Book Two is finally finished! One in four Californians is foreign born. The term, Hawaiian Spaniards, alludes to those Spanish immigrants who braved the unknown to leave their homeland for the sugar cane fields of Hawaii and eventually settle in California. SILVÁN LEAVES is a biographical history following the immigration story in The Girl Immigrant. This book is who they were. SILVAN LEAVES stems from family folklore, photographs, ancestral documents, personal visits, phone conversations and memories. It encompasses the Silván siblings beginning with Felípe, Agapita, Matías, Victorino Luciano, Edmundo, Angel, Juan Francisco, Gerónimo, Lorenzo, Crescéncia and Agustín Silván Hernández with extensions from the family that came before them. www.patriciabbsteele.com Plumeria Press A preview of Silvan Leaves. Book is available for preorder for delivery after June 15. $17.95 plus shipping = $21.00

It is the turn of the century.  A country in turmoil, heart-wrenching goodbyes, a struggling journey over watery prairies, and a young girl coming of age— who knew there would be a vivid story among tropical flowers and the promise of a different world?  Join Manuela Silvan Trascasas for an adventure that has been shared by Spanish immigrants over the century and smile with her as you visualize her painstaking trek from her family’s past to our present and their adventures between its pages. They left everything they knew — sometimes even everyone they loved — to start a new life […]

Cooking Drunk is a cookbook containing recipes that utilize wine or other forms of alcohol. Do remember that alcohol dissipates during the cooking process, but retains valued flavors. So, please join me as I use various types of wines for a blending of ingredients by threading wine in and around them. In my attempt to complement each of these recipes by dribbling wines in a dish or listing a type of wine to drink or serve, will be a lesson in futility if wine is not part of your cooking habit. Otherwise, hopefully, after trying some of these recipes, you […]