The Sinister Quartet: MINI-COOKBOOK, MOSTLY PASTRIES… EVIL PASTRIES

Hallo, beloved readers!

It has now been, let’s see, a fortnight–is it? HOLY MOLY–since A Sinister Quartet came out with Mythic Delirium.

For those of you who are only hearing about it for the first time, let me tell you a little about it. It’s a book of four long-form fiction stories (one short novel: mine; three novellas, by Jessica P. Wick, Amanda J. McGee, and Mike Allen respectively), all dark fantasy or horror, with a few common themes like sibling relationships, familial love, monstrous beings (both of the human and otherworldly varieties), and the old Mythic Delirium standby: “beauty and strangeness.”

The four of us authors have done a variety of things to boost our signal. And hey, all you other authors out there, whose books are coming out in the Time of Covid: we feel ya!

Also, we feel that there are so many more important things going on in the world right now–not only the pandemic, but the protests, especially about Black Lives Matter and police brutality–that making too much noise, joyful or otherwise, about our work just feels weird. Other signals to boost right now! BOOST ‘EM TO THE SKY!

Some of the fun stuff we’ve done can be found on Mythic Delirium’s website, along with the store where you can buy the book! Mike Allen writes:

“Mythic Delirium Books is now an affiliate at Bookshop, a new bookselling website born in January 2020 that directs a portion of every sale toward assisting independent bookstores. (Hat tip to Jessica Wick for this development.)

Practically speaking, what this means is there is at last a one-stop shop where you can find all of our trade paperback editions, with quite a few offered at discounts. It’s probably the closest thing we’ve ever had to an actual storefront. Click here to check it out!”

(You can also buy the book most anywhere books can be bought!)

Other fun stuff includes:

A Big Idea post at John Scalzi’s website–in which we all interview each other
A Reddit Ask Me Anything–in which people… DID!
A Booze and Books Feature–in which we, the authors, were guest bloggers and invented cocktails and mocktails! (Or got our friends to do it for us.)
Spotify Soundtrack Playlists–in which we all created soundtracks for our stories, and Amanda made us images for each. (Click on each image; it’ll take you to the Spotify link!)
A Zoom reading, with all of us reading excerpts, plus Q and A at the end
An excerpt of “Twice-Drowned Saint” on the New Decameron Project (and if you’ve not heard of THAT, do you have a treat in store!)
An excerpt of “Viridian” on Amanda’s blog
A pajama party–in which my mom, my husband, and I all dressed up in my mother’s pajamas, and I read them an excerpt of Twice-Drowned Saint, but really the star, as ever, is the cat. Whose name is “Lil Guy Fawkes.” Not my cat. My brother’s cat. But I love him.

MOST LATELY, what I’ve done is put together all the recipes I’ve made–or rather, pilfered–over the last few months, based on our stories, and posted pictures of them here for you, and a few light links.

I hope you enjoy!

SMOOCHES AND SWEET DREAMS–ONLY DREAMS NOW–BUT ALSO, YEAH, MAYBE DON’T READ A SINISTER QUARTET LATE AT NIGHT, LAST THING BEFORE BED…

C. E. E. Cooney

And now for the RECIPES!

(CW: for possible trypophobia)

The Twice-Drowned Saint: Being a Tale of Fabulous Gelethel, the Invisible Wonders Who Rule There, and the Apostates Who Try to Escape Its Walls, by C. S. E. Cooney

“Chocolate Bug,” or “The Eleven-Eyed Brownie”
Ingredients: Extra Gooey Brownie Mix, Candied Eyeballs, Lemon Garish

(follow recipe on the box, plus your own mischievous ingenuity)

An Unkindness, by Jessica P. Wick

“Heart of a Unicorn (or Lost Prince) Galette“
Ingredients: Pichuberries, strawberries, phyllo dough, honey, butter

(Follow recipes for any “gooseberry/strawberry galette,” only sub in pichuberries)

Viridian, by Amanda J. McGee

“Bluebeardy Pie”
Ingredients: Pie shell, blueberries, sugar, forbidden key, blue ribbon, red rose, ruby goblet

(follow the Epicurious recipe for the most part, but we bought our crust, like lazy writers)

The Comforter, by Mike Allen

“Meat Pancake Thingie”

(follow Anita Allen’s recipe… below)

Anita Allen‘s MEAT PANCAKE THINGIE

“As always, preheat oven 325 degrees
The first set of ingredients varies by desired density, etc.
Nothing is exact.

Toppings ingredients:
7 Oz ( about 1/2 a small jar) Ragu pizza sauce
1.5 cups pizza cheese blend
6-7 button mushroom stems
2 sweet mini peppers ( or hot if you prefer)
5-7 yellow cherry tomatoes

Pizza “Crust” Ingredients
1 lb ground beef
2 tbsp dried parsley
2tbsp nutritional yeast
1 tbsp steak seasoning
1/2 tbsp Penzeys Spices: Ozark Seasoning
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce or steak sauce
1 egg

Cooking instructions:
Mix like meatloaf.
On a cutting board, press out flat like a patty, about 1/4 inch thick.
Flip over onto lightly greased or sprayed broiler pan.
Smooth lightly (if you press it into the pan you won’t get it out easy to serve it. You want to use a broiler pan so the fats drain out.)
Layer on pizza sauce (about 7 Oz Ragu)
1.5 cups pizza cheese blend: spread to the edges.
1.5 Oz mini pepperoni
6-7 button mushroom stems cut cross wise to make “BUTTONS”
2 mini sweet peppers (Hungarian sweet peppers or hot peppers).
Cut crosswise to make rings.
5-7 yellow cherry tomatoes, cut crosswise and wedged into pepper rings, then spread on top.

Bake 325 for 30 min
Cut, serve, enjoy.”