Hi all!

I don’t know about you but I’m gearing up for Thanksgiving—making my grocery lists, strategizing going very early in the morning so as to avoid the crowds, and I’m even making pies with my good friend who wants to learn how to make pies. Should be fun!

Not to be cocky but I do make a mean pie—no credit to myself, but thanks to my mom and my grandma, whose fabulous recipes I do my  best to replicate. And now to be honest, my pies aren’t always the prettiest—each time I make one I get a little anxious about how the crust is going to fall when I least expect it, or if I haven’t rolled off enough dough to have an adequate crust, in which case the contents will end up leaking all over the oven while the pies cook and ugh, do I hate cleaning that baked-on mess when it happens! (though truthfully I never get around to cleaning out my oven so it ends up smelling like burnt fruit whenever I use the oven thereafter ;-). I’m disclosing all of my dirty secrets now!

We always have Thanksgiving with my husband’s family but I then come home and replicate the entire dinner so that we have leftovers, so the pressure is off of me for perfection and having everything ready at the same time (impossible to do that with Thanksgiving dinner isn’t it?!). I like to cook my turkey pretty straightforward—no deep-frying for me (I’ve watched too many fried turkey flash fires on America’s Funniest Home Videos, thanks). I brine it for 24 hours in sugar, salt and water (I’ve tried it with lots of fancier recipes but don’t like my turkey taking on a lot of flavors, so this just helps to keep it moister). I always make a family favorite—rice croquettes, which has been in my family for several generations (if you read my novel Slim to None you can get the recipe!), and then, well, I’m not a mashed potato lover but I’ll make them for the few in my house who’ll eat them. Gravy, of course! And that’s gotta be homemade. Again, I keep it super simple—to me Thanksgiving isn’t one of those meals you play around with perfection ;-). 

And once Thanksgiving is over, I’ve got to hunker down with a December book deadline plus the release of Black Sheep Romeo—book 2 of my Royal Romeo series—on December 6. Hope you can check it out here! And I’ll reveal the cover for book 3—Red Carpet Romeo, which will be out February 17! If you want to start from the beginning of the series–which is a spinoff from my It’s Reigning Men series—you can start with Red Hot Romeo.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!