This month, I’ll be writing about our upcoming book (due on 1 January 2021), Odessa Moon, our new project, and cookies. It’s mid-December and if you’re planning on baking cookies, have I got a pair of recipes for you. I’ll address our tentative publishing schedule for 2021 in January’s newsletter: I’ve got too much to talk about and if I add the publishing schedule as I was originally planning, this newsletter would be another thousand words longer.
I’ll start with another plea for Odessa Moon. That’s my fictional alter-ego. I (as Teresa) write the nonfiction while Odessa writes the torrid (but not too torrid) romances. Last month, I asked if anyone was interested in a dedicated Odessa Moon newsletter. It would only discuss Odessa’s books, background information, possible plans, and the like. I’ve got notes on dozens of stories I’d like to write.
Many of my ideas are for more Steppes of Mars titles.
Many more are not.
I have ten books roughed out in a space opera entitled (this will change) the Austerrans. This one is set in a far-away solar system with multiple, habitable worlds circling a sun. There are four separate sentient species that we know of, including humans like us. There are mercenaries, ruling families, princesses, mysterious aliens, genetically engineered people, and dahlias. Can’t have a space opera without dahlias, I always say. My notes range from a few hundred words of very rough outline to pages and pages of finished sections.
I’m not kidding about the dahlias. They figure in the plot as well as being an obsessive focus of many people (of different species, no less). If you know a dahlia fancier, you already know how obsessive they can be. Have you ever seen a dahlia show? I have, at Longwood Gardens. Dahlia fanciers were out in droves and their sole focus was on perfecting the dahlia and the rest of the universe was unimportant. I marveled from the sidelines, safely out of the line of fire.
I’ve got other ideas too, ranging from a few paragraphs in one setting to a finished short story about a fairy and a unicorn inspired by a Mimi Jobe collector’s plate to a possible entire series set in a fantasy world where magic sort of works. Maybe. Not that well. There are barbarians on the other side of the mountains and something is driving them into the civilized lands. The residents have to cope and it’s not going to be easy.
As I get better at plotting and writing, I’m writing faster. When I finish the current set of books in The Steppes of Mars (the last story will be The Pride of DelFino), I may take a break from Mars and work in one of my other worlds. Or I might try to write them simultaneously. I have no idea how that would work, particularly since Bill and I embarked on yet another years-long project. More on that later.
So. Does anyone want a dedicated Odessa Moon newsletter? Tell me at [email protected]. I could use the encouragement.
Teresa and Agatha Meet for a Movie
What might get in the way of my writing two novels simultaneously is our new, long-term project involving Agatha Christie. This project grew out of the Complete Annotated Agatha series. In order to be complete, Bill is doing much more than hitting the reference books. We watch the filmed version of the current project. We had not done this in the past. Thus, we saw David Suchet’s version of Murder on the Links when Bill was working on that annotation. Then we saw The Secret of Chimneys, the current project.
We already enjoy watching a movie every Friday and Saturday night anyway, along with a dinner of cheese, crackers, crudites, and fruit. We’ve done this for years. I don’t review those movies as I’ve got other things to write. Adding an Agatha film here and there fit right in.
However. One thing led to another. An Agatha Christie movie showed up in the lineup (The Crooked House with Glenn Close and very good) all on its own. It wasn’t work. I reviewed it anyway for the Agatha Christie section of Peschel Press because we need new material on a regular basis. Then we watched The Secret of Chimneys, which was dreadful. Many discussions followed, culminating in a lengthy new project.
We’re going to watch all the Agatha Christie films (TV and theatrical). There is about 184 of them, give or take a few. I’m reviewing them for the website, giving my stellar opinion both on fidelity to text and on quality as a stand-alone film.
When we’re finished, we’ll publish my collection of reviews as Teresa and Agatha Meet for a Movie. The title needs work. Interestingly, no one has done this. There is one book out there on Agatha Christie and the cinema, but it doesn’t review the films. It looks at them from a historical perspective. The books will complement each other nicely.
In addition to publishing the reviews as I write them, Bill links pictures of our cheese platters to various sites, including his Facebook page and a page dedicated to Agatha Christie fans. He’s also adding them to my review of the movie. Stop by and see what this week’s film is and what fine cheese showed up at the supermarket.
At two movies (or TV episodes) a week, this project will take nearly three years. If I’m organized and focused, I can write these reviews, two newsletters a month (this one and Odessa), and keep up with my own writing. Maybe even two books at a time! There’s always hope.
I mentioned watching The Secret of Chimneys. This Agatha Christie novel is one of her thrillers, originally published in 1925. It enters the public domain in the U.S. on 1 January 2021 and Bill is racing the clock to get finished on time. (UPDATE: The book is finished and ready for purchase.)
Chimneys is getting the full Peschel Press treatment: maps, period illustrations, footnotes, explanatory essays and everything else we can locate to illuminate the novel. It’s a good novel and everyone in our household liked it. As part of the research, we watched the aforementioned film adaptation. If your only exposure to Chimneys is the terrible ITV film starring Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple, then you have a treat in store for you. Yes, you read that right. ITV Productions shoehorned Jane Marple into a novel that she was never part of. Miss Marple wasn’t even a twinkle in Agatha Christie’s eye when she wrote Chimneys. The adaptation tore the story into shreds and tossed them into the compost heap. The house itself looked nice.
It’s odd how completing one project can lead to another, much larger one. That leads me back to our current project.
The plan, as of this writing, is to have The Complete, Annotated Secret of Chimneys available for sale as of 1 January 2021, the day it enters the public domain. That’s a Friday, when you mark your calendar. Can we make the deadline? We’re trying. Bill wants to have both versions ready, the trade paperback and the eBook. As always, the trade paperback will be loaded with art that we can’t put into the eBook because of file size limitations. You’ll still get all the essays and footnotes, but there won’t be art wherever he can squeeze it in.
Looking back over our Complete, Annotated editions, each book has been better than the one before. It was with Murder on the Links that Bill hit his stride, with period illustrations in the text itself and in the footnotes. It makes for a much more interesting book. The Secret of Chimneys should be gorgeous, as well as being a darn good read. It has everything: a leading man who should remind you of Errol Flynn, missing princes, exotic kingdoms, adventurers, an African connection, secret identities, international jewel thieves, the Koh-I-Noor stolen, a fabulous English country house, and murder. The novel does not have Miss Marple.
There are other books waiting in the pipeline after The Complete Annotated Secret of Chimneys, but we don’t expect to finish and publish them until January or later. I’ll cover that in my next newsletter.
Release the Butterscotch Crunchies!
And now, at last, what you’ve all been waiting for. Cookies! I developed two very good cookie recipes, Butterscotch Crunchies and Peppermint Cookies. We’ve been handing out Butterscotch Crunchies for years at events. People remember us from event to event solely because of the cookie. We hand out the recipe to all and sundry and now, I’m handing it out to you, dear reader.
The Peppermint cookies don’t come to shows, but that is not because they are hard to make. They are not. They are a simple butter drop cookie. The problem is the peppermint chips. I developed the recipe with Andes Peppermint Crunch baking chips. Over the years, my local supermarket’s supply of Andes Peppermint Crunch baking chips became spotty at best. I used peppermint substitutes. The equivalent amount of Brach’s Starbright mints (coarsely crushed) works pretty well, although it’s a lot of work to unwrap and break all those hard mints into mint gravel.
After that, it gets problematic. I’ve used several different varieties of peppermint chips and the results were inconsistent. The taste is always fine. The appearance is not. In one memorable case, the peppermint baking chips melted completely, resulting in the cookies coming out of the oven like peppermint lace instead of a butter drop cookie with bits of peppermints. Those cookies had to be scraped off the parchment paper. The melted chips stuck like glue and if you’re familiar with parchment paper, you know that not much sticks to it. Those cookies did, because of the chips.
This inconsistency is why we don’t hand out Peppermint cookies or the recipe. I can’t guarantee results.
The Butterscotch Crunchies, on the other hand, always work. They use Hershey’s Heath Bits O’ Brickle Toffee pieces, which you can easily find in heaps in every supermarket in the land. They’re wonderful. If you like salted caramel, you’ll love these cookies.
We’re providing the recipes two ways: in the newsletter itself and Bill is making them available as a single page download, easily printed out at home. You can have one or both. Pass the recipes along to anyone you think might like them. Cookies are for sharing. Enjoy!
Thanks again for joining us here at Peschel Press. We can’t do it without you, dear readers. Have a wonderful holiday, a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and we’ll meet again in January of 2021.
Peschel Press BUTTERSCOTCH CRUNCHIES
a powerhouse fusion of sugar, salt, and crunchiness
This recipe makes a lot of cookies, 10 dozen or more. You’ll eat every one of them, sighing and groaning. They are stunning when still hot from the oven and the brickle bits are molten.
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
4 tsp salt (yes, this amount is correct)
4 sticks (1 lb.) butter, softened (NO SUBSTITUTES)
3 cups dark brown sugar, packed
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp rum or maple extract (optional)
3 8oz bags Heath Bits O’ Brickle Toffee Bits
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. If you don’t use parchment paper, you will never get the cookies off the cookie sheets no matter how heavily you grease the sheets.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In a very large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, vanilla extract, and rum extract until very light and fluffy.
Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing well after each addition. When the flour mixture is blended in, stir in all three bags of Heath Bits O’ Brickle Toffee Bits, one bag at a time.
Drop by well-rounded teaspoonfuls (the small ones you eat dessert with, not the ones you use to measure salt with) onto the parchment-covered cookie sheets. The dough balls should be about an inch in diameter. Leave several inches of space around each ball of dough as these spread with abandon.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes per sheet at 375 degrees. The cookies will still be molten from the oven so they REQUIRE five minutes of time cooling ON THE COOKIE SHEET after coming out of the oven. Then, transfer the cookies to wire racks so they can finish cooling.
Even when fully cooled, these cookies are sticky. Storing them between layers of waxed paper will prevent sticking. They freeze beautifully. The batter can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until ready to bake. Cold from the fridge batter won’t spread in the oven quite as much as room temperature batter.
Peschel Press PEPPERMINT COOKIES
This recipe makes a lot of cookies, 10 dozen or more.
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
4 sticks (1 lb.) butter, softened (NO SUBSTITUTES)
3 cups white sugar
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 10 oz bags Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips
Or the equivalent amount of Brach’s Starbright mints, unwrapped and crushed into coarse, mint gravel.
If you cannot find either of these brands and use another version, the cookies will taste fine. How they bake is another matter entirely. Experiment is all I can say.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. If you don’t use parchment paper, you may not get the cookies off the cookie sheets no matter how heavily you grease the sheets. The peppermint chips you use will determine how sticky they become.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
In a very large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla extract until very light and fluffy.
Gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing well after each addition. When the flour mixture is blended in, stir in all three bags of Andes Peppermint Crunch Baking Chips, one bag at a time.
Drop by well-rounded teaspoonfuls (the small ones you eat dessert with, not the ones you use to measure salt with) onto the parchment-covered cookie sheets. The dough balls should be about an inch in diameter. Leave several inches of space around each ball of dough as these can spread with abandon, depending on the brand of peppermint chip you use.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes per sheet at 375 degrees. The cookies won’t be fully set so cool them ON THE COOKIE SHEET after coming out of the oven for a few minutes. Then, transfer the cookies to wire racks to finish cooling.
The peppermint chip you use will determine how sticky these cookies are. Storing them between layers of waxed paper will prevent sticking. They freeze beautifully. The batter can be made ahead of time and refrigerated until ready to bake. Cold from the fridge batter won’t spread in the oven quite as much as room temperature batter.