Here's to Us

AUTHOR’S NOTE

As most of my longtime readers know, I love to write about food. This novel, Here’s to Us, features four actual recipes that were developed specifically to fit my plot. They are real recipes that we can all make at home.

The first two recipes, Deacon’s Clams Casino Dip with Herb-Butter Baguettes and the Fluffy White Champagne Cake, come from the person who is currently my culinary obsession, Jessica Merchant. Jessica is the author of the cookbook Seriously Delish, in which every recipe is… seriously delish. And she is the founder of the website How Sweet Eats. When you check out her website, you will thank me because it is gorgeous and brilliant, and all of her recipes feel like they’ve been plucked out of the pages of one of my novels (and now, that’s true). She is also the mother of the cutest baby of all time, who I like to pretend is my baby.

The second two recipes, Deacon’s Shellfish Chowder and the Tri-Berry Crumble, were developed by my friend of over twenty years, the doyenne of the Nantucket food world, Sarah Leah Chase. Sarah’s culinary career began on Nantucket in the early 1980s when she opened Que Sera Sarah, a specialty food shop and catering business. She has written seven cookbooks, including the bestsellers Nantucket Open-House Cookbook (this, the cookbook that has shaped my food sensibilities for the past twenty-three years) and Cold-Weather Cooking. Sarah’s most recent work of genius is New England Open-House Cookbook, published in the summer of 2015. Sarah posts scheduled events and epicurean undertakings on her Facebook fan page: facebook.com/sarahleahchase.