Chica Lit Blog Tour, Day Nine: The Drill, with Recipes

OK, here's the drill:

1) First, the winner of Kathy Cano-Murillo's prize is Pam K. Congratulations, Pam! Visit Kathy's website to contact her and claim your prize.

2) As tour stop number nine on the !2 Days of Christmas Chica Lit Blog Tour, I'm offering a prize today as well. Answer the following question, about my story below, and comment. I'll choose a random winner and you'll get a copy of my December Intrigue, Telling Secrets, and a batch of Fair Trade gourmet chocolate.

The question: What is the search and rescue helicopter's call sign (i.e. the way the trackers address the pilot via radio)?

3) Tomorrow, visit Jamie Martinez Wood's website, www.jamiewood.com, for another story and another chance to win a prize.

4) And finally, a note about my story. Winter, Fire, and Snow features the search and rescue team I've been writing about lately in my Harlequin Intrigues. Aaron Donovan and Sabrina Adelante appeared in last April's Finding His Child, and Alex Gray and Sophie Brennan star in this month's Telling Secrets. (NB: Alex looks nothing like the guy on that book's cover.) The story stands on its own, but there's also history here for anyone who's read those books.

5) Whoop, almost forgot. We're supposed to be giving out recipes. So here's a disclaimer first: My Honduran mom never really cooks any Latino cuisine other than homemade tortillas and refried beans. I don't know why, but there it is. So I called her yesterday and sent her frantically calling my aunts in Honduras to get the recipe for a warm, wonderful concoction I've had there called poleada. It's kind of a cross between a milk pudding and some kind of weird Starbucks drink. Unfortunately, my aunts and my mother all use The Force when they cook, so they don't have recipes. ("Recipes? What are these 'recipes' of which you speak?")

After much international conferring, they have settled on the following attempt at a recipe for poleada. If it doesn't work, they said to "just play around with the ingredients" until it does. Ay.

Poleada

* Mix 1 Tbsp. corn starch thoroughly with 1/4 cup of water, or so, until you get a thick yet runny mixture. Set aside. (Mom says, "If that doesn't work, try 2 Tbsp. corn starch.")

* Heat 2 cups of milk until almost boiling.

* Add sugar to the milk "to taste, until it's nice and sweet." Throw in a cinnamon stick.

* Fold in the corn starch mixture, keeping the milk heated to that almost-but-not-quite boiling point.

* When it's nice and warm and has achieved the consistency of a thin pudding, pour it into a cup. Let it cool enough so that you don't sue me for burning off your tongue, and eat with a spoon.

Just in case you'd rather not cook with The Force, here's an actual recipe from one of Mom's cookbooks for Honduran guacamole. Honduran guacamole is chunky, like a salsa, "not that mushy stuff they make here," says my mother. Yes, she's feeling a little superior in the guacamole department. Here it is, if you'd like to try it:

Honduran guacamole

5 avocados

4 hard-boiled eggs

3 tablespoons mayo

finely chopped cilantro (to taste)

1 Tbsp. or more of olive oil

1 tsp. lemon juice

salt and pepper, to taste


Peel avocado and eggs. Cut them in little square pieces. Mix avocado and eggs together. Add mayo and cilantro (finely chopped). Then, add in the olive oil.

Add the salt and black pepper to taste.

My mom swears it looks really pretty. As a variation, she says they also throw in some chopped onions in her hometown of El Corpus. My tia Yesenia says that to simplify it, you can just chop up the avocados and the eggs, and then throw in some chopped red onions. She doesn't add anything else, except she sticks the avocado seed in the middle, which interestingly enough, keeps the avocado from turning black.