Hungry?

I bought a new colander today.

The old one (emphasis on the old) was plastic and broke because I had it sandwiched inside the stockpot between two sets of stainless steel mixing bowls. It was a tight squeeze and the old colander gave up the ghost last week.

At the store, while I was holding that miracle of technology, the stainless steel and mesh colander, in my hands I suddenly asked myself, do my characters ever cook?

I couldn’t remember! In category romance, unless the plot is food related (chefs, caterers, restaurant workers, etc.) there’s not a whole lot of time or word count to devote to what the characters eat. Yes, they go out on dates to restaurants and eat, often pizza, but you rarely, if ever, get a blow by blow description of the food. Characters rarely, if ever, go to the supermarket.

In Daddy in Waiting (Silhouette Romance, June 2005) my hero, Matt, was concerned that the pregnant heroine, Jenny, wasn’t getting enough to eat, so he gave her a caterer. Not only did the caterer go to Jenny’s office every day to prepare lunch, she dropped off care packages to her over the weekends. (Not that it applies here, but Matt also gave Jenny a chauffer and car—Matt was just a tad obsessive).

In the first of a series of contemporary cowboy books I’m working on, one of my favorite scenes takes place in the heroine’s vegetable garden. Then, there’s a cute cookies-and-milk scene at the kitchen table that I love, also.

Come to think of it, the second cowboy book takes place at a guest ranch in Texas, and there’s a dining hall there—but the hero and heroine never cook—just eat good old cowboy food. The hero has a thing for peach cobbler and hand-cranked ice cream (and the heroine).

So yes, in spite of my momentary memory lapse when it came to whether or not culinary matters figure into my books, the answer is yes.

And in the vernacular of the day, yes, the characters really cook, too.