LadyKillers asked what my characters eat around the holidays.
Fudge.
Lots of fudge.
My characters live in Spencer County, Indiana, and Santa Claus is one of the little cities. Inside Santa Claus is The Christmas Store, a sprawling shop visited by people from all across the country…and it gets some international visitors too. My sheriff and her father stop at the place in a scene from my novel The Dead of Winter. My husband and I visited the place when we traveled to the county to research my setting.
You can smell the bakery before you see it…the enticing sugary scents will tug you toward it. Open up your wallet and don’t be shy about spending.
The bakery offers cookies, of course. And Santa sits in a high-backed chair against the wall, perhaps waiting for people to give him a plateful. The bakery’s specialty: fudge—in wondrous varieties. When we visited, we sampled the plain milk chocolate (oh my!), and my husband was quick to eat the chocolate walnut (I assume it was good).
I called the bakery yesterday to ask what varieties of fudge were in their display case. What would Sheriff Piper Blackwell and her father have to choose from? The baker told me:
- Peanut butter and chocolate
- Chocolate walnut
- Peppermint
- Eggnog
- Sugar free chocolate
- Snowy road…she explained this is vanilla fudge with nuts and marshmallows
- Amarello
- Salted carmel
- Sugar cookie
- Dark chocolate with salted caramel
- Milk chocolate
She named a few more, but I couldn’t write fast enough.
Suffice it to say…YUM.
My characters would eat fudge for the holidays. Piper would go for the snowy road and milk chocolate (because that is what I would buy). Her father? The Dark chocolate with salted caramel and probably a little piece of peppermint…that would go good with coffee.
Coffee would also be on the menu. The Blackwells love good coffee, Eight O’clock Dark Italian being a favorite.
Now, they’re going to need something more substantial than sugar and caffeine. Enter Nang Phan. Nang runs a quick mart in Fulda, a dinkburg in Spencer County. Piper meets him while investigating a murder. Nang’s quick mart and gas station doesn’t feature the traditional fare…pretzels, hotdogs, and the like. He offers complete Vietnamese meals, and he’s known for catering the occasional party. Nang is an excellent chef.
For the holidays Nang would cook Piper and her father Crab Meat Sui Mai and Dan Dan Noodles Chen. He’d serve up bowls of Tears in Eyes, a spicy mung bean noodle soup, and have pork dumplings in chili oil on the side. And for New Year’s, he’d keep it simple: Chả Lụa and Gà Nướng Xã. Sheesh, I’m getting hungry typing this.
My characters can be found here, in The Dead of Winter: https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Winter-Piper-Blackwell-Mystery-ebook/dp/B01LY5X4BB/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1481730569&sr=8-1&keywords=jean+rabe
The Santa Claus Christmas Store is here: http://www.santaclauschristmasstore.com/
If you’re in the area, stop in and have your senses overwhelmed…and bring your sweet tooth.
Interesting post, Jean, but tell me, does Santa commute between the store and the North Pole during December? Those reindeer must be pretty beat. ;-)
Posted by: Michael A Black | December 21, 2016 at 11:12 AM
Yum! All that fudge sounds delicious! I wish I lived closer so I could check out the store for myself.
Posted by: Staci | December 21, 2016 at 12:18 PM