It's Spelled C-H-E-A-T

Little-known fact that should not surprise you at all: I play on a Scrabble team. Well, it's a group of people who play Scrabble together, so it's a loosely defined "team." But we like to play about once a month.
We do have individual Scrabble dictionaries with our names embossed on them, which is probably more "geeky" than "team-like." We even have a back-up dictionary because the company that produces them misspelled my name on the first order. Shocker.
And we do play with our dictionaries in hand. That may be against the rules, but we don't care. We're rebels like that. Maybe we're more like a Scrabble gang. Leather jackets with our names spelled out on them in Scrabble tiles are probably in our future.
And though we are mildly competitive with each other, we would never stoop to cheating to win. One of our gang has threatened to feed her dog all of the "I" tiles, but that's just because she always ends up with about five of them per match.

So imagine my shock when I saw the Huffington Post article about cheating at the national Scrabble championship. Evidently a player dropped blank tiles on the floor to use later. I had two thoughts about this. First, there's a national championship? Second, dropping tiles on the floor is not exactly subtle. You would have had as much success with "accidentally" flipping over the board. Not that I have ever done that.

Obviously this big Scrabble tourney needs to adjust its rules. Our gang could help them with that. The new rules would include dictionaries right on the table (trust me, it doesn't make it all that much easier), snacks at every elbow, and lots of wine. That way, everybody wins.

Let Me Eat Cake

Of all the sweets one could crave, cake is always near the top of my list. Usually right behind pie, of course.

Cake hits all the right nostalgic buttons, reminding us of celebrations gone by and birthdays we loved. I remember my mom's world-famous Sundrop Cake (well, world-famous in our house), the amazing four-layer rainbow cake she make for my sister's birthday, the German Chocolate cake that looked weird but tasted amazing, the prize-winning pound cakes my friend Julie bakes, and the first rolled cake I made that was missing a crucial ingredient (sugar).
A new book, Vintage Cakes, remakes classic recipes from bundts to angel food to chiffon. The tools and techniques may be updated, but the cakes themselves are delightfully old school, including Texas Sheet Cake, Honey Bee Cake, Kentucky Bourbon Cake, Daffodil Cake, and Watergate Cake. Some of the heirloom recipes date to the 1920s, and many had to be reconstructed back to "scratch recipes" rather than boxed recipes that became popular in the 1940s.
Since there are 50 recipes included, I'm seriously considering trying all of these recipes over the next year, one per week. So if you live near me, get ready to help me eat cake.

Over a Barrel and Under the Table

The Brits are a quirky bunch, which is why I'm such an Anglophile myself. Maybe it's my Southern roots, which in my part of the country lead straight back across the pond.
British writers and Southern writers have a lot in common – there's an odd fascination with the dark side of life, mixed with an earthy pragmatic attitude, overlaid with a sense of humor. And both Brits and Southerners have been known to enjoy a tipple...or two.
Never is that more true than in the world of mystery writers. The awards that mystery aficionados bestow on their favorite authors are a perfect example of that dark whimsy, with honors such as a dagger, a teapot, a skull, or a barrel. At least the dagger and the skull make some sort of sense.
The teapot is for the Agatha Award, presented by Malice Domestic and meant to signify Ms. Christie's veddy British history. The barrel is my favorite, and this year it was presented to one of my favorite writers.
The fine old oak barrel (in miniature, of course) is presented at the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England. Theakston Brewery has been producing Old Peculier beer in Yorkshire since the 1890s, and the little cask represents that long history. What it has to do with mystery writing is beyond me.
Denise Mina won the award this year for her book The End of the Wasp Season, which I loved. That book was also shortlisted for one of the coveted CWA Dagger Awards last year, and I reviewed it here.
Above is Mina with her Old Peculier. Judging by the photos from the Theakstons, perhaps the honorary casks were originally full when they were presented.
I've been to the Malice Domestic convention, which was fun but a little staid. I was able to meet Lindsey Davis and Peter Lovesey and that made the weekend entirely worthwhile.
But I get the feeling that I would have more fun at the Theakstons, and I have now added that festival to my bucket list. So if you're looking for me in the middle of July next year, I'll be in Yorkshire. Probably under a table.

Books of the (First) Year

Do you know what today is? It's National Book Lover's Day - and it also happens to be the day I'm celebrating a full year of this blog. Coincidence? I think not.
In honor of this day, we're supposed to tell everyone what books we're reading. So I thought I'd show you my to-be-read stack. The funny thing is, at this moment I'm not reading. I'm enjoying the anticipation of these great books. And I'm trying to decide which one to start reading first. That's a good place to be.
This year has been full of fantastic books, many of which you can find here. Over the last few weeks, I've read another big stack of books. Filling up the tank, so to speak, in order to tell you about more good reads.
Thanks for reading this blog, and for following along on my book adventures. I'll bring you more reviews, recipes, and things to think about in the weeks to come. In the meantime, I think I'll start with Broken Harbour by Tana French.
Now go read a book!