Every Tuesday we'll welcome an Author who will share a foodie type post
with a recipe or two and some book promo !
Today please help me welcome Neil Plakcy...
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Blurb:
The Beautiful tropical island of O'ahu is filled with predators, from high flying owls to bottom-dwelling criminals. When the body of an island patrician is found in a warehouse fire, tracking his killers will bring openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa'aka into contact with many of those predators, natural and otherwise. Kimo and his detective partner Ray Donne dig deep into the history of Hawai'i as the islands were teetering on the brink of statehood in order to understand the victim, his killer, and their motives.
At the same time, Kimo and his partner, fire investigator Mike Riccardi, decide to become foster parents for a homeless teen who witnessed the crime and prepare to become dads themselves.
Here's the buy link:
Eat Like a Hawaiian
When I first met Kimo Kanapa’aka, the hero of my Mahu
Investigations, he was a single guy, like I was. He was gay, like me, and about
my age, and he ate the way I did. He had a hibachi on his balcony that he used
to grill chicken breasts, vegetables, and the occasional burger. He ate what he
wanted, when he wanted.
That’s about where our similarities ended. He was a
mixed-race homicide detective in Honolulu with a big family, a competitive
athlete who’d spent a season on the pro surfing circuit. I’m a writer and
college professor, my heritage is Russian and Jewish, I’m an only child, and
the closest I come to athletics is regular dog-walking.
One thing Kimo and I share is a love of food. So when I
began telling Kimo’s stories, I couldn’t help adding a culinary element into
the mix, especially the unique and evocative cuisine of the Aloha State. I made
his mother a great cook, so that there would always be delicious food when he visited
his parents. And I tried to include the variety of dining, from the fast-food
Zippy’s to high-style restaurants with equally high prices.
Hawai’i is a mix of cultures, and each ethnic group has
contributed to the dinner table. In the first
book, Mahu, Kimo goes home for
a family luau, where “We had every kind of food imaginable. Chicken long rice,
poi, shark-fin soup, sweet and sour spareribs, Portuguese sausage and beans.
And desserts, pineapple like crazy, ten different types of crack seed, malasadas, mango ice cream.”
Kalua pig, roasted
in an in-ground oven called an imu,
is a luau specialty. Kimo is part Hawaiian, part Japanese, and part haole, or white. All those cuisings show
up throughout the series. He has a Chinese godfather, and friends descended
from the Portuguese immigrants who came to the islands, mostly from the Azores,
to work on plantations. He falls in love with a man who’s part Korean and part
Italian, adding even more to the mix.
As Kimo matured, his eating habits changed, the way mine
did. No more bachelor meals; he’s got a partner, a teenaged foster son and a
golden retriever to feed. Now he’s more likely to bring home a pizza, let his
partner grill burgers in the back yard or dine out, though his family is still
throwing those extravagant luaus. Every time I write one of them, my mouth waters
and I long to hop on a plane and fly to Honolulu to join them.
Instead I console myself with these cookies, which I bake in
bulk for readings and book events. The coconut and the macadamia nuts are my
tribute to Kimo and to my love for Hawai’i.
Chocolate Chip Coconut Macadamia Cookies
Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup salted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 cup salted butter, softened
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup flake coconut
1/2 cup macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
Directions
- Preheat
oven to 300°F. Bring eggs to room temperature, and put butter out to
soften.
- Combine
flour, baking soda, and salt. Mix well with a wire whisk.
- Pour
both types of sugar into a large bowl, then blend at medium speed until
they are combined. (I use my standing mixer, but you can use a hand mixer
as well.)
- Add
the butter and mix until you have a grainy paste. Add eggs and vanilla
extract, and mix at low to medium speed until blended.
- Add
the flour mix, two cups of chocolate chips, coconut, and macadamia nuts and
blend at a low speed until mixed.
- Roll
small balls with your fingers and drop onto a cookie sheet, leaving enough
room to expand. (I use a Silpat non-stick silicone baking sheet over my
cookie sheet so the cookies don’t stick and cleanup is easy. I suggest
using non-stick spray or parchment paper if you don’t have a Silpat.)
- Stud
the cookies with the remaining chocolate chips – usually three or four to
a cookie. I like the way the cookies look with the chips on top. Sometimes
I use colored or flavored chips for the studding.
- Bake about
20 minutes until golden. I like my cookies not quite done, so I watch
carefully and pull them out as soon as they turn. I lift them off with a
spatula and put them on cooling racks as soon as they’re set.
Excerpt – The Fire
It was a cool, breezy morning in
early March, and I rolled up the flaps on my Jeep for the drive down to the
airport. Despite its name, which implied an unspoiled tropical atoll, Lagoon
Drive was littered with abandoned warehouses, used car operations and small
import-export businesses. A dozen sharp-edged wind turbines roosted along the
roof line of a building at the far end of the drive like hungry vultures.
A herd of fire department
vehicles clustered ahead of me—three fire engines, a ladder truck, and a couple
of SUVs driven by higher brass. The strobing lights were enough to give you an
epileptic fit. There were two squad cars as well, the officers directing
traffic and securing the area.
I parked my Jeep beside a
barbed-wire fence as a plane took off from the reef runway, shaking the air.
The ground was barren and sandy; even weeds seemed to have a hard time living
in the desolate landscape. And yet, in the other direction I could see a vast
expanse of shimmering water and the dark green sentinel of Diamond Head in the
distance.
I saw Mike in his yellow fire
suit and waved at him. He walked over, shrugging off the oilskin hood. “Two
story wood-frame building,” he said. “Went up like kindling, especially after
the run of dry weather we’ve had lately.”
“Arson?”
“Too early to tell. No obvious
incendiary devices. I’ll have to analyze the fire load and the spread pattern
before I can make a determination. But you know that already.”
“It’s always nice to hear you
explain it one more time. How about the body?”
“How about it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“First responders saw a body of
an older male on the floor of the building when they entered. He burned to a
crisp before they could extinguish the flames, though. I don’t know how much
you’ll get out of the ME.”
“What a great start to the
morning. Neither of us have much to work with.”
“I’ve got to get back inside.
I’ll talk to you later.”
He turned and walked back toward
what remained of the building. The air was heavy with ash, smoke and the distinctive
smell of charred human flesh. I pulled out my digital camera and started taking
pictures while I waited for Ray to show up.
A couple of abandoned
warehouses, wood-framed with sheet metal exteriors, sat in the area around the
burned building. One brick warehouse still held the original owner’s name and
the date 1884 engraved over the lintel, though all its windows were boarded up.
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Author Bio:
Neil Plakcy is the author of the Mahu Investigations, about openly gay Honolulu homicide detective Kimo Kanapa'aka, as well as the Have Body, Will Guard adventure romance series and the Golden Retriever Mysteries.
He is an assistant professor of English at Broward College in South Florida, and former president of the Florida chapter of Mystery Writers of America. He has been a construction manager, a computer game producer, and a second-place finisher on Jeopardy!
Character-driven mystery, romance and mainstream novels
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