Duffy Brown's Blog: New Cozy Series - Posts Tagged "savannah"

It’s a new year and everyone is making resolutions. I suck at resolutions. I mean well but things just never seem to work out. So, I was looking on Pinterest and they have this board called New Thing to Try in 2015.
Somehow that made more sense or maybe it’s the wording. It just sounds more adventuresome and a lot more fun than You’re fat, Duffy, resolve to lose weight!

The first thing I’m going to try that’s new in 2015 is learning Italian! I’m off to Italy to discover my Italian Roots as grandpa Angelo was from Bisaccia, a tiny town just southeast of Naples. To try and not offend my relatives I thought it would be nice to try and speak the language. (though with my ability to learn foreign languages it might not work out that way) But at least I’ll try.

I’m also going to start doing Zumba more before this poor old body of mine completely falls apart. And the new thing for me is to start lifting weights! Picture me as Hercules by December. See, an adventure!
I’m going to try the fish oil routine as my eyes are failing and I guess fish have much better eyes. And I’m going to write three pages a day come hell or high-water. I need to get organized. Trust me, this is indeed a new and adventuresome path for Duffy Brown.

So there you have it, my new things to try in 2015. Do you have any adventures you’re taking on? Hopefully something fun and exciting and that will not make you look like Hercules.

Hugs and Happy 2015!
Duffy Brown

Walker Boone here from the lovely city of Savannah, Georgia. The azaleas are in bloom, the magnolias are big as dinner plates and I’m on the run.
In Dead Man Walker coming out Feb 3, I’ve got my very own story to tell. It’s from my point of view and that’s the good news. The bad news is that I’ve kind of gotten myself into one big huge mess and it looks like Reagan Summerside and Auntie KiKi are the only ones trying to get me out of it.
You see there was this dead guy in a bathtub. Not my bathtub but his own and my housekeeper happened to stumble across the body. If I remember right it went something like…

“See, there he is, Mr. Boone,” Mercedes
said to me. “Just like I told you on the
phone, Conway Adkins dead as a fence post
in his very own claw-foot bathtub and
naked as the day he was born.”
“I take you added the washcloth?” I
said to Mercedes, both of us standing
in the doorway and staring at the corpse.
“Couldn’t be having the man laying
there with his shrivelness all exposed to
the world now could I. Not proper for a
man his age.”
“Or for the rest of us,” I added.

At first Mercedes was the number one suspect. That was bad enough because she’s a friend and she can’t be beat as a housekeeper. On both accounts--and with my dust-bunnies threatening to mutiny—I went after the rear killer.
I didn’t have a lot of luck, in fact I almost got killed a few times and then...somehow...I wound up the number one suspect.

“This is circumstantial evidence,”
I said to Reagan as we stood on the
sidewalk outside my house. “The police
have to see that someone’s setting me
up to cover their own butt.”
“It’s your butt that needs covering,
Walker Boone,” Reagan offered. “The police
found your .38 and it matches the bullet
that killed Conway. The cops are on their
way. You got to get out of here right now.”
I looked at my red ‘57 Chevy
convertible parked at the curb. “Might
as well put a target on my back driving
this thing.”
Reagan shoved her helmet at me.
“Take Princess.”
“A scooter? You want me to ride
a pink scooter named Princess?”
“Better than that being your
nickname in the big house.”

So there you have it...Dead Man Walker and that’s just what I feel like, a dead man. How in the world am I ever going to get out of this one?

It’s summer in Savannah and Reagan Summerside and her sidekick Auntie KiKi are knee-deep in solving more mysteries. Not that they go looking for them mind you, but dead bodies just seem to fall across Reagan’s path. It’s all her ex’s fault! The way Reagan sees it when she got divorced that took one lifeless piece of crud out of her life and now the fates feel they have to fill the void by sending a whole bunch more her way.

Reagan and Auntie KiKi talk clues and suspects on Reagan’s front porch of her old Victorian. Bruce Willis, Reagan’s canine BFF sits beside her and a shaker of martinis sits beside Auntie KiKi. Talking dead people and whodunit it comes a lot easier while sipping something tall and cool.

Here are two of Auntie KiKi’s fave martini recipes. With or without booze they are totally delish!


Auntie KiKi’s Summer On The Veranda Watermelon Martini
• Sugar + kosher salt
• 6 oz watermelon juice (mash or use food processor and strain)
• 2 1/2 oz vodka or pellegrino sparkling water
• 2 1/2 oz Limoncello or orange liqueur or oj
• 1 oz fresh lime juice
• Ice
• Watermelon wedges for garnish
Instructions
Chill glasses in freezer 10 minutes
Combine sugar and salt and dip you dampened glass rim
Fill cocktail shaker with the watermelon juice, vodka or sparkling water, liqueur and lime juice. Fill shaker with ice and shake 6-8 times.
Strain and pour into the glasses and garnish with a watermelon wedge.

Reagan’s Sexy Savannah Nights Martini
1 tablespoon finely grated orange chocolate
1 teaspoon sugar
2 orange slices
1/2 cup premium chocolate ice cream, at room temperature for 5 minutes
1 ounce orange vodka (or fresh squeeze orange juice)

Gently stir together the chocolate and sugar and put it on a plate. Run an orange slice around the rim of a chilled martini glass and dip the rim in the chocolate/sugar mix to coat.
Add the ice cream and vodka to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into the prepared glass and garnish with the remaining orange slice.

So, do you have a fave summer drink? Something you like to sip while reading on hot summer day?

Auntie KiKi here and the weather’s changing here in Savannah and I got to tell you I am so ready for it. August around here is the pits, the weather so hot and humid it melts the white clean off the rice. So to celebrate last night I decided to pour myself a martini...then again I’m always pouring a martini for one reason on another...and bake up a fine pie. I never met a situation that a two-olive martini or a fine pie didn’t make better.
Fact is that’s how Reagan and I figure out a lot of whodunit situations. We sit on Reagan’s front porch pour out a martini and talk things over. Most of the time we have BW...that’s Reagan’s pup Bruce Willis...right there between us taking a nice snooze or begging for a nibble of pie that I just might bring along to share.
And I’m sharing my pie recipe and martini recipe with you.
Auntie KiKi’s Praline Pumpkin Pie
Crust
1 unbaked 9” pie shell
1/3 cup ground pecans
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons of butter, softened

Preheat the oven to 450°F (230°C, Gas Mark 8). Combine the pecans, brown sugar, and butter. Press into a pie shell. Bake for ten minutes.

Filling
3 eggs beaten
1 cup canned pumpkin
2/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tablespoon of all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon allspice
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ginger
½ teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup evaporated milk

Mix all the filling ingredients together until smooth and creamy. Add the filling to the partially baked pie crust (you can add a few of those pecans on top if you have a mind to) and bake at 325°F (170°C, Gas Mark 3) for another 40 minutes.

Yield: Makes one 9-inch pie

Sweaters and Scarves Martini
2 oz Grey Goose Vodka

1 pinch of Fresh Ginger

1 Fresh Green Apple

1 T Lime Juice


Muddle ginger and two apple slices. Add to vodka and lime juice. Pour over ice, shake, strain and pour into a glass. Top it up with dash of ginger ale and apple slice.


You all have a nice September now, you hear.
Hugs, your favorite auntie KiKi

Duffy Brown
Consignment Shop Mysteries

Hobbies and where they take us...

So what do Iced Chiffon, Killer in Crinolines, and Pearls in Poison have in common? They are all mystery stories set around a consignment shop in Savannah. When I decided to follow my dream and write mysteries I went with the old adage of write what you know and love. I adore Savannah, Georgia and I’ve worked in an upscale consignment shop for fifteen years. That’s how the series Consignment: Murder was born.

Consignment shopping is the fun of wearing designer clothes on the cheap. I could never afford a Coach handbag or an Armani jacket but I do love the expensive look and great quality. Most of all I love bragging to my friends how much I paid! The conversation goes something like, “Oh, isn’t that a great Kate Spade purse.” And my reply is, “I got it at the Snooty Fox for forty bucks!” instead of the usual three-hundred and fifty!

For years I shopped consignment stores then decided I needed to work at the Snoot since I was there all the time looking for deals. My kids were some of the best-dressed on campus and I did it for K-Mart prices.

Don’t you love the name Snooty Fox! The Snoot is an upscale consignment shop. How many times have you bought something, wore it once, decided it wasn’t your color or didn’t fit the way you liked and you were stuck with it? Well, that’s where the Snooty Fox comes in. You can sell your green plaid jacket that you just had to have but then decided you hated at the Snoot because there is a customer out there who will love that jacket and pay you good money for it.

Consignment shopping is a lot like solving a mystery. It’s all about the hunt for the perfect scarf, skirt or shoes. I think that’s why mystery and the Consignment: Murder series seemed like a perfect fit. The hunt is on!

Working at a consignment shop and my love for Savanna led me to writing a mystery series and I’m always amazed at where someone’s hobby or special interest led them? Did you meet a best friend? Your mate? Take classes? Visit a place? Get an award for perfecting your hobby or even teach a class on it?

Hobbies enriched our lives and often take us to places we never expected...like a murder mystery series. Who would have thought.

Hi, Auntie KiKi here and we’re gearing up for one of the most fun holidays in Savannah...Halloween!
Savannah may not have a lock on Halloween but we do have something special to toss in that we are haunted! Third most haunted city in the US so that’s a lot of haunting in my book.

Usually I just chalk this up to hype to bring people to Savannah. It’s good for business. The Haunted Savannah tours love it, the haunted hotels like the Marshal House loves it ‘cause it’s good for business and the restaurants like The Pirate House and the Old Pink House love it. The waiters love telling tales of peach cobbler flying across the room and room 212 that’s always cold and the phones that never work. Seems the ghosts love electronics and messing with them.

Like I said it’s the hype for the city and tourism...or is it.

Something’s in my attic! I’ve lived in my 140 year old Victorian house, Rosegate, for forty hears now and not so much as a peep. But lately there are noises, big noises. Things going pump in the night noises.
Why would my attic suddenly be haunted? What’s going on? Or is there something going on in my attic more sinister? My lovely husband Putter...named thus because he carries a putter with him everywhere...is out of town at a doctors convention. Wouldn’t you know!

Why do these things always happen when he’s away?
So my question is...do you think I have a ghost in my attic? Is it someone looking for something after all these years? Or is it just my imagination and I should go get myself another martini and try and calm down?

I live in Cincy but sort of moved to the South when I started writing the Consignment Shop Mysteries set in Savannah. I had to suddenly start thinking and living like my characters. I guess I’m a bit of a method writer like there are method actors where they live the part to get into the part.

I had to acquire the taste for sweet tea, I do love fried okra so that was already in place but I no longer carry Chapstick in the back pocket of my jeans but have instead learned to wear lipstick every-single-day-of-my-life-no-matter-what-and-no-matter-where-I'm-going.

My thick wool sweaters have been relegated to the back of my closet and I’ve made room for light cottony cardigans. I have a front porch so I put a rocking chair on it and as far as my speech goes my family thinks I’m crazy as a June bug.

Some of the Southern sayings I’ve tired out with limited success here in Ohio are…

Oh! Bless your heart..." My kids think this is sort of adorable but actually this expression is commonly used when Southerners need an excuse for speaking ill of someone. Example- "She's as ugly as a mud fence, bless her heart." Even though the line was an insult it is made better by showing that you, in a way, feel sorry for the person.

And of course there’s Well Butter my butt and call me a biscuit. The fam thought I’d hit the vodka when I tried this one.

She looked like she’d been ridden hard and put away wet. I’ve used this one a lot all my life. That’s what I get from living so close to the Kentucky border.

He could sell a Popsicle to a lady wearing white gloves. Meaning the individual is so good at persuasion that he or she could talk his or her way into anything. The sales lady at Macy’s ran when I tried this one.

You can't get blood from a turnip. Meaning you can't get something from someone who doesn't have it. My accountant got this one right off the bat.

Madder than a wet hen and He's like a bull in a china shop answers.
Go whole hog today and have yourself a mighty fine time.
Hugs, Duffy