Friday Recipe: White Bean Basil Dip and #guest D.C. McMillen @mcmillendc

Kristabel has informed me that Fridays are dedicated to food on her blog. I F*@#ing love food and I F@*#ing love Kristabel’s blog so I jumped at the chance to guest today. (Blushes, thanks, D.C.!)

As much as I love all kinds of food, I’ve been on a bit of a health kick for the last year and a half. Ever since my mom so delicately informed me that I had too much junk in my trunk (the 90’s called, Mom. They want their slang back). Plus, I made the mistake of sausaging myself into a bikini in the middle of winter on an impromptu vacation. I felt like a beached whale lying on that beach.

Of course, I immediately cast blame where most appropriate; my boyfriend. “Why didn’t you tell me my ass got so big?” I demanded.  He just shrugged and told me he thought I still looked beautiful. Now, to the untrained ear, that sounds like a sweet response. But let’s say it again while paying a bit more attention this time: “Honey, I think you still look beautiful.” Still? Still! If a compliment needs to be qualified with the word still, I am in trouble. 

So, a diet ensued. It took me an entire year but I managed to lose forty pounds and, while I haven’t lost that last ten yet, I’ve at least managed to keep the weight off.  I did not completely cut out the junk food. If I did that, my brain and stomach would have teamed up against me in a spectacular rebellion. Instead I tried eating healthier most of the time and always in smaller portions. One of my favourite healthy recipes, one that I will share with you today, is not really a recipe at all. In fact it is so stupid easy and delicious, you will probably want to rush to your food processor right away. Of course this is regardless of the fact that you are perfect the way you are and do not need to lose any weight like me.

This recipe is both a dip and a spread. I usually make a batch on Sunday and keep it in the fridge. I then use it as a high protein, low fat dip for veggies and as a spread for sandwiches, in place of mayonnaise or other junk-trunk inducing spreads. This happens to be the recipe most requested by my friends and family, which is awesome because they have no idea how healthy or easy it is to make

White Bean Basil Dip/Spread

• One can white beans, rinsed and drained
• Handful fresh basil, rinsed and patted dry (I’m sure you could use cilantro or dill instead although I haven’t tried it)
• Squeeze of fresh lemon, if desired
• Extra virgin olive oil

1. Place beans and basil in your food processor then squeeze a small amount of lemon over mixture. If you don’t have lemon, that’s okay too. I just find it adds a bit of freshness. 
2. Begin processing while slowly adding olive oil. Stop adding oil when the mixture is creamy and smooth.
3. Use immediately or cover and refrigerate up to about four days. 

Yeah, that’s pretty much it. How easy is that?

Now that I’ve offered up my favourite and most easy healthy recipe, I’d like to take advantage of your undivided attention to peddle my newest erotic release, which is called The Wedding. 

The Wedding

Karen is not the type to attend a wedding with a guy she’s only slept with once but, in a rare display of empathy, she agrees to accompany her new landlord Allen to this sure-to-be-boring function. Fortunately, Karen knows how to have a good time, and she’s pretty sure she and Allen can make their own fun...even if they have to do it in the outdoors just steps away from a couple hundred stuffy wedding guests.

The Wedding, mini-excerpt:

The car rumbled to life and he pulled from the roundabout into traffic. He seemed at ease, his hand alternately resting on my thigh and the shifter. As we neared our destination, however, his comfort steadily dissipated. His fingers tapped against the wheel and he smoothed his other hand along the thigh of his dress pants. Jesus, I hope he’s not going to act like this all night. There better be an open bar.

“So, uh, like I said,” he said finally. “My ex-best friend and his wife won’t be there.”

“Uh huh,” I said, distracted. Who doesn’t have an open bar at a wedding these days? No one, that’s who. God, I hope the champagne is good. I need an overflowing glass of expensive champagne, like, ten minutes ago. Since when does Karen Valentine go to weddings as someone’s date?

Buy Links:

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All Romance

Publisher’s Site

D.C. McMillen enjoys writing about dirty sex in questionable places but has been known to write about other subjects, on special occasions. She is featured in MuseItHot’s Short & Spicy line up with The Rental, The Wedding and A Decent December. D.C.’s short stories and flash fiction can be found in several anthologies and other print and online publications. She is obsessed with Twitter and invites you to look her up at @mcmillendc, on her blog, or Facebook.

Wednesday Regency: Rioting to get the government's attention

Because I found it interesting and relevant to today's society. Amazing how the more things change, the more they stay the same.

May 22, 1816 A mob in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, England, riots over high unemployment and rising grain costs; the rioting spreads to Ely the next day.

Struggling with a story: Wicked Seduction

For weeks now I've edited Wicked Seduction on and off but continue to feel as if I'm missing something vital to the story. It has sex. Wow does it have sex!

Could be that I've read it over so many times I'm way too close to it now, but I'm not happy with it. I'm going to let it sit for another week or 2, read it over once more, then be done with it.

How long can I keep at it before the story isn't what I wanted and is not just edited, edited, edited?

And can I just say it's driving me batty!

There you have it, what's happening with this story. Forgive my lateness with it!

Friday Recipe: Sparkling Raspberry Parfaits

Sparkling Raspberry Parfaits. Just sounds great doesn't it?! And super easy to make. Plus it was nice and cold on my throat which I needed this week while I was laid low with a vicious spring cold and terrible cough.

 Picture is theirs. I need to start taking my own, but never remember. Plus, my garnishes don't look like theirs.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups raspberry sorbet
• 1 cup chilled raspberry sparkling wine (such as Verdi Raspberry Sparkletini) or unflavored sparkling wine
• 2 tablespoons shaved bittersweet chocolate

Preparation:

1. 1. Scoop 1/2 cup sorbet into each of 4 wineglasses or small bowls, and drizzle each serving with 1/4 cup wine. Top each serving with 1 1/2 teaspoons chocolate. Serve immediately.

 

#Blitz: Evil Companions by Michael Perkins

Evil Companions by Michael Perkins

We had gotten aboard a roller coaster, and it was a race for our lives, on a one-way track.

In New York City during the heady, tumultuous years of the 1960s, a young couple meet. Together they embark on a dark erotic journey into forbidden sexuality - travelling on an incandescent road to nowhere in their tragic fall from grace. 

Scorching and poignant, and banned upon its first publication in England, Evil Companions is a masterpiece of contemporary erotica. 

'Evil Companions is a meticulous miracle of language and observation . . . A dark jewel on the erotic landscape.' Samuel R. Delany

Available from:

Amazon UK

Amazon

All Romance eBooks

Excerpt:

Some of what happened to us, what we did to each other, might have been prevented. But we had gotten aboard a roller coaster, and it was a race for our lives, on a one-way track.

Circumstances, the mood of the time, made our explorations seem natural, forecast in all our stars. Most of them I haven’t seen in years, and wouldn’t care to—except for Anne, that is. I’ve waited for her to come back, to finish the story. Maybe she won’t because it doesn’t have an end, or because neither of us wants it to end.

Our life together was a story we told each other at night, and we were always careful to consider the obligations of plot and character. Anne, especially, watched the dialogue and considered speech patterns, having decided that the nuances of conversation and sound often tell the listener more than a character would ordinarily want to tell. I had the same feeling about faces. We did more than tell each other stories at night, though; we lived our whole lives then, like—vampires. History is made at night, said Frank Borzage.

We met during rehearsals of a play I was doing in a café theatre on the East Side. She sat at a table on the side sipping coffee through a straw, and she looked ready to scream. She was with friends, some people I knew slightly and hated. It was obvious she was with them, but not of them. They ignored each other. The play was dingy and amateurish, and I became quite loud in my objections to it; I had the lead, but I had taken it in desperation, looking for anything to rouse me from my lethargy. The actress I was working with missed her cue for the third time and I exploded, cursing her, the director, and the script, which I felt no affinity with.

Something hit me in the middle of the back—the girl at the table had thrown her coffee at me. I stood frozen, feeling the hot liquid run down my back.

“You fucking faggot son-of-a-bitch! You actor! If you weren’t so goddamned illiterate, you could handle that script!” Everyone just looked at her. As quickly as she had flared up, she calmed down, and sank back into her seat. She looked so embarrassed she might have sunk into the floor.

I didn’t say anything; I went to the men’s room and cleaned myself off as well as I could. Then I sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. When I got up, I went straight to her table. She got up to join me without a word.

“Come on, let’s take a walk,” I said. It was already dark outside. I hadn’t realized I had been working so long. She had a peculiar gait, like a sailor’s; we walked along. “Did I hurt you?” she asked me. “Let me see.” She pushed me in a doorway and slipped her hand around so she could feel my back. Her hand slipped up under my coat and over my buttocks with a man’s urgent touch. “You’re still wet. Come home with me and you can get dried off.” It was practically a command. She took my hand as if it were already a part of her, ready to pull me

along if I hesitated.

The building she lived in was one part tenement and two parts gingerbread house. I went galumphing up the stairs behind her, noticing the runs in her stockings. She wore stocking with seams down the back, those clay-colored things my mother used to wear.

Her apartment had its own particular smell, an aromatic combination I have never been able to forget: a hideous incense called Dhoop, marijuana, and an exciting odor of pure, raw sex,

mixed with the smell of her cats. She had five of them; the leader was an old gray tom she called Wino, who was missing one eye and any sense of decorum. I learned that it wasn’t unusual for him to leap on guests with his claws out, or to urinate in the middle of the floor and stand there proudly, daring you to rebuke him. I wanted to call him Jean Genet.

She still had my hand. She pulled me in the bedroom, but it was occupied by a young Puerto Rican who was rolling his eyes at the ceiling. As soon as he saw us, he rolled off and staggered out into the other room.

“Sit down and take off your pants.” I sat on the bed and watched her move around. She seemed unconscious of my presence as she took off her clothes. When she was naked in the

red light she sat down beside me and, without a word, unbuckled my belt and pulled my trousers off.

“Don’t be uptight. You’re an actor, aren’t you? Here’s a situation you can play your heart out in.”

“Meaning you?”

“Oh man, don’t be muley! You act like a thickhead. It’s hot in here, take off those damn clothes. I don’t trust anybody in clothes.” I did what she asked. My scrotum was tight and

wrinkled, and I felt like washing my feet. I noticed that hers were black. Her breasts were small and sharp, the nipples bloodred.

She noticed me looking at them.

“Touch. Go on. Then maybe you’ll feel better,” she said dispassionately. I dragged my underwear over my crotch and sat back, away from her. “What’s the matter? Is my hostility

showing?” she asked.

“Turn it off,” I said.

“Turn what off?”

“Whatever the fuck this game is. What’s your name, anyway?”

“Anne, sometimes.”

“Well, Anne, what’s the game? I thought you hated me. It was a bad script.”

“If you thought that, you wouldn’t have come home with me. You’re out in the cold. I could tell that when I first saw you.”

*****

Other Modern Erotic Classics available:

The Houdini Girl by Martyn Bedford

Lie to Me by Tamara Faith Berger

The Phallus of Osiris by Valentina Cilescu

Kiss of Death by Valentina Cilescu

The Flesh Constrained by Cleo Cordell

The Flesh Endures by Cleo Cordell

Hogg by Samuel R. Delany

The Tides of Lust by Samuel R. Delany

Sad Sister by Florence Dugas

The Ties That Bind by Vanessa Duriés

Dark Ride by Kent Harrington

3 by Julie Hilden

Neptune & Surf by Marilyn Jaye Lewis

Violent Silence by Paul Mayersberg

Homme Fatale by Paul Mayersberg

The Agency by David Meltzer

Burn by Michael Perkins

Dark Matter by Michael Perkins

Evil Companions by Michael Perkins

Beautiful Losers by Remittance Girl

Meeting the Master by Elissa Wald

Friday Recipe: Indian-Spiced Grilled Baby Squash

I planted my squash this week along with all my other veggies. I had started them in old, abandoned dresser drawers and waited about 2 weeks for them to sprout little tops. Then I transplanted them into the ground, watered, put up a fence to keep out wandering humans, curious puppies, and the ever-present bunnies that seem to congregate in my backyard.

But my garden had me wondering...with all these veggies, what will I make? Sure, the tomatoes will make delicious sauce (gravy) and soup, but what else? Seems everything can freeze (yeah!) but I found this yummy sounding recipe when I searched for healthy squash recipes. Which in hindsight seems redundant since squash is healthy.

Mind you, I haven't tried it, since my squash are but tiny bits of leaf poking from the ground. But it's first on my list of things to make once they (grow) ripen! 

Photo is theirs.

Indian-Spiced Grilled Baby Squash

 Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger (I've mentioned, right, about being careful with the ginger? Strong!)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander (which I now have thanks to last week!)
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 pound baby pattypan squash, cut in half crosswise
• 1 medium red onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
• Cooking spray
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon thinly sliced fresh mint leaves

Preparation

1. Preheat grill.
2. Combine first 7 ingredients in a large bowl; toss well. Thread squash and onion alternately onto each of 8 (10-inch) skewers. Place skewers on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 10 minutes or until tender, turning frequently. Drizzle with juice. Sprinkle with mint.

Nutritional Information

Amount per serving

• Calories: 61
• Calories from fat: 53%
• Fat: 3.6g
• Saturated fat: 0.5g
• Monounsaturated fat: 2.5g
• Polyunsaturated fat: 0.5g
• Protein: 1.7g
• Carbohydrate: 6.9g
• Fiber: 1.8g
• Cholesterol: 0.0mg
• Iron: 0.6mg
• Sodium: 299mg
• Calcium: 26mg

Wednesday Regency: m/m hotness

Last week I posted a poll--what story would you like to see? Informal, not inclusive, and certainly not written in stone, the one response I had was a hot m/m Regency.

Which tells me that the Regency is certainly not dead!

So, I've been playing with some ideas and think I can definitely make that work. A m/m short Regency story. I'm on it.

Any other must-haves?

Recipes for writers and readers...What do you cook?

I've posted dozens of recipes nearly each Friday and wonder...what do you make? Where do you get your recipe ideas? Do you improvise ingredients? Make up your own recipes?

Inquiring minds (and cooks!) want to know!

Opening of the Parisian Fair 1889

Today in  1889 (also a Monday) the Parisian Exposition of 1889 opened to wide audiences and critical failure of what is now one of the world's most recognized sights, The Eiffel Tower.

 This world's fair was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the fall of the Bastille and the start of the French Revolution (July 14, 1789). That celebration was a little iffy given the vast majority of countries invited (you had to be invited!) were monarchies.

From the Wikipedia article:
The Eiffel Tower had been a subject of some controversy, attracting criticism both from those who did not believe that it was feasible and also from those who objected on artistic grounds. Their objections were an expression of a longstanding debate about relationship between architecture and engineering.

"We, writers, painters, sculptors, architects and passionate devotees of the hitherto untouched beauty of Paris, protest with all our strength, with all our indignation in the name of slighted French taste, against the erection…of this useless and monstrous Eiffel Tower … To bring our arguments home, imagine for a moment a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, crushing under its barbaric bulk Notre Dame, the Tour Saint-Jacques, the Louvre, the Dome of les Invalides, the Arc de Triomphe, all of our humiliated monuments will disappear in this ghastly dream. And for twenty years … we shall see stretching like a blot of ink the hateful shadow of the hateful column of bolted sheet metal"

Stats:

• Expenses: 41,500,000 Francs ($8,397,982.52 today)
• Receipts: 49,500,000 Francs ($10,016,870.71 today)
• Visitors: 32,250,297
• Exhibitors: over 61,722, of which 55% were French

Seduction of my Proper Wife: A Victorian Menage at the Parisian Exposition

Paris did nothing small and their latest exposition was no exception. Talk had been rampant for so many months of the grandeur of this fair that Philip half expected to be disappointed once they’d walked through the impressive entrance arch the tower made. However, seeing it now upon simply entering, Phillip knew there had been no exaggeration.

With his first glimpse, he caught the sight of a myriad of different worlds. There were countries here he’d barely heard of much less had had a chance to experience. It was all exotic and erotic at once.
 
As Lillian moved forward with the crowd, Philip hoped this trip would be worth it.

He’d brought his new wife to the World’s Fair in hopes Paris in the springtime would entice and intoxicate her. He’d hoped this trip would see Lillian warm to him in ways she’d previously withheld.

In the nearly two weeks they’d been married, he’d yet to enjoy her body in their marriage bed.

Not understanding it, and certainly not anticipating it from the vibrant nature of his wife previous to their marriage, Philip had hastily booked passage from Yorkshire to Paris three days ago. Outside the bedroom Lillian was the exuberant woman he’d first fallen in love with.

Inside, she refused to even change before him, calling upon her maid to undress her, a task Philip would have been more than happy to oblige.
Another excerpt
Where to buy: 

All Romance
Amazon
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