Gordon Cope's Blog

Mexico is a paradise for bird watchers! Every day, I see a mix of frigate birds, buzzards, pelicans, hummingbirds and flamingos.

There are about a half dozen caciques, a black and yellow relative of flycatchers, around my home, living in woven nests that hang like purses from the nearby trees.

Caciques are gregarious and noisy, flitting about the flowering plants in my courtyard, picking at the bugs that come to eat nectar. They have a wide assortment of calls, from squawks to chirps; they are most active when a squirrel dares to intrude on their stomping grounds.

My favorite was a family of small wrens that lived near a house we rented in Club Santiago a few years ago. We had a waterfall feature in the pool, and whenever it turned on, the wrens would fly over and take turns shooshing into the pool, chirping merrily away.

I lived on Kraft M&C during my days at the University of Waterloo, so this recipe brings back a lot of fond memories. This upgrade is also a delicious meal that will please family and friends!

Ingredients

250 gm of cooked macaroni (save the pasta water).

100 gm of prosciutto (or fried bacon cut into bits).

Cheese Sauce;

75 gm of butter

3 Tsp of plain flour.

1 ½ cups of HOT milk.

1 tsp of salt

1 tsp of black pepper

¼ tsp of ground nutmeg

1 cup of grated Gruyere cheese

Directions

Over medium heat, melt butter and sift in enough flour to make a roux (it should be smooth, like whipped cream)

Whisk in milk.

In a large bowl, mix salt, pepper, Gruyere, prosciutto and nutmeg. Use a pasta spoon to transfer the macaroni to the bowl. Mix (add a bit of pasta water if the roux is too thick).

Serve with chopped parsley. Enjoy!

Sutanto is a UK-based author who writes extensively about the antics of the Asian-born diaspora around the world. Her books feature a comic mash-up of various genres as Chinese ethnic mothers and their daughters navigate the intricacies of western culture.

I first became hooked on her work when I read Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers. An aging woman running a tea shop wakes up one morning to find a dead man in her shop and decides to solve the mystery surrounding his death.

In Dial A for Aunties, young Meddy helps her Aunties’ marriage business by taking the wedding photographs. Her mother, looking to find her a husband, goes online and creates a dating profile of her daughter which leads to a blind date that goes terribly wrong – Meddy accidentally kills him!

Naturally, Meddy’s aunts step in to conceal the corpse by hiding it in a big cooler that then gets accidentally carried along with the rest of their equipment to the gigantic wedding of Tom Cruise Sutopo and his fiancé Jacqueline.

Did I mention someone tries to steal the wedding presents? The whole mess reads like a Marx Brothers comedy. I highly recommend Dial A for Aunties!

I stumbled on this series by accident while searching through YouTube for a video on Stonehenge. There’s a lot of ‘hot-rods-of-the-gods’ stuff out there, which I wasn’t particularly interested in, so when I stumbled onto a doco by National Geographic, I gave it the sniff test.

The 45-minute show was narrated by a California scientist named Albert Lin, a young engineer and scientist with 10,000 watts of enthusiasm. As he wandered through the iconic remnants near Salisbury, he waxed eloquently about the wonder and majesty of the site, then asked the question; “Who came before the builders of Stonehenge?”

With the help of British archeologists, Lin then began a journey back in time over 8000 years, when hunter/gatherers roamed the vast forests of Britain. They were attracted to the plains of Salisbury by Aurochs, ancient forebears of cattle, which were drawn to the sweet grasses that grew on the flat, prairie-like expanses.

One Auroch could feed 300 people, and the ancestors of modern man grew to both covet and worship the beasts. They built extensive temporary ‘cities’ adjacent to the plains, creating flint tools to both hunt and process them. Using ground penetrating radar (GPR), the archeologists have been able to document both the cities and great mounds of Auroch bones in the ditches that encircle Stonehenge.

There are dozens of documentaries in the series along the same vein, using science to search for the origins of Machu Picchu and El Dorado. It’s a wonderful blend of entertainment and science; I highly recommend Lost Cities with Albert Lin!

When I was 10 years old, I was handing out candy at the door during Halloween. Late in the evening, a friend of ours came by dressed as a wizard with a live owl on his shoulder. Alan was deeply into bird watching and had taken the owl as a baby from its nest. I was fascinated as it peered at me, its big eyes seeming to take up half his tiny body.

Ackerman, an international authority on birds, brings some of that wonder to her work, along with a lot of science. Owls have always been difficult to study because they are nocturnal and have excellent camouflage. Even the most devoted bird scientist can be standing within a yard of an owl and never see it.

Advances in surveillance tools now allow researchers to intensely study many of the endangered species, learning why their numbers are declining. Loss of habitat and fewer mice and voles are some of the culprits, but humans are not far behind.

Even the simple act of disposing an apple core out the window of your car can have tragic consequences; mice are attracted to the food and owls, intent on hunting the mice, are hit by cars.

Ackerman takes us on her journey around the world, where she encounters Tasmanian Masked Owls, Brazilian Burrowing Owls and Arctic Snowy Owls. Each are unique and fascinating in their habits and personalities.

She also describes the scientists who dedicate their lives to understanding these captivating creatures; a flock of birds of a different feather. I highly recommend What an Owl Knows!

Sure, prices are going up everywhere, but you can still get some good bargains in Mexico. That’s a Florentine steak I’m holding in the picture; it costs around $60 in Calgary right now. I just bought one in Manzanillo for 20 bucks.

We first had Florentine steak at a restaurant located in the same square where the statue of David stands. It was served rare with oven roasted potatoes and a fresh salad drizzled with balsamic vinegar and parmesan shavings. Heaven!

Ingredients

1kg T bone steak.

Directions

Remove the steak from the fridge and let it warm to room temperature.

Heat the BBQ to high.

Place the steak on the BBQ, 3-5 minutes per side, depending on the thickness.

Let the steak rest for five minutes before slicing it into thick chunks. Serve with salad and potatoes, and enjoy!

During the heyday of Agatha Christie’s career in the 1920s, mystery novels were all the rage. Authors, talented and otherwise, took to the genre by the hundreds, flooding the market with a myriad of lurid tales.

Unfortunately, there was so much drivel that respected authors took it upon themselves to provide rules. T.S. Eliot railed against the use of incredible disguises, bizarre machinery and preposterous occult solutions. Father Knox prohibited the use of secret passages, self-harm and séances.

Hegarty happily fills her novel with every cliché and taboo she can think of. The premise of the book is a New Year’s Eve murder-mystery party being held in a country mansion where all the guests dress up and act out various parts; the first person to deduce the murderer wins. Abigail is in charge of setting up the game and helping everyone guess who done it.

Only the revelry ends up with someone dead. Abigail’s brother Benjamin is found in his room the next morning cold as a mackerel. The Garda investigate and rule it a suicide. Abigail insists her older sibling didn’t have a depressed bone in his body and hires famous consulting detective Auguste Bell to investigate.

What follows next is a genre-bending tale that is both gripping and devious, a modern play on early twentieth century mysteries that is both an homage and a subversion of the genre. I highly recommend Fair Play!

I just love Sherlock Holmes. Not just the books by Arthur Conan Doyle but all the movies and spin-offs that the author never foresaw in his wildest imagination!

This series is a charming load of bollocks dreamed up by Guy Ritchie, creator of several previous Holmes projects. It stars Hero Beauregard Fiennes Tiffin (gotta love the name) as Sherlock, with Donal Finn playing his sidekick Moriarty. The pair must sleuth out who is trying to frame Sherlock for murder; the prime suspect is Princess Gulun of China.

Hovering over it all is Professor Bucephalus Hodge (played by a wonderful set of mutton-chop sideburns attached to the head of Colin Firth), as well as Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft who works tirelessly to keep his younger sibling from behind bars.

It’s all a wonderful pile of nonsense; I highly recommend Young Sherlock!

Swanson is a master of the mystery, having studied all the great novelists of the 20th century and absorbing them into his style. His work is totally unique and incredibly entertaining, and I always enjoy his books.

Kill Your Darlings, his latest work, is a play on James Cain’s Double Indemnity, where an insurance salesman is seduced by a ruthless woman to kill her husband and split the insurance claim.

In Swanson’s version, Thomas teams up with Wendy, a high-school flame who wants to kill her husband and inherit their millions. Thom agrees to do the deed, marry the widow, and share in the wealth.

They pull off the murder, making it look like an accidental drowning in the house pool. But the guilt haunts them throughout their lives, festering like a cancer in their souls.

Swanson traces their descent into hell using a clever device; rather than follow the crime chronologically, he starts at the end and works back year after year, unfolding their duplicity in reverse order. The reader, knowing whodunit, plays TV Detective Columbo, unraveling the crime one clue at a time. I highly recommend Kill Your Darlings! 

I was out walking on the beach near Oasis Restaurant the other morning when I spotted two baby turtles scrambling to get into the sea. The surf pushed them back time after time, but they eventually were able to submerge.

The region is a hotbed for sea turtles, and volunteers in Tortugario Manzanillo (check out their page on Facebook), find nests and relocate the eggs to an ecological sanctuary south of town. They do so to prevent theft by unscrupulous poachers.

Unfortunately, there’s not much they can do to protect against predators. A large flock of pelicans had gathered on the shore and were busily dive-bombing for breakfast. Most of their brothers and sisters will never make it to maturity, but here’s hoping the two I spotted have a long, happy life.

Back by popular demand! This is absolutely the most amazing fruit salad, one that your guests will be talking about for ages. It is very easy to make and is a refreshing palate cleanser between courses. Most of all, it will put a big smile on everyone’s face!

Ingredients

Seedless watermelon.

1/4 cup of Pine nuts.

1 cup Feta cheese, cubed

Mint leaves (optional)

Creamy balsamic vinegar

Directions

Cut the watermelon into cubes (just under 1 inch on the side).

Lightly toast the pine nuts.

Cube the feta cheese into ½ inch size.

Just before serving, mix all the ingredients together (this keeps the pine nuts crispy). Serve at the table and let guests add the creamy balsamic vinegar as dressing.

Picoult is a tremendously gifted writer who tackles some of the most daunting contemporary problems confronting America, including High School massacres (Nineteen Minutes) and racism (Small Great Things).

In this 2025 work, Picoult goes back in history to the Elizabethan Era in the early 1600s to expose the long-standing roots that govern who can be heard, and when.

The premise begins in the present, when Melina Green, a young playwright, finds herself in a terrible bind. Her friend Andre secretly submitted one of her works to a notoriously misogynistic competition under the male pseudonym Mel Green.

When Melina is picked as a finalist, she has the option of revealing the truth or hiding behind Andre’s beard to get the work onstage. Ironically, By Any Other Name is based upon a late 16th century poet who had been historically linked to Shakespeare as the author of some of his most famous plays.

At the time, a woman writing plays would have created a scandal; Emilia Bassano had to hide behind the famous author’s name in order to get her plays performed.

As her dilemma unfolds, Melina is swept along in a complex ethical argument; should she wait until the play is success and then reveal her authorship in order to expose the underbelly of gender discrimination in the theater, or follow her gut instinct and see her production abandoned? Fortunately, women novelists today have tremendous access to publication, and Picoult’s work is available around the world in 34 languages. I highly recommend By Any Other Name!

This is a series that was first aired by Showtime in 2003. It went on to be nominated for several Emmy awards but didn’t last more than two seasons.

Which is a shame! Ellen Muth plays Georgie, an 18-year old slacker who gets hit by a toilet seat that fell off a Soviet space craft. Once dead, she quickly discovers there is an afterlife, and she has been conscripted to become a ‘grim reaper’ and collect the souls of the dead.

Not the best premise for a comedy, but they work it to the hilt. Georgie is teamed up with Rube (Mandy Patinkin), a follow-the-rules boss, as well as happy-go-lucky stoner Mason and uptight Roxy, a meter maid.

They meet in a pancake house and get their assignment for the day, which could be a luckless woman being hit by a falling piano or a barista who slips on a banana. Their job is to then escort them to a higher realm.

Naturally, not all goes according to plan. Some souls don’t want to go gladly into the night, and others miss their date with destiny. It’s then up to Georgie and gang to make things right.

This is a bizarre comedy with lots of absurd situations and deadpan humor throughout. I highly recommend Dead Like Me!

There’s a small village across the highway from where I live in Manzanillo. Miramar (which is best known for its beautiful beach, above), has around 1000 people living in modest homes. The main square is flanked by the church and businesses selling clothing and fresh-caught dorado.

It also has about a dozen restaurants. Mexicans love to meet and eat at taco stands, breakfast joints and snack bars. My favorite is Crazy Wings, a café by day and a chicken wings joint at night.

They don’t have a Starbuck’s, but every morning a farmer parks his truck holding a nanny goat. He serves pajarete, a mix of goat milk, cane alcohol and powdered coffee.

People and stray cats are very friendly to strangers, and I have no qualms walking its streets late at night when a local band is playing accordion music in the square.

Here’s to Miramar and the thousands of wonderful villages throughout Mexico!

My friends Rick and JoJo love this dish so I thought I’d share it with everyone else! Easy to make and so delicious – it will become an instant favorite for your family and friends.

Ingredients

2 shallots or ½ a red onion, chopped.

4 chicken thighs, skinned and deboned.

¼ cup fish sauce

1 large can of tomatoes

1 cup of cream

1 tsp of sugar

1 tsp of yellow (madras) curry powder.

1 tsp of red curry paste.

Directions

Fry chopped shallots/red onion in butter until caramelized, and set aside.

In a large, covered pan, fry yellow curry powder and red curry paste in butter for one minute, then add chicken thighs and brown on both sides. 

Add cream, sugar, fish sauce and can of tomatoes (with juice), bring to a boil and then let simmer for 30 minutes.  Serve on rice, with shallots/red onion sprinkled on top.

Michael Connelly is the master of police procedurals as well as courtroom dramas, two of my favorite mystery genres. I’m always delighted when he publishes a new novel featuring Micky Haller, lawyer extraordinaire.

For most of the books in the Lincoln Lawyer series, Haller is a criminal defense attorney, taking on a wide array of clientele. In The Proving Ground, however, he has switched over to civil litigation, looking for the David vs Goliath case that can make a difference.

As a novelist, Connelly takes great care to seek out contemporary issues that affect not only his fictional characters but his readers, as well; one of his recent books was dedicated to the dangers that lurk beneath the unregulated DNA sector.

In The Proving Ground, Haller takes on a case involving Artificial Intelligence. A young teenager became fixated on an AI avatar that convinced him to kill his girlfriend. Now, the mother of the victim wants to sue the AI company that created the calamitous situation. Haller relies on his sidekicks Cisco and Lorna to put together a compelling case for the plaintiff, but the defendants are all too eager to use underhanded tactics to trip him up at trial. They’re no match for the battle-hardened Lincoln Lawyer, however, and justice prevails. I highly recommend The Proving Ground! 

This is a wonderfully imaginative mash-up of genres; Emily Bronte meets Hannibal Lector!

When an orphaned child is ousted from her family mansion and sent to a boarding school by greedy relatives, Jane Steele must forge her own future. She survives wicked teachers through wits and pluck.

And, of course, various lethal weapons. Already a murderess after she flung her lecherous cousin Eddie off a cliff, she subsequently stabs her perverted school master through the throat with a letter opener.

Fleeing to London, the corpses continue to pile up as she expands out into poisons, drowning and other nefarious ways to dispatch miscreants. Her string of murders is interrupted when she spies a want-ad for a governess at Highgate House, her former mansion. Donning a fake persona, she soon lands the job.

Her employer is handsome Charles Thornfield. Recently returned from the Punjab, he is in need of a governess for his ward Sahjara, an engaging young girl who quickly takes a shine to Jane.

But the Thornfield household holds dark secrets. As Jane finds herself increasingly attracted to Charles, she also learns of the terrible tragedies that occurred to him during times of war in India.

Needless to say, enemies from the past begin to appear at their door. As she fights to help defend her new friends, Jane’s unique talents emerge, much to everyone’s consternation. I highly recommend Jane Steele!

Image and recipe courtesy of Best of Bridge.

For those of us who grew up in Canada during the 1980s, The Best of Bridge was a kitchen fixture. Started by a group of Calgary women, the cookbook featured tried-and-true Bridge Club recipes. They were straightforward, using ingredients that could be sourced at any grocery. Most had shortcuts (just use a can of mushroom soup), and were delightfully easy to make. The original cooks have since retired, but the franchise lives on with a younger generation publishing new books every few years.

Here’s one of my favorite recipes; The Christmas Morning Wife Saver Casserole.

Ingredients

16 slices white bread, crusts removed

16 slices Canadian back bacon or ham

16 slices sharp cheddar cheese

6 eggs

1/2 tsp. pepper 2 mL

1/2-1 tsp. dry mustard 2-5 mL

1/4 cup minced onion 60 mL

1/4 cup finely chopped green pepper 60mL

1-2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce 5-10 mL

3 cups milk 750 mL

dash Tabasco

1/2 cup butter 125 mL

Special K or crushed Corn Flakes

Instructions

Set 8 pieces of bread into a 9″ x 13″ (23 x 33 cm) buttered, glass baking dish.

Cover bread with slices of back bacon. Lay slices of cheddar cheese on top of bacon and then cover with remaining slices of bread to make it like a sandwich.

In a bowl, beat eggs and pepper. To the egg mixture add dry mustard, onion, green pepper, Worcestershire sauce, milk and Tabasco. Pour over the sandwiches, cover and let stand in fridge overnight.

In the morning, melt butter, pour over top. Cover with Special K or crushed Corn Flakes.

Bake, uncovered, 1 hour at 350 deg.F (180 deg.C). Let sit 10 minutes before serving.

Confession time; this is the first book I have ever read by Ann Patchett.

It’s true. Here’s one of America’s premier authors, who has been writing best sellers for three decades, and I have been a Patchett virgin until now!

I must say, she is a brilliant writer. She takes domestic tales and gives them an epic gravity that compels you to read for hours on end.

Tom Lake is the story of Lara Nelson, the owner of a cherry orchard in Michigan. As she and her three daughters Emily, Nell and Maisie, pick the succulent fruit, Lara recounts her days 30 years ago when she was an aspiring actress, starring in a summer production of Our Town, cast against the leading man, Peter Duke.

Duke would go on to become a famous Hollywood actor and eventually win an Oscar, but for now, he was just a handsome, charismatic young man. Lara immediately hops into bed with him, not realizing that her summer fling would affect her and her eventual family forever.

Under Patchett’s inimitable skill, the story unfolds like an onion, each layer peeling away to reveal another hidden complication that draws the reader inexorably on. It is done so masterfully that it looks easy; trust me, it’s just the opposite.

Now that I have finally discovered the author, I look forward to reading many more of her works. In the meantime, I highly recommend Tom Lake!

I love Dave Sedaris. Ever since I read Santa Land Diaries decades ago, his essays have been a Christmas staple that I look forward to every year. He is bitchy, whiny but above all incredibly funny. Check out And Your Little Dog, Too, courtesy of the New Yorker.

Okay, so technically, it’s not a Christmas movie, it’s just a flick I like to watch every Christmas.

Two musicians witness a gangland-style slaying by ‘Spats’ Columbo (George Raft) on Valentine’s Day in Chicago. Fearing they’re next, Joe and Jerry (Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) are desperate to flee town, but the only gig they can get is with an all-girl band.

Dressing in drag, Josephine and Daphne join Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators on a trip to Florida. Joe immediately falls in love with Sugar Cane Kowalzcyk (Marilyn Munroe), a down-on-her-luck ukulele player. Once there, Joe and Jerry have the misfortune to discover Spats and his gang are in town for the annual mob convention. Lots of slapstick and koochie-koos ensue. Even if you’ve already seen it ten times, I highly recommend Some Like It Hot as a holiday treat!

I had a harbinger of the future when I checked in to the Casa Q, a cloud hotel in Guadalajara.

 There were no human staff. I pressed a button on the front door frame and a friendly computer-generated voice said “Zmmph!”

The door-unlocked and I was greeted by a Zen Garden that calmly declined to carry my bags up the stairs.

My room had no chairs, drinking glasses or bathroom sink plug. It did have a Raid room freshener, which I did not take to be a good sign.

I received a welcome PDF via WhatsApp explaining how to lock the room door, but it self-destructed 30 seconds after I opened it.

There was a discount coupon for a nearby restaurant but I was reluctant to use it in case they had no cutlery.

When I did return from dinner the smart knob on my room refused to disable the door lock. I spent the night sleeping in the hall, which wasn’t too bad because the other guests left pillow mints.

Expedia asked me if I would recommend the hotel. Absolutely – to my worst enemies!

You can now listen to A Paris Moment, Magnus the Magnificent and Joan the Saint!

All three Audio books are available on Amazon (and should be on Kindle Unlimited).

Check them out and let me know what you think!

I get a lot of requests for this recipe from dinner guests, so I’m happy to repost the recipe!

Making your own pizza is quite easy and the result is both healthy and delicious. All it takes is a little preparation and you will be the toast of your family and friends!

DOUGH (makes 4 pizza crusts)

5 ¼ cups of OO (fine) flour.

1 tsp of salt.

1 tsp of dry yeast.

1 tsp of brown sugar

400 ml of warm water.

Mix the flour and salt together in a bowl.

Mix the yeast and brown sugar in the warm water and let stand for 15 minutes.

Pour the liquid into the flour and knead until the consistency of soft Play-Doh. (You may have to sprinkle some flour on if it’s too sticky).

SAUCE

1 jar of tomato sauce (I like to use an Italian brand with Pomodoro tomatoes)

3 Tsp of Italian seasoning mix.

1 tsp of salt.

1 Tsp of olive oil.

Mix the first three ingredients together in a bowl. Pour the olive oil into the jar of tomato sauce and swish around then add that to the mix. Let rest for at least half an hour.

TOPPINGS

Pepperoni, ham

Chopped onion, peppers, olives, etc.

Shredded cheese

PREPARATION

Heat the oven to 450F. Divide the dough into four balls (any you don’t need can be frozen for later use). Roll out the ball flat with a rolling pin (hint; I cut a piece of parchment paper into a 12” circle as a rolling surface). You will have to sprinkle some flour on the dough to keep the rolling pin from sticking.

Place the rolled dough into a pizza pan and bake it in the oven for 5 minutes. (You can do this in advance and keep the crusts in the freezer indefinitely).

Spread 5 Tsp of sauce on the pizza crust and add desired toppings. Sprinkle cheese on top and bake in the oven for up to 15 minutes (check after 10 minutes to make sure the crust isn’t burning). Serve hot!

You gotta love that title!

Aubrey Merritt rose to the top of her profession by solving mysteries that had everyone else stumped. She now lives in a fantastic apartment in New York, picking and choosing only the most perplexing cases.

When Aubrey fires her old assistant, Olivia Blunt applies for the job. A young, impoverished writer who happens to be a wiz at research, Merritt reluctantly agrees to put her on probation.

The agency gets a call from Haley Summersworth, whose mother Victoria recently committed suicide by jumping off a seaside cliff; Hazel thinks it was murder!

Aubrey and Olivia promptly decamp for the exclusive family resort in Vermont where Victoria met her doom. Potential suspects abound, including the drug-addled son, the Vegas gigolo courting her and a daughter-in-law from hell.

The novel is fast-paced and light-hearted. Tully is a pen name for Elisabeth Brink, who is best known for dark thrillers; she decided to take a break from her more gruesome works and pen a comedy mystery.

And I’m glad she did. A sequel is already in the works, and I can hardly wait to read it. I highly recommend The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant.

This doesn’t often happened to me, but I remember exactly where I was the day John Candy passed away at the age of 43, in 1994. I was shocked and saddened that a great comedic talent had died so young.

The documentary features interviews with his family and many of the stars who acted beside him in so many memorable films – Tom Hanks in Splash, Steve Martin in Trains, Planes and Automobiles – as well as colleagues from his years at SCTV, like Martin Short and Andrea Martin.

Director Colin Hanks, the son of Tom Hanks, had met Candy as a child on the set of Splash, and was reluctant at first to direct the documentary, but friend Ryan Reynolds convinced him to take on the project in order to honor the memory of the great Canadian comedian.

A compilation of TV, film, personal home movies and interviews, the documentary catalogs Candy’s rise to stardom, as well as the dichotomy between his quiet family life and the bombastic characters he portrayed in public.

Warning; this one’s a tear-jerker, but I highly recommend John Candy: I Like Me.

A few fun facts;

There are more Buddhist Temples in Mexico than Driving Schools. The majority of Mexicans learn how to drive by watching Fast & Furious.

The emergency flasher allows you to enact new driving legislation. If, for instance, you miss your turnoff on the highway, you can hit that switch and drive backwards on the shoulder for up to one mile.

Traffic police encourage you to text while driving; it makes finding your next-of-kin that much easier.

The average Mexican would rather spend $3000 on a car stereo than two bucks on a new brake light.

You can legally run a stop light 5 seconds after it turns red, or up to 10 seconds if you’re texting (see above).

Unless it’s already occupied by a baby carriage, you can drive on the sidewalk to avoid a traffic jam.

Motorcyclists are only allowed to carry one rooster under their arm.

This is an easy meal to make and very delicious!

2 Tsp sesame oil

2 garlic cloves, diced

6 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined.

1 Tsp Frank’s hot sauce.

2 cups cooked rice

¼ cup fish sauce

1 Tsp soy sauce

2 Tsp brown sugar

Pinch of black pepper

½ cup sliced onion

½ cup tomato chunks

1 green onion, sliced

¼ cup cilantro

¼ cup cucumber slices

Directions

Fry garlic and shrimp in sesame oil.

Add the rice, sauces, sugar and pepper. Fry briefly.

Add the onion, tomato, green onion, cilantro and cucumber slices.

Enjoy!

DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE!

Unless, of course, you like banana peels, boners, bacchanals, babes in bikinis, beer consumption and general bedlam, then go nuts.

Reid is one of the most enjoyable contemporary authors writing today; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six are just two of her gems.

Her latest novel doesn’t disappoint. Joan Goodwin has wanted to go into space since the age of six. Growing up in the sixties, she was thrilled by the Apollo missions to the moon and vowed that one day she would be an astronaut.

A genius at math, she focuses on astrophysics at college and becomes a science teacher. When NASA finally opens up positions for women in the late 1970s, she is selected as a trainee. Moving to Houston, she begins the long voyage to qualify for the Space Shuttle.

Her journey encounters major hurdles. Although she excels at aero-science, she falls in love with Vanessa, a fellow astronaut. Their forbidden relationship threatens to scuttle their careers.

Naturally, high drama intervenes when a mission goes disastrously wrong. Joan must battle to save not only Vanessa, but the very soul of NASA itself. I highly recommend Atmosphere!

Mo (played by Mohammed Amer), is a young Palestinian refugee who has grown up his entire life in Houston. He is devoted to his widowed mother Yusla, where he lives in her suburban home with his brother Sameer and a cat named Crystal.

As an undocumented refugee, Mo thrives at the fringes of society, hustling to stay one step ahead of ICE and care for his family. He sells knock-off luxury handbags and watches from the trunk of his 1970 Ford Fairlane, always with one eye out for the police.

This doesn’t sound much like the premise for a comedy, but Mo and his gang of misfit friends bring a warmth and vitality to each episode as they struggle to keep their heads above water.

The series has been critically acclaimed (winning a Peabody Award in its debut season), but the true enjoyment comes from watching the ensemble fill the small screen with life and vitality. I highly recommend Mo!

Prose, a Toronto-based author, made a big splash in 2022 with her first novel, The Maid. The cozy mystery chronicles the unlikely adventures of an autistic young woman named Molly who is raised by her maternal grandmother after she is abandoned by her mom.

Since childhood, Molly has aspired to be a hotel maid. She holds cleanliness in the highest standard and falls into a Zen-like state as she cleans the rooms in the majestic Regency Grand, a luxury boutique hotel. Unfortunately, she is always stumbling upon murdered guests, interfering with her dusting and whatnot.

In The Mystery Guest, the corpse belongs to celebrated author Grimthorpe, who theatrically croaks in the hotel tea room while regaling fans with a reading from his latest book.

Along comes Detective Stark who, like all good gumshoes, assumes the maid did it, and Molly has to prove that she is not a cold-blooded killer. Fortunately, her spectrum of odd tics and mannerisms make her the perfect sleuth. A heart-warming cozy with a charming cast of characters, I highly recommend both The Maid and The Mystery Guest!

What, Me Worry?

If you’ve never been to the Badlands in Drumheller, you’re in for a treat; the valley, gouged out of the surrounding farmland by glacier meltwater, resembles a landscape more suited to the moon than Earth.

But the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, which has been welcoming visitors since 1985, is an even bigger delight; a major restoration in 2024 has turned it into a must-see destination for anyone visiting Canada.

Using the latest exhibition technologies, kids of all ages are treated to an experience that is both fun and educational. Instead of just static displays, visitors can interact with maps and even create their own dinosaur, choosing from a selection of morphologies to sculpt fang-toothed monstrosities.

The theme of the museum is ‘life on earth’, and it follows the evolution of organisms from cyanobacteria to modern man. But one of the biggest goals is to explain the death of the dinosaurs during the end of the Cretaceous 63 million years ago; everything from a meteor impact to massive volcanic eruptions is explored in detail.

Personally, I think Gary Larson of The Far Side got it right;

This is a great way to start the day – just don’t tell your doctor!

Ingredients

1 egg

1 slice of cheese

1 slice of ham

1 English muffin.

Mayonnaise

Directions

Fry the egg in a pan, making sure you crack the yolk. Add in the slice of ham and top the egg with the cheese.

Toast the English muffin and coat it with a dab of mayonnaise. Top off with the ham, cheese and egg and serve with fresh fruit and coffee. Enjoy!

I first read The Thursday Murder Club some years ago when it made a big splash on the best seller lists. Richard Osman is a well-known TV personality in the UK (and a very talented writer), who took the traditional English cozy and turned it into a publishing phenomenon that has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.

The series is set in a bucolic seniors home located in the rolling hills of southern England. Elizabeth is a former spy who chairs a club that goes over cold cases in the hopes of catching the murderer. Joining her are Joyce, a widowed nurse, Ibrahim, a retired psychiatrist, and Ron, a former union organizer.

Naturally, un-nabbed murderers tend to resent meddling, and their efforts attract threats that are thwarted through ingenuity and cake baking until the miscreants are ultimately exposed.

With any adaptation, the question of which genre prevails always arises. Does the story leap from the page and gain new life on the big screen, or is it a so-so rehash? With the likes of Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan in the main roles, one might think the former, but the movie cuts too many corners from the narrative and leaves the result rather flat and pedestrian.

That said, The Thursday Murder Club is a delightful series, and I highly recommend you read the books!

OK, you have to be a fan of The Addams Family.

Created in the Sixties from the cartoons of Charles Addams, it featured Gomez, his wife Morticia, their children Pugsley and Wednesday, as well as a cast of misfits including Uncle Fester, butler Lurch and Thing, a dismembered hand.

The latest reincarnation is the brainchild of Tim Burton, and focuses on Wednesday (played in brilliant deadpan by Jenna Ortega), a Goth teenager with a penchant for necromancy.

In season one, Wednesday saved Nevermore Academy from destruction. Season two begins with her return to Nevermore, where a murder of crows begin pecking eyes out.

Mayhem ensues, with the body count quickly surpassing most Schwarzenegger movies. Wednesday perseveres, however, and all that is ooky and spooky is saved (presumably for Season three). Dig it.

This is the first in the William Warwick series, a highly entertaining police procedural set in London. William Warwick is the son of a prominent barrister who decides to forego the family business and instead become a copper with Scotland Yard. He subsequently falls under the wing of Detective Hawkley, who soon has Warwick and his fellow officers hard on the trail of murderers, drug dealers and villains.

None of it matches the hijinks experienced in real life by its creator, however. Jeffrey Archer has been a UK Member of Parliament and a life Peer in the House of Lords. He was also a client of latex-clad ladies and a guest at HM Prison Belmarsh for fibbing under oath during a libel court case regarding his nocturnal hobbies.

Nothing Ventured follows William and the gang as they pursue Miles Faulkner, an international art thief and all-around cad. Faulkner manages to stay one step ahead of the police as he shuffles his collection of Masters around the globe, all with the aid of his salacious wife Christina.

The series is not, by any means, Daggers Award material, but it is engaging fun and Archer takes tremendous advantage of his intimate knowledge of trials and prisons to give the reader an authentic feel for crime and punishment. I highly recommend the William Warwick series!

Tom Thompson Trees

Yay! Back in Canada. I’m off to my sister’s cottage near the metropolis of Combermere, situated in northern Ontario amid the rolling, tree-covered hills of the Canadian Shield.

Ah, the rural life. Loons croon, sunlight dapples off pristine lakes and canoes paddle down gently flowing rivers. Oh, and the deer flies rip a strip out of your scalp at every chance, but that’s another story.

Here’s a cottage country joke, courtesy of Don Conway, the sports columnist for The Valley Gazette;

Bruce was at Tim Hortons yesterday when he suddenly realized he desperately needed to pass gas. The music was really, really loud, so he timed his blasts with the beat of the music. After a couple of songs, he started to feel better. He finished his coffee, then noticed that everyone was staring at him…Then he remembered he was listening to his iPod.

It’s summertime, so break out the BBQ! This recipe is super simple to make, but so delicious.

Ingredients

8 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on.

¼ cup of fish sauce

1 teaspoon of red curry paste

¼ cup of brown sugar.

Directions

Heat BBQ to 400 F.

Mix fish sauce, red curry paste and brown sugar and marinate the thighs.

Place the thighs on the grill, skin-side up. Close the lid and grill for 4 minutes.

Turn the thighs and grill 4 minutes.

Turn the thighs one last time and grill for 4 minutes. Slit one thigh to check if the meat is cooked through to the bone; if not, leave on for another 2 minutes.

Plate the thighs, cover them with tinfoil and let rest for a few minutes. Serve with rice, potato salad or baked spuds. Enjoy!

It’s been half a century since the iconic movie made its summer debut, coining the very phrase ‘blockbuster.’

The movie is set in a seaside resort on the Atlantic. A young woman’s torso, covered in immense bite marks, washes up on the beach. Mayor Vaughn wants to keep it hushed up ahead of the long weekend, worried that the news might scare off tourists.

Police Chief Martin Brody (played by Roy Scheider), is more worried about public safety, but he keeps silent and pays the price when other swimmers go missing.

Ultimately, the town hires Quint (Robert Shaw), to hunt down the shark. He enlists the help of marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and the pair try unsuccessfully to harpoon it.

In the climax, Quint is devoured by the avaricious fish and Brody barely escapes with his life before the creature is vanquished.

Unfortunately, the damage was done, and many of the millions of movie goers who saw the movie never went into the ocean again!

Lots of lore surrounds the film; Bruce the mechanical shark played havoc with the film schedule, causing huge budget overruns, director Steven Spielberg laughed when composer John Williams played the now-famous two-note theme, Chief Brody’s famous understatement when the shark rips the back off Quint’s boat; ‘you’re gonna need a bigger boat,’ was an adlib.

All of it contributed to the epic that continues to fill you with chills and thrills fifty years later. I highly recommend Jaws!

Tana French is a very talented mystery writer based in Dublin. Most of her novels focus on the police procedural, describing the gritty criminals and jaded police who haunt the cobbled lanes of the nation’s capital.

The Searcher is an entertaining variant. Detective Cal Hooper has retired after 25 years with the Chicago Police Department and purchased a parcel of land in the quiet backwaters of rural Ireland. His goal is to lose himself in the bucolic setting, healing a soul bruised by disillusionment with his career and an acrimonious divorce.

At first, all goes well as he patches up an abandoned farmhouse, using the carpentry tools inherited from his grandfather. His neighbors, including a bachelor farmer named Mart, provide charm and companionship at the local pub.

Things go awry, however, with the appearance of a twelve-year old child named Trey. Half wild from parental neglect, she is seeking Cal’s help in tracking down her older brother Brendan, who has disappeared without a trace; the police say he is just off having a lark and will eventually resurface, but Trey has her doubts.

Cal uses his detective skills to interview friends and family, searching for the reason the young man vanished into thin air. Brendan’s phone, credit cards and social media contacts are all silent, pointing to a potentially dodgy demise.

As Cal spirals closer to the truth, both he and Trey come under attack. He finds himself in a race to uncover what really happened to the lad before it’s too late for all of them.

The novel is a real treat because the author has the lyrical gift of the Irish and the penchant to spin a yarn out in a slow, measured pace that seductively pulls the reader into the lives and heart of the countryside. I highly recommend The Searcher!

James

By Percival Everett

In Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Huck escapes his abusive father and sails away to far-fetched adventures with Jim.

In Everett’s imaginative re-imagining, the story is told from the viewpoint of Jim, the slave of Miss Watson. When Jim hears that he is going to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter, he decides to run away with Huck until he can figure out how to rescue his family.

The story is a brilliant blend of humor and trenchant observations that ridicule the absurdity of racial supremacy. While steadfastly pursuing his goal, Jim endures the brutalities and humiliations that illuminate the vicious reality of being a slave in Dixie America.

Everett is a tremendously talented author and worthy of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for this novel. If you are unfamiliar with his work, I highly recommend James as a starting point!

Every June, the good people of San Miguel de Allende present Dia de Los Locos, or Day of the Crazies. Popular lore has it the original celebration was started by the town’s gardeners to honor San Pascual, the patron saint of agriculture.

The mile-long procession begins at the church of St. Anthony, where the parish priest blesses everyone. The reason for the costumes? Life is too short to take yourself seriously all the time, says the prelate, so dress up in a goofy costume and go have some fun.

Now, that’s my kind of old-time religion.

The procession snakes its way through the center of town. Each neighborhood sponsors a group and adopts a theme, whether it be elves & faeries or Disney characters & rock stars. Spectators line the roadways where they catch candy tossed by the revelers.

It’s a high-energy, fun-filled day for both participants and viewers, and one of the most anticipated events of the year in a town filled with amazing festivals and activities.

Man, the folks of SMA sure know how to have fun!

My pal Len discovered this gem in San Miguel de Allende’s Colonia Guadalupe. La Moneda is a tiny chocolate shop located near the intersection of Calz de La Luz and Hidalgo. It is owned by Veronica Gomez, a chocolatier who learned her skills from a pastry chef in Mexico City.

Veronica and her daughter Avi (that’s her in the picture), take great joy in creating a host of fun chocolates using everything from tequila and marshmallows to raspberries. The hand-made confections are absolutely delicious (and at a reasonable cost).

Drop by and sample some of their wares; they are open from Thursday to Tuesday 9:30-5pm (closed Wednesdays).

La Moneda Chocolates, Julian Carrillo #3, Guadalupe, SMA.

You can find them on Facebook at La Moneda-Chocolates.

I cooked this for friends a little while ago and they begged me for the recipe. It takes a little time to prepare, but the results are absolutely amazing! This is a great dinner meal when serving guests, and leftovers can also be frozen for quick lunches.

Ingredients (serves 4)

2 chicken breasts, deboned

Salt

2 eggs

1 cup breadcrumbs

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup olive oil

2 Tsp fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced

8 ounces mozzarella cheese, sliced

1 can tomato sauce

1 Tsp Italian seasoning spice

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground pepper.

Garlic bread

Cooked spaghetti

Directions

1 Preheat oven to 400 F.

2 Mix the tomato sauce, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper together. Set aside.

3 Cut each breast into three pieces and pound thin.

4 Mix together the breadcrumbs, 1/2 cup of the Parmesan, and pinch of salt.

5 Pour the olive oil into an electric skillet and turn to medium.

6 Beat the eggs in a shallow bowl and coat the chicken pieces. Dip the chicken pieces in the breadcrumb mix and place in the skillet. Gently fry the chicken cutlets until they are golden brown on each side, about 3 to 4 minutes per side.

7 Arrange 1/2 the tomato sauce in the bottom of a baking dish. Place the cutlets on the sauce then top with the rest of the tomato sauce. Sprinkle the tops with sliced basil, then lay slices of mozzarella over each cutlet and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese.

 8 Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, or until the mozzarella begins to brown.

Serve with pasta and the garlic bread. Enjoy!

I’ve enjoyed Fargo since the release of the movie in 1996; Frances McDormand plays the intrepid Fargo Police Department Detective Marge Gunderson and Steve Buscemi is the sleazy low-life criminal Carl. Produced and directed by the Coen Brothers, it won two Oscars.

The TV series, which began in 2014, has had its ups-and-downs as various artists take turns bringing the quirky, violent personae to the small screen. Season 1, with Billy Bob Thornton’s psycho Norm Lalvo meeting a grisly end in a bear trap, was a treat.

Season 5 (which was released in 2023), holds a special cachet, as when it was filming in Calgary, Jon Hamm (the star of Mad Men), was staying in a house that we subsequently rented. What’s more, Jon left his copy of the first five episodes in the bookshelf, and I spent many hours curled up in the living room couch reading the scripts.

So I was filled with great expectations when it finally came to Prime. The series stars Juno Temple as Dot Lyon, a suburban housewife with a dark past. Jon Hamm plays Sheriff Roy Tillman, obsessed with kidnapping her.

Getting back to its original roots, Season 5 is unapologetically noisy, nasty and absolutely redolent with black humor. Sam Spruell, playing contract killer Old Munch, takes his character to another planet, and Jon’s Sheriff Tillman is so way over-the-top that he earned praise from one critic for being a ‘thick slice of Hamm.’

You get the picture. This is classic stuff, and I highly recommend Fargo Season 5!

How can you go wrong with a title like that?

Capri Sanzio is the founder of SF Killer Crime Tours; she spends her days conducting excursions to the stomping grounds of infamous serial killers.

She is also the granddaughter of William ‘Overkill Bill’ Sanzio, a predator who dated prostitutes then hit them with a rock, stuck them with a knife, then slit their throats (hence the nickname).

So it comes as no surprise when a copycat killer starts offing his victims in the same manner decades after his death. Unfortunately, the first victim is Capri’s former mother-in-law, a rich socialite who was threatened to cut off tuition payments to Capri’s daughter Morgan.

Enter dashing SFPD Homicide Inspector Dan Petito (he has a dimple, natch). Petito quickly focuses on Capri and her daughter Morgan as prime suspects. Capri is justifiably indignant, and vows to find the real killer.

Lots of red herrings ensue; the result is a delightfully entertaining murder mystery that’s part cozy, part police procedural and totally charming. I highly recommend The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco!