Sierra Godfrey's Blog

I’ve been friendly with a mated crow couple for about 7 or 8 years. Always in the front of my house, and definitely because I feed them. On Threads, I always get thousands of likes on posts about crows, and I know a lot of people want to make friends with crows but aren’t sure how. If that’s you, this post is for you!

The number one key is—bear with me here—to say hi to them. They will pay attention. Then follow this up with putting food down. ...

My novel A Very Typical Family deals with complicated family dynamics. I mean, yeah — our main character Natalie gets her siblings sent to prison! Awkward!

Here are more books with great family drama issues that you might like. (I liked them!)

What it’s about: They look just like any other family. But they aren’t a family like any other – not quite. Instead, they are three sets of parents who adopted four biological siblings, committing to keeping the childr...

In my book The Second Chance Hotel, which is set in Greece, Amelia does a lot of cooking for guests and friends. She learns from friends on the island. This post is part of a series of delicious Greek recipes.

This simple but incredible appetizer is traditionally made with Greek cucumbers, Santorini tomatoes, island-grown capers, oregano, and Anthotyro cheese. You can substitute mizithra or feta cheese.

Ingredients

In my book The Second Chance Hotel, which is set in Greece, Amelia does a lot of cooking for guests and friends. She learns from friends on the island. This post is part of a series of delicious Greek recipes.

When I was a kid living in Greece, my step-grandparents made wonderful Greek meals, but I was too young and probably too American to appreciate them then, especially because they were vegetable-heavy, with tomatoes and peppers, neither of which I liked much. As an adult, I have come full c...

My second novel, The Second Chance Hotel, features lots of yummy Greek food. I created five recipe cards to go along with the book. Here’s one of them – a delicious dipping sauce or marinade called tzatziki, which is good on pretty much anything you can think to put it on.

Greek food is typically simple, flavorful, and highly nutritious. It relies on staples like wheat, olive oil, and wine and many recipes feature vegetables prominently. Most Greek food falls under the overall Mediterranean food...

In my book A Very Typical Family, which is set in Santa Cruz, CA, one of the first sounds Natalie hears as she enters the city after 15 years away is the screams of riders on the Giant Dipper!

In honor of National Roller Coaster day on Sunday, August 13, 2023, I thought I’d do a post about the Giant Dipper, the iconic wooden roller coaster at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. Next year in 2024 it will be 100 years old! You can hear the roar of its tracks and the screams of its riders all over Sant...

In my book A Very Typical Family, which is set in Santa Cruz, CA, Natalie takes her nephew Kit to Santa Cruz’s downtown area. She points out several shops to Kit, all of them real. I go downtown, too, every time I’m in Santa Cruz, and I have been visiting all my life.

The downtown, aka the Pacific Garden Mall, has a lot of history to it. People who remember downtown before the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake obliterated many of the historic buildings there will remember the central jewel: the mustar...

In my book A Very Typical Family, which is set in Santa Cruz, CA, an early draft had Kit visiting the tide pools, looking for amazing creatures.  Santa Cruz is a wonderful place to go see tide pool creatures. In this post, I’ll cover where to go, what to look for, and what to know.

Tide pools are also referred to as the intertidal zone, where rocky areas of mudstone are exposed during low tide and submerged at high tide, with varying depths of holes. The sea creatures who live in the intertidal ...

In my book A Very Typical Family, which is set in Santa Cruz, CA, I mention the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf. My characters don’t go out on it in the book, but rest assured they’re strolling along the wharf on a summer evening. I always go when I’m in Santa Cruz.

The wharf is an excellent place for seeing sea lions, getting a bite to eat, browsing for an iconic Santa Cruz shirt, or just walking. The current wharf was built in 1914, which is pretty amazing given the storms that have hit it over the...

In my book A Very Typical Family, which is set in Santa Cruz, CA, my characters don’t visit the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, but rest assured, Kit will be spending many happy summer days at the Boardwalk, and I see some romantic carousel rides in Natalie’s future. And what a unique carousel it is!

I’m covering the Looff carousel here because it is the soul of the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for me. Riding it is one of my earliest memories. Installed in 1911, it is considered a “pure” carousel in t...