Introducing...

...Barbara O'Neal aka my very good friend, Barbara Samuel. Barbara is a RITA award-winning, bestselling author of wonderful women's fiction and luscious romances and she has a fabulous book out this month with the Bantam Discovery program (already into its fourth printing after just two weeks on the shelves!). The Lost Recipe for Happiness is the story of a chef just given the opportunity she's been waiting for--to run the kitchen of a world-class restaurant. It's a chance for Elena to take a new direction in her life--if she can let go of the ghosts from the past that still haunt her.

Filled with recipes and brimming with hope, this is feel-good fiction with the kind of chops (hah, a pun!) that make it perfect fare (yet another!) for your book group. Here's a few questions I put to Barbara about her new title.

Did you try out all the recipes in the book?

I did. I call it the Great Winter of Cooking because I wrote as I cooked, and cooked as I wrote. There were seven blizzards that winter, so I was stuck at home a lot, testing, retesting, retrying everything. Some things, Iike tamales, were things I'd made many times. Others, like duck tamales, I had to figure out how. (And those duck tamales made me a star with my partner, Christopher Robin!)

I want to attempt some of the recipes. What’s your first and second recommendations for someone who considers herself an intermediate cook? (Confession: I’m afraid of the baklava.)

I'd recommend trying Juan's Carne En Su Jugo. It is an amazingly flavorful soup, and not difficult to prepare. It's far more than the sum of its parts!

For the second one, I'm torn between recommending Carnitas, which are very easy and one of the best foods on the entire planet, and Pan de Muerte, which is a beautiful, flavorful yeast bread.

As for the baklava, it is time intensive, but not at all difficult to make. I've been experimenting a little with bringing out more pomegranate flavor, so if you want to try the evolving recipe, go to http://www.barbaraoneal.com/?p=114. I've been making it for book signings, and it disappears fast!

There’s a 14-year-old girl in the book who struck a chord with me. I particularly loved that she was worried about the circumference of her thighs. How did you tap into Portia?

Is there a woman on the planet who doesn't worry about getting too big for one reason or another? Me, too. It breaks my heart that young girls are so worried about how they look that they give up things that are GOOD for them and feel exhilarating.

It's no secret that I'm a mad hiker, and it doesn't exactly slim down your thighs. Skiing and running are wont to do the same thing, but I say, bring it on! Muscular is not the same thing as fat. (Besides, if you have more muscles, you can eat more carnitas!)

Day of the Dead figurines and the “holiday” itself (November 1) play a part in this story. Can you tell us a little more about the artwork and the day itself?

I love the Day of the Dead--it is a celebration of the lives of the people who have gone on before us to....the other realm. It is celebrated with skeletons of all kinds, and there are piles of food offered to the dead, and people decorate graves with marigolds. It's a very happy day, and I've found that it helps me to celebrate the lives of people I miss. This year, I made my grandmother's favorites, and it really did make me feel close to her.

Day of the Dead recognizes that we are all "walking" skeletons and our lives, each one, are very precious and beautiful.

Your portrayal of Colorado and New Mexico makes both places feel very exotic--even to me, a fellow Westerner. Can you name a couple of elements that others don’t “get” about the West?

I think a lot of people think the west is still a land of ghost towns and cowboys, and that's funny to me as a third generation native of Colorado. Although I love the outdoors, which are so easily accessible and beautiful here, I am really a city girl, and after all, there are at least a dozen cities in the west with more than a million people! It's a very hip, forward thinking, modern place, our modern west.

It's deeply multicultural, too, in a way that I don't feel in other parts of the country in quite the same way.

The heroine, Elena, has lived with ghosts for twenty years. Do you believe in ghosts? Have you experienced ghosts in your own life?

I believe we go on in some way, and that doesn't discount the possibility of ghosts. We've all felt that sense of a presence, haven't we? And I've been in houses I wouldn't have slept in on a BET. I lived in a house for a long time that seemed to be inhabited by a friendly presence. My cats used to talk to her in an eerie, funny way, rubbing their backs against her invisible knees! It was really quite spooky sometimes.

So I guess I do believe in ghosts, but I haven't seen one. Nor do I wish to, thanks very much, unless it is the the happy friendly ghost of my cat.

Do you believe in the concept of soul mates?

Yes. I'm not sure there is only ONE soul mate for each one of us--that would be so sad if one of the pair was lost in a lifetime!--but I believe we all have soul mates.

I believe, too, in soul mates that are not lovers. Friends, siblings, even children. Bottom line is, I really believe in LOVE, all kinds of love, and that's what gets us through the tough times.

Christie again: It's your turn, everyone! In the book, the characters put to each other a question that I've modified a little. Please share: What are one or two of the best things you've ever eaten, anywhere?