Fictional Writters, What's Up with that!

There used to be a time where books were written by actual writers.  Yesterday, I discovered a book written by a fictional character from a TV show.

I am a fan of TV series called 'Castle'.  It is a cute crime series about a famous author 'Richard Edgar "Rick" Castle portrayed by Nathan Fillion and a NYPD detective 'Beckett'.  In the show Richard Castle is a mystery writer and he is about to start a new series of books about a fictional character 'Nikki Heat' which is based on the detective Beckett.  To conduct research for his new book series, Castle uses his friendship with the mayor and gets approval to tag along in Beckett's crime investigations.  Throughout the show there are references to 'Nikki Heat' books written by Rick Castle.

You can imagine my surprise when I saw books written by 'Richard Castle' and titles such as 'Heat Wave' and 'Naked Heat'.    These are the titles mentioned in TV series. 

 

 Obviously, these are promotions for the show and are not written by Nathan Fillion.  However, on the back of the book, there is a picture of Nathan Fillion as 'Richard Castle'  the author of the book.  On Amazon.com there is a Richard Castle biography page Richard-Castle Page as if he is a real person.  Even worse, these books are on the 'New York Times' best seller list.

I wouldn't mind any of this, if the actual writer of the book was given credit instead of a fictional character.  I think this is going too far, mixing reality and fantasy.   There are several names of mental disorders that cause a person to mix reality with fantasy.  I don't know about you, but I think advertising has just crossed the line.

What to do with Small Amounts of Your Havest?

I have a small suburban backyard with a small vegetable garden. This means, when I harvest my vegetables, I only get a handful of beans, peas, okra, maybe one or two eggplants, zucchini and yellow squash. Most receipts ask for a pound of this and a pound of that. In the past I would try to save my small amounts of harvest until I had enough for one recipe, but that didn't always work as well, the produce just didn't stay fresh long enough. Until now, my husband is the cook in our house, and he discovered this soup recipe that is just perfect for our harvest. I am not a fan of soup, but I liked this one (even in the summer). If you have a small garden, next time you have a little bit of this and a little bit of that, try this recipe, you will not be disappointed.

The recipe is called Pistou and is from the 'Soup superb ways with a classic dish'. We used up our harvest from the day; my husband added his own touch of parsley, thyme, oregano and okra to the recipe. It was even good the second day. I think the fresh vegetables is what made this soup soooooo good.

I am glad that I didn't give up on growing beans and peas and okra this year.