Culinary Mysteries--MEP's Cooking Up a New Series

I’m not a big mystery reader, but I really enjoy listening to audiobook editions of the Goldy Culinary Mysteries, a series by Diane Mott Davidson. The titles of these books are clever--The Main Corpse, Sticks and Scones, Catering to Nobody, Prime Cut, Grilling Season . . . just to name a few. The heroine, a caterer named Goldy, is really likable. Plus, all the mysteries come complete with recipes.

Though my titles are admittedly less clever, I’m pitching my own series of culinary mysteries.

#1 One Potato, P.U. Potato
After plumbing work was recently done in her basement (installation of tile drain as well as another failed project involving the sewer line, big holes, and wet concrete), our heroine Mighty MEP starts noticing a strange smell around the landing six steps up from the basement. She wonders aloud what the smell might be but is too worried to investigate. She hopes she is not smelling sewage and shares this anxiety with her hubby in a manner that suggests that any problems in the basement are his fault. She feels foolish once she realizes that the landing smell has nothing to do with the basement plumbing and everything to do with a huge bag of red potatoes she purchased at Costco a few weeks back which are now rotten and oozing potato juice. The real mystery begins as Mighty MEP tries to crack the case of the poor potato storage. Short of procuring one of those wooden bins that have the word “Potatoes” or “Spuds” carved into them (picture a 1980s country kitchen), our heroine needs to know where regular people store their potatoes, how they manage to remember they bought potatoes, and what they would do with five pounds of red potatoes? If you have any ideas to help the plot along, please share them in the comments. As a mystery writer, I am also interested in researching a sequel, No Funion, which involves black, soggy, fly-trap onions.

#2 Zucchini, You’re Killing Me!
Our heroine Mighty MEP is the mother of two young boys. Her boys, especially the little one, are good eaters. Proteins? No problem. Fruit? Yum, yum, yum. Vegetables? Sadly, only in baby food form. Our heroine’s older son goes out of his way to mention his aversion to vegetables, “Mama, you know __________ [insert name of vegetable]? I can’t eat _________. Do you know why? ___________ make me sick.” Quite mysteriously, her son often mentions vegetables he has never tried, despite her efforts, except in pureed form. The mystery really heats up then when Mighty MEP’s son comes home from preschool and, in response to her query about the day’s snack, announces, “We eat zucchini. And you know what, Mama. I like it. I really like zucchini!” When I sell the movie rights to this one, I will work hard to cast a preschooler who can deliver these lines with as much enthusiasm as Mighty MEP’s son and who can say “zucchini” as cute as he does. It will be tough. But back to the plot. MEP can’t believe that zucchini was served as a snack at preschool and that her son ate and enjoyed it. She asks follow up questions like, “Was there dip? Did you dip the zucchini in something white?” Her son says yes, but she is not convinced. The suspense heightens as MEP continues to forget to ask her son’s teachers if they really served zucchini for snack. The plot thickens as MEP and the other preschool moms start slipping bribes to the teachers in an attempt to get the school to introduce more vegetables to their picky eaters.

These are just two of the culinary mysteries I’m working on now. Obviously, NTB and all rights reserved.

Stay tuned for information on future books in the series, including a mystery with a working title of “How the hell do all these parents get a real dinner on the table almost every night?” Alternate titles are “Why Do I Suck?” and “What Am I Doing Wrong?” Not clever enough just yet, but I’m working on it.

Any culinary mysteries you want to add to the series? I’d be open to including other writers . . .