Anthony Bourdain once said: “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of our history, our region, our tribe, our grandma. It’s inseparable from us.” Writing about food is a sociological, historical, and sensory adventure, all in one.  I first wrote about food as a staff writer for Better Homes and Gardens and Country Home magazines. I also freelanced many topics: humble fare like baked beans and peanut butter, trends in the liquor industry, great cooking schools, chefs and restaurants. I wrote a piece for the Saturday Evening Post about new medical research of garlic. As Editor-in-Chief of Celebrate! Midwest magazine, I assigned leading food writers themes like art museum cookbooks, the folklore of Easter eggs, and strange ethnic foods of our immigrant ancestors: Scottish haggis, Swedish lutefisk, German zungenwurst (tongue sausage), and English jellied eels. Food plays a delicious role in my novel, Blood to Rubies: for example, how Native Americans butchered buffalo and gathered food from nature, how frontier pioneers cooked, how Irish immigrants brewed home whiskey, and more.