Book Birthday!

The cakes I didn't bake.

Savory & Supernatural is out today! I love this cozy witchy novella about ghosts, film sets, craft services, secret powers, skepticism and Hokitika, gorgeous jewel of the West Coast, and I am so excited for people to read it.

So much of this book is about the pleasures of cooking and feeding, of the deep satisfaction of being able to nourish and please yourself and the people you love (and the shame of fucking that up) that really, I should have baked a cake to celebrate.

I do not have Amalia's kitchen witchery, but, bonus, I don't have to rescue a guy who 1) doesn't believe in the supernatural and 2) is fully being haunted. (Honestly, I probably wouldn't mind if he was as cute as Kingston.) And I'm a decent cook, and a better baker. I won't claim I've never done truly terrible things to perfectly lovely ingredients, but I can usually turn out something tasty when I feel the need.

Now I'm mourning what could have been. I could have made my favorite, a dense chocolate cake with raspberry jam glaze. Maybe a lemon and yoghurt cake, with brightness and tang. Or I could get creative with the quince syrup in my fridge and the abundance of feijoa on my kitchen table and make something fruity and floral.

But alas, I am back at the day job this week, and deep in the weeds of writing my next book, and there is, as yet, no time for cake. Fortunately, I did buy myself the treat of M.F.K Fisher's classic Gastronomical Me, and sometimes reading and thinking about food is nearly as satisfying as making and eating it.

And with that in mind, enjoy Savory & Supernatural! But don't be surprised if it makes you hungry. I'd apologize, but I totally did it on purpose.

Oh, what the hell.

I made the cake.

Happy birthday, book baby. Welcome to the world.