This always happens: every time I say more news will be forthcoming, I write it under the assumption that news won’t be forthcoming until like many weeks later, and then the NEXT DAY it forthcomes. Book news is determined to make a fool out of me or force me to blog more often, I don’t know. If you follow me on twitter or have added my facebook page, you already know this, but nothing is official until it hits my blog, I guess! Yes, this is where news stories go to be confirmed and then die. Wait, that’s not right. Anyway!:

Fall For Anything appears to have a release date and that day is December 21st, 2010. In unrelated news: I hear a lot of gift-giving occurs around this time of year. It’s also available for pre-order on a few Canadian bookselling sites (how I discovered the date!), but I’ll put a multitude of pre-order links up on the book’s page after it has spread everywhere like the zombie plague I am totally prepared for. I like to update things in one go because I’m a busy person with lots of Mario Kart to play, okay (speaking of which: I unlocked! Rosalina!).

Because Fall For Anything is availble for pre-orders in a few spots, that means it’s on GoodReads! If you want to read it, I’d lurve if you added it to your To-Read list. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend.

And that is all the Fall For Anything news that is fit to print! I am anxiously awaiting permission to show you guys the cover and nervously anticipating copyedits, which is like the math of this whole publishing process to me, which means it is scary and I can’t do it in front of people.

Yeah, I know.

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NOW LET’S TALK ABOUT DELICIOUS FOOD.

One thing that I love to do is cook, so I am going to talk about cooking now. CAN YOU HANDLE MY TRUTH. Anyway, I’ve noticed lots of publishing folks place a lot of stock in baked goods and sweets but no one talks about SAVORY EASY MEALS. I have decided to be the person that does.

In case you don’t know, food is awesome. I am always on the quest for ‘The Perfect X.’ Did you know that my 2010 will be defined by the fact that I found the perfect red sauce for pasta which made me reconsider everything I ever thought about food (this is a true story, please get out your Kleenex). I had been searching for the perfect red pasta sauce for YEARS (THAT IS NOT AN EXAGGERATION) and then Smitten Kitchen introduced me to Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce with butter and onions. It has THREE ingredients. THREE. This is the sauce they serve to the angels in heaven, I assume. Or this sauce is made of angels, I don’t know. I heard a choir of them SING when I tasted it, anyway. And like that, after years–YEARS!–I had found my perfect red sauce.

BUT IT WAS A REVELATION TO ME. It was in that beautiful moment I realized I was overthinking food. I felt the best recipes had to be complicated and crazy and involve many ingredients, but now I am trying to do more with less.

Yesterday I made the most awesome vegetarian sub. But it might not qualifiy as a ‘do more with less’ recipe. In any case, it was so good I am going to write it into a novel. What you do is, you chop up some green peppers, onion, portobello mushrooms, mince some garlic. Sprinkle them with dried oregano and salt and pepper. Sautee them in some olive oil until they are nice and soft. Take yer sub bun! Thinly spread herb cream cheese on one or both slices of the bread depending on how much or little regard you have for the fact that cream cheese is not all that good for you in extreme quantities. If you are like me, you prefer enough herb cream cheese to kill several men. Take your nice and soft vegetables and spoon them onto your sub. Put some sub sauce on the veggies. Put some provolone cheese on top of that! Chop some tomatoes and put them on the cheese and then you know, put the top bun on and EAT IT.

And then love yourself and the world.

photo by Liz West


I think summer is my favourite time to cook because the vegetables are so grand and plentiful. I am not a vegetarian, but I spend a ridiculous time trying to make meals of vegetables. Speaking of vegetables, this is the best thing that will happen to you and tomatoes in the summer time: chop up some tomatoes. Sprinkle them with dried parsley (or fresh), extra virgin olive oil, as much lime juice as your heart desires, salt and pepper to taste and then DIE OF GREATNESS. Like seriously. It tastes so good I am not entirely sure I should even be talking about it to anyone. When limes and tomatoes happen in the same bowl something incredible happens that is so beyond any words I could write here. Just a second, I have to stop this blog entry for a second to go cry at the beauty of it.

…

Ok.

So basically this year I have been trying to be as uncomplicated as possible in my endeavors in the kitchen. But I want every uncomplicated meal I make to taste like angels. I picked up The Flavor Bible and am totally hoping this will help me do that, but we shall see. Now that I have found the perfect red sauce, I am on a quest for the perfect vinaigrette and salad dressing and vegetable sandwich. Though the sub comes very close, IT IS NOT SIMPLE ENOUGH. And also I want to make an entire raw food meal one of these days BUT WHO KNOWS. I have many great aspirations in the kitchen when I am not writing novels and now you know.

Anyway, I think the whole point of this entry is that if I can impart any knowledge to you today, dear blog readers, it is not future book release dates, it is that LIME AND TOMATOES WERE MEANT TO BE TOGETHER.

That is all.