Bite This! Yvonne's Cookie Curse
 If you’ve read the first chapter of Love, Inc (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?), then you’ll know all about Zahra and her dreaded Cookie Curse. We didn’t have to look far for the inspiration for this one. There was a time in my teens when I liked to show a guy I liked him by baking up a sweet treat. It took me awhile to realize that the Baker always got burned by the Bakee—often within days. Maybe the guy saw a proposal in a cookie jar. Or maybe my rudimentary baking skills were to blame, rather than any curse. But to be safe, I decided to retire my mixing bowls and measuring cups—for nearly a decade. That’s when I met this cute, funny guy with a catchy British accent and began a long distance relationship. It seemed worth risking the Cookie Curse. So when Valentine’s Day rolled around, I dared to bake again. By this time, Sandy and I were roommates, and I was able to draw on her long experience with the fine art of baking, not to mention her vast array of gadgets (egg separator anyone?). Under her watchful eye, I whipped up a batch of double-chocolate cookies and shipped them off to England. And look what happened:  The curse was broken. These days, we’re big fans of this recipe from Oprah magazine. Here’s a streamlined version of it. Tailor the recipe to the tastes of the guy you like. If he’s conservative, stick to chocolate on chocolate and you can’t go wrong. If he’s a bit daring, try dried cranberries. And if you think he could be The One, splurge on dried cherries. Sure, they’re pricey, but seriously, can you afford not to go all out on Valentine’s? Chocolate Wonders8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (preferably 70 per cent cacao or more) 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate 6 tablespoons unsalted butter 1/3 cup all-purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 large eggs, at room temperature 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3/4 cup sugar 1-3 cups of chunky ingredients (such as semisweet chocolate chips, toasted nuts, dried cranberries or cherries – be creative!) 1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. 2. Combine the chocolate and butter and melt over double boiler or in microwave oven set on low. Watch carefully, stirring occasionally, until melted. Set aside to cool until barely warm. 2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt and set aside. 4. Combine eggs and vanilla in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until just combined. Add sugar and beat until thick, a minute or two. Use a rubber spatula to scrape the melted chocolate into the eggs and stir until just combined. Add the flour mixture and stir with spatula until just blended. 5. Fold in the chunky embellishments with the spatula until evenly blended. Drop the batter onto prepared pans in heaping tablespoons, leaving two inches between cookies. 6. Bake the cookies until the tops look set and slightly cracked and dry, 16-17 minutes. Leave to cool on the baking sheet before moving to a cooling rack. Makes about 20 big cookies.
F-Arty Friday – Meet Banksy, Street Artist Extraordinaire
Welcome to our first F-Arty Friday blog, which as you’ve hopefully guessed, stands for Fabulous Arty Fridays. Last week, we launched Bite This! in honor of Zahra, Love, Inc.’s main character, whose passion is cooking. Another key player in Love, Inc. is Sydney Stark, whose passion is art, so we’ve decided to dedicate Friday’s blog to arts. Some people frown on Syd’s preferred medium: graffiti. In fact, spray painting on public property is illegal in Austin. But that just fuels Syd’s fire to express herself through “street art.” In Love, Inc. Syd’s idol is the British graffiti artist known as Banksy, an artist she admires so much she named her beloved Rottweiler after him. What’s not to love about Banksy, a funny, smart, subversive artist, who’s managed to sneak his work onto the walls of museums including the Louvre in Paris and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City? He even managed to “tag” the animal enclosures at the central park zoo in Barcelona! Here’s what Banksy himself says about his line of work: Despite what they say graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Although you might have to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually one of the more honest art forms available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on the best walls a town has to offer and nobody is put off by the price of admission. Thanks, Banksy, for making the world a more interesting place!   *All photos from: http://www.banksy.co.uk/
Quiz — What’s your LOVE, INC. specialty: Mediation, Matchmaking or Revenge?
 In Love, Inc. Zahra is the company mediator, keeping the peace both between clients and between her volatile partners, Syd and Kali. Zahra's special skill is helping to get a relationship back on course. But when a romance has really hit the rocks, she's also good at negotiating the split. She deserves a gold medal for running interference! Do you have what it takes to be a mediator?a) Are you someone who sees the world in shades of gray, rather than black-and-white? b) Do you sometimes feel like a hairdresser/therapist/bartender because everyone in your family or group of friends confides in you? c) Can you see both sides of any situation and stay calm, no matter how many feathers are flying? d) Have you ever brought two friends or family members back together by helping them understand each other’s point of view? e) Do other people’s disagreements feel like messy, unfinished business? Answer Key:If you answered “yes” to three or more of the above, you are definitely mediator material. Mediators are able to stand outside a situation and observe it objectively, rather than taking sides and getting emotionally involved. Mediators can see what each side really wants and can explain it in neutral terms that people are willing to hear. Better yet, mediators can turn a battle into a win-win situation by figuring out how each side can compromise just a little to make sure both sides are happy. If you are a natural mediator, you will be the most popular person in your family and probably the sun around which all your friends orbit. People will lay their problems at your feet and expect you to solve them. That can be as stressful, as witnessing a disagreement is hard enough without getting involved. But it’s also empowering, because people trust you with their secrets and know you’ll help them sort things out. Everyone loves a peacemaker, and the more you develop your skills, the less likely you are to get caught in the crossfire. What’s more, highly refined mediation skills can end up making you big bucks in your career. They’re pretty useful in a relationship, too!
Bite This! Yvonne’s Herbed Cheese Soufflé
 When I was a teen, I didn’t have much interest in cooking. In fact, when my older, and more domesticated sister-in-law gave me The Good Housekeeping Cookbook for Christmas one year, I smiled, thanked her with Academy Award worthy enthusiasm, and mentally filed the gift under “D” for dust catcher.
But months later, on a boring Sunday afternoon, I was struck with an unfamiliar desire to cook something. My German mother—a fabulous cook—was excited, and itching to teach me how to make her classic schnitzel, or a goulash. I had no interest in learning how to make any of the household standards (Why risk being asked to pitch in with the cooking on a regular basis?). Instead, I dusted off that rejected cookbook picked a recipe that intrigued me—mostly because it was something my mom would never make: A Classic Herbed-cheese Soufflé.
It sounded exotic, and I figured if I could get that sucker to rise, I could impress all my friends.
So I tested the recipe out on my family, and miraculously, it rose perfectly! It rose perfectly again when I made it for a friend and again, when I made it for another. In fact, that soufflé was so impressive and reliable that it quickly became my signature dish. Just add a salad, and voila! You’re a super chef. Sandy can attest to the quality of the product, because she was one of my first culinary victims. (Sandy’s note: So true: it was a magnificent creation!)
This past fall, after reminiscing about that recipe, I found a soufflé dish at a garage sale and decided to make my old standby. And guess what? It was just as easy and perfect as I remember.
So if you want to impress your friends and family (and yourself), I will now share the secret to my culinary success, courtesy of a well-used Good Housekeeping Cookbook:
Classic Herbed-Cheese Soufflé
¼ cup butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
Dash cayenne pepper
11/2 cups milk
2 4-ounce packages of shredded Cheddar cheese (2 cups)
6 large eggs, separated
*2 tbsp chopped parsley
*½ tsp thyme leaves
(*Note: a few teaspoons of dried herbs, like basil, oregano, Italian seasoning and thyme also work fine)
About 1 and 1/4 hours before serving:
Preheat oven to 325°F. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, into hot butter, stir flour, salt and pepper until smooth. Slowly stir in milk and cook, stirring occasionally, until sauce is smooth and thickened. Add cheese and heat, stirring, just until cheese melts. Remove from heat.
In small bowl, with fork, beat egg yolks slightly. Into egg yolks, beat small amount of the hot sauce; slowly pour egg mixture into sauce, stirring rapidly to prevent lumping. Stir in parsley and thyme. Set aside.
In large bowl, with mixer at high speed, beat egg whites just until stiff peaks form. With rubber spatula, gently fold cheese mixture into egg whites; pour into 2-quart soufflé dish or casserole. With spoon, make 1-inch-deep circle in top of cheese mixture, 1 inch from side of dish. Bake soufflé for 1 hour or until puffy and golden brown. Serve immediately.
Makes 6 servings.
(This will rise up beautifully—over the top edge of your dish—but as soon as you cut it, it will deflate!)
Our Two Cents
If you’ve been reading our blog in recent weeks, you may have noticed we’ve started offering useful tips on everything from dressing up for New Year’s Eve on a budget, to last week’s blog on how to throw a tropical get together. Dispensing advice isn’t new to us. In fact, our first book, Totally Me: The Teenage Girl’s Survival Guide, is basically 230 pages of strategies for handling relationships with guys, friends and family. We’re good listeners and we’re happy to offer creative solutions—often completely unsolicited! Our drive to coach is probably what inspired our latest book, Love, Inc., in which Zahra, Syd and Kali freely dispense advice on all things love-related. The girls aren’t always right, but they always have an opinion. Check out their sometimes-extreme advice to common relationship problems on the Love, Inc. Fortune Teller game here. Although we, too, have plenty of strong opinions on relationships, in our blog we’re going to stick to less combustible subjects. Like art, for example. Or photography. Or music. Or our personal favorite, food. Like Zahra, in Love, Inc., Sandy loves to bake—the higher calorie the result the better. Yvonne prefers to rattle pots and pans on the stovetop, and can whip up a fast, healthy meal in the blink of an eye. Between us, we’ve tried a lot of recipes inflicting the results on tolerant loved ones. Now we want to share some of the best with you, so that you can impress your friends and family. Don’t worry, all our favorites are suitable for a novice chef. Because our philosophy on hosting is to keep it simple, so that you can enjoy hanging with your guests. Today’s recipe is for the Ma  rmalade cake that Sandy served Yvonne and her husband on Saturday night. The recipe appeared in Food and Drink Magazine: Marmalade Cake1 cup granulated sugar ½ cup unsalted butter, softened 2 large eggs 2 cups all –purpose flour 1 ½ tsp. kosher salt 1 tsp baking soda 1 cup plain full-fat yogurt ½ cup Seville Orange or 3 Fruit Marmalade, peel chopped ORANGE SYRUP 3 tbsp marmalade 3 tbsp orange liqueur ICING 3 cups icing sugar 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted ¼ to 1/3 cup milk 1. Preheat oven to 350°F 2. Cut a round of parchment paper to fit the base of a well-greased and sugared 9-inch cake pan. 3. Cream sugar and butter together with electric beaters until light and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well between additions. 4. Sift together flour, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl. Beat one-third of flour mixture into batter, then half of yogurt; continue alternating between flour mixture and yogurt, finishing with flour mixture. Stir in marmalade. 5. Spoon batter into cake pan. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. Et cool for 10 minutes in pan while making syrup. 6. Combine marmalade and orange liqueur in a small pot over medium heat, stirring until marmalade dissolves. Bring to a boil and boil for 30 seconds to burn off alcohol. Strain out any peel. 7. Run the edge of a flexible knife between cake and pan to loosen. Invert cake onto a rack and peel off parchment paper. Turn cake right-side up, place on rack over a plate and use the point of a skewer to make small holes all over top of cake. Brush top and sides of warm cake generously with syrup. Leave to cool completely. 8. Whisk together icing sugar, butter and enough milk to make a slightly runny white icing. Spread over cake so that it drizzles down the sides. Decorate with candied orange rind, if desired. Serves 8 In the unlikely event there are leftovers, they can be stored at room temperature in a cake tin.
Arctic Winds bringing you Down?
 Beat the winter blues by hosting a tropical get together! 
1. Set the mood with the right e-mail invitation. Using a free site like evite.com, select something with a summer or beach theme. Warn your guests that they’ll be coming to a warm climate, and ask them to dress appropriately. 2. Get blooming. If you plan ahead, you can pick up spring bulbs from your local garden center three weeks before the party and plant them in containers. When the party rolls around, you’ll have tulips and hyacinth blooming in every corner. Alternately, pick up some fresh flowers—or even some fake ones from the dollar store. Most dollar stores also sell plastic lei’s, or garlands. Pick some up for your guests. 3. Let there be light, and lots of it. The summertime sun isn’t available, but you can still create a summery mood with fun patio or twinkle lights. Paper lanterns always look great too. 4. Be playful. Add a few beach balls into the mix, or an old Twister game (but be sure to put away all breakables first). If you happen to have Wii games that fit the summer party theme, include those too. 5. Load on the props. Drape colorful beach towels over your chairs, or better yet, set up some lawn chairs inside. If possible, bring the patio umbrella inside too. If you’re the superstitious, leave it closed! 6. Make a playlist of all the songs that contain the word “summer,” “sun,” “heat,” “hot,” or “beach.” 7. Put on your parka and barbeque hotdogs and burgers. If that won’t work, settle for the stove. Then make a fresh salad or better yet, corn on the cob, or try a corn salad. This Barefoot Contessa version is always a huge hit. Dessert is easy: a big platter of sliced fruit, or kebobs, with skewered strawberries, pineapple, mango and melon. 8. Fire up the blender. Look for cocktail recipes online, or try Yvonne & Sandy’s Favorite Virgin Daiquiri:- Toss two cups of fresh or defrosted strawberries or raspberries in a blender, with a cup of ice.
- Add a splash of orange juice.
- Top up the blender container with limeade (prepared from frozen concentrate – available where you buy frozen lemonade).
- Blend until slushy.
- Serve in tall glasses with paper umbrellas that you picked up from the dollar store when you bought those leis.
No blender? Try a Virgin Cosmo instead, by combining cranberry juice with a splash of orange juice, and the juice of one lime. Dip the rim of your glass in lime juice first, and then in granulated sugar. 9. Pull out your summer gear. Sundress, or shorts? Your call. Shades: mandatory. 10. Turn up the heat. Literally. Use a couple of space heaters to warm up the room where you’ll be hosting your party. Then add a fan to simulate those soft, summer breezes. Kick off your flip-flops and enjoy!
Goodreads can be Free Reads!
Don't forget to sign up before the end of the month to enter our latest contest to win one of three copies of Love, Inc.
Here's what some Goodreads reviewers are saying:
"Love, Inc. is super sweet and super satisfying." Tiger Holland, 5 stars
"Love, Inc. ...was such a fun read. I loved it!" Ashley, 4 stars “…this was a very charming, fun and satisfying read." Nely, 4 stars
"This book was a cute and fun read. ... It has some great advice, some good revenge, and great friendship!" Savannah ( Books with Bite), 4 stars
Broken Fingers, Sequels and Giveaways
Like all authors, we love hearing from happy readers. We love it even more when the notes are funny. After all, we write comic novels! So this just came in from Brianne, and we can’t help sharing. Okay.Hi, I just finished reading "The Black Sheep" IN ONE DAY! I am basically starving to read of what happens between Mitch and Kendra! I mean, You cannot just let the book end that way, I suppose you could, but PLEASE Don't!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I would be absolutely excited if you wrote a sequel. I am so curious to see what happens between Maya and Kendra. PLEASE. I do not know how many times I can say please. Can you tell me any way to persuade you into writing a sequel, I will be on it!So. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASEPLEASE write onOr unless you guys broke your hands, or some other tragic thing to where you cannot type or write.BUT PLEASE! Sincerely, BriannePs. PLEASEThank You(:We had to tell Brianne a sad truth about publishing: authors don’t usually decide whether or not to write a sequel. Publishers make that decision based on a book’s sales. The more people who buy the book—or borrow it from the library—the more likely it is that authors will get to revisit a story. That’s the business side of writing. So our advice to booklovers in general is to tell their friends about their favourites to spread the word. And our advice to Brianne in particular is to push Kendra and Mitch out of her mind for now and give our new book a try. Luckily all fingers are fully operational on Team Collins-Rideout, although we do have trouble keeping our hands warm, here in snowy Toronto. Brianne has inspired us to give away a couple of copies of LOVE, INC. over on goodreads.com
A Tribute to "Real Zahra" now that LOVE, INC. is officially on the shelves!
 LOVE, INC. officially arrived on bookshelves yesterday—at least in the U.S. Here in Canada, our home and native land, it might be another week. (It is dogsled season.) As a reminder, here’s what the book’s about: Zahra, Kali, and Syd would never have met if their parents' marriages hadn't fallen apart. But when the three girls collide in group counseling, they discover they have something else in common: they've each been triple-timed by the same nefarious charmer, Eric, aka Rico, aka Rick. Talk about eye-opening therapy.Cheerful, diplomatic Zahra is devastated. Rico had been her rock and sole confidant. How could she have missed the signs? Free-spirited, flirtatious Kali feels almost as bad. She and Rick hadn't been together long, but they'd felt so promising. Hardened vintage-vixen Syd is beyond tears. She and Eric had real history... Or so she'd thought. Now all three girls have one mission: to show that cheater the folly of his ways.Project Payback is such a success, the girls soon have clients lining up for their consulting services. Is your boyfriend acting shady? Are you dying to know if your crush is into you? If you need a little help to make-up, break-up or meet someone new, look no further than Love, Inc. What isn’t mentioned here is that Zahra is also struggling with a culture clash at home. Her maternal grandparents have arrived from Pakistan with an agenda: they want to introduce Zahra to their culture. To her mind, it’s less an introduction than a hostile takeover; Zahra considers herself more like her Scottish-American dad. Take a look at our author photos. As you can probably tell, Yvonne and I have little first-hand experience with the culture clash Zahra’s facing. And yet, we see it around us all the time, because Toronto is an extremely cosmopolitan city. We wanted to reflect some of that tension in this story. Obviously, it’s tricky for an author to step into another culture and capture its nuances, especially in a comic way. That is where “Real Zahra,” our cultural attaché, came in. As we noted in the book’s acknowledgements, Real Zahra not only let us borrow her name, she graciously answered all of our questions. This was probably challenging at times, as Real Zahra is an elegant and refined 20-something who has lived in Toronto for ages and gets along well with her family. Yet when we asked her to put herself in the mind of “Fake Zahra,” a rebellious and belligerent 15-year-old, Real Zahra consistently rose to the challenge. She also took the time to describe many traditions and foods in detail that Wikipedia could never provide. If we proposed an event and Real Zahra declared, “That would never happen,” we took her seriously and made changes accordingly. In other words, she helped to make the story authentic. At the end, she even read a draft to make sure we hadn’t made any truly egregious errors. So, once again, our sincere thanks to Real Zahra. We couldn’t have done it without you! And if anyone has a bone to pick with Fake Zahra, put the blame squarely on us.
Who Doesn’t Like a Freebie?
We’re spending release day trying to score some deals in the stores.
To keep you busy while we’re gone, we hereby offer Chapter One of Love, Inc. for your reading pleasure. Enjoy!
Cover Love – in which Sandy Brags about the LOVE, INC. Cover Design
Yesterday we got an e-mail from someone who said many so many nice things about LOVE, INC. that we blushed briefly. The book doesn’t come out until tomorrow (January 4th), but the reader had an advance copy and we particularly appreciated this:
The cover was cute and fit perfectly with the book. Zahra looked on the cover just as described in the book. The cover showcased two major parts of the book. There couldn't be a more perfect cover!
Now, normally, we can’t take a bit of credit for our book covers. Authors, unless they’re way more important than we are, generally have little say in the cover design (or even the title for that matter). We’ve liked the book covers our publishers have designed, with one notable exception. I won’t single it out, but if you check our books section, you’ll probably be able to figure out which one it is.
This time around, our then-editor asked us for ideas for the LOVE, INC. cover. I’m the first to admit that I’m design-challenged, and I turn to Yvonne for advice on everything from clothes to carpets. So my role in the cover brainstorming session was to sit back with my no-foam, extra hot latte and shoot down Yvonne’s ideas—until she came up with something irresistible. (Don’t worry, she gets plenty of opportunity to shoot down my ideas).
At first, we wanted to feature a trailer on the cover, because in the book the girls run Love, Inc.—their matchmaking, mediation and revenge business—out of a trailer parked in Kali’s backyard.
When the trailer idea didn’t fly, Yvonne came up with the idea of an ice cream truck, which had the added advantage of profiling Zahra’s passion for baking. We asked if the jars on the truck could hold cookies, because Zahra believes her love life is under a “cookie curse”: whenever she bakes cookies for a guy, he dumps her.
Luckily our publisher found the perfect model, who has Zahra’s long, curly red hair. We suggested the menu board, which helps to explain what the book is about. In fact, we even weighed in on wheel size.
It is the first time we’ve ever been so hands-on with a cover. We’re grateful for that opportunity and thrilled with the result.
Of course, if other people hate the cover, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Specifically Yvonne. Please direct all hate mail to her.
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If you’ve read the first chapter of Love, Inc (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for?), then you’ll know all about Zahra and her dreaded Cookie Curse.
