant never really crossed my mind.   The people I wrote about were more comfortable facing enemy fire than perusing the menu of an Italian eatery.   In my first novel, Gray Justice , the closest anyone got to a decent meal was when six members of the SAS got together on a canal barge and sheared sausages, bacon and eggs!   Oh, and there were the endless tins of Spam.   Never forget the Spam! That changed in my seventh title, Trojan .   It’s a spin-off from my Tom Gray series and features MI5 operatives Andrew Harvey and his girlfriend Sarah Thompson. When not saving the country from terrorists, they like to out-do each other in the kitchen.   Harvey kicks things off with a delicious seafood dish, and Sarah responds with lamb three ways.   I didn’t go into much detail on the preparation (though I do believe one o

Jake Stevens is one lucky teenager because his mom, Sue Stevens, runs the famous Twister Diner, the best place for food this side of anywhere and favoured haunt for storm chasers. So what might Sue be serving her patrons that has made her so famous? A day in Twister Dinner might start with an Eye of the Storm breakfast, a stack of smoked bacon on silky scrambled eggs, with that essential stack of pancakes, the best maple syrup and fresh strawberries on the side, and all arrange in an inverted tornado shape. One of Jake’s favourite meals is his mom’s slow cooked chill with its melt in the mouth meat with just the right hit of spice tang to tickle your taste buds. Then of course to finish there’s the baked cheese cake that storm chasers have been known to cross the state to grab a slice. Cloud Riders also deals with parallel worlds. In Breaking Storm , Jake journeys to Floating City, a place that’s literally constructed from hundreds of thousands of airships. I had a huge amount of fun

A blog focused on books and food - brilliant! It’s comforting to know that I’m not the only one who notices what characters are eating and drinking. Between , the first book of my series of the same name, references one of my favorite family dishes: ‘taties and eggs’. The cheesy breakfast scramble becomes something of a link between the present and the past for the main characters, so finds its way onto the page multiple times. In fact, I even got a request for the recipe, so posted it online for my readers to make at home! The scene when Lindsey first makes taties and eggs for Aiden takes place in a log cabin, where she’s cooking in an iron skillet on an old-fashioned wood stove. And while I’ve never met an 18th century Scottish Highlander, I can tell you the setting is pulled straight from my memories of a family cabin. Thinking back on it, I can practically smell the sharp tang of the cheddar cheese and taste the buttery, crisp potatoes. Ahhhh… It’s no wonder he falls in love with