Guilty as Charred (A Cook-Off Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Kensington (June 25, 2019)
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages

Synopsis

Sherry Oliveri has attained celebrity status after winning the America’s Good Taste Recipe Contest with her delectable New England Crab Cake Sliders. But now that she’s back home in Connecticut, she’s got to deal with something else fishy . . .

Sherry’s making a guest appearance on a local radio show when the news comes in: Poppy Robinson has been found dead in the town’s community garden. Sherry was supposed to be taking questions about her win in the national cooking competition, but instead the callers start dishing dirt.

Poppy and Sherry were both involved in the vegetable garden, and while Poppy may have been a bit priggish, it wasn’t anything that called for a shovel to the back of the head. There was already trouble brewing, with the owner of the land threatening to renege on their agreement, and this murder has taken tensions to a new level. Now while Sherry’s organizing a Fourth of July cook-off event, she’s also got a murder investigation on her plate . . .

Includes Recipes from Sherry’s Kitchen!

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Guest Post

Today we welcome Devon Delaney to StoreyBook Reviews.  She shares with us how she got involved with cooking competitions and how it helped her as an author.

Cooking Competitor and Author

What would drive a computer teacher and mother of three to create recipes in order to outdo other home cooks in a contest kitchen for over twenty years? For starters, appreciation, encouragement, and curiosity. I am often asked about how I got into contest cooking. Even before I authored a cozy mystery series based on my experience in cook-offs and recipe contests, I was stopped in grocery stores by friends and those familiar with my cooking successes. The inquisitive party would peek in my cart and try to guess what I was making for dinner or what the theme of the contest I was prepping for was. Conversation would inevitably lead to, “how did you ever get started competing?”

True story – I once had a friend come up to me and chide me for putting the idea into the head of her husband that the way to the new stainless steel refrigerator of her dreams was not by purchasing it at the local appliance store. Rather, he insisted she enter a recipe contest because her friend (me) had just won a kitchen full of major appliances by concocting a winning recipe. I’m pretty sure if my husband had pushed me to enter coking contests in order to modernize our kitchen, my passion would have been snuffed out immediately. Yes, I am lucky enough to label recipe contests as my passion.

Some think it odd that I take mealtime into the competitive realm, but honestly, the very first contest I entered was on a whim. I never imagined where winning on the first try would take me. What they say about timing is everything was true in this case. My kids were tiny. Two in diapers and one in Kindergarten. The winter was horrendous that year and our young family was housebound for prolonged periods, due to the icy conditions outside. During the kid’s naptime, I saw an advertisement for a recipe contest in the back of a magazine. What Can You Transform A Slice Of Bread Into was the theme. Turns out my creation, Orange Dusted French Toast Fingers with Maple Dipping Sauce was just what the judges had in mind. That ice storm earned me to thousand dollars. I was hooked.

Over twenty years later, I still compete and get such enjoyment out of each cooking contest. I cross paths with some of the same people I met over twenty years ago and they, too, haven’t lost their enthusiasm for cooking for cash and valuable prizes in an unfamiliar kitchen, under severe time and ingredient restraints. We may be a different breed, but what’s true is everyone has a bit of competitive spirit in them. Mine just happens to shine while creating a better Ranch Steak Bruschetta, a dish that won me a five-digit grand prize check, than the rest of the home cooks on a particular day.  I’m lucky enough to be able to combine that talent with a love of writing, another pursuit I’m often asked how I got involved in. Lesson is, follow your passion, it can’t help but lead you down a path of wonderful surprises.

About the Author

Devon Delaney is a wife, mother of three, accomplished cooking contester, recent empty nester, and lifelong resident of the Northeast. She has been handsomely rewarded for her recipe innovation over the last twenty-plus years, including a full kitchen of major appliances, top cash prizes, and four trips to Disney World. She has also won the Grand Prize in a national writing contest for her “foodie” poem “Ode to Pork Passion.”

Website ~ Instagram

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