Patricia Stoltey

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Book Titles and Monkey Balls

June 1, 2012 By: Patricia

I don’t talk about food too often on this site…well, except for chocolate…but I ran across this restaurant menu item from The Drunken Monkey in Fort Collins, Colorado and couldn’t resist continuing the name theme started by Alan Orloff at A Million Blogging Monkeys: Ptomaine’s House of Beef.

Monkey Balls (this restaurant version, anyway) are made from cheesecake, deep fried, then drowned in ice cream, whipped cream, and hot fudge. Sounds decadent, and I wouldn’t try it at home. But if you’re ever in Northern Colorado, you might want to check it out.

Death by Chocolate comes in many forms, but I tried one in a restaurant in Florida many years ago and it nearly finished me. I thought I really was going to die. Eventually my taste for chocolate returned, thank goodness.

Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookies of all time. I’ve been making them since I was a kid, and that was a really, really long time ago. When my own kids were little, I let them roll the dough and dip it into the cinnamon, sugar mixture for me. They saved me a lot of work, and they were having fun with no thoughts of actually being helpful.

Blueberry Grunt (also known as blueberry slump) is made with blueberries and a sweet dumpling dough.

My paternal grandmother used to make her In a Bowl Put cake for dessert. As far as we knew, it had no other name and there was no written recipe. It was always good, though.

What’s in a name? Well, I was interested enough in a dessert called Monkey Balls to read on and see what it was, more so than if the restaurant had called it Cheesecake Bites.

I’m just as likely to look more closely at a book in a book review or in the bookstore if it has an intriguing title, especially if it also has a great cover. Names and titles, just like presentation, are effective tools for attracting attention and making a sale.

This post was first published here on August 3, 2010

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Comments

  1. Dean K Miller says

    June 1, 2012 at 9:48 pm

    I’ve always been a snickerdoodles fan, but those Monkey Balls sound dangerously good!

    And yes, it is “all in the name”.

  2. Rena says

    June 1, 2012 at 3:28 pm

    Book titles fascinate me, too. And the Monkey Balls sound great.

  3. Jemi Fraser says

    June 1, 2012 at 3:24 pm

    Just never eat those snickerdoodles outside! I gave my kids and their friends a plate of them to munch on outside. Sadly, the bees loved them too. The kids all got stung! We only eat them inside now ๐Ÿ™‚

  4. Jenny says

    June 1, 2012 at 7:54 am

    Pat, I’m trying to picture you at the Drunken Monkey! I’m not brave enough to go in there, let alone order monkey balls ๐Ÿ™‚

  5. Stina Lindenblatt says

    June 1, 2012 at 6:44 am

    If I saw Monkey Balls on the dessert menu, I would pass. I just couldn’t eat them, even if they weren’t real. In my mind they would be.

  6. Angela Brown says

    June 1, 2012 at 6:27 am

    I would have never considered something named Monkey Balls to actually be tasty cheesecake bites. But I agree, it certainly causes one to look into it more, just as we writers want our titles to cause a reader to stop and check out more about our book.

  7. Margot Kinberg says

    June 1, 2012 at 6:02 am

    Pat – Oh, yes! I remember those offerings from that restaurant! Right you are too – names really do matter. I think there are many people who decide to try or not try a book (or at least get their interest piqued) by a title.

Meet Patricia

I read, I write, I blog, and sometimes I do the laundry and cook. My 2014 novel, Dead Wrong, was a finalist in the thriller category of the 2015 Colorado Book Awards. Wishing Caswell Dead (Five Star/Cengage, December 20, 2017) is a historical mystery set in 1830s Illinois in the fictitious Village of Sangamon. The novel was a finalist for the 2018 Colorado Book Awards for General Fiction. My most recent release, In Defense of Delia (Five Star/Cengage, November 2022), is available in hardcover and will soon be available in ebook and trade paperback. Read Moreโ€ฆ

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