The Influencer - A Recipe & Giveaway

I'm happy to welcome Frankie Bow to Cozy Up With Kathy today. Frankie writes the Professor Molly Mystery series. The Influencer is the tenth book in the series and was released last week.

Professor Molly Barda, protagonist of the Professor Molly Mysteries, is at best an indifferent cook. These days she does her best to pretend she knows her way around her own kitchen. But before she married local restaurateur Donnie Gonsalves, Molly’s kitchen was just another room to put stuff. Her freezer contained vodka and pantyhose, and her fridge stored leftover takeout and coffee cream, and her oven was used for overflow shoe storage. She has set off the smoke alarm trying to make coffee.

But there is one recipe that is simple enough for Molly to handle, and so tasty that it’s actually worth the effort. When Molly misses Cal-Mex cuisine (and there’s not much of that in Mahina, Hawaii) she pulls out her treasured family recipe and makes El Dorado Casserole.

El Dorado Casserole

Ingredients:
------------
0a) 1/3 to 3/4 lbs cheese (monterey jack and cheddar, combined)

0b) Large bag unsalted tortilla chips
---
1a) 1.5 lbs chopped beef

1b) 1 onion

1c) 4 garlic cloves

1d) 1 can (16oz) black olives

1e) ground cumin (to taste)
---
2a) 1.5 lbs ripe roma tomatoes

(or 2 16oz cans whole stewed tomatoes).

2b) 4 6oz cans tomato paste
---
3a) 1 large sour cream (16oz)

3b) 1 large cottage cheese (16oz)

3c) 2 small cans chopped green ortega chiles
--- 

Instructions: 

STEP 0:

Take the cheese from (0a). Chop or shred if it’s not already shredded. Put aside.

STEP 1:

Take ingredients (1a)-(1e) and saute everything until onions are soft and beef is browned.

STEP 2:

Cook ingredients (2a)-(2b) until tomatoes are soft. Add the browned beef mixture from STEP 1 and bring up to a simmer.

STEP 3:

Take ingredients (3a)-(3c). Mix sour cream, cottage cheese, and chiles in a large bowl.

STEP 4:

Grease the inside of a big Dutch oven or casserole.

STEP 5:

Layer all the prepared ingredients in the Dutch oven or casserole as follows:

¥ 1 layer crumbled tortilla chips (about 1/3 of bag)

¥ 1/2 the tomato/meat sauce mixture

¥ All of the sour cream/cottage cheese mixture

¥ 1 layer of whole tortilla chips (about 1/3 of bag)

¥ 1/2 the chopped-up cheese

¥ The rest of the tomato/meat sauce mixture

¥ The rest of the chopped-up cheese on top

STEP 6:

Place Casserole into 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until cheese on top is browned.

STEP 7:

Remove Casserole when done, and top with chips for decoration. Serve hot.

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 The Influencer (Professor Molly Mysteries) by Frankie Bow

About The Influencer

The Influencer (Professor Molly Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery 10th in Series
Publisher: Hawaiian Heritage Press (March 17, 2021)
Print length : 205 pages

In Which Professor Molly Learns There Is, In Fact, Such a Thing as Bad Publicity

It's spring break. Donnie's taken the baby to visit relatives on the mainland, and Professor Molly finally has time to catch up on the assessment paperwork she owes the Student Retention Office.

Molly's new renter is a social media star seeking privacy in remote Mahina. The arrangement seems to be working out--until her celebrity renter disappears. Molly and her best friend Emma dutifully call in the Mahina PD and try to stay out of the way. But when fame creates its own reality distortion field, everyone has an angle and nothing is as it seems.

About Frankie Bow

Like Professor Molly, Frankie Bow teaches at a public university. Unlike her protagonist, she is blessed with delightful students, sane colleagues, and a perfectly nice office chair. She believes if life isn’t fair, at least it can be entertaining. In addition to writing murder mysteries, she publishes in scholarly journals under her real name. Her experience with academic publishing has taught her to take nothing personally.

Author Links: 

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Purchase Links: Amazon B&N Rakuten/Kobo Angus & Robertson Apple  

 

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Yelp for Professors - A Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm happy to welcome Professor Molly Barda to Cozy Up With Kathy today. You can find her on the pages of the Professor Molly Mysteries by Frankie Bow. The Perfect Body is the eighth book in the series.

Yelp for professors.

By Professor Molly Barda

A few years ago, during a round of budget cuts at Mahina State University, our deputy assistant vice-chancellor of student experiences had a money-saving idea: getting rid of in-class teaching evaluations. Instead, students were directed to use a certain well-known online professor ratings site.

Because, as the deputy assistant vice-chancellor wrote in a campuswide email announcing the change, “Our student’s are the best judge of teaching.”

The site is real. It’s like Yelp for professors. Anyone can go on and leave anonymous feedback for the whole world to see.

Think about that for a minute. Anyone can rate anyone. You can post reviews of your friends, your rivals, even yourself.

It was Pat Flanagan, the comp instructor, who first came up with a way to make lemonade from these particularly sour lemons. Emma Nakamura (the biology professor who happens to be my best friend at Mahina State) and I caught on pretty quickly.

Our solution? Ratings party!

The three of us get together at my place, pull out our laptops or phones, open a bottle of wine, and post reviews for each other. (We draw the line at writing our own reviews. For some reason, that feels wrong.)

You would think that we would give each other—that is, ourselves—positive reviews. We don’t.

Our purpose is not to inflate our own egos or make ourselves look like beloved mentors. Instead, we want to resist administration’s push to stuff every classroom to capacity with warm (tuition-paying) bodies.

So we do our best to scare off the slackers. I’m not going to show you our exact reviews (in the unlikely event one of our administrators reads book blogs) but I am confident we’re not the only professors doing this.

We’re always up for new ideas, though. What would you put on a professor rating site to keep your classes at a manageable size?

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The Perfect Body (Professor Molly Mysteries) by Frankie Bow

About the Book

 

The Perfect Body (Professor Molly Mysteries)  

Cozy Mystery 8th in Series  

Hawaiian Heritage Press Release Date - September 30, 2018 

Print Length: 203 pages  

 

When Professor Molly attends Mahina State University's exclusive donor dinner, she doesn't expect to have to share a table with the insufferable Stephen Park. Turns out it's one thing to invite your toxic ex-boyfriend to drop dead...it's quite another when he takes you up on it.

About the Author

Like Professor Molly, Frankie Bow teaches at a public university. Unlike her protagonist, she is blessed with delightful students, sane colleagues, and a perfectly nice office chair. She believes if life isn’t fair, at least it can be entertaining. In addition to writing murder mysteries, she publishes in scholarly journals under her real name. Her experience with academic publishing has taught her to take nothing personally.

Author Links:
Twitter https://twitter.com/Frankie_Bow  
Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7809288.Frankie_Bow  
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/frankie_bow/  
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/frankie.bow.1  
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankiebow/
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/frankie_bow/  
Tumblr http://frankiebow.tumblr.com/
 RSS Feed https://frankiebow.com/feed/  

Purchase Links:

Purchase link books2read.com/PerfectBody Links to all platforms will be there. Amazon

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The Blessed Event - Book Blast

Amazon has priced The Blessed Event by Frankie Bow at just 99⊄ for the month of January! (Free on Kindle Unlimited)

The Blessed Event (The Professor Molly Mysteries) Publisher: Hawaiian Heritage Press (June 10, 2016) Paperback: 344 pages ISBN-13: 978-1943476251 Kindle ASIN: B01GW5WUAE

Synopsis "You may wonder what my least-favorite student was doing in my living room. In a twist of fate that might seem hilarious if it happened to someone else, he was now my stepson." Professor Molly Barda is looking forward to a quiet summer in Mahina, Hawaii working on her research and adjusting to married life. But when a visit from her new husband's relatives coincides with a murder, Molly wonders what she's married into--and realizes she might have a killer under her roof.

About The Author

Like Molly Barda, Frankie Bow teaches at a public university. Unlike her protagonist, she is blessed with delightful students, sane colleagues, a loving family, and a perfectly nice office chair. She believes if life isn’t fair, at least it can be entertaining.

In addition to writing murder mysteries, she publishes in scholarly journals under her real name. Her experience with academic publishing has taught her to take nothing personally.

Author Links Webpage Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Goodreads Purchase Links Amazon    

BOOK BLAST PARTICIPANTS January 23 – Reading Authors January 23 – Books,Dreams,Life January 23 – Bibliophile Reviews January 24 – The Book's the Thing January 24 – Maureen's Musings January 24 – Cozy Up With Kathy January 25 – A Blue Million Books January 25 – The Ninja Librarian January 25 – Readsalot January 25 – Fantastic Feathers January 26 – Dee-Scoveries January 26 – Celticlady's Reviews January 26 – QUEEN OF ALL SHE READS January 27 – Rainy Day Reviews January 27 – Author Annette Drake's blog January 28 – Laura's Interests January 28 – StoreyBook Reviews January 28 – Valerie' Musings January 29 – Mythical Books January 30 – Melina's Book Blog January 30 – Brooke Blogs  

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Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Paddling - Guest Post, Review, & Giveaway

Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Paddling

By Frankie Bow

The Cursed Canoe takes readers into the world of Hawaiian outrigger canoe paddling. (An outrigger is an appendage on the canoe that stabilizes it and keeps it from tipping over.)

The discerning reader might wish to know whether I, your humble author, have ever tried canoe paddling. 

Yes. Yes, I have. And I was able to use my experience to write about my protagonist, Professor Molly Barda, trying out canoe paddling for the first time. This is my barely- fictionalized account:

My first challenge was to keep my borrowed swim shorts from falling down, which I accomplished by combining intermittent waistband-hitching with a John Wayne stride. I stepped into the foaming waves with knees akimbo, as five other women and I pushed the four-hundred-pound, six-seat fiberglass canoe out into the bay. I was immediately submerged to my knees, then to my waist, and soon we were hanging onto the sides of the canoe and treading water. I tried not to think about the contents of Mahina Bay churning around inside my shorts.

The next task was to get myself inside the boat. I grasped the undulating canoe and hooked one leg over the side of the boat. This brief triumph was followed by several minutes of me clinging to the side, one leg still dangling in the water. 

“Just roll in,” Emma shouted at me. “Roll!” Powerful hands gripped my upper arms and I felt myself being hoisted up into the canoe. Someone handed me a paddle.

My foray into canoe paddling also included a nasty cut that wouldn’t stop bleeding, and a sprung hamstring sustained during the grueling pre-paddling “warmup.”

But don’t let me put you off; I know people who are practically addicted to paddling. My own husband is among them. He’s out on the water several hours a week. He enjoys it, and it keeps him in amazing physical condition.

One of these days I’ll try it again, if for no other reason than to get those amazing arms. But in the meantime, outrigger paddling will give me plenty to write about.

****************************************************************************

Review

The Cursed Canoe by Frankie Bow

The Second Molly Barda Mystery

Molly is back and suffering some unusual physical ailments. Is it stress? The result of dealing with the Student Retention Office? While watching her friend Emma put the paddling crew through their paces she complains about Kathy Banks, her liaison to said Retention Office. Before Molly finishes wishing Kathy ill, shouts come out to call 911. Kathy has fallen overboard. And doesn't recover. Is there really such a thing as psychogenic death? Could Molly have somehow caused Kathy's death? And how is it that recent graduates are reportedly earning high incomes? Is Donnie thinking of making Molly's relationship with his son more than that of a former college professor? There's a lot going on at Mahina State, but is is murder? 

The death of paddler Kathy Banks is at the heart of  The Cursed Canoe. We get a glimpse into the world of outrigger canoe paddling and a deeper look at for profit colleges, and the fact that Mahina State appears to be transforming into one! Molly continues to find her way as an nontenured professor, trying to appease the Student Retention Office while still trying to be an effective teacher-something at odds with the current academic climate.

Frankie Bow weaves several threads through The Cursed Canoe and while many issues are resolved, there are still questions left for further exploration. The author gives us the seedier side of Hawaii in her Molly Barda Mystery series. It's not the tropical paradise the tourists see, but rather the harsher reality of island life-high cost of living, high humidity, and the horrors of Academia.

I love the sense of humor Bow brings, that self deprecating, almost fatalistic bite, and I enjoyed the intricate storyline, but am still left with some questions. The Cursed Canoe is made for the thinking reader, but while I appreciated the ending I feel as if I'm missing something. Still in all, it's a good read, especially for those familiar with the world of Academia.

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