FF - Cheesecake!

In keeping with my goal-setting (thanks again, everyone, for your suggestions), this week's post will have to be brief. For my US readers and me, next week is Thanksgiving. You wouldn't know it by looking at the stores - retail seems to jump straight from Halloween to Christmas. I always feel bad that Thanksgiving gets glossed over. Especially now, when it's so important to take the time out to remember all we have (even if it doesn't seem like much) and to give thanks.

We do the traditional Thanksgiving celebrating at my house, but with a few twists. For instance, we prefer Thanksgiving dinner in leftover format. I'd much rather set out the turkey and trimmings and pick at it all afternoon than to sit down to a "feast" and stuff myself. I've also never learned to like pumpkin pie (I love the smell of it and the flavor of it, but the texture creeps me out) so at our house, we have pumpkin cheesecake for dessert instead. For fun, I'm posting the recipe below.

Pumpkin Cheesecake:

Crust:

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 1/2 c. finely-chopped pecans
  
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon each: ginger, cinnamon
• 6 tablespoons melted butter
  

Mix together and press into a 9" spring form pan. (Should cover bottom and a couple inches up the sides.) Bake at 350 degrees for five minutes. Cool.

Filling:

• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
  
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Blend together cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until smooth. Add eggs, pumpkin, and spices and mix until creamy. Pour onto prepared crust in spring form pan and bake at 350 for one hour, or until the top of the cheesecake turns golden. Cool for about an hour and then wrap tightly and chill. Serve garnished with real whipped cream topped with a sprinkle of chopped pecans.


For this week's freebie, we have a $20 gift certificate to Amazon.com up for grabs. To be entered to win, leave a comment below with your favorite holiday tradition or recipe. This drawing will remain open until Wednesday, November 24.

WInner and What's Up Wednesday

Happy day-before-Thanksgiving, US readers!

The winner of Laurie Faria Stolarz's DEADLY LITTLE SECRETS is:

Jill of the O.W.L

Please send your mailing instructions to gerb(@) lindagerber (.) com and we'll get that sent off to you. Everyone else, come on back on Friday for a special Freebie kick-off of the holiday season!

What's up this week?

It's my daughter's birthday today!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JENNA-BEAR!!!!

Like I mentioned above, the US Thanksgiving holiday is tomorrow. I'll be doing turkey dinner with family, watching lots of football and going to see BLIND SIDE for our Thanksgiving Day movie. But mostly, I'll be thinking of all the things I'm thankful for. A big part of that is you, my online friends. Being an author is a dream for me. None of this would be possible without readers willing to invest their time and imagination to step into my stories with me. Thank you for the support. Thank you for your notes and emails. Thank you for buying my books!

Happy Thanksgiving!

And happy release week to Jessica Bendinger (The Seven Rays), Lili St. Crow (Betrayals) and J.B. Redmond and S.R. Vaught (A Prince Among Killers).

See you on Friday!

Enchanted is Enchanting

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, everyone! I hope you were able to spend the day surrounded by the ones you love, thinking about all the things we have to be thankful for. On my long, long list is our annual Thanksgiving Movie Night. Our family tradition (besides eating waaaay too much and sitting around watching football) is to go out to the movies. This year's unanimous selection was ENCHANTED.

I laughed all the way through. It's about time Disney got on the parody bandwagon. Amy Adams was a perfect Disneyesque princess, right down to her gestures and facial expressions, Rachel Covey was the adorable kid star and Susan Sarandon made a wickedly wonderful evil queen, complete with really great makeup. Patrick Dempsey, of course, was McDreamy. The only disappointment was to look forward to seeing Idena Menzel in a musical production... and we don't get to hear her sing. Otherwise, ENCHANTED was magical and irreverent and a whole lot of fun. Just what a Thanksgiving movie should be.