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      Mrs Hudson

      * * * *

      Dear Mrs Hudson, Do onions store well in a root cellar over the winter? Wondering in Woolwich

      *

      Dear Wondering,

      Yes, they do. I am including my recipe for onion and wild mushroom tart, which is a great favourite of Mr Holmes and Dr Watson. Wild mushrooms are best, but store bought ones will do

      Sincerely,

      Mrs Hudson

      * * * *

      MRS HUDSON’S WILD MUSHROOM TART

      Pastry dough 1 tablespoon unsalted butter 1 tablespoon vegetable oil

      3/4 lb mixed fresh wild mushrooms such as morels,

      oyster, and chanterelle, quartered lengthwise

      2 tablespoons finely chopped shallot

      1/2 cup finely chopped onion

      1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme

      1 tablespoon fresh parsley

      3/4 teaspoon salt

      3/8 teaspoon black pepper

      1/2 cup crème fraîche

      1/2 cup heavy cream

      1 whole large egg

      1 large egg yolk

      *

      Special equipment: a 9-by-1-inch round fluted tart pan with a removable bottom; pie weights or raw rice

      Make shell:

      Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin into an 11-inch round and fit into tart pan, trimming excess dough. Chill until firm, about 30 minutes.

      Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F.

      Lightly prick bottom of shell all over with a fork, then line with foil and fill with pie weights. Bake until side is set and edge is pale golden, 18 to 20 minutes. Carefully remove foil and weights and bake shell until bottom is golden, 10 to 15 minutes more.

      Cool completely in pan on a rack, about 15 minutes.

      Make filling while shell bakes:

      Heat butter and oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then sauté mushrooms, shallot, onion, thyme, parsley, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper, stirring frequently, until mushrooms are tender and any liquid given off is evaporated, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and cool to room temperature.

      Whisk together crème fraîche, heavy cream, whole egg, yolk, and remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper in a medium bowl until combined.

      Fill and bake tart:

      Reduce oven temperature to 325°F.

      Scatter mushrooms evenly in tart shell and pour custard over them. Bake tart in pan on a baking sheet until custard is just set and slightly puffed, 35 to 45 minutes.

      Cool tart in pan on rack at least 20 minutes, then remove side of pan. Serve tart warm or at room temperature.

      SHMM SPEAKS WITH RON GOULART

      Interview conducted by Carole Buggé

      Ron Goulart is one of the most prolific genre authors with more than 180 published works, including approximately fifty science fantasy novels and twenty mystery novels, including his popular series starring Groucho Marx as detective. His Harry Challenge stories are special favorites of this magazine’s editor, who has commissioned several new stories in the series. Twice nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s Edgar award, Ron Goulart is an acknowledged expert on comic books and pulp magazines; his most recent book, just published, is Cheap Thrills, an Informal History of the Pulp Magazines. He and his wife Frances, who is also a writer, live in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

      * * * *

      SHMM: Where were you born?

      Ron Goulart: In Berkeley, California. That was in January of 1933, just a couple of months before Roosevelt was inaugu­rated for the first of several terms as President. I grew up in a peaceful, pleasant neighborhood, even though it was on the wrong side of the tracks.

      SHMM: What did your parents do?

      RG: My father came to America from the Azore Islands when he was in his teens and worked in the same factory for the next fifty years. He was a dapper, handsome fellow in his youth and in Oakland, where he then resided, his friends called him the Sheik of Kirkham Street. My mother, who was born in this country, grew up in Oakland with a bunch of siblings and a one-armed father. She worked in a couple of factories, one of which manufactured light bulbs, until she married. In the early 1940’s, she started working as the head cook in the cafe­teria of the Berkeley grammar school that I attended. She stayed at that job until she died of cancer at the age of forty-five. I’m an only child, as is my wife. Makes for very sparsely attended family reunions.

      SHMM: What in your background led to a writing career?

      RG: Writing was only one of several careers I had my eye on as a kid. Our family consumed all the cheap popular arts forms — movies, radio, pulp magazines, library books and (for me, anyway) funny papers and comic books. I saw no reason why I couldn’t grow up to be a writer, a star of stage, screen and radio, a comedian and a cartoonist who drew a newspaper strip and a batch of comic books. From grade school through college I fooled with all of these callings. Wrote and drew for the high school newspaper, wrote and drew for the college humor magazine (at UC Berkeley), starred in the senior play at high school, belonged to a radio workshop that broadcast a dramatic show once a week on a local station, did a standup comedy act that wowed them at Cub Scout picnics and, later, at the Junior Prom.

      SHMM: Were your ambitions nurtured by your upbringing and background, or did you have to overcome obstacles?

      RG: Neither of my parents wanted me to end up in a factory. So they always encouraged my efforts to aim higher. My mother was convinced that I was destined for greatness and saw to it that by the time I was thirteen I had my own typewriter and drawing board. My father, more practical, suggested that I also think about an occupation to fall back on. That’s why I told the folks at UC that I wanted to become an English teacher.

      SHMM: When did you get started writing?

      RG: I was telling stories at school show-and-tell days from the first grade on and putting them on paper from about the second. I started submitting stories to professional magazines from the time I was about fifteen. I collected rejection slips from Planet Stories, Thrilling Wonder, Weird Tales and The New Yorker. When I was about sixteen or thereabouts I signed up for a one-night-a-week writing class that Anthony Boucher taught out of his house up on the right side of the tracks. I was certain that once he saw a sample of my work, I’d become a regular contributor to his Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It didn’t work out that way and I was nineteen before I made my first sale to F&SF.

      SHMM: Did you ever have to support yourself with “day jobs,” and if so, what were they and what were they like? Did any of them feed your writing?

      RG: I’ve always, once I got out of college, supported myself by writing. However, for the first dozen or so years I wrote copy for ad agencies in addition to selling stories to F&SF, Amaz­ing, Hitchcock, etc. What I’d do was work for a couple of years at an agency, then quit and live on my savings while writing stories. The first year I tried this I wrote fifty stories, sent out about twenty-five and sold six. When my money ran out I’d go back into the ad game for a couple more years. I was a pretty good copywriter, and also fast, so I didn’t have much trouble getting a job. The San Francisco agency where I did two stretches hired me initially after reading some of what I’d written for the college humor magazine. That saved me from a life of teaching, as well as kept me from living off a generous pension now.

      SHMM: Which of your books or stories do you like most,

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