Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful comments today.  I threw all the names into a hat (Well, into my random number generator anyway) and

THE WINNER IS

VALRI !!!

Congratualtions Valri.  Contact me via my website so I can get your mailing info and I'll get copy of A Baby Between Them right out to you! And remember, any of you who would like to pre-order a copy can do so HERE

Family dinners, pot lucks, buffets--they always feature at least one Jell-O salad. Something red with marshmallows and fruit -- or green with pineapple and whipped cream -- or at holidays -- a cranberry mold. Each of us remembers Jell-O from our earliest years.It’s just always been there. Open the little box, pour the granules into boiling water, and refrigerate. What could be easier?

Years ago I actually bought a fish bowl and created a seascape with blue gelatin and Gummy fish and Gummy worms.It was a laborious task, took a mountain of Jell-O, and the kids all thought it was pretty weird. Yeah, well, that’s me. Every once in a while I still poke holes in a cake and pour Jell-O over it. Chocolate cake with raspberry gelatin is my favorite. How about that time-consuming seven-layer Jell-O? One of my favorites is strawberry pretzel dessert.

My easy strawberry shortcake recipe goes like this:  Bake an angel food cake from a mix. Slice strawberries, mix up a box of  strawberry Jell-o, pour both over the cake and refrigerate. Smear with Cool Whip. You'd think I'd done something brilliant, because this is always a hit.

Am I making you hungry? Bringing back fond food memories?We take gelatin for granted, but our forefathers--or foremothers--went through a much more complicated process to do what we do in minutes.

Before the turn of the century gelatin was a functional food item rather than a treat. Since the days of ancient Greece, jellies and aspics had been used to bind, glaze, and also to preserve foods—like the canned hams we buy today.

To us gelatin is a dessert, but past cooks flavored their gelatins with vinegar, wine, almond extract, and other items to produce a tart product. The foods they glazed were more often meats than sweets.

As long ago as the Renaissance, chefs took pride in constructing elaborate gelatin molds, and no dinner party was complete without at least one jelly construction worthy of the best modern-day wedding cake baker. In the nineteenth century, the most popular mold designs were castles and fortresses complete with doors, windows, and crenellated turrets.

Before this century, the glue needed for gelatin, called collagen, had to be laboriously extracted from meat bones. In the Middle Ages, deer antlers were a popular source of the glue; and later, calves' feet and knuckles. Housewives in the nineteenth century used isinglass, made from the membranes of fish bladders.

Gelatin-making was a daylong affair, requiring the tedious scraping of hair from the feet, hours of boiling and simmering with egg whites to degrease and clarify the broth, and careful filtering through jelly bags or "filtering stools." The transparent finished product was then dried into sheets, leaves, or rounds.

In 1890, Charles B. Knox of Jamestown, New York was watching his wife make calves' foot jelly when he decided that a prepackaged, easy-to-use gelatin mix was just what the housewife needed. Knox set out to develop, manufacture, and distribute the granulated gelatin, while his wife invented recipes for the new kitchen staple.

In 1897, Pearl B. Wait, a NY carpenter and cough medicine manufacturer, developed a fruit-flavored gelatin. His wife, May Davis Wait, named his product Jell-O.Because of the development of the icebox at the end of the century, America was ready for gelatin desserts.

Wait's product found its way to few American tables before it was bought by the food tycoon Frank Woodward, who was already marketing a coffee and tea substitute named Grain-O.Within a few years the genius in packaging, mass marketing, and advertising turned Jell-O into a household word. The 10 cent carton advertised a delicious dessert that was delicate, delightful, and dainty, and the Jell-O trademark of a young girl with carton and kettle in hand soon appeared on store displays, dishes, spoons, and other promotional articles.

To show the housewife how versatile the product was, Woodward's company distributed free booklets with Jell-O recipes. One booklet alone ran to a printing of 15 million copies!

By 1925, Jell-O was a big-money industry. In that year Jell-O joined Postum to form General Foods, today one of the largest corporations in America.By the 1930's, Jell-O had become a way of life. No Sunday dinner was complete without a concoction known as Golden Glow salad, Jell-O laced with grated carrot and canned pineapple and served with gobs of mayonnaise.

Knox Gelatine tried to discourage the rush toward Jell-O with ads warning shoppers to spurn sissy-sweet salads that were 85 percent sugar. While Knox stressed the purity of their odorless, tasteless, sugarless gelatin, Jell-O highlighted their product's versatility.

As for the belief that gelatin is good for the hair and nails, the only claim made by either Jell-O or Knox is that their product may do some good for some people's hair and nails. Sugarfree gelatin is popular among dieters.

In the field of photography, gelatin was introduced in the late 1870s as a substitute for wet collodion. It was used to coat dry photographic plates, marking the beginning of modern photographic methods. Gelatin's use in the manufacture of medicinal capsules occurred in the twentieth century.

Golden Glow Salad

1 package (3 ounces) orange gelatin

1 cup boiling water

1 can (8 ounces) crushed pineapple

1 tablespoon lemon juice Cold water

1/4 teaspoon salt, optional

3/4 cup finely shredded carrots

In a bowl, dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Drain pineapple, reserving juice. Add lemon juice and enough cold water to pineapple juice to make 1 cup; add salt if desired. Stir into gelatin. Chill until slightly set. Stir in pineapple and carrots. Pour into an oiled 4-cup mold; cover and chill until firm. Unmold.

Yield: 6 servings.

<---- Hold everything: You can buy Jell-O on amazon .com.

In my search I discovered Jell-O shots, Jell-O wrestling, Jell-O spokesperson Bill Cosby, Jell-O Jiggler eggs (the kids stepped on one of these on my carpet one Easter – not good) and of course Jell-O molds.

What is your favorite gelatin memory?

Do you have a standby recipe?

If you want to share, post your favorite Jell-O recipe for us.

It’s always a delight to share my garden photos! Spring has come early to the Midwest. Trees and perennials are already flowering. My bleeding heart, which is on the north side of the house beside ferns that have been moved from yard to yard since I got them from my grandfather thirty years ago, is not quite blooming, so I’m sharing last year’s photos.

 

The Royal Horticultural Society is an old group of plant lovers who sought out new and unusual flora. In the 18th century, rare and unique plants were being shipped to the UK from China and Japan. Robert Fortune was sent  to find and bring back Asian specimens. He is credited with introducing bleeding heart in 1847. The plant name for what is commonly known as bleeding heart is Dicentras

The informal herbal and perennial gardens of the Victorian era were perfect places for bleeding heart. The beauties flourished beneath the branches of elms, alders, maples or other shade trees. The traditional English cottage garden has also been a favorite planting place for the bleeding heart. The plant's habit of blooming all summer with fall and winter dormancy, make it an important part of both spring and early summer gardens.

 

Native Americans used the wild bleeding heart medicinally. Wild Dicentras carpeted forest floors in the Pacific Northwest. It was used as a tincture or compress to relieve pain. The wild plants are lower growing and smaller than Dicentras spectabilis, but are identical in foliage type and have the classic heart-shaped flowers.

 

I hope you enjoy my photos today!

 

My April book The Wedding Journey is now available for order on amazon and the Kindle release will be available on the first.

 

Drumroll please…..

I’m giving away ALL THREE SIGNED BOOKS IN THE TRILOGY to one person who leaves a comment today.

Happy Spring!

  Christmas carols have to be my favorite form of holiday cheer. My husband and I both sang in choir during college as well as in an adult classical chorus a few years ago. My children love to sing too, and one of our friends from church jokingly calls us the family Von Trapp. As soon as the Thanksgiving dishes have been cleared away, we immediately grab the Christmas CDs and switch out the music in the car as well as in the home stereo. The kids love jamming out to the Phineas & Ferb Christmas album while my husband prefers Straight No Chaser. I love them all. But there is a special place in my heart for the classic carols that echo sounds of ages past. One of my favorites is I Wonder as I Wander.Written in a minor key, this hauntingly beautiful song evokes strong emotion with it's simple music and lyrics. [caption id="attachment_29131" align="alignright" width="146" caption="John Jacob Niles"][/caption] I Wonder as I Wander originated as a folksong from deep within Appalachia. As is true of most folk songs, it was handed down through an oral tradition, the original author unknown. However, in 1933, a collector of folk music, John Jacob Niles traveled to Murphy, North Carolina and came across a revivalist family camped out in the town square. The mother was cooking and hanging her wash on the Confederate monument. The family had been deemed a public nuisance and was on the verge of being ejected by the police. They needed to hold one more tent meeting in order to earn enough gas money to take them out of town. This is where Niles encountered the young daughter of the family, Annie Morgan. Unwashed but exceptionally pretty, she sang three lines of a song that captured Niles's attention. He paid her a quarter to repeat the tune. And another, and another. He paide her eight times in all, giving him the chance to transcribe her music and put her lyrics on paper. She sang the same three lines each time, but it was enough to inspire Niles to expand the song and eventually publish it. Today, this classic carol lives on, it's haunting melody and spiritual lyrics touching untold hearts. And it all started with a young girl's song.

I Wonder as I Wander

I wonder as I wander out under the sky How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die For poor on'ry people like you and like I; I wonder as I wander out under the sky

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all But high from God's heaven, a star's light did fall And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing A star in the sky or a bird on the wing Or all of God's Angels in heaven to sing He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King

I wonder as I wander out under the sky How Jesus the Saviour did come for to die For poor on'ry people like you and like I; I wonder as I wander out under the sky

         In case you're not familiar with the beautiful melody, I've included a recording for you to enjoy. Just click on the song title below. Merry Christmas! 

10 I Wonder as I Wander

 

Tanya's  picks:  I got to spend some righteous time with a whole corral-full of real-life cowboys on our wagon train trip around the Tetons a summer ago. Meeting Garrett Snow, I was so enthralled with his hero/book cover potential that hubby advised me to tell him WHY I was taking his picture so often, to assure him I wasn’t a stalker. He was downright flattered. Indeedy, I can see him some day starring in a book of mine entitled Snow in Summer…sigh. As for Sam Elliott, he’s the quintessential cowboy of every Western woman’s dreams. Y’all out there will have to agree. That voice of Rocky-Mountain gravel, that sly,  shy and sexy all at once smile peeking forth from the depths of that glorious mustache. ..Sigh. [caption id="attachment_26928" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Hero #13"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_26929" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Hero #14"][/caption]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary's picks:   When I need a hero tall, dark and handsome are so easy that I have to fight it. I usually lose.

Here’s one where I let a blonde rule the day. I see this guy as Tom Linscott. My hero from Sharpshooter in Petticoats and one of my favorite heroes ever.

And the other hero is Lee Horseley. Remember him from Guns of Paradise? I loved that show. I remember Lee being quoted as saying he’d sworn to never do another TV show. And then they offered him a cowboy and he couldn’t say no. He’s the perfect tall, dark and handsome cowboy. [caption id="attachment_26932" align="alignleft" width="205" caption="Hero No. 15"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_26933" align="alignright" width="226" caption="Hero No. 16 "][/caption]  

 

When You Need a Hero . . . just look around you. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes and aren't limited to skin color. A hero is as close as your own backyard or as far as your imagination takes you.   From Linda----- My hero must have a broad chest and love animals. *sigh* I also like my hero to be gentle yet strong.   [caption id="attachment_26370" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Hero # 9"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_26404" align="alignright" width="267" caption=" Hero #10     "][/caption]                     From Phyliss------------ When you need a real man . . . look no farther than #11. His name is Nathan and he was the cover model for two of our anthologies. Number 12 is a bit different and much, much harder. I had to look VERY carefully at each of them for a full day to decide which one I liked best. Well, that didn't work, because there was no way to tell which was the hunkiest, so you get four for the price of one. Enjoy! [caption id="attachment_26835" align="alignright" width="267" caption="Hero # 12"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_26834" align="alignleft" width="212" caption="Hero # 11"][/caption]                           Here are today's prize giveaways. Leave a comment and vote to get your name in the hat. Remember, you can vote more than once.

Ladies, I hope you're ready to saddle up for some more fun!

Charlene's Entries

Charlene Sands discovered Timothy Olyphant (Hero #5) from the hit FX series Justified, where he plays US Deputy Marshal Raylan Givens. Some of you might also recognize him from his role in Deadwood. As far as "Hero with an Edge" goes, Timothy's got it all and he's a source of inspiration for Charlene's upcoming Harlequin western! Charlene says this about Hero #6: "I fashioned my hero in The Cowboy's Pride coming in December from Harlequin Desire (who is an ex-country western star) after Chris Young. I truly love his music and his look. All this inspiration!" [caption id="attachment_23441" align="alignleft" width="192" caption="Hero No. 5"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_23434" align="alignright" width="220" caption="Hero No. 6"][/caption]                    

Cheryl's Entries

Cheryl St. John used a different criteria while selecting her heroes. Cheryl writes, "I didn't choose my heroes based on their pretty faces or sex appeal. When push comes to shove, I want a hero who would take a bullet for me, rescue me from outlaws or perhaps pay for a china tea set before he goes out to face certain death in the name of justice." "Robert Duvall plays one of of my favorite cowboy heroes in Lonesome Dove, Broken Trail and Open Range. Kevin Costner would make a fine upstandin' husband for any pretty spinster." [caption id="attachment_27015" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Hero No. 7"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_26422" align="alignright" width="194" caption="Hero No. 8"][/caption]

When you vote for your favorite hero, you'll get your name in the Stetson for one of these four books.

Grab your silk fans, ladies, and start them flapping. It's about to get very warm here at the Junction. We're giving away prizes all this week and all you have to do to enter is cast your vote on some very fine specimens of western manhood. What could be better than free books and cowboy eye candy? Donna and I have the honor of kicking off this shindig, and we'll be giving away four books, so get those eyes peeled and those voting fingers ready.   Karen's entries: When I need a hero for one of my books, there are certain qualities I look for. He must be rugged, strong, and capable of handling any challenge that comes his way. Much like  Hero #1. On the other hand, he must also be warm, tender, and a man who laughs. See Hero #2.                                                                                                    Donna's entries: I'm entering a pair of lovely gents. Blake Shelton (Hero #3), who I think is going to be cast as the hero in my upcoming Christmas book. This is a guy who needs to be big as a barn door with a heart of gold.  And second up is Hugh Jackman (Hero #4). I swear he’s the sexiest drover on the planet. [caption id="attachment_26389" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Hero #4"][/caption] [caption id="attachment_26388" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Hero #3"][/caption]  So what do you think ladies? Which man would you like to ride the range with? To vote, simply leave a comment with the hero's number that you prefer. And if you want, tell us what drew you to him. By voting, you will also be entered to win one of the four books we are giving away today.  Have fun!