A Mini Class on Tea

DEBORAH CROMBIE:  As requested by Hank and some of our readers earlier in the week, I will try to dredge up some of the information from the tea master's class I took in London quite a few years ago! I do have a certificate that says I am a "Certified Tea Master," but I can't find it. Nor can I find any of my coffee table books on tea, which must have been cleared out in one book purge or another. (This is always the way of it, isn't it? As soon as you give things away, you discover you need them again...) So we will have to rely on my memory, with a bit of help from our friend the internet.

I'm going to concentrate on black tea, as herbals and tisanes are not my forte and are not technically tea. Here are some loose black teas. That's Lover's Leap on the left, English breakfast on the right, and Earl Grey on the bottom. If you look closely you can see the differences in color and texture.

Black tea is made from the oxidized leaves of the Camellia Sinensis plant. Legend has it that many years ago in China, a single leaf from the plant fell into the cup of a Chinese emporer, so the love of the beverage was born. Until the 1800s, tea was cultivated almost exclusively in China, but cultivation has now spread across more than 40 countries. 

There is so much history here that we can only touch on the barest details! (The East India Company, British colonization, the American revolution, etc. etc.!)

The most significant production of tea today is in China, India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Turkey. Two of the most popular types of tea are Assam, grown in India, and Ceylon, grown in Sri Lanka. Assam has a rich, malty flavor and is most often used in "breakfast blends" like English, Scottish, or Irish Breakfast teas. Ceylon teas are a little more delicate, but are also used in the base blend for "breakfast" teas and in Earl Grey blends.

"Earl Grey" is simply a black tea blend to which is added bergamot, a distinctive citrus flavoring derived from citrus bergamia, a orange-sized fruit with a yellow-green color, thought to be a ancient hybrid between a lemon and an orange.

White and green teas are made from less oxidized Camellia Sinenis leaves, but the science of tea production is way beyond our scope here.

Loose teas are made from whole tea leaves, while teabag teas are made from smaller, broken tea particles, or "dust." While tea bags brew faster, the tea lacks the full flavor of loose tea and can often taste bitter.

Now for the fun stuff--how to make a proper cuppa! In an ideal world, you'd pour filtered water just off the boil over loose leaf tea in a warmed teapot. Let steep for at least five minutes--patience, patience! Then pour and enjoy, with or without milk. I generally drink mine unsweetened with a little milk to buffer the tannins. There is much controversy over whether the milk should be added before or after the tea, but I honestly don't think it makes much difference. If I'm pouring tea from a teapot, I put milk in first. If I'm making tea in a mug, I add it afterwards.

Loose tea in a pot, poured through a strainer, is ideal because more hot water comes in contact with the tea leaves, releasing more flavor. But I am lazy, and most often put my loose tea into a t-sac, a paper do-it-yourself teabag, and brew it right in my mug. I use the biggest size t-sac because it works in both mug and pot.

Here are some of my current favorite teas, with the t-sacs.

The tea in the center is Lover's Leap from the English Tea Store, available online, as are the Davidson's Organics. Most loose teas are available in smaller sized bags if you want to experiment with some different teas to discover which ones you like.

I've been a bit off Earl Grey lately and am drinking Lover's Leap for my afternoon cuppa. If you use loose teas, you can also blend them yourself. I generally use half Lover's Leap and half English Breakfast in the morning.

Many fancy "silk" teabags these days are actually plastic, so I don't recommend them if you're worried about injesting, or using, microplastics. Even some paper teabags have plastic sealants and binders. The t-sacs, however, are made from banana or manila hemp, a renewable material grown in southeast Asia, and are 100% plastic and chlorine free.

Here is my idea of a perfect afternoon tea, a cup of Lover's Leap with a slice of my local bakery's lemon olive oil cake!

I have many teapots, but thought the Emma Bridgewater pot with the types of teas the most appropriate!

Reddies, will you join me in a cuppa? And if you have more tea questions I'll do my best to answer them!

Update on Ella the Dander Cat

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Some of you may remember that when my friend Gigi passed away suddenly early last September, she left two cats and three dogs that needed rehoming. We volunteered to take Ella, her fifteen-year-old tabby, thinking we would give this elderly girl a nice calm place to wind out her years. Boy, we were in for a surprise!

Although we have certainly given Ella a relatively calm and very comfortable new home, she is in no way ready to snooze away her twilight days--or at least only part of them.  

She is a devil cat! Those of you who are cat owners will know that introducing a cat into a household with two resident cats can be tough. We took it very slowly, first keeping Ella in our guest room in the big dog crate, then giving her the run of the room, and then out into the house. There is no going back at that point! We plugged in pheramone diffusers that are supposted to help calm cats, and we think those did help. There was some hissing and spitting but the three tabbies never came to actual blows, and now seem to pretty much ignore each other. (Ella and Jasmine the German shepherd were just fine from day one.) 

What we didn't expect was that fifteen-year-old Ella has the energy of a kitten, and that she is into EVERYTHING in the house. And from the moment she was free to roam, she decided that she is queen, no argument allowed. Our cat Yasu always had the spot between Rick and me on the sofa at night--no longer. Ella has the house schedule down pat and will there waiting for us. Poor Yasu can't get a paw in!

Here is Ella napping in her favorite spot on the sunporch sofa while I write, a kitty muse. Lucy usually takes the basket chair, and Yasu will be upstairs on our bed.

But the thing that we really didn't expect was that Ella is the DANDER CAT. We've lived with cats for years, and although I'd read that some cats caused more allergies than others, we'd never had an issue with it. (If our Hallie ever comes to visit, we'll have to put her up at our daughter's catless house!)

If you pet Ella, or let her get in your lap (her prime objective in life) it's time to get out the allergy eyedrops and the anihistamine. 

Have any of you who are cat owners ever experienced this?

Excuse my while I go and rub my eyes...

Dear Reds and readers, do you have any success stories with taking in cats or dogs that needed new forever homes? (I think I could safely say that Ella considers her story a success!)

Spring Project #1

DEBORAH CROMBIE: We've lived in this old house thirty years as of last August, and while our butler's pantry is a lovely vintage feature, the bottom half of it has always been a storage nightmare. There are two big deep cabinets with no shelves, and while we considered putting in a shelf either side, that wouldn't have solved the problem of not being able to see, much less get to, the things in the back. Added to that, when we remodeled our kitchen (I can't believe that's been more than fifteen years ago!) we tore out our original walk-in pantry and, while the kitchen is now much more functional as far as cooking, there was really no way to replace that lost storage. (Too many windows and doors...)

Fast forward to April last year, when I ordered (after measuring really, really carefully) these very cool, stainless units with pull-out shelves. Then my back went out, and the project got put on the back burner, with the shelving boxes sitting in our dining room, until we tackled it last weekend.

I should have taken a before picture! Although I really don't think we'd have wanted that photo popping up first on blog previews--just believe me, it was a horrible mess.

After clearing all the junk out, Rick installed the shelves and we organized what was left. This is the result.

Rick even installed a motion sensitve light in the center! I have to keep opening the doors to admire the fabulousness!! I can pull out my Instant Pot without breaking my back! I can find things! Things don't fall out on my feet!

I don't know about everyone else, but there are three things that need constant replacement in our kitchen: stock, canned tomatoes and tomato sauces, and canned beans. 

Since the majority of our storage had been in this incredibly inconvenient cabinent by the fridge--

I could never see what I had and was always buying more of things that were buried in the back. This is what we ended up with:

Have you ever seen so many cans of beans??? We are ready for the apocalypse!

Now those cans of beans and the tomatoes are labeled so it's easy to keep track, and without all of the stuff that is now in the new shelving, the kitchen pantry might be a little more manageable.  

There was a nervous moment (much too late to return the shelving if it didn't fit) when we put in the first unit, but after a little manhandling, the doors did close. I wasn't kidding about measuring carefully--there was zero extra space. Whew.

Now, of course, the top half of the pantry needs to be cleaned out and organized--but not for a week or two!

So, dear Reds and readers, do you have a #1 spring project on your list?

P.S. The only downside is that there now nowhere to put my paper sacks!

My Mother's Apron

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I've been thinking a lot about my mom lately, prompted in part, I think, by our discussion earlier this week about growing up in a tea or coffee household. In the image that immediately comes to mind of my mom in the kitchen, brewing her perocolater coffee, she is wearing a half apron made from a terrycloth dish towel. She made these herself, and I remember them as being striped in the ugliest colors imaginable, perhaps gray, brown, and orange together, with the waistband and ties made from whatever cotton scraps must have been handy. She would not do anything in the kitchen without the everpresent apron.

My mom's aprons did NOT look like this! Nor did she ever serve my dad tea from a teapot.

I also thought of mom and her aprons when I was cooking the other night--without an apron, as usual--and splashed a big spot of hot grease on my thigh. Ouch, and a good thing I was wearing old pants.

How did I not aquire this very practical apron habit from my mom and grandmother (who preferred the pinafore type apron with a bib)? Partly because I am a slob when home and wear such ratty clothes that a spill or a splash is not a disaster, and partly, I think, because aprons had gone out of style by the time I was beginning to cook in my own kitchen.

Aprons have been worn as far back as the 1300s, and the name is thought to have come from the French word napron, "a small piece of cloth." Here's a lovely painting from the French artist Leon Bonvin, circa 1862.

The 1950S and 60s were the heyday of aprons in the US, when ads and TV moms always featured a woman wearing an apron. (June Cleaver, anyone?) 

But if the advent of feminism, more casual clothes, and women who worked sounded a death knell for the trusty garmet, it is apparently having a resurgence. Etsy is awash in aprons, vintage and new, and they pop up in upmarket clothing lines, too.

I do remember to put on an apron when I'm cooking for company--therefore wearing nicer clothes! Here's my favorite, from Anthropologie. Who could resist? (It does have to be ironed, unfortunately, as you can tell from my not very professional ironing job...)

How about it, Reddies? Do you have an apron handy in your kitchen? 

Clea Simon--The Butterfly Trap

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It is always a treat to have the multi-talented author Clea Simon visit here on JRW. Clea writes both cozies and dark psychological suspense, which inspires transports of admiration from me--I can't imagine how you twist your brain into such different shapes! Clea's latest, THE BUTTERFLY TRAP, definitely falls on the suspense side of the ledger, and here she is to tell us what inspired it.

What patterns are playing out in your life?

 

Hi and thanks for having me here today! Or here again, I should say, since you’ve hosted me before. Which brings up the question I’ve been wrestling with lately: What are the patterns you see in your lives? And, maybe more to the point, how do we use them in our writing?

This hit home just last week when I found myself teetering on the verge of an old fight. In brief, I’d been home all day working on the computer, with the exception of a short (and very careful!) walk in the icy day. My darling husband Jon (no relation to Hank’s Jonathan) had gone to the Boston Public Library to do some research. (He’s retired, but that just means more time for his own writing projects.) And so when he came home, I nearly jumped on him, full of things I wanted to tell him. How the writing was going. What the cat did. Thoughts on the day’s news (oh, so many thoughts…). And I could almost see him recoil.

To explain, he’d been at the library, but he’d been dealing with people all day. And I? Well, I’d only been dealing with the people in my head. All of whom were dying to come out.

It was all too much. I caught myself, and he met me halfway, asking about the day’s work and more. But in that moment, I saw a dynamic I recognized.

You see, my mother was an artist – a painter and printmaker, who dabbled in other media as well and who also, of course, had the full responsibility for us kids. My father was a doctor. An internist with a private practice, who saw patients all day. Too often, that meant a conflict at the end of the day. He’d come home, tired and wanting some quiet. And she, who hadn’t spoken to an adult all day, would be bursting with thoughts – with ideas she wanted to share. Ready for contact. Needless to say, it didn’t always end well.

In the worst scenarios, the tension would simmer for about an hour. By then, we’d be sitting at the dinner table – because, of course, despite her own work, my mom had to have dinner on the table at six! At some point, my mother would start to needle my father. Little things. Half-said comments that she wouldn’t repeat. And, inevitably, at some point, my father would blow up. He was a big man with a big voice, so this would be loud and, frankly, scary. My mother would run off to the kitchen, crying. And I, her youngest (and female), would follow to comfort her, leaving my father at the table. But even then I would be aware that he wasn’t really angry. In fact, he’d be confused. What had happened? Why had he exploded? He was like the proverbial bull in the china shop at that point, unable to take another step without causing damage. And as I hugged my Mom in the kitchen, I also felt sympathy for him. They were caught in a pattern that neither had the awareness to break.

In retrospect, so many other factors played into their relationship – and into their fights. Her work, for one, was never taken as seriously as his – by my father, by society at large. It certainly didn’t bring in an equivalent amount of money, which is too often how we measure such things. And there had been an imbalance in the relationship from the start: She’d been the beautiful artist he had pursued, winning in part with the promise of being able to give her a comfortable life – as a doctor’s wife. But was that who she wanted to be? Although he supported her work (and, I believe, was proud when she sold to museums and was honored in juried shows), did he ever understand it?

I confess, it took another friend’s disastrous relationship to make me revisit these old patterns in my own life. He and his then-love had come to visit, and by the third day, while she was sleeping in, he and I were crying at the kitchen table. It was impossible, he was saying. She drank too much. She was crazy. “But R-,” I remember saying to him. “You like the crazy! You’re drawn to it!”

“I know, but…” he replied (at least as I remember it. In truth, he might have resisted my diagnosis a bit longer). And sometime that day, as they both packed to go, it hit me. These patterns of love and anger. Where the fulfillment of one dream means the denying of the other. The way we wreck the ones we adore. And that night, I began to write The Butterfly Trap, a he said/she said tale of love and obsession that explores the dynamics of relationships, gender roles and expectations, along with lots of blood, dirty deeds, and sex (hey, I do write to entertain!).

And me and Jon? I don’t know if I’m any more careful these days. But I’m certainly more aware. Patterns can so easily become habits, treads worn in our minds… leading us down a tragic path.

What about you? Do you see patterns from your family of origins that have persisted in your lives? Are they useful or can you learn from them? Let me know!

 

About The Butterfly Trap:

Anya and Greg seem to be the golden couple, until dark secrets come to light and unleash inevitable devastation in this slow-burn he said/she said psychological suspense novel.

 

Greg has his life all planned out: become a doctor, buy a house, and have a wife and children – and when he meets Anya during his post-doc studies in Boston, all of his dreams seem to come true. It’s love at first sight, and Greg doesn’t shy away from changing his life to provide Anya, his beautiful butterfly, with everything she wants and needs.

 

Anya is a struggling artist, determined to make it as a painter in Boston’s art scene – but getting involved with shy and sweet Greg could thwart her lifelong ambition. Their relationship unfolds like a classic love story . . . except that Anya seems to be hiding something that unsuspecting Greg soon must face.

 

Are Greg and Anya truly the perfect couple, or will jealousy, uncertainty, and dangerous machinations break them apart in the most dreadful way imaginable?

 

“The theme of fear and control in a relationship emerges in Simon’s slow-burn latest, along with the exploration of the many ways two people can deceive each other.” – Booklist

 

Before turning to a life of crime (fiction), Boston Globe-bestselling author Clea Simon was a journalist. A native of New York, she came to Massachusetts to attend Harvard University and never left. The author of three nonfiction books and 32 mysteries, most recently the psychological suspense The Butterfly Trap, her books alternate between cozies (usually featuring cats) and darker psychological suspense, like the Massachusetts Center for the Book “must reads” Hold Me Down and World Enough. She lives with her husband, the writer Jon S. Garelick (another Boston Globe alum), and their cat Thisbe in Somerville, Massachusetts.

 

 

Moment of Calm

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I suspect that many of us these days find ourselves in a fairly constant state of stress and anxiety, with the daily firehose of distressing news. I know I keep realizing that my shoulders are up to my ears and I have to remind myself to take deep breaths. None of this is very healthy, or good for productivity! 

In search of a coping mechanism, I've turned to my old transcendental meditation practice. And I do mean OLD. I took the TM course with my parents back in the mid seventies. TM was very much in the news in those days, with the Beatles and other luminaries having visited the Maharishi's ashram in India a few years before. (Photo of the Maharishi courtesy of Wikipedia.)

This course was, of course, my mother's idea. My mom was quite the hippy in her day, an adopter of meditation and health food--she was a big believer even then in what we now refer to as a Mediterranean diet. She was always worried about my dad's health (he lived to be 96) so I'm sure that was her motivation. TM is reputed to have a lot of benefits, including lowering blood pressure and relieving stress. It's also supposed to improve concentration, something I needed then, when I was finishing my college degree, and I could certainly use now.

It's not hard. You sit quietly in a chair for twenty minutes twice a day, while repeating the "mantra" given to you by your TM teacher. (Don't quote me, but I think the repetition of any word works.) I've been managing twenty minutes at least once a day, and trying for twice. It really does help.

Dear REDs and readers, what do you do to find moments of calm in a sea of worry? 

Here's a lovely little treat to help you relax, which I came across in my college newsletter, the Austin College a capella choir singing a piece called "Northern Lights." And I will shamefacedly admit that I listened to a minute and then almost scrolled on, because "I didn't have time." But I made myself slow down, relax, and listen to the whole piece, and I was so glad I did. I swear my blood pressure dropped in that five minutes!

Beverage of Choice

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It was so heartening to see how many people responded to Hank’s check-in post a few weeks ago saying that JRW was the first thing they read while having their morning coffee or tea. But that sent me off (not unusually!) on a tangent, wondering how and why people choose what they drink.

I grew up in a perked coffee household. My mom made it every morning in the white Corningware percolator with the little blue flowers, and both parents would refill cups of black coffee throughout the day. The coffee smelled good when it was brewing, but imagine my horror the first time I tasted the bitter black liquid! I couldn’t imagine how anyone could drink such a thing, and my opinion remained firmly fixed until I lived in Mexico City the summer I was eighteen. There, coffee was the social thing, and many hours were spent in coffee shops drinking cappuccinos, although I still had to add sugar to make it palatable. It was only on trips to London in the last decade or so that I discovered the latte—along with the fact that if you drank coffee instead of tea, you spent much less time desperately searching for public restrooms, which are in short supply everywhere in the UK.

But although I drink coffee (unsweetened now) when I’m out and occasionally at home, tea is still my first, passionate love. A perfect cuppa satisfies in a way coffee does not, and most mornings I cannot wait to make that first cup.

Dearest REDS, are you coffee, tea, neither, or both? And how did you come to love your beverage of choice?

JENN McKINLAY: Coffee! So much coffee! Imagine my delight when Hooligan 2 became a barista. My morning cup is essential and I steam and froth the milk just to be fancy. Afternoons are for tea. It helps me make it through the day.

RHYS BOWEN: Need you ask, since my Facebook group is called Tea with Rhys!  Tea drinker from birth. I have to start my day with a cuppa ( made from John’s special blend of teas)  Then is coffee mid morning. Tea at teatime. And at night alternating flavors of herb teas. Well Rested. Maringa ginger turmeric depending on mood. When I am in the road I carry my own British tea bags but it’s no good unless I can get boiling water 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: There are days when the ONLY thing that lures me from my comfy bed is the knowledge that I get to have coffee. 

I often steam the milk, too, and it is transporting. I love it beyond all love. And in the summer, I love to get iced lattes. I mean–heavenly. During the day, I am Diet Pepsi, because I am out of coffee mode. Then after dinner, I always have camomile tea and half a cookie, and I am so cozy.

How? I remember, very clearly, I did not drink coffee until 1971. It just wasn’t a thing at our house. Although my father had it every morning, percolated? I wasn’t involved. 

But then, a boyfriend in Washington DC offered me coffee with cream and sugar, and because I was trying to be cool, I pretended that’s what I always drank. I was instantly–instantly!--hooked. Deliciousness! Caffeine! Sugar! Oh, I still remember that first cup. Now I don’t use sweetener, and only skim milk, but I am just as happy.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Passionate tea drinker here, which has been an uphill battle in the coffee-obsessed US. If I had a dollar for every time I ordered tea at a restaurant or diner and got a baggie alongside a tiny carafe of hot (never boiling) water… 

My mom, on the other hand, was a coffee fanatic. You could track where she had been in the house throughout the day by the half-empty cups of cold coffee she’d forget as she moved on to her next project. Ross was also a tea drinker, so we had no way to make coffee at our house, a point that was driven home when Mom stopped in at a CVS on the way to Spencer’s baptism (!!!) to buy us a Mr. Coffee machine.

HALLIE EPHRON: I like coffee and I like tea, but neither one passionately. I’m sure it’s partly because I’ve never been properly educated. Tea, for example, I don’t know how to BUY it, keep it, or brew it. I use a cone and a filter to make my morning coffee and it’s very hit or miss. 

I should love coffee – my mother always saved the last of her dinner cup of coffee, mixed in some extra sugar and cream, and gave it to me. Maybe that’s why I’m so partial to coffee ice cream.

DEBS: Hallie, glad to give you a crash tea-drinking course, anytime! I am a certified Tea Master from a course I took in London.

And did you all see that researchers are now saying that brewing tea can help remove heavy metals, including lead, from water? How cool is that!

How about it, Reddies, what do you drink, and how did you come to love it?

For the Love of Jessica Fletcher by Barbara Early

LUCY BURDETTE: I love this essay from Barbara Early about Jessica Fletcher's history--she's now writing for the Murder, She Wrote series--it's fascinating! 

BARBARA EARLY: Murder, She Wrote recently celebrated a birthday. Fall of 2024 marked the 40th anniversary of the first episode hitting the airwaves. I suspect what initially attracted viewers was the star power: a Hollywood legend like Angela Lansbury taking the lead role, William Windom playing the loveable yet curmudgeonly small-town doctor, and a likeable Tom Bosley (after his fatherly role on Happy Days) assuming the equally likeable, if sometimes bumbling, role of sheriff of a small, picture-perfect coastal community in Maine. Guest stars abounded, drawing from Lansbury’s friends from the silver screen: Ernest Borgnine, June Allyson, Milton Berle, Kathryn Grayson, Jane Greer, Buddy Hackett, and so many more, as well as a host of television regulars and future names, like George Clooney, who was just starting his acting career.

But beyond the star appeal, Murder, She Wrote was revolutionary. Yes, there had been female detectives on television shows before, but most had a certain--what shall we call it--jiggly quality about them. Even if they were intelligent and capable, those attributes were coupled with also being young and sexy. And then here comes a fifty-something English teacher-turned novelist-turned amateur sleuth, and America—and the world—ate it up, with the series finishing among the top 15 shows in 11 of its long 12-season run.

It's hard not to think of Jessica as a pioneer paving the trail for those who followed. While cozy mysteries have existed since the Golden Age of Mystery in the 1920’s and ‘30s, I wonder how much of the explosion of the sub-genre in the ‘80s and ‘90s might be attributed to Jessica’s popularity. And without her, how would the mature female sleuth on television have fared? Would there be a Vera? An Agatha Raisin? A Harry Wild? A (Whitstable) Pearl Nolan?

Forty years later, new viewers and old are still finding Jessica on multiple cable channels and streaming services. There’s talk of a movie in the works, and NECA just released an action figure, complete with miniature typewriter. Of course, I bought one! And I was ecstatic to be offered a chance to write the sixtieth—yes, that 60—entry in the Murder, She Wrote book series. Along with Jessica Fletcher, of course. (wink, wink) 

For those fans of Terrie Farley Moran’s Murder, She Wrote books, don’t worry: she’s not done yet! It just seems that Jessica has been so busy discovering dead bodies that it’s taking more than one author to keep up with her! 

For my first entry in the series, I wanted to set it in that beloved town of Cabot Cove in the wintertime, with Jessica recovering at home from an accidental fall: lots of friends and neighbors stopping by, a copious amount of tea, and just a hint of Rear Window.

But don’t worry: the victim was only visiting, so no need to change that population sign on the road into town. Again.

Whether she’s a cop, a private eye, or an amateur, who is your favorite female television sleuth and why?

In a nod to Rear Window, this newest entry in the USA Today bestselling Murder, She Wrote series finds Jessica Fletcher coping with an injury that leaves her homebound—and a murder just outside her window!

Jessica Fletcher has taken a nasty spill on the ice, leaving her in a wheelchair for several weeks. She tries to work on her latest manuscript but finds herself distracted by a new neighbor moving in across the street. There’s good reason for her to be distracted, because soon after unpacking his sparse belongings, Mr. Rymer is out in the front yard, building somewhat risqué (read: naked) snow sculptures.

While Cabot Cove debates whether the sculptures are a protected form of art or a public display of lewdness, someone starts destroying them at night. Rymer doesn’t seem upset. He just makes new ones. No need to get the police involved over a little snow, he says. Especially when there’s plenty more of it and a blizzard in the forecast.

The morning after the storm, Jessica looks out the window to see a new sculpture across the street—and the body of Mr. Rymer half-buried in the snow. Can Jessica catch a cold-blooded killer from her chair by the window?

Murder, She Wrote: Snowy with a Chance of Murder by Jessica Fletcher, Barbara Early: 9780593820049 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

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Bio: Barbara Early earned an engineering degree, but after four years of doing nothing but math, developed a sudden allergy to the subject and decided to choose another occupation. Before she settled on murdering fictional people, she was a secretary, a schoolteacher, a pastor’s wife, and an amateur puppeteer. She and her husband live in Western New York State, where she enjoys cooking, crafts, classic movies, campy vintage television, board games, and spending time with her two granddaughters. Before teaming up with Jessica Fletcher, she wrote the Vintage Toyshop Mystery series and the Bridal Bouquet Shop Mysteries (as Beverly Allen).

Cousin Tom's Limericks

 

From L to R, cousin Jim, brother Doug, Tom in stripes, Lucy, cousin Steve, sister Sue

LUCY BURDETTE: It’s been a sad time in our family as we lost my dear cousin Tom to cancer last month. Since then, I’ve thought a lot about his essence. He was an academic, a professor of agriculture like his dad, my father’s brother—focusing on peanuts in particular. He was a family guy, close to his brothers and sons and granddaughters. He loved tracing lines of ancestry and sorted out our family history and helped lots of others with theirs. As you might already be able to tell in this early photo, he was the son who was most like his mother, with her wry sense of humor and love of practical jokes. He was a guest on the blog here a while back, teaching us how to write limericks. It’s such a fun post that in honor of Tom, I share it here again with you…

TOM ISLEIB: Generally, a limerick has five lines with syllable content and rhyme scheme 8a, 8a, 5b, 5b, 8a.  If you read a lot of limericks, you will find that there is some variation in the numbers of syllables in lines, usually within one or two of the eight or five.  As for the rhyming, I have seen some real stretches, and I think it unsporting when the fifth line simply repeats the last word of the first or second line, e.g., one attributed to Rudyard Kipling:

"There was a small boy of Quebec

Who was buried in snow to his neck. 

When they said, "Are you friz?" 

He replied, "Yes, I is,

But we don't call THIS cold in Quebec." 

I imagine that Kipling would punch me out for calling that "unsporting." 

LUCY: When you, Tom, are beginning a poem, how do you start? With the important rhyming words for lines 1, 2, and 5, or somewhere else?

TOM:  I usually start with a word that is critical to the particular limerick, say, a name, and try to think of words that rhyme with it that could end lines 1, 2, and 5.  Some names are hard to rhyme, for example, "Martha" (my newly married cousin) although the shortened version "Mart" or "Marty" is easier.  If a critical word is difficult to rhyme, you can bury it within a line that ends with a more easily rhymed word, e.g.,

"When Martha was going to be wed

She asked, "Will it go to my head? 

I caught me a mister

Then gloated to Sister. 

Should I have just shacked up instead?" 

LUCY: Any other tips for limerick novices?

TOM:  A memorable limerick is off-color, some of them downright nasty dirty.  We all know the famous dirty one about the man from Nantucket, although I have heard a perfectly clean version of that one.  "There once was a man from Nantucket who kept all his cash in a bucket..."  If not off-color, a limerick usually has a pun, a joke, or some other cleverness built into it that makes the reader groan.  Consider Mark Twain's famous one: 

"A man hired by John Smith and Co.

Loudly declared that he’d tho.

Men that he saw

Dumping dirt near his door

The drivers, therefore, didn’t do." **

See how he did that?  Jot down your first try, then let it fester in your subconscious mind for a day or two.  You may come up with a better variation or rhyme if you do.

LUCY: And ps, in case you think my cuz can’t take a harder name like “Martha” and do something with it, here’s the limerick he dashed off just before the wedding:

“There once was a woman named Martha

Who was hunting a guy like Siddhartha,

And then she met Rich,

A nice sonofabitch,

Now they'll marry and snooze by the heartha.”

And in case (like me) you didn’t get Mark Twain’s cleverness, here’s the key:

Co. = Company

Tho. = Thump any

Do. = Dump any

Lucy again, I’m in northern Michigan this weekend celebrating Tom's life, but if you can whip up a limerick, we would love to read them! Also if you'd like to read the original post with lots of fun in the comments, the link is here.