Welcome back to the blog Lynn!
Making Memories With Setting
by Lynn Cahoon
Farm to Fork mysteries are set in Idaho. I’ve made up River Vista, but truly, it’s a mixture of my little hometown as well as other little towns around where I grew up. So the places are real, the distance, the names, the people, they have all been changed to protect the innocent.
Well, not all of them. In One Potato, Two Potato, Dead, the college the culinary professor works for is my Alma Mater, Boise State University. Now, I’m not sure BSU has ever even had a culinary program, but I do know that the greenbelt runs between the campus and the Boise River. The dormitories are near the river and the stadium. The feel of the small campus quad that I remember – that’s what I hope comes through the story. Those things are the facts I want to portray in the story, not the fact there is a intramural football league.
It’s those touches of home that I want to bring to the cozy reader. Boise isn’t much of a small town anymore, not like when I grew up just south of Idaho’s capital. I actually met Governor Evans when we went to the Capital to take pictures for Boys/Girls State. But that small-town feel is still there. The ability to fish in town or visit the zoo five minutes away.
Angie Turner, the owner/head chef, of The County Seat, lives in her Nona’s farm house that she inherited. I can see that old farmhouse with a large garden between the fenced yard and the large barn. Mabel, the lone black and white hen, thinks she owns the place and Precious, her accidental pet goat, just loves to be with Angie. I built Angie’s kitchen to match the dream kitchen in my head that I’ve always wanted.
I’m going home in a couple of months and I’ll be snapping a lot of pictures. Pictures of places that mean things to me. That have emotions attached. Like Boise State. And the Basque community center. And my little town that isn’t called River Vista in real life.
Did you live in a small town? Do you dream of life in a small town? Or are you a big city type?
Bio:
Lynn Cahoon is the award-winning author of several NYT and USA Today best-selling cozy mystery series. The Tourist Trap series is set in central coastal California with six holiday novellas releasing in 2018-2019. She also pens the Cat Latimer series available in mass market paperback. Her newest series, the Farm to Fork mystery series, released in 2018. She lives in a small town like the ones she loves to write about with her husband and two fur babies. Sign up for her newsletter at www.lynncahoon.com
One Potato, Two Potato, Dead
Angie Turner’s restaurant, The County Seat, is conveniently located near a first-class farmers market—so her menu is full of fresh ingredients. But a visiting culinary professor has just had a taste of something very unhealthy . . .
Angie first meets Daniel Monet at a local mission, where she and her chef-in-training, Hope, are serving barbeque chicken poutine to the homeless. Monet is one of Hope’s teachers—but Angie’s boyfriend knows him from his youthful days in England. But soon, the bon vivant is no longer vivant. When Monet is found dead, with Hope’s prints on the wine glass next to him, it will be Angie who has to sauce out the real killer . . .