I live in San Francisco. They teach sushi making in our local High School.

Deb, my mother was the worst cook. Trust me. We ate a fried lamb chop and half a bakery cherry pie for dinner every night for a year. Meat, Starch and veg.

I can not cook. Frozen dinners are a wonderful invention.

Mart, Rosalie could have had a "Please Don't Cook"-off with my mother. Horrifically bad.

Woot! Remember my Johnny Cash-inspired ghost story, "The Gravekeeper"? BenBella press bought the first Words to Music anthology, the Johnny Cash, with an option for the second, to be (gah) Bob Dylan.

I've already called dibs on "When I Paint My Masterpiece."

Ooh, Deb, that sounds like fun!

The publisher's working out the royalty structure; my agent has worked with them in the past, and says they're really good solid people to work with.

So, yay! on more stuff out there in readerland.

Whoot, deb! That's great.

Home ec was elective for us, too. I took fluid power and mechanical drawing instead. Because, you know, feminist. But clearly not so much that I didn't suck at those classes because there turned out to be a hot boy in them, and that was very distracting.

Woohoo, Deb!

Deb, I'm digging through my house and came across the copy of Famous Flower you sent me. I was looking at the cover and suddenly wondered, who decides what reviewers' quotes gets put on the covers of things?

I just killed a bad guy.

Well, OK, Anna did. But it was very satisfying. And I think I came up with a satisfactory compromise to my dilemma from months and months ago on how to manage the scene, when I was caught between having her deliberately kill someone merely for threatening to murder her lover sometime in the future or having her be the helpless widdle woman who isn't strong enough to manage the great big cavalry pistol when oops! it goes off by accident. As it stands, she's very much in control of the situation and has the barrel inches from his chest when he stupidly tries to wrest it from her hands, and the gun goes off.

That was fun to write, and probably the most literal instance of making sure the gun the audience sees in Act I is fired in Act III that I'll ever have reason to write.

A little late to the party, but

French Toast

Ingredients:
2 eggs
Dash of milk
Dash of cinnamon
2 slices bread
Butter
Syrup
10 year old sister

Beat eggs in wide bowl. Add milk and cinnamon.

Spray frying pan with cooking spray. Put over medium heat.

Dip bread slices in egg mixture, coating both sides well. Place in pan.

Allow to cook for 3 minutes, flip. Attempt flip. Attempt flip. Attempt flip again. Have older sister remove battery from smoke alarm and turn on ceiling fan. Begin crying. Open sliding glass door. Show older sister cooking spray can.

SPRAY STARCH

Yield: 0 french toast, 1 family legend.