The main character in THE GHOST OF HER EX, Emily
Rauch, is sixty-something, a church musician, but utterly irreverent and
cynical. She curses like a sailor. Em’s
a gal who’s far more likely to get cooked for than to do the cooking herself.
Not so the author who dreamed her up, Aletta Thorne.
Oh—that would be me.
I write ghost
stories, naughty ones. But I also really
love to cook. My favorite recipes are
simple ones that I can ring changes on according to what’s around in my fridge
and pantry. Or what’s good at the
market. That way I can easily transition from my office to the stove. Like Emily, I really like fish and
seafood. It’s sexy stuff, you know? But lots of folks are afraid to cook it,
which is a shame. Two pounds of mussels
make a delicious, inexpensive, and dare I say sexy meal for two hungry people who’d like to linger over
the dinner table sipping wine and laughing.
Here’s how I cook ‘em:
Mussels
In White Wine
2 lbs mussels
about two tablespoons olive oil, butter, or a
mixture (I like the mixture)
a medium onion, chopped
about a cup and a half of dry white wine—pinot gris
is nice
4 cloves garlic, minced or run through a press
a shake of crushed red pepper
1 teaspoon of dried oregano
1 teaspoon of dried thyme or rosemary
a handful of chopped, fresh flat leaf parsley (or
basil)
Sliced French or Italian bread, for dunking in the
broth
First, put your mussels in a colander and check to
make sure they are in good shape. Pull
off the “beard” (that’s seaweed-y looking vegetation) on any that have it
on. If any of the mussels are open,
squeeze them and see if they stay closed.
If they do, they’re okay to cook.
If they’re gaping open and don’t close when you pinch them shut, they’re
probably dead and not super-fresh. I
don’t trust the ones with broken shells, either. Give the survivors a quick rinse. Most mussels are farmed nowadays and will be
quite clean.
Then get out a dutch oven sized pan—but not cast
iron, which will turn your sauce a funky color.
Stainless steel is good. Heat
your oil (and/or butter) and add the onion.
Sauté over a medium high flame until translucent—just about four or five
minutes. If you’re using butter, make
sure you don’t scorch it; keep the flame a little lower and cook a bit
longer.
When the onion is translucent, add the garlic,
crushed red pepper, and dried herbs.
Sauté for about a minute and then add the mussels. Give them a stir and pour in the wine. Stir
again. Cover tightly, turn the flame to
medium, and cook ten minutes, giving the pan a shake a few times so nothing
sticks or burns. Open the lid. The mussels should be open.
Pick out the ones that didn’t open; those are
probably dead. Throw in the parsley,
give everything a stir, put a trivet on your table, and eat right from the
pan. Serve with the bread—to dunk into
the broth—and perhaps a green salad with a balsamic vinaigrette. And by all means, drink up that wine!!
The Ghost of Her Ex
Aletta Thorne
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Romance, Ghost Stories
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Aletta Thorne
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Romance, Ghost Stories
Publisher: Evernight Publishing
Date of Publication: October 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-77339-829-7
ASIN: B07JLRLR45
Number of pages: 193
Word Count: 56,000
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Tagline: What happens when the ghost of your ex just can’t leave you alone?
Book Description:
Just because she’s sixty-three, cynical, and a church musician, Emily Rauch is hardly done with life—or love.
Now that she’s traded in her old barn of a place for a tiny house in the hills, Emily’s ready for a new start.
Throw in one enormous pipe organ, two ghosts, a pot dealer named Santa Claus, the reappearance of Emily’s bad-boy college squeeze, and a blizzard...what could possibly go wrong?
Excerpt:
“…You are a
woman of … appetites, Em. You like to eat and drink and…”
“…and fuck.”
Emily shocked herself by saying that. Dropping an f-bomb when you were just
randomly turning the air blue was one thing. But this was no fuckity-fuck-fuck.
This meant actually doing the deed…
But she hadn’t
shocked Al. “Indeed. And fuck.” He nodded, his lips tight. “I left you in the
lurch.”
Emily sighed.
“Yup. Yup. Guess you did. But we talked that stuff to death two decades ago.
Shit, Al! It’s just … just … I don’t know what it is. Alexa, play Widor organ
music.”
“I don’t know
any songs by Widor,” said Alexa.
“Alexa, argh!”
Emily made neck-choking gestures toward the black cylinder on her counter.
“Bee-boop,” said
Alexa. Her illuminated blue ring danced and turned itself off.
“I know our
lovely and talented daughter meant well with that thing,” said Al. “But The
Echo sucks at classical music unless you get lucky. Works better just to ask
for radio stations.”
“You’re too good
at that. Do you haunt many Echo owners?”
“Just Gordon.”
Al laughed ruefully. “That young fella of his bought an Alexa for him. Alexa,
play WQXR.”
“Playing WQXR.”
Alexa provided them with the middle of Respighi’s “Ancient Airs and Dances.”
“Not bad,” said
Emily. “No static. It barely comes in up here on the FM. And they’re a public
station now, so no more pre-need funeral ads, I guess. God, funerals!”
“Yeah. That. I
gather you had a spectacularly bad day…”
“Do you get
special ghost email about that or something? Ghost Facebook?”
Al’s laugh,
again, was rueful. “Hard to explain. It doesn’t work like that. I never really
thought of you as a femme fatale, Em.”
“I wasn’t the
one who fatale-ed him! I honestly didn’t intend to have anything else to do
with him! Or not much else, anyway. Look, I was being a sex-positive,
independent woman caring for her own needs. He went home to his girlfriend,
tried for a little more of the old slap and tickle … and crumped.”
“And now you’re
playing his funeral. And he came to the organ loft today to bother you.”
Emily began to
laugh, too—a bit too hard. There was nothing else left to do. “Oh, fuckity
fuck!”
“What?”
Then there were
tears in her eyes again. She laughed until she ran out of air. “I never even
unblocked him on my phone. I never even friended him on … Facebook! It was
supposed to be a nothing. A one-off. A…”
“I sort of
remember Brad. He was at the reception when you played in Brooklyn, right? Was
he a good organist?”
Emily wiped her
eyes. “He was terrific. But loud and flashy—at least when we were kids. A
show-off. I don’t think I’ve actually listened to him play since before I met
you. He loved boat races as much as he loved music. Not to mention chasing
women. I used to regard that as a challenge when I was in school: break the
womanizing horn-dog’s heart and win the Battle of the Sexes. Ah, Al, we’re so
nuts when we’re young.”
Al took Emily’s
hands. “‘Nuts’ is harsh. I think we’re young when we’re young. You know?”
“I do know.”
“Em, I’ll tell
you this… Brad’s going to be … around. Womanizer or no, he probably liked you a
lot more than you thought. I get that. Plus, he doesn’t know he’s dead, right?”
“He seems a bit
unclear about that. He’s got to know I’m practicing for his funeral. You never
seemed unsure about being…”
“Being dead. I
had lots of warning. I was sick for a long time.”
Emily nodded.
“That sucked. You sure didn’t deserve it.”
Al pecked her
cheek with his usual hurried and dry kiss. “No one deserves it. Your friend
clearly has unfinished business,” he said. And then he disappeared.
About the Author:
Aletta Thorne believes in ghosts. When she’s not making up ghost stories for grownups, she is a choral singer, a poet, and a DJ. But she’s happiest in front of a glowing screen, giving voice to whatever it was that got her two cats all riled up at three AM. Her house is quite seriously haunted—even scared the ghost investigator who came to check it out! After all, she lives just across the Hudson River from Sleepy Hollow. Aletta Thorne is also the author of The Chef and the Ghost of Bartholomew Addison Jenkins.
FB Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/alettasghosts/
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