Agatha Raisin lives on in mystery story
Much like Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple, feisty fictional detective Agatha Raisin lives on beyond the death of her creator. M. C. Beaton, author of the Agatha Raisin mystery series, died in 2019, but author R. W. Green is creating new adventures for the characters she created.
“Hot to Trot,” the newest book in the series and the first by R. W. Green, opens as Agatha is handing out assignments to the staff at her detective agency, while inwardly seething about the upcoming marriage of her old friend and past lover, Sir Charles Fraith, to Mary Brown-Fields. Knowing Charles is always strapped for money, she assumes Mary is from a family with aspirations to his title and deep enough pockets to help keep Charles’ stately English country manor, Barfield House, afloat.
Through it all, each piece of art resonates with visitors.
“Ball in the Window” by William Weaver.
Wren Prather-Stroud is the secretary of the New Mexico Arts Commission.
She’s also been around to see the arts park grow – not only in size – but in the amount of public art in the area.
“Cougar” by Cynthia Rowland.
“Because of the arts park, the area has grown exponentially,” Prather-Stroud says. “Before COVID, we used to have live performances down there and a movies in the park series. We haven’t had anything in awhile. There is a reason that we added the ‘s’ to arts park. We wanted it to be a home for visual arts and performance arts. The park has become a fabric of our lives.”
Pepin s updated cookbook available at the Carlsbad Public Library
Beth Nieman
One of the best things about knowing or talking to someone with a lot of experience is that you can benefit from all the knowledge they have gained. If you read Jacques Pepin’s updated cookbook, “Quick and Simple,” you will find he shares lots of great, practical cooking advice from his decades as a chef, cookbook author, and recipe developer for his own television shows.
For example, his recipe for “Supremes of Chicken with Paprika” offers a tip for preparing chicken breasts without letting them dry out something I have wanted to know myself! He writes, “A supreme of chicken is simply a boneless, skinless chicken breast . . . the trick is to avoid overcooking them. The best way I’ve found to do this is to sauté them until they’re about three-quarters done, then set them aside to finish cooking in their residual heat. The result is very tender.”
New Mexico author recalls boyhood in new book
Beth Nieman
“New Mexico author Gary Paulsen’s new book, “Gone to the Woods,” is the story in novel form of Paulsen’s own boyhood. He opens with a long journey north he undertakes alone as a boy of five. Wearing a tag pinned to his jacket in Chicago by his hard-drinking mother, he rides a train filled with war-wounded WW II soldiers heading home.
His mother has sent him without food, but here and there someone shares something. He’s so small he gets stuck in the toilet, unable to get out until another passenger needs it and helps him. As the train travels through dense woods past a lake, he sees a wonderful bear looking at the train, and it helps him pass the long hours making up stories about the bear and its life next to the train track. (The opposing forces of danger and beauty in nature are a recurring theme in Paulsen’s writing.)
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