by Laura Childs
Sour cream (optional)
Heat beans thoroughly in a small saucepan and keep warm on stove. In a medium bowl, beat eggs along with salt and pepper. Melt butter in a 10" nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add egg mixture and sprinkle in crumbled bacon and chopped onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the eggs are softly cooked. Divide the egg mixture into 6 parts and spoon one part into each warm tortilla. Top egg mixture with equal amounts of beans. Now top with equal amounts of cheese. Fold in the ends and roll up the burritos. Serve with salsa and sour cream, if desired. Yields 6 servings.
Chocolate Chip Scones
2 cups flour
4 tbsp. sugar
¼ tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
½ cup butter
½ cup milk or half-and-half
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking sheet. In large bowl, combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Cut in butter until mixture is coarse and crumbly. In small bowl, combine milk (or half-and-half), egg, and vanilla. Add milk mixture to flour mixture, then add chocolate chips. Mix with fork until mixture pulls together and forms a soft dough. Place dough on floured surface and knead gently 5 or 6 times. With lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough into a 7" circle. Cut into 6 or 8 wedges and place on greased baking sheet. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until golden brown. Serve warm. Yields 6 to 8 scones. (Note: Dough can also be baked in a scone pan.)
Pumpkin Breakfast Casserole
10 slices white bread, cubed
1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin puree
6 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1 (5 oz.) can evaporated milk
⅔ cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
⅛ tsp. salt
Lightly grease a 9" x 13" baking dish, then place bread cubes in the dish. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, beaten eggs, milk, evaporated milk, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and salt. Pour the pumpkin mixture over the bread cubes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Uncover casserole and bake for 45 minutes, until mixture is set and toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Yields 6 servings.
Sheriff Doogie’s Three Little Pigs Breakfast Hoagie
Hoagie roll, sliced open and buttered
3 sausages, cooked
Hash browns, cooked
Fried egg
Stuff hoagie roll with sausages, then hash browns, then a fried egg. Enjoy!
Yields 1 giant sandwich.
Keep reading for an excerpt from Laura Childs’s next Tea Shop Mystery . . .
Broken Bone China
Coming March 2019 in hardcover from Berkley Prime Crime!
RED and yellow flames belched from propane burners, inflating the hot-air balloons to heroic proportions and propelling them skyward. Hovering above the grassy flats of Charleston’s Hampton Park, they bumped along on gentle currents, looking like a supersized drift of colorful soap bubbles.
“This is amazing,” Theodosia cried out to Drayton as the wind blew her auburn hair into long streamers. “Almost as good as sailing.” Her blue eyes sparkled with merriment, and a smile lit up her face as she reveled in her first-ever balloon ride.
With her fine complexion, natural endowment of hair, and pleasing features, Theodosia Browning was the apotheosis of what Lord Byron might have described as an English beauty in one of his novels. She was, however, modest to a fault and would have blushed at the very thought.
“Is this not the coolest thing you’ve ever done?” Theodosia asked as blips of exhilaration filled her heart.
“No, it’s terrifying,” Drayton Conneley responded. He’d wedged himself into the corner of their wicker basket, teeth gritted, knuckles white, as he hung on for dear life. “When you talked me into assisting with an afternoon tea for the Top Flight Balloon Club, I had no idea you’d twist my arm and make me go for an actual ride.”
“It’s good to live a little dangerously,” Theodosia said. As the proprietor of the Indigo Tea Shop on Church Street, she was often tapped to host weekend tea parties. This one in Hampton Park, smack-dab in the middle of Charleston, South Carolina, was no different. Except that after pouring tea and serving her trademark cream scones and crab salad tea sandwiches, Theodosia had been offered a hot-air balloon ride. Gratis. And, really, who in their right mind would turn down a wild adventure like that! Certainly not Theodosia. To an outside eye, she might appear tea-shop-demure, but she possessed the bold soul of an adrenaline junkie.
“I believe the weather’s beginning to shift,” Drayton said. “Perhaps we should cut our ride short?” The sky, which had been pigeon-egg blue just an hour ago, now had a few gray clouds scudding across it.
“Wind’s kicking up, too,” said Rafe Meyer, their FAA certified pilot. He opened the blast valve one more time, shooting a fiery tongue high into the balloon’s interior. “This will keep us at altitude along with the other balloons. But we should probably think about landing in another five minutes or so. Weather conditions do look like they might be deteriorating.”
“Thank goodness for that,” Drayton said under his breath. As Theodosia’s resident tea sommelier and self-appointed arbiter of taste, he was definitely not a devotee of adventure sports. Sixty-something, genteel, with a serious addiction to tweed jackets and bow ties, Drayton’s idea of high adventure was sitting in a wingback chair in front of his fireplace, sipping a glass of ruby port, and reading a Joseph Conrad novel.
“Take a look at that patchwork balloon over there. You see how it’s descending ever so gently?” Theodosia said. “You don’t have a thing to worry about. When we hit the ground you won’t even feel a bump.”
Drayton squinted over the side of their gondola. “What on earth is that whirligig thing?”
Theodosia was still reveling in her bird’s-eye view and the hypnotic whoosh from the propane burner, so she wasn’t exactly giving Drayton her full attention. “What? What are you talking about?” she finally asked.
“I’m puzzled about the small, silver object that appears to be flying in our direction.”
Theodosia could barely pry her eyes away from the delicious banquet of scenery and greenery, history and antiquity, that was spilled out below her. Crooked, narrow streets. Elegant grande dame homes lining the Battery. The azure sweep of Charleston Harbor. The dozens of church steeples that poked skyward.
But as Theodosia turned, she too caught a flash of something bright and shiny buzzing its way toward them. Her first impression was that it looked like some kind of mechanized seagull. Only, instead of dipping and diving and surfing the wind, it was zooming right at them.
“I think it’s a drone. Someone must have put up a drone,” Theodosia said. She watched with growing curiosity as it circled toward them, coming closer and closer. The drone swooped upwards, then dipped down, doing a fancy series of aerial maneuvers. Finally, the drone zoomed in and hovered alongside their basket for a long moment. Curiously, the drone appeared to be making up its mind about something. Then it peeled away.
“What’s it doing? Some kind of TV news thing?” Drayton asked. “You know, ‘Film at eleven’?”
“I don’t think it’s a commercial drone. Probably someone who’s filming the balloons for fun.” Theodosia’s attention had shifted to the weather as she scanned the sky to the east, in the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. More clouds had rolled in, turning the horizon into a dim blot.
“Such a strange buzzing thing,” Drayton said. He gripped the side of the wicker basket even tighter. “Like some kind of giant, nasty hornet. Just having it circle around like that makes me nervous.”
&n
bsp; “There’s really nothing to worry . . .” Theodosia began. Then her words ended abruptly as the little drone lifted straight up like a miniature helicopter or Harrier jet. Up, up, up it rose until it was flying level with the red and white balloon that hovered just ahead of them but at a slightly higher altitude.
“Isn’t the drone edging precipitously close to that balloon?” Drayton asked as he continued to gaze upward.
“Yes, I think it is.” Theodosia tapped their pilot on the shoulder, and when he turned, she pointed wordlessly at the drone that now hovered some forty feet above them.
The pilot glanced up and frowned, his expression telling her all she needed to know. “That shouldn’t be there,” he said.
“It’s strange. Almost as if the drone is checking out each of the balloons,” Drayton said. “Peeking in the baskets to see who the passengers are.”
“Because it has a camera,” Theodosia said. She glanced down toward terra firma, wondering who in the crowd below might be manipulating the drone—and why were they doing so? For fun or a joke or some kind of promotional film? But their balloon was too high to make out anything meaningful.
“I think the object is flying away,” Drayton said. “Good riddance.”
But the drone didn’t fly away.
Instead, it circled back around, hovered for a few moments, revved its engine to an almost supersonic speed, and flew directly into the red and white balloon.
RIP. ZSSST. WHOMP!
A burst of brilliant light, bright as an atomic bomb, lit the sky.
Theodosia threw up an arm to shield her eyes, then watched in horror as the balloon was ripped wide open, top to bottom, like gutting a fish.
Flames shot everywhere and the hapless passengers screamed as the gigantic balloon exploded in a hellish conflagration. It sizzled and popped and wobbled for a few moments then began to collapse inward like a flaming deflated ball.
“Dear Lord, it’s the Hindenburg all over again,” Drayton said in a hoarse whisper.
Against the darkening sky, the burning balloon and dangling basket looked like some sort of Hollywood special effect. Then, almost in slow motion, the entire rig tumbled from the sky like a faulty rocket dropping out of orbit.
Screams rent the air—from the dying passengers as well as observers on the ground.
Hearts in their throats, eyes unable to resist this gruesome sight, Theodosia and Drayton watched the sickening spectacle unfold.
“What a catastrophe!” Drayton cried. “Can anyone survive this?”
Theodosia whispered a quick prayer. She didn’t think so.
The burning balloon roared and rumbled as it continued its downward plunge, unleashing a blizzard of blistered nylon, hot metal, and exploding propane. Ash and sparks fluttered everywhere; the sound was like a blast furnace. Then, in a final ghastly incendiary burst, the balloon and its seared basket smashed down on top of Theodosia’s tea table. Tongues of flame spewed out as bone china teacups were crushed, and a pink and green teapot exploded like a bomb.
And lives were surely lost.
Watch for the next Cackleberry Club Mystery
Battered Eggs
Between a truck heist, missing person, and gruesome killing, Suzanne hopes the “something borrowed, something blue” for her wedding doesn’t turn out to be bloody blue murder.
And be sure to catch the new Scrapbooking Mystery, also from Laura Childs and Berkley Prime Crime
Mumbo Gumbo Murder
During a French Quarter parade of spooky giant puppets, an antiques dealer is murdered and his dog left homeless. As Carmela and Ava work furiously to catch this violent killer, a new “paint and sip” shop and the mysterious Vampire Guild get in the way!
Find out more about the author and her mysteries at laurachilds.com or become a Facebook friend at facebook.com/laurachildsauthor.
“[A] compulsive read.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
Writing as Laura Childs, this author has brought you the New York Times bestselling Tea Shop, Scrapbooking, and Cackleberry Club mysteries. Now, writing under her own name, Gerry Schmitt, she has created an entirely new series of sharp-edged thrillers.
Shadow Girl
an Afton Tangler Thriller by Gerry Schmitt
In Shadow Girl, the second book in this series, a medical helicopter is blasted out of the sky, dashing the transplant hopes of a dying tycoon. It seems nothing can stop vicious crime boss Mom Chao Cherry from recovering her stolen narcotics—including more killing—unless Afton Tangler gets there first.
Gerry has ratcheted up the suspense and set the stakes even higher for Afton Tangler, single mom and liaison officer with the Minneapolis Police Department. Page-turning action, believable characters, and a ripped-from-the-headlines story.
Available in paperback from Berkley!
“[A] classy procedural and nerve-jangling thriller.”
—Booklist
“Fast paced, with a believable, intricate plot and odious bad people.”
—St. Paul Pioneer Press
About the Author
Laura Childs is the New York Times bestselling author of the Tea Shop Mysteries, Scrapbooking Mysteries, and Cackleberry Club Mysteries. In her previous life she was CEO of her own marketing firm, authored several screenplays, and produced a reality TV show. She is married to Dr. Bob, a professor of Chinese art history, enjoys travel, and has two Shar-Peis.
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