April Recipe - an Easy Favorite

I love a good, tasty, easy recipe I can make in a hurry. I also like a recipe I can make without turning on the oven, but in this case, I'll make an exception. There's nothing to compare with cheese melting and potato chips toasting on top of a bubbly casserole. My friend Kara Lennox (http://www.karalennox.com/) spent the weekend with me in Texas after attending the "Dreamin' in Dallas" conference. Kara wrote numerous books for Harlequin American and moved to California over a year ago. She now writes for Harlequin Superromance. We took a drive to the lake with another writer friend, Rebecca Russell, and then it was time to come home and fix some dinner. Sunday night I made Paula Deen's Hot Chicken Salad, a delicious casserole type dish that is a snap to mix together and bakes in only 20 minutes. I usually have all the ingredients I need in my refrigerator and on my shelves. I'd like to give you my version of the dish, since I modified it for (1) a single can of chuck white chicken, and (2) eating for two and maybe a little left over.

Victoria Chancellor's Version of

Paula Deen's Hot Chicken Salad

1 - 10 oz. can of chuck white chicken, drained
3/4 c. diced celery
1/2 c. sliced or slivered almonds
2 T minced onion or 2 t dried minced onion
3/4 c. reduced fat mayonnaise
2 t. lemon juice
salt & pepper to taste
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
3/4 c. (more or less) crushed potato chips (I use Baked Ruffles.)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl mix together the first seven ingredients. Spoon into a 2 quart (approximately) casserole OR into three small individual casserole dishes. Sprinkle cheese, then potato chips, on top. Bake for 20 minutes, until cheese melts and potato chips are toasty. The hot chicken salad will remain a little crunchy from the celery and almonds. Note: You can also make this with panko bread crumbs rather than potato chips if you prefer.

Enjoy!

Congratulations to our Romantic Times finalists!

Romantic Times Magazine has announced the finalists in its 2008 Reviewers' Choice Awards.

For Best Harlequin American Romance:

FOREVER HIS BRIDE
Lisa Childs (Aug.)

RELUCTANT PARTNERS
Kara Lennox (Jun.)

THE RIGHT MR. WRONG
Cindi Myers (Feb.)

THE PILOT'S WOMAN
Ann Roth (Mar.)

TEXAS HEIR
Linda Warren (Sep.)

For Best First Series Romance:

MARRYING THE BOSS
Megan Kelly (Apr.)

Congratulations on your outstanding achievement!

Family Traditions

When I was a kid, my father grilled hamburgers and hotdogs on his big charcoal grill every Saturday night. When we were very young, we would take our burgers and our potato chips wrapped in a paper napkin, along with our green bottles of Coke (only allowed once a week) and sit in the playroom to watch TV.

When I was a little older we turned it into a picnic outside, and we would watch fireflies and take out our star charts and telescopes and pick out constellations. I remember those days so fondly--before my siblings and I moved to the far corners of the country and the globe, before my parents sold the family home and retired to a lake house, before anyone died or divorced (at least that I recall).

So these days, whenever any pieces of my far-flung family manage to get together, we almost always have a hamburger cookout.

My niece and her boyfriend are visiting this week from Iowa. I've never gotten to see much of Pam--we've never lived in the same city. So of course, tonight we're having a cookout and I've gathered as many sisters as I can. I hope she associates happy memories with hamburger cookouts and continues the tradition when she gets married and has kids.

I love it, I love it not

Every book I write goes through several predictable stages. When I first come up with the idea, I love it. It's the best idea I've ever had, and it will be the best book I've ever written. I love it until I finish a proposal and send it off to my editor, at which point everything changes. The moment the package is transferred from my hands to the postal worker's (or I hit the "send" button) I am sure I've made a terrible mistake. The book is the worst idea I've ever had, and it's going to end my career.

Then, a few weeks or months later, I get a call. The editor loves it and she's buying it. Yay! The book is wonderful again. I am so clever. But then I have to write the thing. Suddenly I'm seething with doubts. Why did I think this was a good idea? I can't write this book. I'll have to send the advance money back.

Yet somehow I do finish it. I've never not finished a book that was under contract. I lovingly polish the manuscript, falling in love with the idea all over again, and send it off. And immediately I am sure the book will not be accepted and I'll have to start from scratch. My career is once again over.

Happily, the editor usually likes it, and I feel like a genius again--until I receive the edited manuscript and I see in black and white all the mistakes I made, all the changes the editor wants me to make, and I feel dumb again. But somehow it gets done, though I'm positive readers will hate it and never pick up one of my books again. As if I'll ever sell another one.

I don't love the book agaiin until I receive the final page proofs. It's only when I read it again from start to finish, as if I were a reader, that I can see the story as a whole with fresh eyes, and fall in love all over again.

Of course, I continue to feel insecure about it. That's just how most writers are. Once the book is released I have to deal with reviews, comments from readers, and worries about whether it's selling well. It's a continual up and down. One day I'm brilliant, the next day I'm the village idiot.

Fortunately today I'm a genius. I just read through the page proofs for GOOD HUSBAND MATERIAL, my January 2008 book, and I love it again. For this week, anyway!

Heroes and Heroines in Uniform

Did you have a nice Memorial Day?

In honor of our men and women in uniform, I rifled through my keeper shelf and revisited some of my favorite authors who write military heroes and heroines. I love soldiers and pilots and special forces guys, probably because these types of characters are so far removed from my own experiences. I've never even tried to write a military romance because I know nothing about the military.

Probably at the top of my list would be Merline Lovelace. Love her books, love her characters, and this retired Air Force colonel knows her stuff! Then there's the inimitable Suzanne Brockmann and her yummy Navy Seals. Of course this list wouldn't be complete without Catherine Mann. I read WEDDING AT WHITE SANDS as a contest entry, before Catherine had sold her first book, and I remember thinking Oh, my gosh, this woman is good! Then there's Cindy Dees, who writes with such depth and realism because she's been there! She was a U.S. Air Force pilot and actually flew in the Gulf War (the first one). Debbie Macomber has done some wonderful military-themed books, especially early in her career.

Of course I can't forget our own Laura Marie Altom. HER MILITARY MAN (January 2007) was wonderfully quirky. Another Harlequin American author, Bonnie Gardner, wrote one of the Millionaire, Montana books in which the hero, Sam, is a retired Navy Seal. That one made me cry!

Now those are just a smattering from my own shelves, and certainly not an all-inclusive list. Do you love heroes (and heroines) in uniform? Any must-reads you'd like to mention?

Hope your holiday was fun! (Mine was rainy.)

Kara