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Test Kitchen: Mooseballs, Brownies, and Assassins (oh, my!)

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Back in 2022, we created a few recipes based on Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. We posted about it and linked to an article.

This article ran in All Lit Up‘s Test Kitchen blog that has since been discontinued and taken down.

Fear not! We’ve rescued it from the bowels of the internet and here it is:

Jen and Éric Desmarais are the husband-and-wife writing team behind the new adult series The Gates of Westmeath and its first book,  Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers (Renaissance Press). They’re also dynamos in the kitchen; check out their recipes for two dishes found in the book: stuffed mooseballs and a chocolate and chili brownie. Is it lunchtime yet?

When writing about the restaurant Amontillado in Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers, we wanted a place that was both trendy and had amazing food. The kind of place both Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent would feel comfortable. Somewhere that had the atmosphere of a party, but the sophistication of haute-cuisine.

The food itself needed to be elevated but also diverse. We wanted something that reflected the city of Westmeath, but also our main characters’ personalities and love of food.
 

Stuffed Mooseballs

A picture of Jen and Eric’s stuffed mooseballs. They shine invitingly on the place, with a bit of wild rice and a sprig of parsley for garnish on the side.

The food was a fusion of Aboriginal, North American Italian, and Creole cuisines. […] Kennedy ordered, with Jason’s guidance, the Stuffed Mooseballs, which were moose meatballs in a primavera sauce stuffed with mushrooms and mozzarella.

‘This is amazing,’ Kennedy said, after trying both dishes.

–p211, Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers

Stuffed mooseballs is a variation of an exploding meatball that Éric had developed for an all-day marathon of Good Omens a few years ago. He adapted it to have more of an Aboriginal and creole flavour profile and it turned out pretty well. We’re fairly sure that Alice (the Amontillado executive chef) would be appalled by our presentation, but it was delicious.

Ingredients

Meatball

  • 500g ground moose or venison (extra lean ground beef is okay too)
  • 150g ground pork or bacon
  • 1 egg
  • 1 cup bread crumbs
  • 1/4 cup parsley, chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/4 cup chives or green onion stems
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
  • 1/2 teaspoon celery salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon smoky paprika
  • 1 cup mushrooms, chopped finely
  • 1 cup mozzarella cheese, grated

Primavera Sauce

  • 1 tablespoon butter
  • 2/3 cup chicken broth
  • 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream (or half and half)
  • 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese, grated
  • 2 tablespoons maple syrup
  • Smoked salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/2 tablespoon mint, chopped
  • 1/8 teaspoon allspice

Instructions

Make the meatballs

  1. Combine ground moose, ground pork, egg, bread crumbs, parsley, garlic, chives, cayenne, celery salt, and paprika in a large bowl. Don’t overwork.
  2. Mix mushrooms and mozzarella together.
  3. Take 1 tablespoon of mushroom and mozzarella mix and wrap a quarter cup of meat mixture around it.
  4. Place on a greased baking sheet.
  5. Cook in a preheated oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes.

Make the primavera sauce

  1. Add butter, chicken broth, and cream to a pan.
  2. Bring to a simmer and stir in cheese.
  3. Season with salt, pepper, mint, and allspice.

Assemble

  1. Toss meatballs and primavera sauce with pasta or serve with a side of plain wild rice.

Makes 12 balls.

Chocolate Chili Brownie

The chocolate and chili brownie was an idea that came to Éric when he was enjoying some dark chocolate he’d gotten for Christmas. The recipe is a simple brownie with real chocolate, but he added some allspice and chilies to spice things up.

 A towering chocolate chilli brownie is pictured. It looks absolutely delicious!

Ingredients

  • 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 3/4 cup light brown sugar
  • 3/4 cup granulated sugar
  • 4 large eggs
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed chili flakes
  • 1/2 teaspoon allspice
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9×9 baking dish. Set aside.
  2. In a microwave-safe dish, melt butter and chocolate chips. Microwave 30 seconds and then stir. Repeat until creamy.
  3. Whisk both the sugars into the chocolate and add the eggs, one at a time, whisking constantly, until evenly combined. Next, mix in the vanilla until smooth. Stir in the salt, cayenne, chili flakes, and flour until they’re evenly incorporated. Stir in the mini chips and pour the batter into the prepared pan.
  4. Bake the brownies for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted 2 inches from the side comes out clean.
  5. Let the brownies cool completely in the pan before cutting into squares.

This makes me want to make them again.

If you make either of these, let me know how they turn out.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Twenty years of blogging (11 serious) and 10 years of serial stories

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

I have officially been blogging now for twenty years. My first livejournal post was May 2004. (Wow, was my grammar and spelling bad… it still is but back then it was much worse.) Rereading some posts, it’s a lot of angsty stuff with a little bit of what would become my style.

I blogged on and off until I decided to become an author in 2013. I was told that I needed to have a web presence and a blog was the best way to do it. Not sure if it was, but it’s been worth it in other ways. I’ve managed to write a little every week since then and it’s become part of who I am. Not sure I could stop if I wanted to.

One of the staples since April 2014 has been my Serial Stories. I’m currently writing the 11th annual one (Read Red Day, Ere the Sun Rises) and It’s kept me going when I’ve had trouble writing other things.

The first 5 years are collected in Coffee Shop Between the ‘Verses.

Coffee Shop Between the ‘Verses

Jackie sometimes likes to have conversations with the characters, and as he reads five novellas in the small Ontario town of Baker…

In The Ridiculous Adventures of Felix Felicitous, the grumpy Felix is thrown into an adventure through time, despite his protestations.

In Only Human, Rachel has accidentally signed up for the University of Monsters.

In Wargrave Island, Inspector Riko Dulac has to find out who’s killing all her former high school classmates before there’s no one left.

In Database of the Ageless Kings, Sophia rebuilds an alien ship, only to find the galactic prince still inside.

In Devices of Desire, follow Artemis, Diana, and Ezekiel as they navigate secret identities, demons, and love in the kingdom of Cillian.

Are the characters Jackie is talking with real? Is he just talking to himself? Or is something else going on?

49th Shelf Coffee Shop Between the 'Verses
Indigo Books Coffee Shop Between the 'Verses
Archambault Coffee Shop Between the 'Verses
Amazon Coffee Shop Between the 'Verses
Rakuten Kobo Coffee Shop Between the 'Verses
Apple Books Coffee Shop Between the 'Verses

Not stopping anytime soon

I’ve accomplished a lot over the past twenty years, and I might not be living off my writing yet (You hear that, Universe: YET). I’m happy with what I’ve done so far and I have SOOOO many more stories to tell. That won’t change, even though other things might.

Thank you to those who have been reading since the beginning, and I hope I’ve helped make your lives a little more entertaining.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers – Recipes

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Hello Readers,

As a special treat, we wrote up a few recipes from our latest book Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers. They were published on the All Lit Up Blog,

The recipes are Moose Balls in Primavera sauce and Chocolate and Chilli Brownies.

Go check it out and enjoy.

Thank you, and if you make the recipes, let us know.

Jen and Éric

Anniversary

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I missed my blogging anniversary. Ok I missed one of my blogging anniversaries. I have four, the latest being the creation of this blog way back in August, then there’s the decision to blog regularly even farther back in December 2013, and the creation of my previous Aspiring Something Blog in May 2008.

I’d say I’ve been blogging seriously since December 2013, sporadically since 2008, but I’ve been blogging since 2004.

Back in 2004

Back then the word blog wasn’t in the dictionary and many people hated it. Some used Web Log, or Electronic Diary, serious news types had Ezines. I used a popular site that still exists called Livejournal.com, the original blog is long dead.

Surprisingly the content I wrote back them wasn’t all that different. Mostly I wrote about my life and trying to find love, but you’d find the occasional rant and pseudo-philosophical stuff I still do today. I had no idea I wanted to be a writer despite the half-finished novels and dozens of Dungeons & Dragons stories that could be found on my giant 256mb USB drive. Instead of talking about writing I’d write bad poetry.

I love poetry but I have the hardest time writing it. My in-laws are amazing Limerick writers but I spent all of dinner trying to write one and couldn’t get it. I know the theory and the words but I can’t put them together.

 

What would you like to see me write more of in the next 10 years?

Eric

Artificial Gravity

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The movie Lucy has me thinking about science and science-fiction. If you haven’t heard about the movie here’s the trailer.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVt32qoyhi0&w=560&h=315]

The premise is flawed. Ridiculously flawed. It got me thinking about other concepts that are flawed or that seem out of place.

Artificial Gravity

This is a normal trope for Science-Fiction space shows but it’s rarely based in science.

Some, like Babylon 5 or 2001 a Space Odyssey, use centrifugal force. (That’s when you spin something to simulate gravity.) However most will hand-wave the technology away and just say they have some sort of way of creating a Gravity Field.

Star Trek has gravity plating in its ships. It creates a gravity field that can be adjusted.

The obvious reason for this trope to exist is simplicity. TV and Movies don’t want to spend millions of dollars creating realistic anti-gravity and audiences want to see their hero’s walking and talking like normal. In stories, it simplifies the storytelling. You don’t have to look into how people and objects would move and it’s less alien to a reader.

But take the concept one step further. If we could control gravitational forces with such ease, why hasn’t anyone applied the tech to something else like weapons, flight tech, or space travel?

A gun or grenade that could control the gravity around an individual would be devastating. Increase the gravity by ten times from 1g to 10g in a second, you’d seriously hurt someone and probably kill them.

The problem with most science-fiction worlds is that Artificial gravity is incongruent with their level of technology. With the artificial gravity of Star Trek, they could easily have created artificial and collapsible black holes. Think how devastating that would have been as a weapon.

In less violent fashions, if they can get the plating to apply in reverse to their ship, they wouldn’t need more than a tiny push to get off planet. They’d be able to nullify the effect of gravity on their ship and float off into space.

 

There are various other pieces of Science-Fiction that are unbelievable or incongruous. What’s your favourite?

Thinking on Covers, Names, and Self-Publishing

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Hello my imaginary friends,

I’ve been thinking again about self-publishing. Less about the idea of doing it and more about the puzzle of doing it.

From what I can tell there seems to be 8 parts to it:

  1. Writing the book
  2. Story and Copy Editing
  3. Formatting the inside of the book for various outlets (Ebooks, Print, Etc)
  4. Formatting and producing a cover for various outlets (Ebooks, Print, Etc)
  5. Having the books printed.
  6. Distributing the printed and Ebooks.
  7. Letting people know that the books exist.
  8. Repeat number 7 several times in many different ways.

Written out as a list it looks a lot less intimidating than it does in my head.

Now the problem with self-publishing is that an author isn’t by nature good and doing all 8 steps. I knew that I can handle 1 (I’m close to finishing novel five) I know I can do 3 (I’ve worked as a Layout Artist for over five years now) and I have a good idea how to do 5 and 6 (I also have friend who have offered to teach me how.)

My big problem is 2, I know I need to pay for an Editor and the minute I know if I’m self-publishing, I’m contacting people who can do it. I realize it isn’t cheap but it’ll be worth it.

Let’s leave 7 and 8 for a later post.

Book Covers

So the majority of my thinking has been about 4. I strongly believe that an awesome cover is worth its price. If I self-publish I want the book to practically sell itself. I want to pass by it and say, “That looks awesome I should read that… oh wait that’s my book.”

For The Elizabeth Investigates series, if I self-publish, I want to make sure that the covers stay consistent in style and feel. That means I need, not a cover artist but an artist. I have one person who I know will do a great job but is ridiculously busy with other projects.

I know that there are cover designers out there but I haven’t found one that matches what I write. So I looked on DeviantArt for artists that match certain styles. I found a bunch and I wonder if getting a commission from them would be difficult. I know I’d have to look into copyright issues and so on but I think it might be the best option. I can format the cover myself, what I need is the art.

I’m sure a lot of them will/would ignore me but it’ll be worth a try. I wouldn’t offer anything specific; I’d lay out my needs and ask for a quote. I’m assuming it would be somewhere in the ballpark of $100 to $1000. Dollars but maybe I’ll be surprised.

The next question becomes one of style. Since I write YA, I tend to mix genres a lot. The Elizabeth Investigates series is Urban Fantasy, Adventure, Mystery, with smatterings of Supernatural, Suspense, and Romance. That’s not the easiest thing to show off in a cover.

I could go with the normal YA Urban Fantasy style, like the Percy Jackson or Harry Potter covers, I could follow the Adult duo-coloured Urban Fantasy style, I could go with an old style fantasy cover where they try to put everything that happens into one illustration, or I could go for the simplistic Twilight style of cover. Or do I go for the older Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys style? All of which are awesome.

It depends on what I’m trying to sell the book as. If I go with the old teen mystery books, I’m telling people this book will be similar but with magic. If I go with a darker Urban Fantasy cover I’m telling them that this is a kid’s supernatural thriller.

nancy-drew-books-cover

It’s a lot to decide, I almost think it could be more important than even the title. The best case scenario, I think, would be to get an homage to the old mysteries with the art style of newer urban fantasies. Best of both worlds.

Author Name

The next thing that’s been bugging me is my name. I don’t want a pen name because that would be a pain but I’m trying to decide what variation to use for my writing.

In day to day life I sign my emails and credit card receipts with Éric Desmarais. My full name is Éric Albert Desmarais.

For a long time I considered using my full name but I don’t know, it feels pretentious.

I could use Éric A. Desmarais and I have. The initial makes it seem more literary for some reason. I could also use É.A. Desmarais.

You get the point. It’s an identity thing I guess. Maybe I should just go with Éric Desmarais.

 

Does the cover affect your interest in a book?

Would the name of the author, who you don’t know, make a difference in whether you bought a book?

Faith

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Oh what a troubling word. Faith can mean many things to many people. At its core it means to believe in something. It’s often associated with religion or spiritual belief.

It’s a beautiful concept, to believe in something but I wonder if it’s that simple. It often seems that devoutly religious person would have the strongest faith and that the non-practicing wouldn’t. I think that’s wrong.

I think faith, as an integral belief which you whole heartedly honour, isn’t only the purview of religion. I think faith, in one form or another, is present in everyone. I’d go as far as saying faith is not only pervasive but essential to a healthy life.

Difference Between Having Faith and Needing Faith

There has to be a distinction made between having faith in something and needing faith in something.

You can have faith in God, Science, or Humanity. There’s a lot more but the point is that you can even have faith in yourself. How you’ve gained this faith or why doesn’t matter. The power of it, is that you have it.

Needing faith, is how you get to your belief. No matter how much you study you’ll always need faith that there is a God. But, if you spend a couple of decades training and testing theories, you can prove evolution through fossil and empirical evidence. You don’t need to have faith in something for it.

I suppose you need to have faith that the scientists that did the work, did it while respecting the scientific method. But you don’t need to have faith in evolution, just in the people who have proven it, over and over again.

The difference is simply in the method. Needing faith is a path to belief. Having faith is the last stop on that path but reaching the last stop can always be done through another path.

Why I think it’s important

I think as human beings we need to have a certain amount of stability in our lives and beyond that we need hope.

Faith, in every form, is about hope and the belief that things are going to be ok. As an example let’s take the afterlife.

Christian religion tells us that we will be judged and either go to heaven or hell (or the in-between places). Science tells us that we will decompose and that our atoms will return to the earth and help spring forth new life. Eventually our world with be destroyed and our atoms will float through space until they are used to create a new planet, sun, or other astral body.

Are both of them true? Who cares, that’s needing faith part. Are they both beautiful? Yes to a certain extent. Heaven can sound down right horrifying to some (That’s a whole other post) while the idea that we’re made of “star-stuff” might seem cold and unfeeling to others.

Having faith isn’t about what other people believe it’s about what you believe and how it make you feel.

My Beliefs (Cause I know you care)

I believe in stories and I believe if humanity. Although it’s not always easy I have faith that humanity is genuinely good.

I believe in being nice to people. I believe that life is a beautiful and magnificent thing that needs to be cherished. I have faith in the power of words, love, and kindness. Most of all, I believe that the pursuit of knowledge should be the goal of our lives.

What are my thoughts on the afterlife? I hope there are further challenges after our bodies stop working. I believe that the consciousness, or soul, must be bound to the laws of physics that say no matter or energy is ever created or destroyed. What it becomes after death is a great mystery to me but I don’t think it disappears completely.

I also believe that you live on in the hearts and minds of your friends and family. And they say the internet never forgets.

If you need to label me, this all means I’m Agnostic. Meaning I’m not sure what to believe but that we should keep trying to find out.

 

What do you have faith in?

PsyCorps Academy – Story and Proof-of-Concept

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Hello,

I don’t talk with many other authors about their process for writing. It usually feels like prying. I’ve read lots of great books about the craft of writing and lot of blogs telling people how to write or how not to write.

I’ve learned that everyone does something different. I know that Stephen King normally writes his books in chronological order, while Neil Gaiman writes scenes and then ties them together. Some people plot out every scene and others don’t. Some type some use a pen or pencil.

One thing that I do that I’ve never heard anyone else doing was writing a proof-of-concept. I’ve done it for each of my novels so far and I find it extremely useful in find the right tone and feel. I find it extremely useful.

This post was a proof-of-concept for Parasomnia, and if you ever get the chance to read the novel you’ll realize that they’re completely different. What I learned from it was that I enjoyed the tone and the mirroring of dreams.

The following is a proof-of-concept for a novel I’m thinking of writing that’s set in the far future where 1 in a billion people is a Psionic. Each kind of Psionic is separated into a guild and that guild is like their family and decides what they do as a living. Precogs are the pilots and body guards, Telekinetic are the soldiers for hire, etc.

But at the core of the story I want it to be about a girl who has three of the eight possible powers and how she deals with training in the PsyCorps Academy. It should be a riff on the Boarding School stories, like Harry Potter, but in the future, with Psychic powers. I’d like it to have the feel of the Tamora Pierce Tortall novels (The Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small books), with a hint of Star Trek and Babylon 5.

After writing this I think it didn’t have the tone of awe or sci-fi that I wanted. I think the character acts too young for her age and I think I need to go to third person to better describe the effects.

I am still extremely interested in writing this novel and it most likely will be my 2015 writing project.

Read the Proof-Of-Concept after the break.

Let me know what you think. Please!

*Warning: There is some violence and an attempted sexual assault*

Read more

Recomendation Wednesday – Silver Stag Entertainment

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Hello,

This week’s Recommendation Wednesday is for a Webseries and web organization.

I’ve mentioned them before but Silver Stag Entertainment, is a great website that delves into Books, Movies, and all the awesome speculative fiction stuff.

Go ahead and follow them on:

Their Youtube channel has several great shows and covers book readings/launches.

Let me be honest with you; I’m an occasional contributor to their Nights at the Round Table (NatRT) show that reviews and discusses books and movies. So this is mildly self-serving but even if I wasn’t involved I would follow, subscribe, etc because the people who run it are awesome!

Silver Stag Entertainment has only been around for half a year now and I’m impressed with what they’ve been able to accomplish. I also look forward to seeing how they’ll grow and the wonderful things they’ll do in the future.

Enjoy the bloopers below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Reto-ogBLCg&w=560&h=315]
Éric