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Catherine Castle

~ Romance for the Ages

Catherine Castle

Tag Archives: Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol. 1

A Writer’s Garden with Author Ryan Jo Summers

07 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by Catherine Castle in A Writer's Garden, garden blog series, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

A Writer's Garden, Author Catherine Castle's gardening blog, Author Ryan Jo Summers, Coffeecake Chaos, Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol. 1, garden pictures, romance with a twist, trees

 

Today’s gardener writer is Ryan Jo Summers, who will be talking about Emma and George—two trees in her garden. Welcome, Ryan Jo.

 

Thanks, Catherine

I have always admired formal yards and gardens, with sweeping terraces of blooms, multiple shades of different sized flowers, and natural rock gardens. Bonus drool for water features and koi ponds. Sigh….one day….

 

old steps with ivy and ferns spotted on one of my dog walks

As I write this now, a gentle rain is falling. The approaching growls of thunder chased me inside from where I was planting today’s shipment: Old-fashioned Bleeding Hearts in white and pink, another rose, and a Goji berry. I got as far as the pink bleeding heart when the approaching storm sent me inside to this instead.

squirrel and Oak leaf hydrangea

Two and a half years ago I bought my very own place here in the south. It’s a half acre, home of a 1920 cottage. I love it! There were already two flower beds installed, flanking the walkway, full of oakleaf hydrangea, forsythia, and endless daylilies. Plus a few odd bits that some I’ve yet to identify and others I’ve yet to decide whether to keep them or move them out.

split rail fence I installed, with ‘established in 2014’ plaque, planted with dwarf burning bushes, roses and black-eyed Susan

Two more beds had been established once upon a time, one held a rotten tree stump and some hostas and another forsythia bush while the other was depressingly empty. They held such promise! In the time I’ve lived here, I’ve added to both those gardens, slowly over each planting season, and added four more flower beds to the yard. (Five if you count the transplanted day lilies moved to flank the garage door).

stone steps alongside house, with assorted flowers slowly growing, just starting to peek over the lattice border

Now, I adore fences and random steps, almost as much as I like water features. For me, rustic is the way. Since I pet sit/ dog walk part time, I see a good bit of landscaping and gardens. I like snapping photos of scenes of stairs and fences that inspire or delight me. They don’t necessarily have to go anywhere, or hold anything in or out. Just simply being in the right place, with the right look, creating the right impression is an art all to itself. Like spotting a random painting in a gallery, not anything specific or unique about it. It just has that right look. It just is. Such is a good garden scene.

Emma — looking upward in the fall after her leaves were gone

Now, at my house are many tall, stately trees. In the courtyard in the back are two trees in particular, that have endured themselves to me in a special way. One, an oak, is right outside my kitchen window. I sense a femininity about it and call her Emma. I often ponder how old dear Emma is, for she is very tall and quite wide. Squirrels delight in racing up and down her weathered trunk.

— Emma’s roots outgrowing her allotted space

Doubtlessly, the courtyard slate stone was installed when Emma was still younger and more slender, as her roots and widening trunk have pushed the stones up and aside over the years. Poor planning on someone’s part.

Emma and her trunk having grown around a hanging hook

There is also a hanging hook attached to Emma’s trunk, about six feet up, for hanging pots, bird feeders, wind chimes or whatever. Unfortunately, and further proof of the lack of consideration people have shown Emma over the years, her trunk has grown over the hook, sealing it like a giant scab over a wound. I wonder how that must have hurt as her trunk grew and now the hook has become a permanent part of her trunk.

Mighty George

A few feet away from Emma stands George, a straight, noble-looking Pine. George is huge, both in height and circumference. He reminds me of royalty, like a king, hence his royal name. Scattered around him, at the height of roughly thirty feet or so are three of his off-spring.

curious wrinkles at the base of George’s trunk

English ivy grows rampant around the courtyard, and encircles George’s trunk like a green robe. Diligence on my part keeps the ivy growing around George, and not up his massive trunk. Unlike Emma, George has no blemishes or human fallacies to mar his noble stature.

Considering how long Emma and George have lived, and the house they saw built, the stories of the people who lived inside, and the relaxed under their branches, I wonder what stories these two trees could tell. As I watch my newly planted flower gardens grow, I also enjoy the richness of two special trees. Once upon a time they were but small saplings, and they have grown to leave an indelible mark in this place and on me. I hope the maple seedlings, plants, and flowers I am planting now will one day leave another mark once Emma, George, and I are gone from this life.

 

About the Gardener/Writer:

 

Ryan Jo Summers is a North Carolina author who specializes in writing romances with a twist. Love stories blended with inspirational, paranormal, suspense or time travel–or several at once. She also writes non-fiction for regional periodicals. Ryan’s dad is a songwriter and his aunt wrote poetry so she claims she came by her writing skill honestly. Apparently it’s in the genes.

Her hobbies include bird-watching, houseplants (50 ish and growing), poetry and yard work. She loves to gather with friends, hike in the forest with her dog, paint ceramics and canvas and work on wiggly word find puzzles. She lives in a 1920 cottage with a menagerie of pets. Living in the mountains, she dreams of the shore and frequently uses the water as scenes for her stories.

WEBSITE: http://www.ryanjosummers.com/

BLOG: http://www.summersrye.wordpress.comm/

FB:  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ryan-Jo-Summers-author-page/312875648810797

TWITTER:        https://twitter.com/RyanJoSummers

 Coffecake Chaos

by Ryan Jo Summers

Avianna Goodman and Sawyer Steele had been young lovers. Now she is a caterer, building her own business. Right now she needs cash to help her family. He’s being ordered to stop his wild ways and settle down to take over the family empire. His controlling mother has picked out the perfect heiress for him. Now they need the right caterer to launch the perfect engagement celebration.

 

 

 

 

Coffeecake Chaos and Ryan Jo Summers on Wednesday Writers

22 Wednesday Mar 2017

Posted by Catherine Castle in books, Recipes, Wednesday Writers

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Catherine Castle's Wednesday Writers blog series, Coffecake Chaos, coffeecake recipe, Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol. 1, Ryan Jo Summers, strreusel coffeecake recipe, Sweet romance

Today Ryan Jo Summers is back on Wednesday Writers. Today she’s giving us the background behind her latest novella Coffeecake Chaos. The novella is part of the Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol 1, which comes out mid to late May, 2017 from Melange Books. Ryan’s story is sweet romance, but she doesn’t know the heat level of the other stories in the anthology. In addition to today’s Story Behind the Story post, Ryan Jo is sharing a yummy recipe that goes along with her book title—Coffeecake Chaos.  I can’t wait to make this delicious treat! Welcome, Ryan Jo.

 

Coffeecake Chaos

By Ryan Jo Summers

(Food and Romance Go Together Anthology Vol. 1)

 

Avianna Goodman and Sawyer Steele had been young lovers. Now she is a caterer, building her own business. Right now she needs cash to help her family. He’s being ordered to stop his wild ways and settle down to take over the family empire. His controlling mother has picked out the perfect heiress for him. Now they need the right caterer to launch the perfect engagement celebration.

 

 

Coffeecake Chaos – the story behind the story

 

A publishing house had two calls for submissions going at the same time. They wanted short stories for anthologies. The first one was To Love a Scotsman and the other was simply food related somehow. I was more interested in the love a Scotsman idea, but dually noted the information for both calls.

Then I left them to simmer, like a pot on the stove, to see which one would eventually surface as a good storyline.

Unfortunately, I really could not come up with anything solid for the Scotsman story, hard as I tried. I had a hero’s name and that was about it. Eventually, I had to admit I just didn’t have a story there. Bummer.

However, I was building my pet sitting business, and one of my new clients was a team of caterers. There was a clear food connection! I started thinking that would be a fun career—at least in a literary world. I started paying close attention to little things they said, just bits of conversation. And the wheels started turning.

Going back further, years ago (90’s), when I was newly married, I would make a streusel coffeecake while cooking breakfast—it was that crazy easy to whip up—and give it to hubby to share at his work. It earned me brownie points with his co-workers and made him seem like “the man”.

Over a period of a few weeks, the plot grew, centered on a caterer and her coffeecake. The characters fleshed out like plump browned fowl, the plot thickened like gravy, and a story was created like a menu paired with good wine.

I submitted “Coffeecake Chaos” and soon the good news came that it had been accepted.

 

Streusel Coffeecake

Ingredients:

Filling: Mix below items together with fork in small bowl before mixing cake batter: ½ C brown sugar, 2 Tbls. flour, 2 tsp. cinnamon, 2 Tbls. melted butter  and ½ C nuts (optional) Batter:  1 ½ C sifted flour, 1 ½ tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt and ¾ C sugar. ¼ C shortening,   ½ C milk and one egg (Well beaten)

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
  2. Sift dry ingredients. Cut in shortening with pastry knife or fork. Blend in egg and milk.
  3. Spread half of batter in greased, flat 8 X 8 or 6 X 10 inch pan. Sprinkle with half of filling. Add rest of batter and sprinkle remaining filling on top.
  4. Bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes.  Good served warm or room temp.

Optional topping: warm maple syrup and mix with brown sugar and drizzle over top. Or blend a few teaspoons milk with powdered sugar until runny and drizzle over top. Crumbled, cooked bacon or chopped nuts are good sprinkled over this too.

** I really don’t recall where this recipe originated from to give proper credit to. I inherited it from my mother and tweaked it some over the years.

Coffecake Chaos is available for presale May 4 for $2.99 special presale price until May 16 when it goes to $4.99. To get your copy of the anthology with Ryan Jo’s story check out Amazon, Smashwords , or lulu.com for the print version.

 

About the Author:

Ryan Jo Summers is a North Carolina author who specializes in writing romances with a twist. Love stories blended with inspirational, paranormal, suspense or time travel–or several at once. She also writes non-fiction for regional periodicals. Ryan’s dad is a songwriter and his aunt wrote poetry so she claims she came by her writing skill honestly. Apparently it’s in the genes.

Her hobbies include bird-watching, houseplants (50ish and growing), poetry and yard work. She loves to gather with friends, hike in the forest with her dog, paint ceramics and canvas and work on wiggly word find puzzles. She lives in a 1920 cottage with a menagerie of pets. Living in the mountains, she dreams of the shore and frequently uses the water as scenes for her stories.

Ryan Jo Summers—Proud author with Soul Mate Publishing & Melange Books

WEBSITE: www.ryanjosummers.com

BLOG: http://www.summersrye.wordpress.com

FB:  www.facebook.com/pages/Ryan- Jo-Summers-author-page/ 312875648810797

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/ RyanJoSummers

 

 

 

 

 

 

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