The Leopard Tavern - What's Cookin'? Arancini anyone? Chefs - Any good arancini recipes?

In Malice Stalks the Leopard, we have Ysabella making arancini for everyone.  It's one of Amodeus's favorites.  What is arancini?  I'm asking any chefs to care to contribute their recipes or to explain their ingredients.  When I lived in Palermo and was doing archival research, I ate a lot of arancini.  Yummy!!!!

Tomatoes - Yes We Have no Tomatoes in 13th century Sicily

Many people might be surprised to know that tomatoes are a New World product.  The Spanish brought tomatoes back from Mexico.   Tannehill's Food in History states that two Jesuit priests brought the red tomato, now beloved in southern Italy and Sicily and which we associate with Italian cooking, back from America.

Quiz:  Is the tomato a fruit or a vegetable?

Book #2 of the Vespers Trilogy - Malice Stalks the Leopard

Malice Stalks the Leopard is out on Amazon as both an e-book and a paperback.  Feel free to go to Amazon.com and check out both Murder at the Leopard (Book #1) and Malice Stalks the Leopard (Book #2).  Book #3 is being written as we speak!

Don't hesitate either - if you've read either or both - to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads!

Thanks Bobbie and Jim!!!!!

some favorite pictures - mosaics, architecture, medieval buildings

These are some of my favorite pictures of Sicily and Palermo

12th century art - Norman and Islamic architecture in Sicily

3  I found this on the Medieval Academy of America blog - there are so many beautiful pictures of medieval Sicily but I thought I'd start with this one -  I don't know who wrote it but here it is, it looks to me like Monreale, which is stunning - check it out online

Norman Architecture in Sicily

A very dear friend of mine has moved to Sicily for a spell. The pictures she has been sharing are phenomenal. Since I can't join her, I thought it a good excuse to rummage through my knowledge of Norman art and architecture in Sicily...which I know a surprising amount about, because my medieval professor in graduate school has published on the topic, and taught us an entire seminar's worth of 12th century architecture...
Part of what I find most fascinating about 12th century Norman art and architecture in Sicily is the mixture of Norman Romanesque, native Italian materials, and Islamic influences...see where you can spot them in this smattering of art from that period:

Cloister, Monreale Cathedral: view from the southwest, showing sculpted capitals of north side, ca. 1175-118. Monreale, Sicily

A Mediterranean diet - 13th century tavern food and munchies - did they get their veggies and greens?

Many people have this vision of a big, Henry VIII-type person gnawing on some roasted animal leg and flinging it behind him.  And that's their idea of medieval food.  Actually, he's almost 300 years later and if you want to think medieval Sicily - think something very familiar - Mediterranean! 

Murder at the Leopard talks about a lot of the food Ysabella and Larissa prepare - but the characters are always snacking on - guess what - olives, cheese, bread, fruit.  But also salads were very popular, with all the usual veggies - radishes, cukes, melons and squash, fruits of all kinds, lemons, oranges and lines, lettuces, onions, garlic, apricots, almonds, pomegranates figs, pears, apples and prunes.  Grapes of course both for themselves and for wine!  Nuts, legumes - the list is endless.

Daily Bread: Medieval and Italian

It's time to start talking about food.  Check out the food and recipe page on your right. 

My first recipe is Gingerbread Biscotti.  Easy and delisioso for many occasions!  Feel free to share and send me your Biscotti recipes.

Earrings, Mariachi and Lawyers - what do they have in common?

Now, just so you don't think I only have my head in the 13th century - I found some other terrific books - and authors.  Check out Teresa Burrell's legal series.  Why did I look at Teresa's books? Well, first of all she's published 5 books in her series and had on these very cool earrings - a 5 book dangly concoction from each ear with her title on one side and the back of the book on the other.  LOVE THOSE EARRINGS so that got my attention, I started talking to her, and by golly ended up with a cool pair of earrings, a great book and me begging her to beg her earring maker to make me some Vespers Trilogy earrings.  Keep you posted on that one.

Mariachi!  I live in the San Luis Valley and am getting acquainted that that kind of music - D.R. Ransdell's Mariachi Murder is terrific so check it out.  Music - there's some kind of music for everyone.

Last but not least, let's not forget the 12th century - you know, those thrilling days of yesteryore and all that jazz - how about James Boschert's books published by Fireship Press, who does medieval and nautical historical novels.  Browsed at that booth for QUITE awhile.  Want to go to Jerusalem and not pay the airfare - well, then 12th century Assassins of Alamut might be for you -

The place that excites your attention

What do you look at when you're perusing book titles?  I was just at the Tucson Book Festival and and I saw a book cover with the Chicago skyline on it.  I could see it was a mystery.  Presto!  I'm talking with the author because it's not only Sicily and the Middle Ages that get my attention, but Chicago because I lived there most of my life.

So - check out Pascal Marco's terrific mystery murder - Identity:  Lost.  It's great.  And he really knows his Chicago.

What place gets your attention?

Preparing for the Festival

My coauthor arrived today from Colorado in time for our Festival of Books adventure. The Tucson Festival is the 4th largest in the country and hosts over 400 authors in a wide variety of fields. We are excited to visit with other mystery authors Sharon Kay Penman, Anne Perry, Anne Hillerman, and local Tucson authors Rebecca Dalke and Susan Cummins Miller. We will be signing copies of Murder at the Leopard and Malice Stalks the Leopard, the first two medieval mysteries of the Vespers Trilogy, at the Sisters in Crime booth (#113) Saturday 11 to 1 and Sunday 10 to 12.  Hope to see you there. Also, check our blog next month for news of coming contests and give-aways.

OK, yesterday I went on the radio - KRZA - and talked about our Vespers Trilogy, writing, e-publishing and researching a historical novel.  It was a blast!

Next week my co-author and I will be at the Tucson Book Fair at the Sisters in Crime booth, selling our books so stop by and see us!  I'll have some free biscotti for you ...

I'd like to know from readers out there just what books you're reading that are set in the Middle Ages.  Give me a critique, a list, whatever.  With my heart set in Italy, I usually pick up books from that region, but the overwhelming percentage, of course, are books set in England.  I did love Philippa Gregory's Tudor series and I think she envisions new twists on well-known stories, which is not easy.  Her characters are complex and she makes them interesting.  We think we know these people from their well-publicized histories, but she was able to show us different facets of how she imagined they acted.  However fictional they might be, they are always plausible and fascinating.  Not an easy task.

Another author I was talking about with a friend was Sharon Kay Penman, whose Sunne in Splendor just blew me away.  she again creates vivid and plausible characters and weaves in the time period seamlessly so that by the end of her novels, you feel you've been there.

So stop by and see us at the Tucson Book Fair - happy reading!!

Welcome to our new blog site for medieval Sicily and the Vespers Series murder mysteries

 

This blog is about historical novels situated in exotic 13th century Sicily and uses the political tensions of the time, and an old Crusader’s secret to provide the background to this medieval murder mystery.  Proud owner of the local tavern, The Leopard, Amodeus de Rogerio is wrongfully accused of murdering a patron; can his family save him from the hangman in time?

 

Crusaders, killers, pilgrims might abound in medieval murder mysteries, but Murder at the Leopard lures the reader with both its story and its atypical setting.  Unique in time and place - Sicily in 1281 – the characters and daily life spring right out of original 13^th century notarial contracts painstakingly researched by the author, a history that underpins the twists and turns as the family races to save Amodeus.   You can smell the lavender and the citrus, as well as the street, and the food served at The Leopard is historically authentic, showcasing the exciting melting pot that was medieval Sicily – glittering prize of the Mediterranean.