Welcome to Our Wednesday Coffee Chat & Book Talk!
Today’s guest is Judy Alter, an author of cozy mysteries and historical women’s fiction. While we’ll be talking mainly about her fiction, she’s featuring a new cookbook, Gourmet on a Hot Plate. Maybe we’ll pick up some hints for the holidays!
Thanks for taking a break from the seasonal rush, Judy. What may I get you to drink?
JA: I drink decaf (doctor’s orders) green tea, one cup every morning, with a tad of honey.
Ally: I don’t drink hot tea very often, but I love honey in it too. While I get your tea and my coffee, please tell readers about yourself.
Today’s guest is Judy Alter, an author of cozy mysteries and historical women’s fiction. While we’ll be talking mainly about her fiction, she’s featuring a new cookbook, Gourmet on a Hot Plate. Maybe we’ll pick up some hints for the holidays!
Thanks for taking a break from the seasonal rush, Judy. What may I get you to drink?
JA: I drink decaf (doctor’s orders) green tea, one cup every morning, with a tad of honey.
Ally: I don’t drink hot tea very often, but I love honey in it too. While I get your tea and my coffee, please tell readers about yourself.
Bio:
The award-winning author of Contract for Chaos, Judy Alter has written seven other Kelly O’Connell Mysteries, four in the Blue Plate Café Series, and two Oak Gove Mysteries. She has written five historical novels about women of the American West and is also the author of three cookbooks, including the new Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Tiny Kitchen Tips and Recipes.
Something unique/unusual that isn't in your regular bio: “Cooking has been my lifelong avocation, and I’ve cooked holiday dinners for twenty and intimate dinners for two. These days I cook on a hot plate and toaster oven in a tiny kitchen.”
Follow Judy:
Blog, “Judy’s Stew,” http://www.judys-stew.blogspot.com
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/judy.alter and https://www.facebook.com/Judy-Alter-Author-366948676705857/,
Twitter, where she is @JudyAlter.
Her new interactive food blog is http://www.gourmetonahotplate.blogspot.com--comments, questions, and recipes encouraged.
The award-winning author of Contract for Chaos, Judy Alter has written seven other Kelly O’Connell Mysteries, four in the Blue Plate Café Series, and two Oak Gove Mysteries. She has written five historical novels about women of the American West and is also the author of three cookbooks, including the new Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Tiny Kitchen Tips and Recipes.
Something unique/unusual that isn't in your regular bio: “Cooking has been my lifelong avocation, and I’ve cooked holiday dinners for twenty and intimate dinners for two. These days I cook on a hot plate and toaster oven in a tiny kitchen.”
Follow Judy:
Blog, “Judy’s Stew,” http://www.judys-stew.blogspot.com
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/judy.alter and https://www.facebook.com/Judy-Alter-Author-366948676705857/,
Twitter, where she is @JudyAlter.
Her new interactive food blog is http://www.gourmetonahotplate.blogspot.com--comments, questions, and recipes encouraged.
INTERVIEW:
Ally: Let’s start our chat by exploring story ideas. Where do you get them?
JA: They come from current social issues and happenings, history, and my own wild imagination. My first mystery, Skeleton in a Dead Space, was partly inspired by a dead space in my own kitchen but came to life when I drove by a Craftsman house and suddenly thought, “There’s a skeleton in that house.”
Ally: Do your reading habits mirror your writing interests? Who and what do you read?
JA: Mysteries are my favorite genres because they help me improve my own storytelling skills and because I have always enjoyed them. I read three or four a month, depending on what else is on my desk, and mostly I read ebooks either on my computer or iPhone. Favorites include Susan Wittig Albert, Deborah Crombie, Dick Francis, Sue Mott Davidson, and many others.
Ally: Which of your books is your personal favorite? Why?
JA: The Gilded Cage, historical fiction chronicling the lives of hotelier Potter Palmer (Chicago’s Palmer House) and his wife, one of the first women to see that great wealth obligates one to philanthropy. Their story is set against the background of the turbulent last quarter of the nineteenth century in Chicago—robber barons, labor troubles, the Great Fire, the Haymarket Riot, and the spectacular Columbia Exhibition. I think, modestly, it’s the best book I’ve ever written.
Ally: What is the most meaningful thing a fan could say about your book?
JA: A fan once said that the people in my mysteries are just like the people you’d meet in the grocery store. I thought that was high praise.
Ally: Tell us about your next writing project and when it might be released.
JA: I’m working on a nonfiction book tentatively titled The Second Battle of the Alamo, about two early twentieth-century women who joined together to save the Alamo from demolition and then became bitter rivals over how the iconic mission site should be developed. It’s scheduled to release in February 2019 to be available for the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo.
Ally: Give me your quick responses to the following questions.
Ally: Let’s start our chat by exploring story ideas. Where do you get them?
JA: They come from current social issues and happenings, history, and my own wild imagination. My first mystery, Skeleton in a Dead Space, was partly inspired by a dead space in my own kitchen but came to life when I drove by a Craftsman house and suddenly thought, “There’s a skeleton in that house.”
Ally: Do your reading habits mirror your writing interests? Who and what do you read?
JA: Mysteries are my favorite genres because they help me improve my own storytelling skills and because I have always enjoyed them. I read three or four a month, depending on what else is on my desk, and mostly I read ebooks either on my computer or iPhone. Favorites include Susan Wittig Albert, Deborah Crombie, Dick Francis, Sue Mott Davidson, and many others.
Ally: Which of your books is your personal favorite? Why?
JA: The Gilded Cage, historical fiction chronicling the lives of hotelier Potter Palmer (Chicago’s Palmer House) and his wife, one of the first women to see that great wealth obligates one to philanthropy. Their story is set against the background of the turbulent last quarter of the nineteenth century in Chicago—robber barons, labor troubles, the Great Fire, the Haymarket Riot, and the spectacular Columbia Exhibition. I think, modestly, it’s the best book I’ve ever written.
Ally: What is the most meaningful thing a fan could say about your book?
JA: A fan once said that the people in my mysteries are just like the people you’d meet in the grocery store. I thought that was high praise.
Ally: Tell us about your next writing project and when it might be released.
JA: I’m working on a nonfiction book tentatively titled The Second Battle of the Alamo, about two early twentieth-century women who joined together to save the Alamo from demolition and then became bitter rivals over how the iconic mission site should be developed. It’s scheduled to release in February 2019 to be available for the anniversary of the fall of the Alamo.
Ally: Give me your quick responses to the following questions.
- a. favorite book – Wallace Stegner’s Angle of Repose, or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird
- b. book you're currently reading – Deborah Crombie’s Where Memories Lie
- c. an author (living or dead) you'd love to take to lunch – Deborah Crombie
- d. an item on your bucket list – Another trip to Scotland
- e. Your pets - type and names – I could not live without a dog and have had many in my long life. Current co-resident of my cottage is Sophie, a Bordoodle (deliberate cross between a poodle and a border collie—scary smart).
Gourmet on a Hot Plate: Tiny Kitchen Tips and Recipes
Genre: cookbook
Judy Alter has cooked her way through life, feeding family and friends at everything from casual dinners al fresco to elaborate meals for twenty. An award-winning author and publisher, she jokes she’ll come back in another life as a chef.
Today Alter finds herself cooking in a four-by-six kitchen where zoning laws forbid built-ins but allow anything that plugs in. So she cooks with a hot plate, a toaster oven, and a large refrigerator/freezer. Given these limitations, she has developed a new approach to food, one that she says lets her get in touch with the food itself. By choice, she does not have an Insta-Pot, an air-fryer, a microwave. Her menu choices are dictated by her cooking facilities—and she loves it. She shares her tiny kitchen tips and recipes, developed over the past couple of years, in Gourmet on a Hot Plate.
"Love cooking? Love the minimalist lifestyle? Your tiny kitchen doesn’t need to limit your gourmet dreams. Judy Alter’s Gourmet On a Hot Plate will inspire you with big ideas to satisfy everyone around the table." Susan Wittig Albert, author of Queen Anne’s Lace
Buy Link: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Gourmet-Hot-Plate-KItchen-Recipes-ebook/dp/B07JC75FC5/
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