Saving Amelie

  Saving Amelie was inspired by a trip to Oberammergau, a Bavarian village high in the Alps, that produces the world’s longest-running Passion Play every ten years—since 1634!  I wondered, after attending the 2010 Passion Play, how it was that a Passion Play produced in Germany had received Hitler’s endorsement when the Nazis displayed anything but the love of Jesus …

Cheeseball Recipe

Cheeseball (This tasty recipe is great for a book club meeting, a covered dish appetizer, or a family game night.  It’s colorful and pretty enough to serve at Holiday parties.) Ingredients: 2 pkg (8-oz size) cream cheese, softened 1 can (8-1/2 oz) crushed pineapple, drained 2 cups chopped pecans 1/4 cup finely chopped red and green sweet peppers 2 tablespoons …

A Quote from the Novel The Medallion

As he was about to stand, about to steal into his apartment building, a lusty, quavering infant cry came from the floor above . . . a cry that screamed of life and hope and another branch on the Tree of Life. . . . He sank to his knees in thanksgiving and wonder. Thank You, Adonai! Thank You! For the first time …

ILYANA BUKOWSKI’S SAVORY KUGEL

ILYANA BUKOWSKI’S SAVORY KUGEL “Ilyana. Such a pretty name, and as Sophie remembered, a delicate woman, a woman who loved beauty and flowers and soft laughter over candlelight dinners and made the most delicious brisket and savory kugel Sophie had ever eaten.”—The Medallion Ingredients: 2 cups dry wide egg noodles (6 oz.) • 1 small can sliced mushrooms, not drained …

The Courage of Surrender

Parents targeted by Nazis during WWII were forced to make heart-wrenching decisions in order to protect their children.  Should I keep my child with me?  Should I send them to someone else—someone I know, or more frightening still, someone I don’t know in the hope that they will be saved?  So often I’ve asked, what would I do?  How will …

New Book Cover Reveal Coming Soon!

Be among the first to see the cover for my new novel, A Hundred Crickets Singing, ready to release in April 2022.  Sign up now for my newsletter where September readers will catch the cover’s first glimpse! Sign up here: http://authorcathygohlke.com/ Secrets She Kept book quote: “My favorite customer was old Frau Bernstein, very much alone since her husband died the year before. …

Grilled Peaches

Summer is the perfect time for this easy and luscious fruit.  Served as a side dish or dessert, peaches make the perfect light and sweet accompaniment to any meal.  A wide variety of other fruits—plums, apricots, nectarines—can be grilled in this way outside or indoors on a grill pan, or roasted in the oven. Grilled Peaches Ingredients: 4 or more …

Forgiveness

“Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”—Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch watchmaker, along with other members of her family, saved many Jewish people from the Nazis by hiding them in their home.  Corrie told her story, with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, in The Hiding Place. Corrie’s life, so …

LIESELOTTE’S APPLE NUT CAKE

LIESELOTTE’S APPLE NUT CAKE “I assembled a tray with a steaming pot of coffee and thick, fragrant slices of an apple nut cake, warm from the oven, that Mama had taught me to make—some combination of a cake she’d grown up with and one she’d Americanized.”  — Cathy Gohlke, Secrets She Kept   Cake Ingredients 3 cups unbleached flour 1 …

Corrie ten Boom—Woman of God

Corrie ten Boom’s writings have impacted my life since I first read The Hiding Place, her book with John and Elizabeth Sherrill, and first saw the movie adaptation in the 1970s.  I still remember the thrill of those scenes and the tears I shed through both book and film.  The secret she learned about forgiveness changed my life and that …