Kerry Greenwood: Guest Blogger/Chocolate Grog

Today Award winning Australian Mystery Author Kerry Greenwood Guest Blogs. My worlds of Mystery and Chocolate often cross, and Kerry Greenwood's latest mystery, Heavenly Pleasures, combines both. After over 50 books, this should come as no surprise to her fans. The "Earthly Delights" series features Corinna Chapman, a baker (and reluctant investigator) operates Earthly Delights, a gourmet bakery in Melbourne. In Heavenly Pleasures her friend  who owns a chocolate shop is being sabotaged. That anyone would sabotage chocolate is a dastardly crime!!

Greenwood, a solicitor by training, a writer by sheer endeavor and talent, writes mysteries, science-fiction, historical fiction, and children's fiction, as well as plays. She is unmarried but lives with a "registered wizard."

Kerry Greenwood:

Picture the scene. An author arises, takes her coffee to the computer, as the black cat settles herself on the filing cabinet - she always supervises. A new Corinna is announced. She starts to write.

And this time Corinna's bakery will not be the centre of the novel. It concerns the sisters Juliet and Vivienne who run Heavenly Pleasures, a boutique chocolate shop just down the street. Ah, the flavours - rose cream, violet cream, pistachio, hazelnut ganache, caramels, oranges, all the scents of paradise.

The author gets hungry as she writes: she dips into a box of chocolate coated liquer cherries which she  has by the keyboard strictly for research purposes. Belladonna the black cat is not interested. The story starts to develop.  Who is trying to ruin the sisters by spiking their artistic offerings with chili sauce?

Could it be a rival? Could it just be a joke?

Corinna must find out. The author hasn't the faintest idea.

Day's writing over, the author retires for a nightcap.

CHOCOLATE GROG

500 ml milk
75 gm couverture chocolate
pinch each of ginger and allspice
75 ml rum
200 ml brandy
1 cinnamon stick
nutmeg to sprinkle
whipped cream to top

Put all the non alcoholic ingredients together heat and stir. When it is just short of boiling, add the alcohol and the cinnamon stick. Serve with whipped cream on top and a sprinkling of nutmeg.


Good night and chocolate scented dreams...