Tuesdays with Murder

There is a book club at the Baraboo library for people who like mysteries. It meets the third Tuesday of the month and is called Tuesdays with Murder. The July 17 meeting will be the first one I attend, so I will have to let you know what I think. Looks to be about twenty people involved, although I don't know what the regular attendance is like.

The July theme is Murder on the Menu and we are each supposed to read a murder mystery that includes recipes and bring a dish that is made from one of those recipes for a potluck dinner. I have actually read quite a few mysteries of this nature -- there is a whole mystery-with-recipe genre -- but I have been having a hard time finding something for this occasion. This afternoon I went by the library and settled on Between a Wok and a Hard Place by Tamar Myers. The author is the daughter of Mennonite missionaries and the protagonist is an Amish woman who runs a B&B called the PennDutch Inn. I used to like the books a lot, but after a while I got tired of them. This one is pretty good and has the added advantages of (a) being readily available and (b) containing a simple chicken salad recipe that should fit the bill for the potluck nicely.

What I wanted to make is a cake that is featured in the Agatha Christie mystery, A Murder is Announced. The cake is called Delicious Death, although it is not the instrument of murder in the book, neither poisoned nor in any other way dangerous except to the waistline, I suppose, or to the heart since it supposedly involves tons of butter and eggs. Although it is supposed to be based on an actual dessert, the recipe is not included and a Google search did not turn one up that sounded remotely plausible. It would be cheating a bit, too, since we are supposed to cook something from a recipe included in the book. Still I love the title -- Delicious Death! You often see things like Death by Chocolate on dessert menus, but I have never seen Delicious Death anywhere.

Helen's husband Jay wanted a cake for his last birthday that is a tradition in his family or some such thing. It is a Jack Daniels' Chocolate Birthday Cake and includes a couple of cups of Jack Daniels, 2 ½ sticks of butter, 2 cups of sugar and gobs of whipped cream among other things. We wondered if there should be an ambulance waiting outside while it was being eaten, just to save time when they had to call the EMTs.

The photo is of chocolate macadamia nut brownies from a cookbook, Death by Chocolate by Marcel Desaulniers