June 2025 – Ink-Stained Wretches

The Research Rabbit Hole: Jewel Theft 1950s-1960s

I’ve been researching background for another story featuring my character Jerry Milam, a World War II veteran and ex-cop turned PI. In looking for crimes for my detective to solve, I started digging into old newspapers for information on jewel thefts. I chose the topic because I’d read about the robbery of the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 1964. While the robbers were later caught, only ten of the twenty-four stolen gems were recovered. In researching that theft, I discovered that the Witte Museum in San Antonio was robbed in 1969, with a thief smashing a glass display case in order to snatch the forty-nine carat McFarlin Diamond, a canary yellow, emerald cut stone described as being the size of a hen’s egg, which was also never recovered.

Then, I fell down the rabbit hole.

Back in the days when J. Edgar Hoover was still in charge of the FBI, jewel thefts were all the rage in crime. Jewels, once removed from their settings, were impossible to identify because, unlike today, they had no microscopic serial numbers etched on them. Etching of jewels for identification purposes began in 1983. While watches had serial numbers, most people didn’t bother to make a note of theirs. Fences were happy to purchase stolen jewels and watches because they were so hard to link back to the original owners. Most gem stones were easily recut or reset and resold, vanishing forever.

Most jewel robberies in the 1950s and 1960s were committed by stealth, leading to the image of the lithe cat burglar crawling over rooftops firing the popular imagination. Alfred Hitchcock even made the movie To Catch a Thief, released in 1955, with Cary Grant playing a retired jewel thief known as the Cat.

Between 1959 and 1967, Lauren Bacall, Winston Churchill, Sophia Loren, Eva Gabor, and Yul Brenner, along with other famous and wealthy people, were relieved of their jewels by thieves. With the exception of Eva Gabor, none were present at the time of the theft. Thieves, likely the same ones who robbed the American Museum of Natural History’s gemological exhibit a few months later, waited for Eva Gabor and her husband to return to their hotel room in order to steal her twenty-five-thousand-dollar diamond ring, which they had been unable to locate while she was away from the room. They pistol whipped and bound Ms. Gabor and forced her husband to retrieve the ring from the hotel safe before making their getaway.

If you are wondering why one ring was enough for the thieves to risk adding armed robbery and kidnapping to the charges against them, consider that the average income in 1965 was less than seven thousand dollars a year. A twenty-five-thousand-dollar ring was worth several years income to most people.

My research led me to realize that even without serial numbers and etched identification codes, certain jewels would be easier to trace than others. Which jewels might be more traceable? Cabochon star rubies and sapphires. A rounded, polished shape, called a cabochon, was how all jewels were prepared before cutting was developed for gemstones. Opals are still prepared and set as cabochons.

Star rubies and star sapphires exhibit a phenomenon called asterism, a star pattern visible when light hits the stone. The star is created by long inclusions inside the stone. Stones with asterism are rounded and polished as cabochons, not cut, to preserve the star within them.

The Edith Haggin DeLong Star Ruby
By Vicpeters – Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=165353250

Star rubies and star sapphires are valued based on the clarity and size of their stars, the color saturation and transparency of the stone, by their shape, and by their inclusions and cloudy areas. These same features make the stones more easily traceable and identifiable. While other gems can be recut and reset to disguise them, star rubies and star sapphires can’t be cut because the rounded shape is what allows the star to be seen.

Is it any surprise that the most valuable stones recovered from the American Museum of Natural History robbery were the Star of India, one of the largest blue star sapphires in the world, and the DeLong Star Ruby, while the Eagle Diamond was never found?

That’s enough rantings from the rabbit hole.

*****

N. M. Cedeño is a short story writer and novelist living in Texas. She is active in Sisters in Crime- Heart of Texas Chapter and is a member of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Find out more at nmcedeno.com.

A Well. A Story.

By Dixie Evatt

I recognize that sometimes I can be excessively literal. That’s why when Julia Cameron reminds us to make time to fill our creative well, I picture an actual old-timely water well. In my mind’s eye, ideas, quotes, games, puzzles, cartoons, pictures, and music pour into the well from every direction – a rainstorm of colors, smells and sounds.

I was first introduced to the concept when I joined an Austin creative community, led by the inestimable Ann Ciccoletta, Artistic Director of Austin Shakespeare. The group draws inspiration from Cameron’s self-help classic, The Artist’s Way – A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Since its initial publication in 1992 it has been reprinted more than forty times and served as a catalyst for dozens of other inspirational works by Cameron. Her message is intended for everyone– writers, artists, photographers, actors, composers, dancers, poets, musicians, singers, and everyday folks alike alike — who want to unlock their inner creative self. Her advice:

Filling the well involves the active pursuit of images to refresh our artistic reservoirs. Art is born in attention. Its midwife is detail… In filling the well, think magic. Think delight. Think fun. Do not think duty. Do not do what you should do …Do what intrigues you, explore what interests you; think mystery, not mastery. A mystery draws us in, leads us on, lures us.

Once married to Martin Scorsese, Cameron’s life was a rollercoaster of good times-bad times-terrible times until she ultimately found sobriety. In an article about the 30^th anniversary of her landmark book, The Guardian says:

Inspired by the Alcoholics Anonymous model, the book offers a programme for “artistic recovery”.

Cameron has benefited from her own advice with twenty-three titles on creativity to her credit along with seven books on spirituality; three works of fiction; one memoir; seven plays; five prayer books; four books of poetry; and one feature film.

The prompt for that bombardment of ideas to “fill the well” is can be the weekly Artist Date – another Cameron recommendation consisting of making an appointment with yourself to intentionally seek out sources of inspiration. In gardens. In museums. In craft stores. In coffee shops. Anyplace that can excite the senses is a destination for a date with oneself.

I find that it’s often a good idea to pair these dates with something to nudge you forward. For instance, I subscribe to Austin Kleon’s weekly newsletter (it drops into my email each Friday). It lists his “ten things worth sharing” with brief commentary and links to articles, songs, books, films, podcasts, events, and other content. Kleon is an Austin-based, best-selling author (Steal Like an Artist) who, like Cameron, writes to inspire others. More can be found at his website: https://austinkleon.com.

I was reminded of these never-ending sources of inspiration when, in late April, I had the good fortune to share a table with Spike Gillespie at the Austin Public Library’s second annual Greater Austin Book Festival (aka GAB Fest). Gillespie is well known in Austin writing circles for her unflinching commentary and multiple books. She lives on a ranch outside the city where she hosts gatherings for writers to find inspiration.

We had a chance to chat as we watched readers and fellow authors mill around the book festival, occasionally dropping by our table to ask about our book displays. Then a little girl – probably no more than seven or eight years old — approached to help herself to our free mints. She kept picking up one after another until her hands couldn’t hold anymore. After she walked away my conversation with Gillespie built on the encounter …and how often desire can exceed capacity. From there we talked about the importance of being a listening writer. To observe. To absorb. To listen.

I thought about this later and remembered what Cameron advised writers in her 2021 book, The Listening Path: The Creative Art of Attention:

We do not struggle to think something up; rather we listen and take something down. Very little effort is required; what we are after is accuracy of listening.

Inspiration can be right under your nose. It can come over the transom unexpectedly. It can spring from an unplanned conversation. It may drop into your email. Watch for it so you can fill the well.

CAPTIONS

Well — AI Generated

Photo — Dixie (L) and Spike (R) 2025 GABFest

The Tincture of Time

By Helen Currie Foster – June 9, 2025

I’ve always loved Guy Clark’s version of “Stuff that Works.” Dublin Blues, 1995.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mprD2MN5vo

Listening, I can just see, just feel, that “old blue shirt” that “suits him just fine.” I can imagine the old boots that let him “work all day” and then go “dance all night.” And of course that friend who “always shows up when the chips are down”––I’m thinking, my bestie. Just hearing about the shirt, the boots, the friend always leaves me with the same settled, restful confidence he’s describing. “Stuff that works!”

“Brown paper packages tied up with string” may have undeniable charm, “stuff that works” means stuff I turn to, go back to, and rely on. Like old travel pants with pockets that zip, soft shirts without a scratchy label, shoes that just carry me along, soles not too thick or thin.

What about you? Things that keep working, that stand the test of time? The pens that always work, the ink you like, the just-right-feel in your hand as you write? The car that always starts, the recipe you can count on?

Part of the charm of “stuff that works” is reliability – working each and every time.

Time, that deep human preoccupation! Is time reliable? Time messes with us. Time stands still. Time passes. Time flies. Time heals. Time runs out. Time grows short. The time changes…and times change. “Time, like an ever-flowing stream…” Sometimes an hour feels interminable; sometimes an hour passes in a flash. Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity says that even in the universe, time is not constant, but is influenced by gravity. Yikes! (says the English major).

Writers struggle to analyze time’s impact on us. Just a couple of examples––Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time; Vladimir Nabokov, Speak, Memory;Virginia Woolf, particularly the “Time Passes” section of To the Lighthouse. Historians try to make sense of the impact of events over time, like Drew Gilpin Faust in This Republic of Suffering, on death and the Civil War.

Poets remind us of their mortality—and hence our own. Here’s Robert Frost, in Ten Mills, Part II, THE SPAN OF LIFE, from A Further Range (Henry Holt and Company, 1936):

The old dog barks backward without getting up.

I can remember when he was a pup.

Or Billy Collins at the beginning of “Life Expectancy” in Whale Day (2020):

On the morning of a birthday that ended in a zero,

I was looking out at the garden

When it occurred to me that the robin

On her worm-hunt in the dewy grass

Had a good chance of outliving me….

T.S. Eliot begins East Coker : “In my beginning is my end,” then:

…there is a time for building

And a time for living and for generation

And a time for the wind to break the loosened pane

Ad to shake the wainscot where the field-mouse trots

And to shake the tattered arras woven with a silent motto.

Sebastian Junger reflects on near-death experiences, including his own: In My Time of Dying (2024).

Of course animals can be aware of time. Right? The three donkeys– Sebastian, Amanda, and Caroline ––appear promptly at the gate in front of the house at 11:30 a.m., and again at 4:30 p.m., which, they are confident, are the hours when carrots ought to be offered. We know animals can mourn the loss of a member of their pod, their herd, their litter. But do they worry about their own mortality? Do our friends the non-human primates? Well, maybe! Um, time will tell! https://bit.ly/4mZqi4k

To be human is to be aware of our own mortality. And for humans, time is both reliable—tick, tock—and unreliable: we cannot know what the future holds. Fiction writers, however, get to make those decisions for their characters. In the mystery genre, we get to decide: who shall live? Who shall die? How, and why?

I’ve wrestled with these questions in my Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery Series: what happens next?Should I not have killed a particular character? Should a new character survive and reappear in the next book? It’s a heavy responsibility! We readers can become quite attached to characters. In the last few weeks, finishing Book 10, I took refuge in Laurie King’s Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. She created a character I found particularly appealing in The God of the Hive. https://bit.ly/449Lugn

But then? The book made me revisit the pain of losing a beloved character to—well, literary death. Remember Gus in Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove? I still miss Gus… Gus, don’t ride over that hill!

In addition to night-time plunges into Laurie King land, I found banging on the piano a helpful respite from the writing process. But after two broken wrists in the past two years (careless, careless) I’d had to quit the beloved boogie woogie lessons and feared I’d never be able to play those strenuous pieces again.

My brother the physician, when asked by his siblings for advice, often prescribes “a little tincture of time.” It’s amazing how often that prescription works. This past week, after (really quite a lot of) tincture of time, I persuaded our century-old piano once again to play boogie-woogie pieces from the 1942 All Star Boogie Woogie Piano Solos! Pete Johnson, Meade “Lux” Lewis, Pine Top Smith, Hersal Thomas, Albert Ammons. Suddenly—how long is “a little tincture of time”?––finger memory began to return. Not all the way back yet, but still! Maybe I’ll get to resume piano lessons with that Austin treasure of jazz, boogie, country and everything else, Floyd Domino.

Charles Darwin was not known to rush into print. In 1837 in Edinburgh he presented his first paper concerning the action of worms “on the formation of mould,” a topic he studied for over forty years. Not until 1881, after two scientists pooh-poohed his theories, during the Great British Agricultural Depression (1873-1896) he published The Formation of Vegetable Mould Through the Action of Worms on the work of earthworms. Curious about their senses, their awarenesss, their work, he studied how worms could tug leaves into their burrows, eat and digest them, and then produce worm casts—millions of tons of richer soil. His query as to whether earthworms were sensitive to light “led me to watch on many successive nights worms kept in pots, which were protected from currents of air by means of glass plates.” His summary after all those years? Darwin doubts “whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world” as earthworms. Producing stuff that works…!

For so many of us, books are the “stuff that works.” Hurrah for reading!

Award-winning author Helen Currie Foster lives and writes the Alice MacDonald Greer Mystery series north of Dripping Springs, Texas, loosely supervised by the three burros. She’s drawn to the compelling landscape and quirky characters of the Texas Hill Country. She remains deeply curious about our human history and how, uninvited, the past keeps crashing our party. Follow her at http://www.helencurriefoster.com and on Amazon, and find the books at Austin’s BookPeople!

https://www.facebook.com/helencurriefoster

COOKIES, MYSTERIES AND MORE COOKIES – AND NOW PANETTONE

Francine Paino, a.k.a. F. Della Notte

Cookies. Who doesn’t love them? Far and away, the American favorite is the Chocolate Chip cookie, a creation of the Wakefields of Massachusetts. (More on that later). Over 53% of American adults prefer Chocolate Chip to other varieties. But the most popular cookie worldwide, sold in over 100 countries… drum roll, please, is Oreo!

The popularity of these cookies made me wonder what other fun facts I could find to entertain and inform, so I set out to investigate the origins of these sweet delights.

Did you know Oreo is considered the number one copycat cookie? Two brothers, Joseph and Jacob Loose, battled for dominance over the Oreo. It was first produced by Hydrox. (Remember them? Or have I dated myself?) Then, it was baked and sold by the National Biscuit Company, now known as Na-Bis-Co. See the link below for more information on the Battle of the Oreo.

With this in mind, one might imagine that the earliest origin of cookies began in a Western European country, perhaps in Great Britain, Ireland, or Scotland. It may have begun in one of the Romance Countries. The first was Italy, followed by France and Spain. In fact, the biggest surprise of all is that the cookie dates back to Persia, in the 7th century C.E.

It all began around 550 B.C.E. in the Persian Empire, conquered many times and most famously by Alexander the Great, who defeated Darius III. These luxurious little cakes were well-known, and as Persia evolved into a diverse nation in the Islamic world, its culture spread. Sugar, which originated in the lowlands of S.E. Asia, was brought to Persia and cultivated there. It then spread through the eastern Mediterranean and into Europe, and bakers created beautiful cakes and pastries—for the wealthy, of course.

After the Muslim invasion of Iberia in the 8th century, followed by the Crusades and the developing spice trade, cooking techniques and ingredients began to reflect different civilizations, especially the influence of Arabian cuisine. In fact, one of the most treasured desserts of Italy, the Cannoli originated in Sicily and reflected Arabic recipes – but back to the cookie.

According to culinary historians, the cookie’s origin had a more serious purpose. It was, in fact, a test cake. Small amounts of cake batters were dropped onto baking pans to test the temperatures of the ovens. These little cakes were the first crude thermostats used to determine when the fires, fueled by burning wood, were at the correct heat to cook without wrecking the food, and each region or nation developed its own little cakes for this purpose. Eventually, these little test cakes morphed into the dry, hard-textured cookies we know today, and the renaming of these little cakes first appeared in print in the early 18th century.

Eventually, the cookie came to America via the British Empire, where they were and still are called biscuits. After the Revolutionary War, the newly minted Americans changed the name to further separate themselves from Great Britain. They chose the Dutch variation Koekje/koek, which evolved into the word cookie, but it wasn’t until 1924 that the most beloved of all American cookies was created: the Chocolate Chip.

Ruth Graves Wakefield, before marrying, was a graduate of the Framingham State Normal School Department of Household Arts (at that time not considered a slur or degradation of women). She worked as a dietician and lectured on food. In 1930 Ruth and hubby Kenneth purchased a Cape-Cod style inn, The Toll House, in Massachusetts. Constructed in 1709, the house was a stop-over for travelers in Colonial times where they paid their road toll, changed horses, and dined. Under the Wakefield’s ownership, the Toll House served traditional Colonial fare, and Ruth’s homemade desserts were quite popular. One day, in 1937, she discovered she didn’t have the baker’s chocolate required for her brown sugar cookies. Instead, she chopped a bar of Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate into tiny pieces, believing that adding them to the dough and baking would melt them, but the chocolate held its shape and softened to a creamy texture. The new cookie became very popular at the inn, and Ruth’s recipe was published in newspapers throughout New England, skyrocketing the sale of Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Bars. Thus was born the Chocolate Chip Cookie. And there you have the basics of the origin of cookies. But what you might ask, has this to do with mysteries besides the secrets of various bakers and recipes?

Cookies, I have found, are not only popular desserts and treats; they play an essential and often intriguing role in many culinary mysteries, especially the cozies. I logged onto Goodreads and searched mystery books with the word cookie in the title. I was intrigued to find 18+ pages, 20 titles to a page, representing approximately 360 books, excluding cookbooks and children’s books. And that was only on Goodreads. Some of the titles I found brought a smile to my face. In the interests of full disclosure, I haven’t read any of them, but among my favorite titles were A Tale of Two Cookies, And Then There Were Crumbs, Misfortune Cookie, Tough Cookie, and Murder of a Smart Cookie.

Many authors of cozies and some traditional mysteries weave the art of cooking and baking into their stories. In the Housekeeper Mystery Series, set primarily in Austin, Texas, Mrs. B., a fine cook, keeps the priests of St. Francis de Sales supplied with her home-baked Italian Lemon Drop Cookies (Anginetti), while she and the pastor, Father Melvyn, help solve crimes and find answers. For cookie enthusiasts, I’m happy to share my favorite Lemon Drop Cookie recipe. See the link below. (reprint from 2024)

AND NOW – Add the most wonderful cake popular at Christmas: Pannetone. Why bother? Because it’s stories or myths are filled with as much drama, and richness as the bread itself.

Story One: In fifteenth century Milan, a young baker named Toni, accidentally created a sweet, rich loaf while preparing the Christmas feast for the Duke of Milan. During the banquet preparations for Ludovico Sforza’s Christmas banquet, the chef accidentally burnt the dessert. While the desperate chef agonized over the burnt dessert, a young kitchen assistant, Toni, grabbed leftover ingredients and a sourdough starter, and combined them into a sweet, rich leavened bread.

The Duke loved the bread so much that he named it “Pane di Toni,” (Tony’s bread) which eventually evolved into “Panettone”.

Story Two: Ughetto and Adalgisa. A love story. Ughetto, a nobleman, disguised himself as a baker’s apprentice to win the heart of Adalgisa, the baker’s daughter, but his family opposed the match. When the baker’s assistant fell ill, to be near his beloved, Ughetto disguised himself to work in the kitchen assistant’s place. To impress her father, he came up with a combination of ingredients that enriched the original recipe being used, and it was a great success. Hence, the young man and his creation were recognized the young lovers were allowed to marry.

Story Three: Instead of Ughetto, we meet Sister Ughetta, a nun who lived in a poor convent. To brighten their Christmas, Sister Ughetta came up with a new cake then traced a cross in its dough with a knife. When the cake cooked, the rounded top where the cross was cut, opened revealing the treats contained inside.

Whichever story tickles your fancy, Panettone is a much loved dessert bread among Italians. It’s given as a gift, and Christmas wouldn’t be complete without it. The only mystery here is whether or not any of the stories of its origins are true.

You can buy it or try the recipe in the Bake from Scratch link.

Happy munching and happy reading.

http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/cookies/cookies2/cookie-history2.asp

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/the-best-selling-cookie-in-the-world-is-a-copycat-brand-1.7080582#:~:text=Oreo%20was%20priced%20cheaper%2C%20and,Joseph%20had%20the%20bigger%20company.