{"id":2959,"date":"2015-02-08T19:01:31","date_gmt":"2015-02-09T01:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/?p=2959"},"modified":"2015-02-08T19:01:31","modified_gmt":"2015-02-09T01:01:31","slug":"sundays-cake-fridays-cocktail-and-egmonts-last-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/?p=2959","title":{"rendered":"Sunday’s Cake, Friday’s Cocktail…and Egmont’s Last List"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you can see, I’ve been remiss these past two weeks. \u00a0One Sunday, I was working to a deadline and so the cake didn’t happen. \u00a0Last week, I was at the ALA Midwinter on Saturday (bittersweet dinner with some EgmontUSA folks) and scheduled to sign on Sunday. \u00a0But, as I said in an earlier post, the very sweet and thoughtful people at Egmont decided, you know, seeing as how there was this BLIZZARD<\/em>, me getting home safely was more important. \u00a0So they sent me packing. Later, I found out that a ton of people had stopped by for my signing and so, to all of you, please: if you\u2019d like a personalized bookplate, get in touch. My treat.<\/p>\n

On to Friday\u2019s Cocktail:<\/p>\n

\"20150206_203652\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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The Avenue: bourbon, Calvados, passion fruit juice, a dash of pomegranate grenadine, a dash of orange flower water.<\/p>\n

The verdict: Sadly, I was little underwhelmed by the Avenue, but I think this is entirely my fault. First off, I would go for a much more assertive bourbon than Old Forrester, perhaps something like Knob Creek, Maker\u2019s, or\u2014my current favorite\u2014Pritchard\u2019s (I\u2019m very partial to the Double Chocolate). This is supposed to be a somewhat sweet drink because of the passion fruit and grenadine. I had grenadine, but I thought, heck, let\u2019s pump up the volume and use Pama instead. I\u2019m not sure this was the right move because the sweetness was lacking. Further, I think that if I’d been able to find passion fruit juice or nectar rather than settle for a watery lemonade with a squirt<\/em> of passion fruit juice, this would have been a lovely cocktail. \u00a0But it just didn’t have enough je-ne-sais-qu<\/em>oi for me to attempt it again until and if I can find that silly juice. \u00a0What’s upsetting is that I know I’ve seen it. \u00a0I just can’t remember where. Oh, and I\u2019ll use grenadine next time, too.<\/p>\n

Moving on… Sunday’s Cake:<\/p>\n

\"20150208_150124\"<\/a>\"20150208_180924\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Chocolate with Bittersweet Ganache and Balsamic Strawberry Sauce: the recipe can be found here<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Okay, this is one I’d been saving for next week (Valentine’s Day), but a friend recently got good news re: his biopsy results and so I figured . . . what the hell. \u00a0Haven’t tasted this yet, but first off . . . oh my, look at that before picture: that luscious deep chocolate. And the smell<\/em>! This is a winner; I know it, despite the fact that I don\u2019t think it looks half as lovely topped with that bittersweet ganache and the strawberry sauce. Now, that doesn\u2019t\u2019 mean they aren\u2019t good. For once, I got to lick the bowls because the husband was on a phone call. (Hey, you have to move fast in the Bick household.) Both were scrumptious. But I\u2019m a little disappointed with the look, and I hope that it doesn\u2019t get too soggy either. (Put it in the fridge almost instantly.) Nevertheless, remember that chocolate balsalmic I got on Friday? Perfect for this. So, fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

And fingers crossed for something else: White Space <\/em>comes out in paperback this Tuesday (YAY!).<\/p>\n

\"9781606845653\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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As you might have heard, the book was longlisted for the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a YA Novel<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>(gosh, I hope someone votes for me; do you think bribery–like, a really nice cake–would work?)\u00a0and just awarded a VOYA Perfect 10<\/em><\/a>\u2014so good news all around! (No, I don\u2019t expect to make it to the Stoker short list, but it\u2019s really nice to be there, nonetheless.)<\/p>\n

Another exciting announcement, though\u2014one I\u2019ve said it before and will say again\u2014we Egmont USA authors aren\u2019t going anywhere. In fact, you can find us, the Egmont Last Listers and our release dates on Tumblr here.<\/em><\/a> There will be giveaways (I, for one, will be putting up a Goodreads giveaway quite soon for WS and then another right around the March 10 release date for THE DICKENS MIRROR<\/em>), blog tours, and assorted interviews and posts where we\u2019ll share our thoughts about our books, the writing life, working with Egmont, and our hopes for the future. So, stay tuned.<\/p>\n

And remember: Don’t despair because it\u2019s always cocktail time somewhere.<\/p>\n

*hic!*<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As you can see, I’ve been remiss these past two weeks. \u00a0One Sunday, I was working to a deadline and so the cake didn’t happen. \u00a0Last week, I was at the ALA Midwinter on Saturday (bittersweet dinner with some EgmontUSA…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2959"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2969,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions\/2969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ilsajbick.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}