Teaser Tuesday!

Teaser Tuesday Meme Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, the series where I share snippets from new and past releases and works-in-progress, and occasionally twist the arms of writer buddies to do the same.

I haven’t been doing a lot of cooking lately. I’ve tried out a few new recipes but none were exciting and none went on the keeper pile. Actually I lie. This recipe for Balinese Beef Curry was lovely. And this one for Banana Caramel Oat Slice from online magazine Beauty and Lace was pretty tasty too.

I’m not sure why I’m not cooking much. I suspect it’s because my head is too full of Eddie and the Show Queen (this book is taking forever to write, gah!) but also because we’ve been doing stuff on Fridays, which is my usual day for hitting the kitchen for a good cooking sesh.

So what’s this got to do with Teaser Tuesday? Well, the other day when I was tooling around in my files I found the raw footage for a Cooking The Country Girl video I’d planned to share with you (watch the first one here). That never eventuated because of house moving hell followed by internet connection dramas that still haven’t been resolved. Anyway, seeing those video files reminded me of how much I adore that book and that we haven’t featured it on Teaser Tuesday on it for a while. Since early February, in fact.

It also made me think that now my new herb garden is kicking along I should make a big serve of Tash’s tortelli di zucca. It’s perfect for the cold weather and because it contains pumpkin, I can claim it as healthy (we won’t mention the butter and sage sauce). It’ll also give me a chance to get out the pasta machine. I love that gadget. It’s so shiny and cool looking, and fresh pasta is awesome.

Which leads me back to The Country Girl and Tash’s gorgeous, gardening guru grandfather. Here he is with Tash.

Thursday morning brought Pa and a pumpkin the size, weight and colour of a small boulder.

‘Did you put it on steroids or something?’ Tash asked as he hoisted the monster onto the bench.

‘No, Flossie. That’s just good old-fashioned poo.’

‘Nice. I’ll be sure to tell my fans that.’

She eyed it dubiously. A pumpkin of that size was bound to be woody. Maybe she could save it for October and do something Halloween-y with it.

‘Don’t look at my baby like that.’ Pa patted it as though it were a dog. ‘That’s prime Queensland Blue.’

‘A Queensland Blue I’ll need a chainsaw to cut into,’ said Tash, turning on the espresso machine. ‘Or maybe an axe.’

Ah, Pa. He was such a great character to write. Enjoy more of him, and Tash and Patrick, with your own copy of The Country Girl. Available now from these stores: