A Meal Made in Heaven

A great meal is the nectar of the gods. It’s heavenly. Sometimes it’s better than sex. I love writing books about chefs and cooks. Such fun.

All four of my grandparents were from the Abruzzo region of Italy. My grandmothers and my Italian mother-in-law were terrific cooks. However, of all the wonderful meals I’ve eaten through the years, one stands out above the rest.

In 2006, my husband and I traveled to Abruzzo, Italy, to join a tour run by my Australian cousin, Luciana. A cousin from Arizona joined us. Luciana had just started her tour company, and this was the maiden tour.

As we traveled through mountainous, wildly beautiful Abruzzo, we ate the most scrumptious food every day. Luciana had arranged the meals and the elegant wines to complement them. We ate at several agrituristicas, farms that grow and serve organic foods and are subsidized by the Italian government in an effort to bring more tourism into the lesser-known regions of Italy.

One such agrituristica, Ill Nespolo, was run by a husband and wife, Maria Angela, from the province of Calabria, and Gabriele, from Abruzzo. Here’s the menu for that meal:

Antipasto consisting of home-made sausage, cheeses with honey and saffron, marinated vegetables, bruschetta with olive paste.

Primo(First Course)-Gnocchi al pomodoro-gnocchi alle verdue

(Gnocchi with tomato sauce and with green vegetable sauce)

Secondo(Second Course)-Petto di tacchino con arancia e rucola (turkey breast with orange and rocket. Rocket is similar to arugula)

Dolce(Dessert)-Home-made biscotti with honey

All served with local Abruzzese wines.

Our hosts provided us with a surprise dish--saffron gnocchi with fresh-shaved truffle. Oh. My. God. That was the best food, hands down, I’ve ever eaten. Ever. In my life.

All the food we ate on that trip was incredible, delicious, wonderful. And the wines were exquisite. But nothing compared to the heavenly delight of saffron gnocchi with fresh-shaved truffle. During the meal, my husband whispered that he might have to divorce me and marry Maria Angela because she cooked like an angel. Couldn’t blame him. I wanted to marry her myself. Our group went nuts over all the food at that meal, but especially the saffron gnocchi. There wasn’t a scrap left of anything when we were done. To this day, I can’t eat gnocchi because nothing will ever be as good as the dish I ate at Ill Nespolo.

Food is more than eating. It’s companionship and memories. I have the most marvelous memories of that trip and of the meals shared with family and new friends. I can’t think of that meal and the others without remembering Luciana and what a great host and tour guide she was. I got to spend more time with my cousin Kevin from Arizona, whom my husband and I traveled with to Australia a few years earlier; the friendship of the others in our group, all Australian, warmed me. As a group, we grew close, sharing some rough times, like when our van got stuck in road ruts in the Abruzzo wilderness. Or when we hiked one of Italy’s national parks on a scorching hot day. Or visited medieval monasteries carved into the sides of mountains. All the memories are bound together with the food we ate.

That trip, and the food, connected me to generations of my family who are as much a part of that region as the stark mountains and hillside villages.

Here are pictures of the gnocchi, the truffle being shaved, and our group. I’m second from left in the turquoise top, holding a glass, conversing with the man next to me.

My romantic suspense, Murder, Mi Amore, is set almost entirely in Italy. Every setting is authentic, based on places we visited and stayed during that 2006 trip. The meals I mention in that book are actual meals we ate. My very first published book, from Avalon Books, A Catered Affair,(reissued under the title A Catered Romance) featured a caterer heroine. Lots of food references in that book. My most current foodie book is Capri Nights, set on the Isle of Capri.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Abruzzo region of Italy or taking a trip there, check out Luciana’s website: https://www.touringabruzzo.com/

Check out all my books at: www.caramarsi.com

Buy Murder, Mi Amore:

https://books2read.com/u/3J8XpP

Danger. Deception. Desire.

Murder, jewel thieves and terrorists intrude on an American woman's Roman holiday; can she trust the sexy, mysterious Italian man who comes to her aid?

Buy A Catered Romance:

https://books2read.com/u/3nY826

Delicious. Hot. Sensuous.

There's more than business brewing between two old high school flames...

Stubbornly self-reliant Mary Beth Kendrick needs financial backing to keep her catering business cooking. A looming corporate buyout forces her to accept help from Tom Sackett, the man who broke her heart and left her with no appetite for love. 

Buy Capri Nights:

https://books2read.com/u/3L9z51

Sensual. Sumptuous. Sizzling.

Love under an Italian sky.

A San Francisco sous chef discovers she might have bitten off more than she can chew when a scrumptious Italian man stirs up a recipe for romance on the delicious Isle of Capri.

When Setting Is a Character

Can setting be a character in a story? You bet. Some places naturally are so exotic, exciting and beautiful that they cry out to star in a movie or book.

I’ve read books, wonderful books, set in faraway places. But the settings served only as a backdrop, mentioned, but forgotten. I’ve always been a little disappointed that I didn’t learn more about the locale during the stories. I love stories where the setting is the framework that holds the story, especially when the story is set in a beautiful place I want to visit or one I want to revisit.

When I traveled to Rome, Italy, in 2006, my second trip there, I was again blown away by the city’s beauty, vibrancy and history. All four of my grandparents came from Italy, so the country itself holds meaning for me.

Rome was bustling as always that June, especially with World Cup fever all around. We stayed at a hotel on one of the most popular and crowded streets, Via Corsi. Trevi Fountain was a short walk away. The Pantheon was around the corner. And so was an amazing gelato shop where we bought too many luscious gelatos, the Italian ice cream. Yum. Kiwi Melon was my favorite. My husband and I ate at least two gelatos a day. Good thing we walked all over the city to shed those extra calories.

Italy is magical and begs to be its own character in books and movies. As we walked the ancient cobbled streets of Rome, ate amazing food (saffron gnocchi with fresh-shaved truffles, anyone?) and drank lots of delicious wine, I just knew I had to set a story there. And I knew the richness of Rome could never fade into the background. It had to be a character.

In the fall of 2009, The Wild Rose Press announced a new romantic suspense series, Jewels of the Night. The stories could be set anywhere in the world, but had to involve a stolen blue diamond. The proverbial light bulb went off in my head. I’d write a romantic suspense set in Rome. My novel, Murder, Mi Amore, was released in December 2010. I’ve since gotten the rights back and have published it myself.

Imagine if you were a young American woman vacationing in Rome to get over a painful breakup, and your Roman holiday is suddenly disrupted by jewel thieves, murder, and one very hot and mysterious Italian guy who may or may not be involved with the strange goings on around you.

That’s the premise of Murder, Mi Amore. Rome and other parts of Italy are as important to my story as my hero and heroine, Dominic and Lexie. Every scene in Murder, Mi Amore is authentic. Even the meals Lexie ate are the same ones we enjoyed on our trip. The hotel on the Via Corsi where Lexie stays is the one where we stayed, but with a different name. I remember well how I felt as I shouldered my way through the throngs of tourists and natives on Via Corsi. I used those feelings to describe Lexie as she makes her way on this same street after she buys the handbag that launches her wild adventure. When Lexie is dragged through dark and narrow streets by her would-be kidnapper, I pictured the little alleyways dotting Rome.

As I wrote about Lexie and Dominic meeting for the first time at Trevi Fountain, I could hear the chattering of the crowds and the snap of cameras and feel the sun’s heat. I could almost taste the wine Lexie orders. When you see pictures of this iconic fountain, it looks as if it’s in the middle of a very wide street. Nope. It’s set in a corner of a narrow cobblestoned street.

While writing Murder, Mi Amore, I was once again in Rome – running my fingers over the walls of the Coliseum, tramping through the Ancient Roman Forum, eating luscious pizza and drinking rich red wine at outdoor cafes while motor scooters darted around us.

A chapter in Murder, Mi Amore is set in the Abruzzo town where my grandparents were raised. Writing that chapter brought me back to the beautiful, mountainous, rural region of my ancestors. On our trip, we traveled the same road to Abruzzo as Lexie and Dominic. However, unlike them, no one was trying to run us off the road into a deep ravine.

Could my story have taken place anywhere else? Yes, but I would have lost a major character – an exciting and exotic character, and one a little bit dangerous. Italy.

My husband and took a Viking River Cruise up the Seine in June, 2016. I plan to write a Gothic romance set in Normandy. The rugged, rainy coast of Normandy is perfect for a dark Gothic.

We spent time in Paris, one of the world's great cities. Here's a picture of a gargoyle at the top of Notre Dame Cathedral.

Because our son lives in Las Vegas, we go there at least once a year. My husband suggested I start writing stories set in Vegas. I loved the idea. I now have two novellas set in Las Vegas, and I’m currently writing a marriage-of-convenience novel set there.

Anyone who has been to Las Vegas knows the place has its own character that can’t be duplicated. The story possibilities set in Vegas are endless.

What do you think? Do you like having a setting as a character in what you read and write?

Here’s the blurb for Murder, Mi Amore:

Danger. Deception. Desire.

Murder, jewel thieves and terrorists intrude on an American woman's Roman holiday; can she trust the sexy, mysterious Italian man who comes to her aid?

Lexie Cortese is in Rome to forget. The last thing she expects is to meet a sexy Interpol agent who suspects her of being part of a terrorist plot involving a stolen diamond. Suddenly thrust into a world of murders, muggings, and kidnappings, Lexie doesn’t know what to think—or who to believe.

Dominic Brioni’s assignment is simple. Befriend the American and bring her to justice. Only Lexie seems the most unlikely terrorist Dominic has ever met. Sweet, determined, and direct, she faces life with courage and fire, a fire that sparks his protective instincts and a longing for something more—something he allowed himself to hope for only once before.

But that woman betrayed him, and his boss isn’t about to let him forget it. With his career on the line and Lexie in danger, will Dominic learn to trust his heart before they both get killed?

  Here’s a little about my Las Vegas story, Bad Luck Partners, in the anthology Season of Promises Holiday Box Set.

Holidays have never brought Las Vegas hotel concierge Laney Sikora anything but bad luck in the romance department. The worst was her fiancé dumping her on Valentine’s Day. Via text. She’s determined to spend New Year's Eve alone with no romantic entanglements. But when her hunky new neighbor locks himself out of his apartment, she can’t leave him standing in the hallway. What's a girl to do?

Las Vegas is just a pit stop for Chicago native and radio personality Chance Carlisle while he waits for his agent to land him something bigger in L.A. But in the meantime, he keeps bumping into—literally—his adorable, but accident-prone, neighbor. Their private New Year’s Eve celebration leads to a plan: they’ll become the Bad Luck Partners, dating only on holidays and special events, avoiding holiday heartbreaks and matchmaking mamas.

 
But Fate might have something else in mind for the klutzy cutie and the hotshot talk show host. Can their temporary partnership become a forever deal?

And from A Very Vegas Christmas in the anthology Holiday Magic, from The World Romance Writers.

A Las Vegas event planner in need of luck meets a mysterious guy who might be her winning ticket. Will his secret split them apart?

Can things get any worse for Las Vegas event planner Amanda Moreau? Her boyfriend dumped her for a stripper; she’s arranging a Christmas wedding for a Bridezilla; and her mother is playing matchmaker from 2000 miles away. When she meets hunky and ever-so-sweet Erik, who’s in town for a conference, she begins to hope her luck is changing. But Erik has a secret that threatens to split them apart. 

Links:

Murder, Mi Amore:

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Mi-Amore/dp/B009UEVVP0/?tag=carmaraut-20

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-mi-amore-cara-marsi/1103364955?ean=2940016033266

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/murder-mi-amore/id599801756?mt=11

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/murder-mi-amore

Season of Promises Holiday Box Set:

https://www.amazon.com/Season-Promises-Merry-Holly-ebook/dp/B01LQUP9AS/?tag=carmaraut-20

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/season-of-promises-holiday-box-set-marian-lanouette/1124742472?ean=2940153535586

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/season-of-promises-holiday-box-set

Holiday Magic:

https://www.amazon.com/Holiday-Magic-Rose-Anderson-ebook/dp/B01MXQQQJM/?tag=carmaraut-20

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/holiday-magic-rose-anderson/1125245793?ean=2940153544717

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/holiday-magic-2

Visit my website: www.caramarsi.com for more on all my books.

Help Me Celebrate National "Go For Broke" Day!

Did you know that the phrase "Go for broke" is derived from the Hawaiian pidgin phrase used by crap shooters risking it all on one roll of the dice? The phrase also happens to be the motto of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team of the United States Army and the reason this day is celebrated. Comprised of
mainly American soldiers of Japanese descent these men were fighting for a country that had interred many of them in detention camps. I can only imagine what kind of courage and determination that took. 

"Go for broke" was the unit's motto and from what I could determine, that was exactly what they did. On April 5, 1945 the unit's first Medal of Honor recipient, Private First Class Sadao Munemori was killed in action near Seravezza, Italy. He sacrificed his life to save two men and clear a path for his company's advance when they were pinned down by enemy fire near Seravezza. The battle continued until April 14 and the 442nd fought so valiantly that they received the Presidential Unit Citation for outstanding accomplishments in combat. According to the research I was able to track down, this was one of eight they would be awarded.

The accolades didn't stop there. According to the National Calendar Days website there were also 21 Medals of Honor, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 1 Distinguished Service Medal, 560 Silver Stars, 22 Legion of Merit Medals, 15 Soldier's Medals, 4,000 Bronze Stars and 9,486 Purple Hearts awarded.

Not too shabby for a unit that came about in no small part because of lobbying from significant supporters of the Japanese-American community and the efforts of the Varsity Victory volunteers in Hawaii, who for years provided volunteer labor for the US Army. Early in 1943 the War Department called for volunteers for a segregated unit. About 1,500 Japanese-Americans came from the mainland, most from internment camps and 10,000 volunteers from Hawaii.

While there seemed to be some friction from both sets of volunteers, the one thing both the mainland and Hawaiian recruits struggled with was the racism that was so pervasive in the Deep South where they were sent to train. Horrified by what they saw, their frequent outbursts and intervention on behalf of the African-American community soon reached the point where their officers had to reprimand and warn them that they couldn't end Jim Crow on their own. I give them points for trying.

These brave men were and still are a shining example of the America we were all taught to revere. I don't mind admitting that I shed a few tears while reading about this team. I can't help but marvel that in the face of so much adversity, they were still determined to do the right thing.Their heroic feats are too numerous to give adequate accolades in this post meant to celebrate their actions on this day in 1945. If you'd like to know more about the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, here's a website that I think might interest you:

Go For Broke National Education:

http://www.goforbroke.org/

Personally, I plan on going for broke the entire year and anytime I falter, I'm going to remember these guys. I'm writing in new genres, attending a conference in May and hopefully reinventing a career that seems to have faltered along the way. It seems like a small thing compared to what I've written about today but in the end, it's all about believing in what you're doing.    

I've asked you to help me celebrate "Go For Broke" Day and while I don't have a story about the 442nd, last year, as part of the Romance Books '4' Us, Entice Me anthology, I contributed a paranormal romance with a WWII setting. Leave a comment today and let me know what you'll be doing that follows the "Go for broke" theme and at the end of the day, I'll choose someone to win a copy of the Entice Me anthology.

I'll Be Seeing You

By Paris Brandon

Copyright 2015

Blurb:

Jack Howland, part of an elite group of OSS special agents can’t resist the pull of the moon or widowed USO hostess, Lulu Lane. After the war, while chasing a Nazi war criminal, their paths cross again. Will the truth about what Jack is send Lulu screaming into the night or back into his arms?

Heat Rating: 2 chili peppers

Excerpt:

I’ll Be Seeing You by Paris Brandon (PG)

May 1944

There were girls in soft summer dresses, all pink and flowery, smiling and perfumed. None of them would have turned down the handsome lieutenant. Why ask her?

She placed a hand on his solid chest. “Did somebody put you up to this? Did you lose a bet or something?”

He loosened his grip and took a deep breath right before he slid her left hand to his shoulder. When his fingers brushed over the third finger of her right hand, and detected the evidence she was a widow, he uttered a harsh, whispered word that might have been a vehement curse in another language.

“Or something,” he said very clearly, his breath warm against her ear. “Have you ever felt like you’ve lost your mind?”

“Daily. What’s that got to do with you asking me to dance?”

“What’s your name?”

“Lulu Lane. What comes after Lieutenant?” she asked, trying not to get lost in the sensation of being moved around the floor by a handsome man while people stared.

“Jack. Jack Howland,” he snapped, but then he snugged her tighter to his chest and his hand drifted over her back as if he were soothing a wound.

“Asking me to dance doesn’t seem to be making you very happy. Why did you?”

He looked as if he were losing an argument only he knew about.

“I leave in two days. I shouldn’t have spoken to you, let alone asked you to dance, because no matter what I say, it’s not going to come out right.”

“It’s not going to come out at all if you keep talking in riddles.”

He looked surprised for a moment and she was gratified that she could at least break through his maddening, mysterious behavior. “I’ve got forty-eight hours left on a three-day pass and I want to spend it with you. Clear enough for you?”

It took a few moments for what he’d said to sink in, and even then she had trouble believing him. This had to be some kind of a joke.

“You’re smart, Howland; I’ll give you that. You picked out the only wallflower in the bunch—”

“I don’t want to scare you, Lulu, but you don’t fool me. I’m glad nobody else has sense enough to see past the glasses and sensible shoes. You’re an open book for the lucky somebody willing to peel back the cover.

“I’m not looking for romance. I’m looking for forty-eight hours with someone who looked back at me the same way I was looking at them.”

Until Next Month,

Happy Reading!

Paris Brandon

http://parisbrandon.com

Available from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Entice-Me-Luscious-Love-Stories-ebook/dp/B015YEHP9U/