Tag: The Spokesman Review

Columns

Fit to be Fried

Cindy Hval

How often we must replace household appliances might reveal more about us than we think.

Take my iron, for example. My parents bought me my first iron when I married 36 years ago. It lasted 20 years until I dropped it and cracked the water reservoir. No, that’s not a testament about how things used to last longer; it’s more an indictment of how little it was used.

I thought about that while doing my biannual ironing atop the same ironing board I received with the original iron all those years ago.

We still have our wedding gift blender, though I haven’t dug it out of the pantry in years. Our coffee makers, however, need replacing on an alarmingly regular basis. We’ve lost count of how many we’ve been through. Of course, we’ve burned up several coffee grinders, as well. And just in case we cannot wait for a pot to brew, we’re on our second Keurig machine.

While raising our four sons, we also wore out several vacuums. Our most notable vacuum-cleaner catastrophe occurred one year just before guests were due to arrive over the Christmas holidays.

My ever-helpful spouse was cleaning up the pine needles beneath the tree and sucked up the tree lights cord. It killed our vacuum and sadly destroyed lights that we’ve never been able to replace. They had three color settings AND played Christmas carols!

Speaking of cleaning, one year for my birthday my mother gave me a steam mop. I didn’t exactly jump up and down when I opened it, but after one use I became a convert and have never looked back. I’m on my second steam mop.

Electric can openers had to be replaced regularly until Derek pointed out that manual openers were easier to operate, didn’t break and didn’t take up coveted counter space.

Some things seem to last forever, no matter how often we use them. The only reason we bought our current slow cooker is because we wanted a newer model. We kept our 20-year-old one as a backup.

Of course, there’s always some new gadget that marketers promise will make our lives easier. Remember the bread machine fad of the early 2000s?

Instant pots have dominated the kitchen scene for a few years, but seem to be losing steam. I didn’t buy into the hoopla. I don’t care that it can cook a pot roast super fast – pot roasts are meant to be cooked slowly – ditto soup.

That’s what Crock-Pots are for. I can dump the ingredients in before I leave for work and come home to a dinner that’s ready to serve.

That’s not to say I’m opposed to change. We recently added two new appliances we didn’t know we needed.

When my sister-in-law started renting out her downstairs as an Airbnb, she said she furnished it with a microwave and an egg cooker.

“An egg cooker?” I said. “That’s what Derek’s for.”

I only eat breakfast on weekends and that’s because he makes it.

She assured me it made perfect poached eggs and soft-boiled them just the way Norwegians love them. I found an inexpensive one and gave it to my husband.

He tried it the same weekend as our other new addition – an air fryer. Our sons all have air fryers, but I couldn’t imagine why we’d need one.

“We don’t eat fried foods,” I’d explained.

But on a trip to Costco, we succumbed to an impulse buy and came home with a 7-quart air fryer.

The next morning, Derek made poached eggs in the egg cooker and bacon in the fryer. Both were fabulous!

I begin looking for other things for him to air fry. Why Derek? Well, I’m terrified of new technology and I also don’t follow printed instructions well. I’m also sexist enough to believe air fryers like grills and smokers are best handled by the male of the species. (Not really, but I have been cooking for men for 36 years, and I’m getting kind of tired.)

Despite the claims of healthier cooking through air frying, our waistlines may be showing the adverse effects of our impulse buy. Our freezer now contains things like chicken wings and what Derek calls fish sticks.

I corrected him. “No, they are beer-battered cod fillets!”

We do plan to try air frying things like Brussels sprouts and cauliflower, but Derek’s already pondering an upgrade.

“I could cook more bacon at one time if we had a bigger basket,” he said.

I’m not sure how much bacon two people need at one time, but I think I’m about to find out.

**********

UPDATE: Dear Reader, It’s been 5 months and we have yet to air fry ANY vegetables– unless you count French fried potatoes and onion rings. Buyer beware!

All Write

Buried in a Good Book

Cindy Hval

I’m often asked what I like to read and my answer is always M&M’s– Mysteries and Memoirs.

So, I was delighted to be asked to write a profile about Edgar Award-nominated Tamara Berry. (Spoiler alert: SHE WON!)

Here’s the story I wrote for The Spokesman-Review.


PS: I loved “Buried in a Good Book” and have already received an advance copy of the third book in series “Murder Off the Books.” Can’t wait to read it!

Tamara Berry always wanted to be a writer.

“But it seemed like such a pipe dream,” she said.

Yet, next month the Spokane Valley native and East Valley grad will travel to New York City to attend the 77th Annual Edgar Allan Poe Awards, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. Berry’s mystery novel “Buried in a Good Book” has been nominated for the Lillian Jackson Braun Memorial Award.

The Edgars honor the best in mystery fiction, nonfiction and television. Past winners include heavy hitters such as Walter Mosley, Stephen King, Viet Thanh Nguyen and Patricia Cornwell. Spokane novelist Jess Walter won the best novel award for his 2005 book “Citizen Vince.”

The kid who once dreamed about life as an author has published under three pen names in a variety of genres.

Berry graduated from Eastern Washington University with a literature degree and in 2012 released her first e-book, “Love is a Battlefield,” as Tamara Morgan.

“I started writing romance when my kiddo was super young,” Berry said. “The only thing I had the mental capacity for was romances and I read a ton of them.”

Her first two contemporary romances were set in the world of the Highland Games.

“They feature burly, strong guys and romance readers go for that,” she said.

More than a dozen books followed before she retired Tamara Morgan and was reborn as Lucy Gilmore.

In 2018, her agent told her doggie romances were selling well – that is, romance novels featuring dogs.

Soon she’d written a three-book series about service dogs in training and two stand-alone romantic doggie comedies.

“I write mainly comedy,” she said.

When she pitched her next romance idea no one seemed interested except for one editor who asked “Can you put a dead body and a cat in it?”

And the Eleanor Wilde mystery series was born penned under Tamara Berry. Wilde is a pseudo-psychic/medium with a penchant for solving crimes.

“I love con artists,” Berry said. “There’s quite a few of them in my books. I’m drawn to the way they manipulate people. They’re interesting characters with a high level of insight and they tend to be more self-aware.”

While the Eleanor Wilde series sold well, the author had a new story in mind.

“I pitched a lumberjack series where a thriller author and her teenage daughter move to Winthrop, Washington.”

Her agent told her what was really selling was book-themed mysteries.

“Could you put a librarian or a bookmobile in it?”

Berry could and did.

“But I got to keep the lumberjack,” she said.

“Buried in a Good Book,” the first book in the cozy mystery series featuring thriller author Tess Harrow, is up for an Edgar award next month. This is the first year the Lillian Jackson Braun Memorial Award will be granted and it’s the only Edgar award that comes with a cash prize.

Braun, who died in 2011, wrote more than two dozen novels in her “The Cat Who…” mystery series. The award named after her will be awarded for the best full-length, contemporary cozy mystery.

Having read lots of Nancy Drew books as a kid, Berry said crafting cozy mysteries is well within her wheelhouse, but the formula is quite different from romance novels.

“There are no steamy sex scenes, no swearing and no gore,” she said. “The violence is hinted at, but not on the page. And of course, you have to have a murder and solve it.”

For Berry, that’s the fun part.

“I often don’t know who the culprit is going to be,” she said. “I get to be as surprised as the reader.”

Cozy mysteries are generally more gentle than hard-boiled detective fiction or grisly suspense thrillers. Think Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple series, or TV’s Jessica Fletcher of “Murder, She Wrote,” as examples of the genre.

Berry said there are two types of writers – plotters and pantsers.

“Plotters sit down and write an outline. Pantsers fly by the seat of their pants. I’m a pantser.”

The prolific author usually writes in bed or on her couch with her two dogs and two cats cuddled up next to her. She writes seven days a week and has a strict 1,000 words per day, daily word count.

“Once I hit 1,000 words I can free myself to do other things,” Berry said.

That includes promoting her latest Lucy Gilmore book, “The Lonely Hearts Book Club.” Due March 28, the lighthearted novel tells the story of the community created by a book club full of misfits including a young librarian and an old curmudgeon who forge an unlikely friendship.

And of course, she’ll be in New York City for the Edgars.

“I’ve been working at this so long,” she said. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s pretty great. If 16-year-old me could see me now, she’d be freaking out!”

Columns

Father, Faith, and Friendship

Cindy Hval

I miss him most in March.

His birthday is March 25, 1927, and he died on March 29, 1995.

My siblings and I could write volumes about our dad, Tom Burnett. Born in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas, he traveled the world courtesy of the U.S. Air Force but never lost his slow Southern drawl.

While stationed at Fairchild Air Force Base, he met my mom, Shirley Schmidt, who’d grown up in Hayden, Idaho. They both believed it was a “God thing.” He saw her singing in the choir at Glad Tidings Assembly of God and said the Lord told him, “That’s going to be your wife.”

It didn’t take Dad long to convince her.

To know my dad was to love him – and as an unabashed extrovert, he knew a lot of people. Mom and I would leave him on a bench at the mall. By the time we returned he’d say, “Hey girls, I want you to meet my friend …”

Young moms with babies in strollers, teenagers, other dudes waiting for their womenfolk – he’d befriend them all.

When people share their memories of Tom Burnett three things are invariably mentioned: his sense of humor, his devout faith, and his abiding love for my mother.

Recently, I got to see him through someone else’s eyes. While writing a story about a North Central High School reunion I was put in touch with Christine Glenn. Her parents, Chuck and Dorothy Glenn were my parents’ closest friends in the early 1950s.

In fact, if not for my dad, Christine might not even be here.

“My father would often recount his memories of how your father invited him to church and introduced him to the Lord, and also to Dorothy, my mother,” she said.

Mom, Dad, Chuck, and Dorothy

Chuck was from Montana and had enlisted in the Air Force and was sent to Fairchild. He walked into his new quarters and looked for a bunk. The place was empty except for one G.I. relaxing on a bed and reading his Bible. That G.I. was my dad.

“Tom greeted him and said, ‘The top bunk is empty. You can have that one,’ ” Christine recalled her dad saying.

The pair quickly became fast friends though initially, they didn’t seem to have much in common.

“Dad said Tom was always reading his Bible or talking about his Jesus and inviting him to church,” Christine said.

Chuck wasn’t a Christian and always had an excuse to avoid church until one day he didn’t and agreed to attend with Dad.

Two things happened quickly, Chuck became a Christian and he badgered my dad into introducing him to a cute redhead – my mom’s best friend, Dorothy Nicholl.

Mom has a scrapbook filled with photos of the four of them double dating. Picnicking at Manito Park and Tubbs Hill, posing by the falls, dressed up for church, and playing croquet at my grandparent’s Hayden home.

By this time my parents were already engaged and Chuck soon proposed to Dorothy.

“They picked out an engagement ring and Mom loved it,” Christine said.

But then my dad stepped in.

“Tom went with my dad to make a payment on the ring,” she said. “And he said, ‘Oh! I know a place where you can get one a lot cheaper!’ ”

I should mention my father’s Scottish ancestry. Tom Burnett loved a good deal and he always seemed to “know a guy” who could get him deals on everything from autos to asparagus. In this case, he introduced Chuck to the jeweler who’d made my mother’s engagement ring.

“Tom and Dad picked out Mom’s new engagement ring,” Christine said. “She never liked it. She was so disappointed.”

Dorothy died in 2014 and Christine now wears that ring. “Well, I dressed it up a little,” she said.

Another story Chuck liked to tell was how my Dad helped him find his wallet.

The four of them had been on a date at Lincoln Park. After they took the girls home, Chuck realized his wallet was missing.

“He and Tom went back to the park with flashlights and Tom found his wallet,” Christine said.

The two couples were in each other’s weddings but gradually lost touch when my dad made the military his career and was posted everywhere from Kansas to the Philippines.

Dad died in 1995, and Chuck died in July, but he never forgot my dad.

“He always said Tom was his best friend,” Christine said.

I think a lot of people felt that way.

I know I did.

Tom Burnett

Columns

Car Ride Down Memory Lane

Cindy Hval

Frustrated, I sorted through the jumble of keys looking for a fob.

“How am I supposed to unlock the door?” I muttered.

Ruby Sue (my Ford Escape) had to spend the night at the dealer for a part recall issue and I was driving my youngest son’s car (formerly mine). That’s when I discovered how thoroughly I’d been spoiled.

We didn’t have an electronic key fob for the 2002 Oldsmobile Intrigue. I had to unlock the door with the actual key.

I’d forgotten how low the Intrigue sits, and instead of smoothly sliding into the driver’s seat, I sat down hard and looked for the push-button ignition. Nope. Once upon a time, you had to insert a key to start a car.

The gray cloth interior has held up well, but our frigid weather had me longing for Ruby Sue’s seat warmers.

Times have changed since my dad bought me my first car, a 1970s model two-door Toyota Corolla. He bought it from a guy at Fairchild AFB and paid $900 for the rather battered navy blue car.

“I gotcha a car,” he announced. “Here’s the keys, let’s take her for a spin.”

We went out to the driveway and I slid behind the wheel.

“What’s this other pedal for?” I asked.

Dad raised his brows.

“That’s the clutch. Forgot to tell you, it’s a manual transmission.”

I’d never driven a stick shift, but Dad said it was super easy. He gave me a quick rundown on how to shift, and we lurched out of the driveway and immediately stalled mid-street. After an agonizingly jolting trip around the neighborhood, my father pronounced my skills “good enough.”

The Corolla didn’t last long enough to get a name. A few months later, I drove through an unmarked intersection on my way home from work at Pioneer Pies and was T-boned by a kid driving a big pickup.

I got a trip to the hospital from the EMTs I’d just served pie to and the totaled Toyota got a trip to the junkyard.

No more stick shifts for this girl. Instead, Dad gave me his white Chevy Nova. Fun fact, those Novas looked just like Spokane police cars at the time. On the rare occasion I ventured somewhere I probably shouldn’t have, the gatherings broke up quickly as teenagers fled muttering “cops.”

That Nova earned me another trip to the ER when a driver crashed into me after speeding through a light.

Dad decided for safety’s sake I needed to drive a tank, but tanks weren’t street legal. He settled for a 1978 Pontiac LeMans.

He thumped the hood.

“I think this beast is made of solid steel,” he said. “But I still want you to wear a helmet when you drive.”

Me and Loretta circa 1984 in downtown Davenport, Washington

Loretta was my only red car until the advent of Ruby Sue. Her white vinyl interior was cracking, but she drove like a dream. She took my best friend and me on our first road trip, to Davenport, Washington. Loretta took Derek and me on our honeymoon. A couple of years later we drove her all the way to Disneyland for our final BC (Before Children) fling.

Sure, she didn’t have air conditioning and we roasted on our way through Oregon. Yes, we found out what vapor lock is on the side of a California freeway, but by golly, that car body didn’t ding, dent or crumple.

When we started our family, Loretta made way for a boring Ford Taurus, followed by a succession of necessary minivans. As our nest began to empty, we adopted Golda MyDear (the Oldsmobile) before Derek bought sparkling red Ruby Sue.

It’s impossible to count the hours I’ve spent on the road hauling kids to school, sports practices or jobs, and journalists spend a lot of time in their cars. That’s why I’m so thankful my minivan mama days are in the rearview mirror and I finally have a car that I can boss around. I can pull up maps, adjust the temperature, make calls and change radio stations all by voice command.

When I picked up Ruby Sue after our 24-hour separation, I sat for a moment reveling in the warmth of the heated leather seat, and then I planted a big kiss on the steering wheel.

“I’ve missed you, girl,” I said.

And I like to think she missed me, too.