Friday, June 04, 2010

The Research Begins

I’m under contract for a new mystery series which I’ll be writing under a brand new pseudonym--Jacklyn Brady. As a kid, I always wanted to be named either Jacklyn. Or Ruby. I had a beautiful cousin named Ruby and when I was little, I wanted to look just like her. Oh who am I kidding? As an adult I wanted to look just like her, too. She died in a car accident in 1999 and the world lost someone truly wonderful that day.

I seriously thought about becoming Ruby Something for this series, but I wondered if taking her name might make me worry too much about living up to something in my own head. My internal editors are troublesome enough when I’m writing, so Jacklyn it is.

But anyway ….

The new series will be set in New Orleans and it centers on the world of cake decorating, a la Ace of Cakes. I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few months researching the location, the area, and the world of cakes, but today the real research begins – baking and trying my hand at decorating.

Today’s effort will be a lemon scented white cake with a lemon mousse filling. I think I made a cake from scratch back in the olden days when i was taking Home Ec classes in school, but it’s been a while.

How will I decorate? I’m still working on that and I’ll let you know when I’ve figured it out -- just don’t expect anything spectacular. I’ll count today’s efforts successful if the cake is edible!

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