Happily Surrounded By Friends
Recipe: Upside Down Mango Cake
There’s nothing like getting together with old friends and so the other day when I visited our local bookstore R.J. Julia Booksellers to celebrate the recently released book, The Mango Murders, I immediately and happily settled into that feeling.
I work part-time at the bookstore, so when I arrived at the event, I took some time to chat with my fellow booksellers and event hosts. Then I gave a big hug to my friend Roberta Isleib who, writing under her pen name Lucy Burdette, had just published The Mango Murders, the 15th installment of The Key West Food Critic mysteries. A talented and prolific award-winning author, Roberta/Lucy also is the author of a golf lovers mystery series, the advice column mysteries, and two novels.
I offered Roberta/Lucy, who lives part of the year not too far from me in Madison, my heartfelt congratulations on her new book and then sat down to enjoy her book talk. Shortly after I arrived, our friend Dorie Greenspan, who has a home in nearby Westbrook, arrived with her husband and took a few minutes to chat with Roberta.
Dorie, an award-winning cookbook author, will celebrate her newest book, Anytime Cakes, this fall. The publication date is Oct. 21 and the cookbook can be pre-ordered at your favorite local bookstore. I will be chatting with Dorie about Anytime Cakes at an event at R.J. Julia, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison, Connecticut, Thursday, Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. at R.J. Julia. You can sign up and find out more about that here.
R.J. Julia has hosted Roberta’s/Lucy’s book launches 25 times in recent years and to mark this anniversary, the bookstore presented her with a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
Roberta and her crew, which includes her husband, friends, and many, many fans, brought a cake to celebrate. And there was wine and seltzer as well.
Roberta published her first book, Six Strokes Under, in 2002. In 2012, in An Appetite for Murder, she introduced us to Haley Snow, a food critic for a Key West style magazine, who has a nose for solving mysteries and murders.
When we first met Haley Snow, she had “no job, a terrible boyfriend, and was kind of dizzy,” Roberta reminded us during her book talk. Each book is written as a stand-alone, so you could pick up any one of the series and start there. But readers who have been following the series will see that Haley has evolved and grown through the years. She now has a great job, is married, and, most important, at least to me, a wide circle of friends and family members. Every time I gratefully sink into one of the these stories, I too feel surrounded by those family members and friends.
Roberta, when working as Lucy Burdette, draws inspiration for her stories from her own life. She told us about this time she attended a lovely cruise on a luxurious sailboat/catamaran. Guests were offered a wide range of delights, from Cuban sandwiches to mimosas. As she and the other guests were relaxing and enjoying the sun, wind, and delicious food, Roberta thought: “I could blow this boat up.”
Here is the beginning of The Mango Murders.
“A large bang startled all of us and the boat’s deck heaved. As I grabbed for the railing, I lost my grip on one of the bottles I was carrying, and it shattered against the railing into a million pieces. The first noise was followed by a louder explosion that seemed to come from below the cabin. Before I realized what was happening, I was thrown off the deck and sent cartwheeling into the air.
“There were flames and the smell of fuel, and screaming—was that my voice? I hit the water hard.”
From The Mango Murders, page 10
And so, dear readers, we are off onto another adventure with Haley!
Roberta is a master of building plot and suspense, but honestly, I also keep coming back to her stories to enjoy the Key West ambiance—I’ve never been but I feel like I have because of the books. And, as I mentioned, I love to hang out with Haley’s friends and family members. One of my favorites is Miss Gloria, who turns 85 in The Mango Murders, and who lives next door to Haley in their houseboat row neighborhood. Miss Gloria’s birthday prompts a celebration which, in turn, involves, as Roberta told us, “all the relatives who don’t get along.”
As for what’s next, the 16th Key West mystery is due Sept. 1, so Roberta is hard at work on that. She says it’s mostly done “except for the ending.” After that, she hopes to take a short break and then get to work on what she’s calling her “Paris book.” She and her husband John recently traveled to Paris and spent seven days eating everything. Those meals will be folded into scenes in the new book, which will center around a woman who was adopted and, as an adult, travels to Paris to find out more about her birth father who, she recently discovered, is a chef. After that, she’ll delve into the 17th Key West mystery for which, she says, she has “zero ideas.” She added to the packed room at R.J. Julia, “If you have any ideas, send them along.” She also is at work on a short story for a Key West noir collection featuring a variety of authors.
She talked a little bit about the delights and challenges of writing in different genres. She admitted writing the short story form, which is so different from writing a full-length novel, felt like a new challenge. And though she’s already written two novels, the Paris novel presents different challenges than the “cozy mysteries” she writes, a genre that includes the Key West murder mysteries.
She explained that the term “cozy mysteries” is derived in part from the tea cozies in Agatha Christie novels. A tea cozy, sometimes written as “tea cosy,” is a covering for a tea pot and helps keep the brewed tea warm in the pot. Agatha Christie novels are studded with references to tea, and tea accoutrements. They also meet the other standards for a cozy mystery in that they are reassuring and, in the end, leave you with a sense that the world somehow makes sense despite the dark events and setbacks that might knock us off track.
Roberta said of cozy mysteries, “Some are super-light. There is no violence on the page. No sex on the page. It usually takes place in a small town.” They are a close relative to, but different from, “police procedurals,” which might have common elements but which sometimes also might have more violence and graphic elements. Police procedurals usually feature a police officer or law enforcement officer as a main character.
She was asked how her writing process has changed over the years and she said she’s become more efficient, and also that she has learned to trust. “I trust that things will unfold. I don’t worry so much about planning ahead.”
I can’t wait to find out how events unfold in The Mango Murders, and then I will have the recipes in the back of the book to enjoy as well. They include a Mango Daiquiri, Mango Scones With Cream Cheese Frosting, and the two Tuna Noodle Casserole recipes. Roberta was kind enough to let me share this recipe:
Upside Down Mango Cake
By Lucy Burdette, author of The Mango Murders
Ingredients:
1-2 mangoes
8-9 Maraschino cherries
12 Tbsp butter, divided
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp honey
1 and 1/2 cup unbleached flour
1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350. Butter a 9-inch cake pan, bottom and sides. (I used some of the butter above, figuring there's plenty in the recipe already.) Cut a piece of parchment paper to the size of the pan, put it in the bottom and butter that too.
Peel and cut the mangoes into slices or cubes.
Melt 4 oz of butter in a small pan. Add the honey and brown sugar and heat, stirring until smooth. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and then place the fruit into the pan, in whatever design you choose. Dot with maraschino cherries.
Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients except for the sugar in one bowl and measure milk into a glass measuring cup. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar and vanilla with a mixer until they are light in color. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each. On low speed, add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk until everything is mixed nicely.
Pour the batter over the fruit and bake for about 38 to 40 minutes until lightly browned or until a test knife comes out clean. Let the cake rest on a rack for an hour. Then run a knife around the edge, place your serving plate over the top, and gently invert the cake onto the platter. Tap the pan to help it along if it doesn’t drop out immediately.
Serve warm or at room temperature.
Enjoy!