Book Review: Lisa Scottoline's After Anna

Local author Lisa Scottoline has once again brought thrills and chills to me while I read her latest book, After Anna. Suburban blended family, sweet son Caleb, super-helpful and loving mom Maggie, caring and quiet dad Dr. Noah.

Enter the long-lost bratty and mysterious long-lost daughter? Yep- Maggie gets to fawn over the daughter she never got to enjoy, and boy does the family dynamic go wrong- it’s shattered, and somehow dad Noah is blamed for it.

What is portrayed as a tragic, horrifying murder becomes a skillfully crafted mystery reaching far beyond the comforts of home in Southeastern PA. Who is Anna really? Who was she? How will her mom cope with her death as her family gets torn apart?

After Anna follows the mystery genre formula, yet shocks you with a few surprises that gives you serious anxiety, cringe-worthy situations, happy feel-good moments, and at the end, a masterful climax that leaves you feeling intense, whew…I need to read that again! But first I need some rose’ to take it all in.

The format of the book starts in the future by chapter and goes back and forth in time until the two halves make the whole. I feel like with each chapter the book was revealing itself to me…and then I’d turn the page and was slapped with another anxiety-ridden scene.

Some books go out of the way to pepper the chapters with red herrings, with After Anna, Scottoline so skillfully intertwines the details you don't see the ending until you're on top of it.

As always, reading about local places is fun, and knowing the security of home yet with a masterful mystery surrounding you with each page, yes, After Anna brings the apprehension, the heartache, and a host of other emotions. Settle in with a good cup of coffee or glass of Sav Blanc, and get ready for this ride.

Find After Anna at your local book store.

Home Cooking with Valerie Bertinelli

Valerie Bertinelli, award-winning actress, best-selling author, and popular Food Network personality, has made a name for herself in households across America. 

As her friends, family, and fans alike know, Valerie loves nothing more than to cook delicious meals bursting with flavor and share them with those she loves.

To really know Valerie is to spend time in her kitchen. And she does just that with her new cookbook, Valerie’sHome Cooking: More than 100 Recipes to Share with Friends and Family (Oxmoor House, October 2017, $30). 

Inspired by her family’s cooking legacy, Valerie specializes in showing fans how to make dishes their own families will love. As she often says, there’s a story behind every recipe, and she shares them in this gorgeous cookbook with a cornucopia of meals that are easy to make and innovative, including Bacon-Caramel Scuffins with Caramel Clotted Cream, Lobster BLTs, Spicy Arrabiata Penne, Lemon Raspberry Panna Cotta and much more.

Step into her kitchen, sample her favorite dishes, pick up a few of her culinary tips and tricks, and stay for her entertaining anecdotes over dessert and coffee!

BLT Pasta

Serves 4

Hands-on 25 minutes Total 35 minutes

This is a rich pasta awash in flavor, one that gives the sense of being especially indulgent yet avoiding cream sauce and lots of preparation.

• 12 cups water
• ¼ cup plus 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 pounds plum tomatoes (about  10 tomatoes)
• 6 thick-cut bacon slices, chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 1⁄8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 12 ounces uncooked spaghetti
• 4 cups fresh baby arugula
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
• Grated fresh Parmesan cheese

Bring the water and 1/4 cup of the salt to a boil in a large saucepan over high. Hull the stems from the tomatoes. Cut a shallow “x” through the skin on the bottom of each tomato.

Place the tomatoes in the boiling water, and boil about 30 seconds. Using a slotted spoon, remove the tomatoes, and submerge in a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process. Reserve the salted water in the saucepan.

When the tomatoes are cool enough to handle, peel back the skin using a paring knife. 

Cut the tomatoes in half lengthwise; squeeze out and discard the seeds. 

Chop the tomatoes into 1/2-inch pieces.

Place the bacon in a cold large skillet; cook over medium, stirring occasionally, until crisp, 10 to 13 minutes. Drain the bacon on a paper towel-lined plate. 

Reserve 2 tablespoons drippings in the skillet.

Add the onion to the hot drippings in the skillet; cook over medium, stirring occasionally, until soft and lightly golden, about 10 minutes. 

Add the wine; cook until the liquid is reduced by half, about 3 minutes. 

Add the chopped tomatoes, black pepper, crushed red pepper, and remaining  1/2 teaspoon salt to the skillet; cook, stirring occasionally, until the tomatoes begin to break down, about 5 minutes.

Return the reserved salted water in the saucepan to a boil; add the spaghetti, and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water. 

Add the pasta and 1/4 cup of the reserved cooking water to the tomato mixture in the skillet; toss to coat. 

Add more cooking water, if necessary, until the mixture reaches the desired consistency. Transfer to a large bowl; toss with arugula and half of the chopped bacon. 

Divide evenly among 4 serving bowls; top evenly with the basil, remaining chopped bacon, and Parmesan.

Variation: This is easily adaptable to whatever you have on hand, like spinach and linguine instead of the arugula and spaghetti.

Cooking Tip: This is another time I like to sauté my bacon instead of using the oven. 

All those yummy hot bacon drippings.

*Excerpted from Valerie’s Home Cooking by Valerie Bertinelli.
Copyright © 2017 Oxmoor House. Reprinted with permission from Time Inc. Books, a division of Time Inc. New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Book Review: The Murder Mystery of Muffy McGregor

I recently sat down with my long-time colleague and writer friend, Teddy Durgin, who has written a book about what it’s like to be a teenager in the 80s, plus trying to solve a murder AND break the unpopular curse.

Stroll back to 1986….with The Totally Gnarly Way Bogus Murder of Muffy McGregor.

Q) What prompted you to write this?

A) This was just a story that was in my head for years, and I just needed to make the time commitment to sit down and write it. I am a journalist, by trade- writing and editing is something I do all the time. 

But the downside of that is ... when you get some free time, the last thing you want to do is write! It's weird to say. But, after a while, this story and these characters just demanded they get on the page, and so I did it! There is the old saying "Write what you know!"

Well, I know 1980s pop culture, and I came of age during that wacky decade in Laurel, Maryland, the small Baltimore/Washington, D.C., suburban town where the story takes place. Like the lead character, Sam, I also worked in the mall like he works during the summer of 1986, and many of my friends worked shopping mall jobs that summer. The book is VERY Laurel specific at times, referencing real people and places. But it could also be Anytown USA circa '86.

Q) What was your inspiration?

A) I came of age in the John Hughes era. So, his high school movies like "Sixteen Candles, "The Breakfast Club," Weird Science," and "Ferris Buellar" are fused into my DNA. My central concept was: "What if John Hughes back in 1986 had written a high school murder mystery? How would it have gone?"

Q) Where did the characters come from, especially the kids and their parents?

A) I have re-connected with a LOT of ol' high school pals and classmates as a result of this book being published. And so many of asked me, "OK, so is Muffy {insert name of old classmate}? Is Brent the jock really {insert name of other old classmate}?" "Is Sam YOU?" And the answer to those questions is both yes and no. I certainly drew on people I knew back then. But they were more my jumping off points. Each character then developed his/her personal quirks as I got deeper into writing the story. And several of them took on the old John Hughes archetypes of The Brain, The Jock, The Prom Queen, The Rebel, the Basket Case, etc.

Q) Why a high school death?

A) High school is one of THE most emotional, hormonal times in one's life. It certainly was for me. One moment, you feel like you are on top of the world, you know everything, and you'll live forever. The next moment, a classmate can look at you funny or you look in the mirror and all you see is a bad pimple, and it's the end of the world.

I wanted to contrast those feelings of angst and youthful bravado with the adult characters who are much more passive, over things, just punching the clock and trying to get to their Friday night "Dallas" viewing or their next Happy Hour.

Sam is a character who has never fit in with the "In" crowd. So, he believes that solving the murder of his mega-popular classmate, Muffy, he'll finally get in good with the cool kids.
He does things at 15 that he probably wouldn't do with more years and world experience.

5) How did the musical and social cultures/ criteria influence the book?

Ah, that's just the spice that adds flavor to the book! I loved working in references both obvious and obscure. Everything from Bill Paxton in "Aliens" to Tom Selleck's fledgling film career in the '80s to the old "Good Times" re-run. The key, though, is to always make it relevant to the characters and at the service of the story.

I hate when you see a retro movie or read a retro book, and you have some character coming out of "Platoon" and saying something jive like "That Charlie Sheen is going to win FIVE Oscars by the time he's done!" or a character seeing an old Money magazine cover and saying, "Now that Donald... HE would make a great president someday! But he wouldn't take the pay cut!" Ha ha, hee hee. I'd rather have two idiot kids talking about whether Siskel or Ebert would give thumbs down to a movie about their lives.

Check out The Totally Gnarly Way Bogus Murder of Muffy McGregor here. It’s Teddy's fun ride through pop-culture and the 80s…where I had permed hair, braces and a desperate need to graduate 8^th grade.