And The Plot Thickens!

By Robin 'Red Hot' Kaye

I spent all day yesterday sitting at Starbucks with my critique partners, Laura Becraft and Deborah Villegas plotting my next book. I’m so thankful for these two women—they’re my best friends, they're the closest of sisters who adopted me and made me one of them, they're my support group, my bullsh*t meters, and a veritable laugh factory. They are also talented writers and fabulous plotting and critique partners.  I’ve written my last five novels and one novella with their help, and I can’t imagine how I managed to write the first three books without them.

Deborah and Laura at one of our favorite New York haunts--the St. Andrews Restaurant and Bar. 

Yesterday they took my blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year, and made it one filled with joy and laughter. My blue Monday was especially blue because my college boy flew the coop that morning and winged his way back to Boise State for classes tomorrow. Somehow they still managed to make me laugh so hard I was thankful I always do my Kegel exercises—as were the Starbucks employees, I’m sure!

Yes, Laura, Deborah, and I are those weird women cackling at the window table in Starbucks. It is ‘our’ table, and thanks to my Deborah—the shy and reserved one—we were able to get the nice man who was using it to move. I offered to pay him off in coffee, but he kindly refused and said he’d seen us there so often, always at our table, he wouldn’t dream of messing with our mojo. And mojo is exactly what we have. When we work together we feed each other more than just coffee and iced tea lemonades. We call each other on taking the easy way out—and yes, we’ve all been known to try to get away with it, we force each other to dig deeper, to write fresher, work harder, and we help each other finish our books.

Yesterday we plotted an incredible story for my third Bad Boys of Red Hook book and now all I have to do is write the synopsis—a thing that puts the fear of God into most writers—and do it justice. I’m not worried—believe me, they’ll tell me if I don’t make the grade.

The Best Day Ever...

By Robin 'Red Hot' Kaye

If you’ve read my books—or my blogs for that matter, you probably know I’m a bit of a foodie. Okay, a total foodie. I love to cook almost as much as I love to eat, and food usually plays a special role in all my books.

I’m working on a book right now, the second in the Bad Boys of Red Hook series—YOUR THE ONE, and my heroine is a chef. I thought it would be easy because I’m a total food snob. So off I go, writing away, and I realized that although I’ve worked in restaurants, I never spent much time in the kitchens except to walk through them in expensive clothes and four-inch heels—not a fun thing. In other words, I had to do research—a lot of it.

I got on google, checked out executive chefs, sous chefs, line cooks—you know, the normal stuff, but I had no idea how many cooks a kitchen needs for a 70-seat restaurant. I didn’t know how often they order food, hell, I didn’t even know what kind of equipment you need in a kitchen for that size restaurant.

I was discussing my problem with a friend of mine, Jenny, and she lit up. It turns out she is friends with Chef Jeff Eng—the executive chef from Clyde’s Tower Oaks Lodge—a brilliant, beautiful, five-hundred seat restaurant that looks like a hunting lodge on steroids, and has the best food I’ve eaten in the state of Maryland. I’ve been here twelve years so that’s saying something!

 Chef Jeff Eng

Chef Jeff has been on Chopped, he won Hop Chef—basically, he’s amazing and a really good sport since he invited me to hang with him and his crew in the kitchen for a day. I jumped at the chance. 

I showed up a little after ten in the morning and met Chef Jeff—an Asian man in his early forties, dressed in chef’s whites and wearing a baseball cap covering his foot-tall orangey-yellow mohawk. I’d googled him and saw pictures—it seems the mohawk changes color on a weekly basis.

I liked Jeff immediately. I watched as the wait-staff arrive, all of whom either shook Jeff’s hand or gave him a hug. The kitchen and wait-staff seemed like one big happy family. Jeff introduced me to his sous chef, Enrique, his pastry chef, Maura Radmanes, and a plethora of others—all were friendly, and answered every question I had.

I was chatting with the Maura when Jeff grabbed me and invited me to the ‘Specials Class’ where he showed off the day’s specials. My mouth watered as he described how each one was prepared, whether or not they were gluten-free, and what the ingredients were. He added little bits of information—such as a history of Gin which I learned is made from juniper berries, and the Brits had gone to Holland to extend the family line by marrying one of the monarchs, and came back with much more than a bride, they’d taken the secret to making Gin. Who knew?

Fifteen minutes later we were back to the kitchen and things started getting busy.

I had expected controlled chaos. What I hadn’t expected was a well-oiled machine. I watched the entire lunch rush and only saw one mistake—a server had taken a bowl of seafood stew that wasn’t meant for him, and no fewer than five people noticed it.  I watched how they handled allergy orders—someone was allergic to onions and Chef Jeff followed the dish from the time it was empty to the time the order was up to make sure it never came into contact with an onion, and then personally handed it off to a special person for an allergy carry. Yeah, it wasn’t even served with the rest of the food. Chef oversaw everything while running back and forth to a huge pot of sauce he was making with veal stock and hoisin sauce—it was so rich, it was cooking down for hours and completely coated the ladle. 

When things started to slow down, Chef Jeff invited me to sit and chat. We went to the dining room, sat down, and I pulled out my notebook with a plethora of questions. When I looked up Jeff was smiling. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat.” I was shocked I hadn’t spent the entire time drooling. Then I realized I’d spent hours in the kitchen and never smelled food. It was odd, their ventilation system was so good, I didn’t get a whiff of anything, which for me, was kind of disappointing. I really love to smell the food.

A server appeared and Jeff asked me what I liked. I’m not a picky eater—I answered with my usual, anything but liver and lima beans. He quirked a brow and ordered. Ten minutes later I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. He’d ordered The Local Butcher Board, which had Italian ham, Capicola, Duck Confit, homemade pickles, incredible breads, Teriyaki Red Pepper Jerky, mustard, and the best fig jam known to man served on a butcher board. I tried everything and it was all fabulous.

Then came the oysters on the half-shell—several different kinds flown in from all over. We slurped oysters for a while. I really love oysters and the different kinds were surprisingly very different tasting, I’d never noticed before because I’d always had one kind or the other, never several side-by-side.

I was still deciding if I should lick the fig jam off the butcher board (oh yeah, it was really that good) when our entrees were delivered. Jeff said I just had to try his crab cakes. I thought, sure, why not, but frankly, crab cakes have never blown my skirt up. I mean I like them, but they’re not something I dream about. And yes, I dream about food. Let me tell you, I’ll be dreaming about Jeff’s crab cakes. He wasn’t blowing smoke when he said he made the best. The crab cake I ate was, by far, the best I’ve ever tasted. I totally ignored the potatoes and green beans and never bothered to use the cocktail sauce—it was totally unnecessary.  No wonder Jeff told me I had to try it.

Then Maura—the pastry chef joined us. She came out of the kitchen carrying the most orgasmic dessert I ever imagined. It was a Valrhona Chocolate Marquise, which is dark chocolate mousse and chocolate cake with ganache, Nutella bombe and local blackberry compote. Jeff and I shared, though he only had a few bites. I was so stuffed from the rich food, I told him he had to eat more. When he declined, he said that was okay, I could just leave it. IMPOSSIBLE! I couldn’t leave it—it’s against my religion to let amazing dark chocolate go uneaten. I made the major sacrifice and took one for the team. I hope you appreciate what I do for my art.

By the time I left, I had a full stomach, a bunch of menu ideas for the book—Jeff gave me a full five-course meal and a tasting menu—and I knew all the particulars about staff and equipment. It was the best day ever!

Oh, and then when I got home, grumbling about having to work instead of napping, I opened my email and saw the cover for my novella—HOMETOWN GIRL coming out in ebook on December 3rd. It was perfect, just like the rest of my day!

Let me know what you think of the cover, and tell me, are you a foodie? Do you dream of food? And do you enjoy foodie novels?

Switching Gears

By Robin 'Red Hot' Kaye

After finishing my first book in my Bad Boys of Red Hook series, I had to get my head back into my Domestic Gods—men who cook, clean, and know how to take care of their women. It’s been a difficult transition from Red Hook in Brooklyn, to the Sawtooth National Recreation Area in the mountains of Idaho, to get out of my bad boys heads and into Trapper Kincaid, irreverent judge, outdoorsman, and all around great guy.

 I was lucky enough to marry my very own Domestic God, so over the last few days, I had to remind myself of all the ways my Domestic God makes almost everything in life more bearable—the ones I can write about, anyway.

 ➢ My Domestic God wakes me up every morning with a smile and a cup of coffee. I choose to believe he does this because I’m worth it. He tells me he does it because he loves me—and because of that pesky safety issue. I’m downright scary until after I’ve had my coffee. The man has learned the importance of buying great coffee and has extraordinary coffee-making ability. It’s a gift.

 ➢ Laundry and cleaning: Before I began writing seriously, my Domestic God did laundry only when he was in fear of having to wear his “emergency spare” pair of underwear—the dreaded Christmas Tigger boxers which, in his estimation, were not only embarrassing, but very uncomfortable. But I digress. In case you are unaware, cleaning and laundry are my nemesis. As a stay-at-home mom, I did my fair share of both. Okay, I’ll admit, I did as little of my fair share as possible. Still, I did more cleaning and laundry than anyone should be subject to in a lifetime.

 When I began working toward publication, my Domestic God sat me down and told me he’d been thinking. He’d decided that writing and taking care of the kids were two full-time jobs. Since he only had one job, it was only fair that he take over the cleaning and laundry. After he revived me from my dead faint, he got very lucky.

 ➢ Childcare: It’s understood that Domestic Gods either take over childcare responsibilities when they come home from work or they cook dinner. My DG, while sufficient in the kitchen, is not the cook that I am. He always took over the changing of diapers, bathing of kids, and telling of bedtime stories while I cooked dinner. He regarded it as his quality time with the kids. I regarded it as my quality time without them. Until the kids were old enough to clean up after dinner, DG usually did the dishes, too, God love him.

 ➢ My Domestic God is willing to be brave and inconvenienced. He and my son—DG in Training—are called upon to kill bugs and pick up dead critters the cat drags in—even if it means driving home from work to do so. My DG doesn’t understand why I can play with octopi and snakes, deal with any amount of blood or medical procedures, not be bothered by live critters, but totally freak when I come in contact with a dead mouse or squirrel, or worse, a not-quite-dead mouse, squirrel, rabbit, or possum. My Domestic God knows not to tease me about my ick factor tolerance, and appreciates the opportunity to show his true heroic qualities. My DG in training has yet to learn either of those finer points.

 ➢ I believe Domestic Gods must be handy around the house and with cars or be willing to pay those who are. It would behoove said DG to make sure whomever he hired be easy on the eyes. I do so love a man in a tool-belt, but then, my DG has his own tool-belt and can fix pretty much anything. He’s also easy on the eyes, although these eyes wouldn’t mind some variety in dreamy tool-belt-wearing men. Unfortunately, I’ll probably never get to drool over another, but then I don’t have to deal with the guys who aren’t so dreamy and have a penchant for showing off butt cleavage, either.


Trapper Kincaid is a Domestic God Gone Wild, so he can do all of the above, indoors or out. He can cook a five-course meal in a kitchen or over a campfire, excels in the bedroom, tent... okay, he excels pretty much everywhere after the first of May anyway, loves to clean--I know, he's a little sick, and has a string of 72-hour affairs. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get he and Bianca together for more than 72-hours...

Thanks for allowing me to do this little exercise to get my head back into my Domestic Gods! So, if you had your very own Domestic God, what would you want him to do for you? I can't wait to hear your answers, but, um, please remember this is a PG 13 rated blog...