Get ready. We’re going to talk about sweets.

See, next Tuesday is Mardi Gras, which translates as “Fat Tuesday” and is generally thought of as an excuse for half the world to party on the streets of New Orleans. But if you won’t be in Louisiana, you can still celebrate the day. The most iconic Mardi Gras food is king cake, which people enjoy for the whole Mardi Gras season (from the day after Epiphany through Mardi Gras itself, which is the day before Ash Wednesday).

For those of you not in Louisiana, it might be difficult to get hold of a king cake. WELL. I am here to tell you how you can totally make a king cake for yourself, and you won’t even have to mess with the horror of yeast bread. Here’s what you’ll need:

*two cans of big fat cinnamon rolls (probably they’ll have five in each can)
*sugar
*food coloring
*optional: some kind of doohickey to hide in the cake. Tiny plastic babies are traditional, but you can simply use a clean coin.

That’s it. Oh, and an oven and a pan and all, but you were figuring on that.

First, pop open the cans of cinnamon rolls and unroll nine. You’re going to make three braids.

I just braided these on a sheet pan, which by the end looked like I’d butchered a cinnamon tree on it. You can use a pastry sheet, a sheet pan, your counter, whatever.

If you think that making three braids leaves you with an extra cinnamon roll–three braids requiring only nine, when you possess ten–you are quite right. The tenth cinnamon roll is for you to bake in the center of the king cake and gobble up while you are icing the finished cake.

Ok. Here we go. Three braids, and you sort of mush them together and arrange them in a circle on your giantest pizza pan. Don’t be like me; remember to put foil on it first. (Oops.) If you don’t have a giant pizza pan, you can use a sheet pan and just make it in an oval shape.

Now just bake this however it says on the cinnamon-roll can. About 24 minutes at 350 is a good guess.

While the cake-part is baking, you have some work to do. Put about 1/2 cup of granulated sugar in each of three little bowls. Now haul out that food coloring and tint one bowl green, another yellow, and another purple. (Note: being able to blend a decent-looking purple wins you a gold star.) As for the icing that came with the cinnamon rolls, scoop it into a bowl of its own and thin it with a little milk. You’re looking for a thick glaze rather than a spreadable frosting.

Ding! The cake part’s done. Here we go, ready to decorate. (Right after I took this picture, I realized my foolish error and stuck a bunch of foil under the pan. Because messy.)

If you want to stick a secret doohickey into your cake, this is the time: after it’s baked, but before you decorate it. The significance of the doohickey is that whoever gets it in their piece has to host the next party/make the next king cake. I didn’t put one in here, because it can be a choking hazard for Little Miss R-aged people. But if you want to put a trinket in and don’t have access to a tiny plastic baby (what??), a clean coin will do. Make it a big one–at least a nickel, maybe a quarter–so it can’t accidentally be swallowed.

Onward. About 1/4 of the cake at a time, spoon the glaze over everything and then shake the colored sugar on in stripes. Shoot for three stripes in each quarter and you’ll wind up with a nice bright even-looking decoration. Yep, the glaze dribbles and blobs everywhere. (And THAT’s why we want foil.)

If you have extra glaze left at the end, just drizzle it over the top, and it’ll sink into the sugar even more. If you have extra colored sugar left, put it in your sugar bowl and cause your significant other to do a huge double-take when he/she spoons some out for his/her coffee the next morning. (Purely hypothetical situation.)

You’re done! Cut it up and enjoy it. You should get the first piece, because the cinnamon roll you baked for yourself in the center of the pan was neatly co-opted by your family. (Again, hypothetical.)

If you make a king cake, let me know how it turns out. And if you make yours from scratch, I honor you and admire you. Happy Mardi Gras week!

My dear friend Spiceaholic—who regularly publishes the most drool-inducing food pics on the Web—wrote up a blog post chock-full of randomness and fired it in my direction with instructions to follow up.

Since randomness is one of my favorite topics EVER, I’ll do my best to comply with her instructions. Kind of. She wants me to begin by writing 11 fascinating facts about myself, but it was hard enough going public with goals on my Bucket List.

Here are two things about me that I can think of right off:

1. I’m left-handed, and I always notice when characters in movies or TV shows are left-handed (which most likely means the actor is). Mr. R absolutely hates when I do this. Probably because he is jealous.

Recently, we were watching an episode of original Trek–more on that in a future post–and I noticed Chekhov fiddling with a stylus in his left hand. “Hey!” I said. “Chekhov is left-hand…uh.” Because it is our considered opinion that Chekhov is probably the least bada$$ character ever featured on Star Trek, and that includes the Tribbles. (Sorry, Walter Koenig. It’s not you. It’s Chekhov.)

So Mr. R laughed in a cruel fashion and said that the next time I pointed out someone was left-handed, he would remind me that Chekhov is left-handed, and therefore it’s nothing to boast about.

Just another typical evening of romantic patter in our house.

2. My favorite color is dark gray. My second favorite color is black. Whenever I wear a brighter color, I feel like I might as well have plopped a basket of fruit on my head, Carmen Miranda-style. I have a red coat that I never wear because GEEZ WHAT AM I SOME KIND OF CIRCUS PERFORMER WHY DON’T I JUST PUT FRUIT ON MY HEAD TOO SO EVERYONE WILL LOOK AT ME.

In case you were wondering, yes, I am an introvert. I guess that’s a third fact. So there you go. If you add that to the 8 revelations of the Bucket List, I am in full compliance with Spiceaholic’s plan.

Let’s move along to the questions. Since Spiceaholic is a foodie, there are several delicious questions amidst the acquaintance-making items.

1.  How did you meet your significant other?  Juicy details, please!

He was a graduate teaching assistant, and I was to be one as soon as the new semester started. I went to talk to a TA friend in the shared TA office, and Mr. R was there. All through my conversation with my friend, Mr. R glared at me—which, as it turns out, is Mr. R code for “shiny.”

Being a rather introverted fellow (sound familiar?), he asked my friend if I was single. Being a rather extroverted friend, she gleefully relayed the query. It was all very cloak and dagger.

2.  Where’s the last place you went for vacation?

To visit relatives in Louisiana. We drove. (See #3 and 7 below.)

3.   You have a round-the-world plane ticket and you can pick 5 places to go.  Where are you going?

I am not going anywhere, because air travel gives me the horrors. Instead, I will sell that ticket on the Internet and use the money (part of it, anyway) to go to 5 diverse and delicious restaurants.

4.   What’s your favorite spice?

Ginger. She’s also my favorite Spice Girl.

5.  You have a surprise day off. How are you spending it?

I was better at this before I became a work-from-home type of person. Now I’m always at work when I’m home, so there’s no real boundary between “work time” and “time off.” But if I could magically divest myself of all sense of obligation, I’d love to read read read and go to lunch with friends.

6.  What is one thing you refuse to eat, no matter how much someone offered to pay you?

Recently on the Food Network show Chopped, the contestants had to cook with caul fat, which is the webby cartilage around animal intestines. I could hardly watch them work with it. Just typing this is enough to make me feel a little sick.

Even so. How much money are we talking about? I’d eat it for the right price.

7.  Have you always lived where you are currently living?

No. I lived in Louisiana as a kid. Now I live in the flat middle of the US, which means I’ve been retrained to say “you guys” instead of “y’all.”

8.   What was your biggest cooking/baking flop?

If I semi-follow a recipe, I don’t usually have too big a disaster. But one time, I was making pralines according to instructions from my father, who’s an intuitive cook of the “add more until it looks right” type. He never used a candy thermometer, just stirred until the candy took on a grainy look. WELL. Don’t get cocky if you’re making pralines, is all I can say. I didn’t stir it enough, and I let it overcook. The whole batch tasted delightfully of scorch.

There is a happy resolution, though. I’ve made pralines enough times to catch the candy at exactly the right point. But if you asked me what temperature that is…uh, I don’t know, because I never have used a candy thermometer. (What? It wasn’t part of the instructions.)

9.  Name a dish you’ve had at a restaurant that you’ve been able to successfully recreate at home.

I kind of recreated fried ice cream after falling in food-lust with it a few years ago. You can get a similar effect by rolling a scoop of ice cream in crushed cereal and drizzling it with honey. I used Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream, Honey Bunches of Oats, and whatever bee-gorge my grocery store sold. This mockup doesn’t include the fried shell, but as it turns out, the honey and crunch was what I really loved.

10.  Cilantro — love it or hate it?

I’m neutral. It’s ok. This is a genetic thing, right—to tolerate cilantro or not? I know a lot of people (including Spiceaholic) have a strong distaste for it. Viz the website I Hate Cilantro. The taste comparisons are hilarious: “like licking a handful of dirty change” or “a bag of hair with an onion inside, on fire.” I almost wish I knew what all the fuss was about.

11.  What’s the gutsiest thing you’ve ever done?

Gutsy—now I’m thinking of caul fat again. *turns green*

Um. Ok. Well, probably becoming self-employed was the…you know…thing I’ve ever done. I couldn’t have done it without the full support of Mr. R, plus some lovely people who have kept working with me through and since the switch. Thanks, lovely people. Really and truly.

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Now, to fully obey Spiceaholic’s instructions, I’d tag 11 more people and pass on 11 questions of my own. But I’ve just been coming up with questions for my next guest blogger—I know! Tease!—so I’m kind of inquisitioned out.

Instead, here’s just one for you. What’s your favorite dinner recipe for those days you’re short on time or cooking-patience? I have a lot of those days, so I’m always eager to learn new meal tricks.

Since I chucked a Spice Girls reference into this post title, here’s a picture of me dressed as Baby Spice from…oh…1998? I guess this is my atonement for not wearing a costume yesterday. (No, that is very extremely not my real hair.)

But more important than my youthful escapades are: my adult escapades. I’m visiting some fun and fascinating new sites this week, and this time Mr. R is coming with me.

First off, my dear friend Spiceaholic (not her real name), who runs the delicious food and cooking blog Spice’s Bites, is hosting me for historic food talk, recipes, and a book giveaway! Stop by today or tomorrow and share some foodie insights of your own, and be entered to win a signed copy of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION.

Today, Mr. R is accompanying me to A Writer’s Salon, the blog of “fiery tales” romance writer Lila DiPasqua. But it’s not Lila doing the interview–it’s her husband! Come see what these two romance husbands have to say to one another. I admit, I learned a few things from Mr. R’s interview. Like how he saw himself on our second date…oh, you’d better just come read it for yourself. Another copy of SEASON’s up for grabs there!

So there you have it: spicy food and spicy reads. It’s a new month, so spice up your life!

OH HAI WAIT: I know that would have been a totally smooth ending for this post, but I have to share some fantastic news. It has been a week since my last confession, and since then–SEASON FOR TEMPTATION’s gotten a sequel! My publisher, Kensington Zebra, will be publishing SEASON FOR SURRENDER (Louisa’s story) in October 2012. Hip hooray! Nice Nice!

My SEASON FOR TEMPTATION blog tour continues this week with more stops, more giveaways, and more secret factoids.

Does that make it sound like a tabloid? Sure. Let’s roll with that.

This Week’s Headlines!!

Over at Mia Marlowe’s blog: What do foreign dignitaries have to do with romance? The SHOCKING TRUTH revealed! ALSO: find out WHO is doing the laundry these days.

At SOS Aloha: Thrill to the cheekiest interview questions I have EVER BEEN ASKED. Answer a clandestine question about biscuits. Anything you say may be used against you–for the purposes of a BOOK GIVEAWAY! THERE ARE VIKINGS.

And on Thursday, at Muse at Highway Speeds: I BARE MY HEART about just how I became a romance novelist. THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Figuratively speaking.

Ahhhh. That was fun.

And hey, now I have a bonus for you. If you’ve read the full first chapter of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION (the excerpt on my Books page is about half of it), you know that the characters go gaga over ginger biscuits and consume an unbelievable number of them.

These biscuits are real, folks! I found the recipe in an old British cookbook that we own for some reason (it’s not weird that WE own it; it’s weird that Mr. R owned it before we got married). I had to modify the recipe because I didn’t have some of the ingredients–hi, caster sugar; I don’t believe we’ve met–and we shall not even speak of the conversion from grams to cups.

So. Here’s the simplified Americanized version of Ginger Biscuits as Consumed in Unbelievable Numbers by Julia and James:

2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1-1/4 cups granulated sugar (plus a little extra for sprinkling)
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/2 cup softened butter
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses
1 tsp. lemon juice (if you don’t have this, orange juice might be good too, though I haven’t tried that)

Preheat oven to 325.

Cream together butter, egg, and sugar. Stir in molasses and lemon juice. Stir in all dry ingredients. You should have a soft, workable dough now.

Roll it into small balls, about the size of a 50-cent piece. (I told you I was Americanizing. If you haven’t seen one of these for a while, it’s about the size of the circle you can make with your thumb and index finger.)

Sprinkle dough balls with granulated sugar and place them two inches apart on lightly greased cookie sheets.

Bake about 14 minutes. They’re done when they’re not squishy to the touch anymore. After a minute or so on the cookie sheets, scoot them off onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Or eat them while they’re hot.

Warning warning: these are pretty small, so this recipe makes A LOT. Like, maybe 5 dozen? But don’t worry, it won’t be a problem getting them all eaten.

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Hope to see you at one of the blog tour stops this week! And if you give this recipe a try, let me know how it turns out. Don’t worry, you don’t have to admit how many biscuits you consume.

Had enough Season for Temptation giveaways yet, or are you HUNGRY FOR MORE?

“Hungry” is actually a very apt word for this week’s guest blog tour stops, since I somehow accidentally wound up writing about food three times.  These posts were arranged in three different months and written in three different weeks,  so I think our takeaway from this is simply: geez, I’m always hungry.

The first foodie post is up at Romance Bandits, where we’re talking about awkward or memorable moments at mealtimes. This giveaway will close later today, so stop by soon!

The second foodie post is up at the blog of bestselling author Kieran Kramer. We’re focusing on tea, sympathy, and shenanigans. I’m offering a book; Kieran’s offering so many delicious teatime treats. Seriously yummy. I’m thinking about putting a hat and mustache on my gravatar and commenting as Zorro, just so I can have a chance to win. (Note: if “Zorro” wins all the cookies, it wasn’t me.)

The last foodie post will go up tomorrow at the Romance Dish, where I’ll talk about the moods that can be set by meals in books. Sometimes food is a backdrop (not literally) (well, maybe) for romance. Sometimes it’s very much…not. SEASON FOR TEMPTATION has lots of food scenes in it, so we’ll have some fun with this.

The blog tour will continue next week, too! I think I actually WON’T be posting about food anymore, which means there won’t be any thematic unity to the blog tour as a whole.

But you and I know: I’m still hungry.

I’ve been watching a lot of Food Network lately, maybe to inspire myself to cook more during these dog days of summer. (Not that the inspiration is very practical, since I usually watch cooking competitions that involve bizarre ingredients like canned haggis.)  This is probably why last night, instead of sleeping, I started thinking of how much my favorite show, Chopped, has in common with SEASON FOR TEMPTATION.

If you’ve never seen Chopped, here’s the format:  four chefs, three rounds of competition (appetizer, entrée, dessert). In each round, the chefs have to base their dishes on the cray-cray ingredients out of a mystery basket, and after each round, one chef is eliminated from the competition.

So how is SEASON like Chopped?  There are several scenes set during meals, and I think the parallels are fairly uncanny:

	CHOPPED	SEASON FOR TEMPTATION
Mysterious components	Turned into one of three meal courses	Turned into fortuneteller costume
Pin bones removed from fish?	Imperfectly due to hurry	Not at all due to fish being served uneviscerated
Use of coffee	Hides flavor of undercooked seafood	Hides attempt at forgery
Use of wine	Reduces into a sauce for beef	Reduces taste of uneviscerated fish
Use of plum pudding	Competitor transforms ingredient by grinding up in food processor	Kept in organic form, though poked into submission
Use of shortbread	Crusts tilapia	Smooths awkward social encounters
Purpose of multiple courses	Identification of sub-par competitors	Identification of sub-par suitors
Drunkenness as means of achieving forgetfulness	Judges wish upon selves	James wishes upon Lord Xavier
Stink-eye given by…	Alex Guarnaschelli	Viscountess Matheson
Prize given to triumphant competitor	$10,000	A viscountcy

See what I mean? That. Is. Amazing.

While we wait for SEASON to get picked up for a Food Network special, as it inevitably will, amuse yourself by checking out the eerie similarities between SEASON and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. What can I say? Clearly I am a cultural sponge.