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Hi MA,
thanks for letting me visit! I’m excited about the release of Home Grown from
Dreamspinner Press. Home Grown is all about conflicting worlds and how
sometimes they don’t matter. But the characters in the novella are pretty
hard-core foodies. So as part of the blog tour, I’m going to talk about some of
the food from Home Grown as well as share recipes. Food and hot guys, what
could be better!
To begin
the tour, here is the first recipe. Wilted Lettuce Salad. Tart and tangy, great
with fresh harvested leaf lettuce and of course it has bacon in it. I never
said these were low cal recipes. J
Wilted
Lettuce Salad.
Ingredients
- 4 strips of bacon
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 2 to 3 green onions, including tops,
sliced thin
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 8 to 10 cups leaf lettuce, torn
Directions
- Cook the bacon in a large skillet until
very crisp. Remove and let drain on paper towels.
- Add vinegar, onions, sugar, salt and pepper,
to the hot drippings. Stir until sugar is dissolved.
- Put the lettuce in a large bowl and immediately pour hot dressing over. Toss lightly. Serve right away.
~ Jon ~
Blurb
Peter Stevens believes nothing tastes better than a
vine-ripened tomato tended by a farmer’s hands. The craving for heirloom
tomatoes leads him to his local farmers’ market and his favorite vendor, Ethan
Hart. As Peter becomes a regular customer, the two find they have more in
common than a love of good food. Just as Ethan begins to relax, Peter's ex,
Jay, appears and is all the things Ethan is not. A perfect storm of mistakes
and poor choices, as well as Ethan’s haunted past, has him ready to admit defeat.
With the guidance of friends and a goat far too smart for her own good, Ethan
realizes he needs to have a tender hand and patience to grow a home for Peter.
Excerpt from Home Grown.
Ethan’s stomach
fluttered, his anticipation building as he scanned the early morning farmer’s
market crowd. Stop it. Peter will show up
when he shows up. Ethan snapped his attention back to the present when the
small gray-haired woman who ran the booth beside him tucked herself under his
arm and hugged him tight.
“Morning, good-looking.”
“Morning, Maggie. How
are things going?” Ethan kissed the top of her head and returned her embrace.
“Not bad, not bad. I’ve
put out all the soaps. I hope everyone feels dirty today and stocks up.”
Ethan chuckled at the
image of mud people gathering around Maggie’s stall. “Well, my customers can be
clean. But I think business today will be good. The late season tomatoes are
finally ripe, and I’ve had lots of people asking about them.”
“Including Peter?”
Heat crept up Ethan’s
cheeks. “Peter? I don’t know. Probably. You know he has a thing for my
tomatoes.”
“Uh-huh, yeah. I might
have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night. Admit it to Auntie Maggie,
you have the hots for the boy, and I think he has a thing for more than your
tomatoes.”
Ethan brushed off her
speculation with a wave of his hand. “Maggie, you’re crazy. That man’s some
kinda high-powered muckety-muck downtown. He’d never know I lived in Wisconsin
if I didn’t have the best tomatoes in the market.”
Ethan studied the
forming crowd, their sounds echoing through the building. “It looks like it’s
getting busy, I’d better check to make sure I got everything from the truck.”
He embraced her again
and trotted out the side door to his pickup. I’m not ready to talk to anyone
about my feelings about Peter.
eBook
Link:
Bio:
Jon Keys’ earliest
memories revolve around books; with the first ones he can recall reading
himself being “The Warlord of Mars” and anything with Tarzan. (The local
library wasn’t particularly up to date.) But as puberty set in he started
sneaking his mother’s romance magazines and added the world of romance and
erotica to his mix of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books.
A voracious reader for
almost half a century, Jon has only recently begun creating his own flights of
fiction for the entertainment of others. Born in the Southwest and now living
in the Midwest, Jon has worked as a ranch hand, teacher, computer tech,
roughneck, designer, retail clerk, welder, artist, and, yes, pool boy; with
interests ranging from kayaking and hunting to painting and cooking, he draws
from a wide range of life experiences to create written works that draw the
reader in and wrap them in a good story.
