An extremely hearty and simple soup for a wintry day

 Making my Vaguely Italian Bean and Greens soup tonight! The contents are extremely variable, the results are always really good.

Start with browning some crumbled sausage in olive oil. Using Italian sausage tonight, but could be turkey sausage or plant-based (which I haven't used so can't advise). You can also omit the sausage and substitute diced onions or carrots.

Add minced garlic to taste, and a hearty dollop of basil pesto.

Add a can of diced tomatoes (fire-roasted, chilies added, whatever you like) and a can of beans (cannellini today, could be roman beans or navy beans or whatever you prefer).

Add enough broth or water to make consistency you prefer -- I like a nice dense soup. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer.

Then add shredded greens. Anything goes. Marcella Hazan's simpler cookbook version of this soup uses Swiss chard, which is excellent. I've used spinach, arugula, kale, escarole, whatever; tonight it's shredded Tuscan kale.

When the greens are done, serve forth! Enjoy with grated Parmesan cheese and lots of crusty bread, and a bottle of wine.

I'm pretty sure I first made this soup before I saw the Hazan version, but I've no idea where I got the idea from. Probably a food magazine? Hazan's version is much simpler, without the sausage and tomatoes, really a variation on classic escarole and white bean soup, which is also delicious.

My Goodreads Reading Challenges, part 1: 2020

 A few years ago, the end of 2018 to be precise, I thought I would have an easier time reading and finishing many of the many, many books in my To Be Read pile. The reason was, I was no longer a full-time employee anywhere, but freelance, and given my lazy approach to finding work I thought this would mean more time to knit, more time to read, more time to Do Things that were not directly employment related. For example, I finished writing a second novel, and kept working on my third and fourth! And started cleaning out our crowded apartment of superfluous things. And pampering my plants.

As for more time to read? Once upon a time I read short stories voraciously, subscribed to all the SFF mags and bought collections and anthologies. But my tastes shifted over the years, and I began craving longer and longer stories practically to the exclusion of true short stories. The quality of available reading material had nothing to do with it. Just personal taste.

Things didn’t happen quite the way I imagined. During 2018, when I still commuted an hour each day by bus, and often spent lunch time at my desk, and we flew on lengthy trips several times, I read a lot of books. Seventy two! Same as 2017! And back in 2016 I read 77, perhaps an all-time personal best. I’ll write about those books some other time. (And yes, I’m using Goodreads to track all that.)

In 2019, I made the same modest goal of reading 50 books that I had for years past. And read 55! I blamed it on shorter bus rides, not traveling by air as much, and having generally more stuff to do.

Then…pandemic. Surely, even the distraction of having Spouse home all day working from home could not prevent me from continuing to tackle my book-reading goals head on. Surely I’d get lots of knitting done, lots of reading done. I once again set a goal of 50 books, which seemed eminently doable.

But I read only 39 full books in 2020. Many were but novellas, or even shorter. Graphic novels, with not much dialogue. I know now, that between pandemic and politics I wasn’t alone in struggling to concentrate enough to get through some very anxious periods. I thoroughly enjoyed what I read. But I worried about my aging brain, and set the same goal of 50 books for 2021. Which I missed. By a lot.

(I will report that thankfully neither I nor Spouse actually contracted Covid that year. Nor since, so far.)

2020 books included:

The Death of the Necromancer, by Martha Wells
Rogue Protocol, and Exit Strategy, and Network Effect, by Martha Wells
The City in the Middle of the Night, by Charlie Jane Anders
Paladin’s Grace, and A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, by T. Kingfisher
Life of David Hockney, by Catherine Cusset
Stormsong, and Midnight Bargain by CL Polk
Gideon the Ninth, and Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow
Beneath the Rising, by Premee Mohamed
The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djeli Clark
Color, by Victoria Finlay
The Raven Tower, by Ann Leckie
Blackfish City, by Sam J. Miller
The Empire of Gold, by SA Chakraborty
The Vinyl Detective: Low Action, by Andrew Cartmel
Rag and Bone, and Slippery Creatures, by KJ Charles
Storm of Locusts, by Rebecca Roanhorse
The House of Sundering Flames, and Of Dragons Feasts and Murders, by Aliette de Bodard
Solutions and Other Problems, by Allie Brosh
A Pocketful of Lodestones, by Elizabeth Crowens
The Morning of the Magicians, by Louis Pauwels
Daemon Voices, by Philip Pullman
The Physicians of Vilnoc, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Girl Genius: Queens and Pirates, by Phil & Kaja Foglio

(I am omitting several things I read mostly for research purposes for my own writing.)

TO BE CONTINUED...

Variations on a Tuna

Saw an interesting idea for lunch in a recent NYT Food newsletter, and tried it today. SUCCESS. We both loved it! 

 
Mix canned tuna (1 can for 2 people) with a little soy sauce, a little sesame oil, as much mayo as you like (I am using Kewpie these days), mix with chopped cucumber (I used 1 small seedless for 2 people) and chopped scallion. Put over hot rice. Add a few shakes of furikake (flaked nori and sesame seeds).

Not so much a recipe as a procedure, as all is to taste. Other ideas included were chopped radish, avocado and tomato. I'll definitely try those!

Previously, my fanciest tuna salad lunches were scallions, dill, olives, capers and mayo and olive oil, sometimes sliced grape tomatoes. Diced celery is good too, but I usually only buy celery in fall and winter. Other times too lazy, just use mayo, capers and lemon pepper or Italian herb blend. I'm going to try chili-lime spice blend too! 

You can use whatever canned tuna you like, of course, solid or light. We eat canned tuna once a week or so, alternating types. 

My tuna salad notions came about after many years of my being convinced I didn't like canned tuna, while my Spouse claims he practically lived on tuna sandwiches for years while a bachelor. I gradually came to appreciate it, now I even crave it sometimes. 

I started out ages ago making a "Tuscan Tuna Salad" we ate in pita pockets or over beds of lettuce. 

• Sauté in olive oil: sliced scallions, diced fennel, red bell pepper, 1 can small white beans until warmed. 
• Mixed with tuna, diced cucumber, chopped parsley and dill. 
• Chopped olives are optional. I like them. 
• Simple olive oil and lemon juice dressing. Lots of fresh ground pepper. Salt. 
• Again, not a real recipe, more a procedure. Spouse can't eat raw onion, for example, so I use scallions instead, but you could use diced red or sweet raw onion. 

Quantities vary. I literally never measure chopped or sliced veggies in any recipe. I go by what would serve the 2 of us, depending on whether we want leftovers or not. Tuscan Tuna Salad could absolutely become leftovers for lunch, so eyeball it. Quarter a fennel bulb for 2 servings, half for 4. Peppers come in all sizes, so maybe half a cup for 2 servings or 4. An entire small Persian cucumber for 2, or a few inches of a larger greenhouse cucumber. 

Then I started making several tuna-based toppings for pasta. My first version was: 

• Sauté shallot, garlic in olive oil; 
• Add petite diced canned tomatoes, basil pesto, chopped black olives, capers, flaked canned tuna, crushed red pepper and lots of black pepper. 
• Use whatever pasta you like. Curly pasta holds the topping really well. 

My delicious version of Pasta Puttanesca is really easy for a pantry dinner when I'm tired. Again, for 2 people:

• Sauté small chopped onion or large shallot in olive oil, with lots of garlic. 
• Add a generous heap of anchovies, 1 can of drained diced tomatoes and at least a heaping tablespoon of basil pesto. Cook down a bit. Stir a lot. 
• At the last minute, add the can of tuna, a handful of chopped olives and a few spoonfuls of capers. 
• Shake on some hot red pepper flakes, and plenty of grated Parmesan. 
• Serve with red wine! 

OF COURSE Salad Nicoise is still the king of tuna salad meals. I try not to make a huge production of it, as good tomatoes and green beans and baby potatoes are in the Greenmarket just when I don't want to heat up the house by cooking. So I cheat! 

• Cut the baby red potatoes in half. Boil. When they have boiled 5 minutes, add the green beans to the same pot. They will come out done at the same time. Drizzle with dressing while still warm. Let cool a bit. 
• Hard-boil eggs preferably some other time if it's hot in the kitchen. Peel and slice in half or quarters or whatever you like. 
• Meanwhile, prepare vinaigrette dressing (olive oil, lemon juice or red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard). I sometimes add some mayo. Lots of ground pepper. 
• Prepare the lettuce. Mix it with a bit of dressing. Slice tomatoes. 
• Break up the tuna you're using (the jarred filets are best but canned is fine). I like to pre-combine it with plenty of small olives and plenty of capers and plenty of drained anchovies. Fewer bowls to wash! Mix with a bit of dressing. 
• Serve however you like. I fill our bowls with lettuce, then we pick the rest. 

I have a David Rosengarten recipe for "Lemony Tuna and White Bean Antipasto Salad" that I still haven't tried, but it's pretty simple. Tuna, canned cannellini, olives, sliced celery, capers, parsley, roasted red pepper, all combined with a lemon juice & olive oil vinaigrette plus lemon zest. Maybe next week! 

Blue Ruin

 I'm continuing to experiment with gins that are new to me.

My Tanqueray and Tanqueray 10 bottles are long gone, as is the Hendrick's. Love all those. Trying new ones! (Hendrick's makes the best mixer tho, for tonic or lemonade.)

Partway through a bottle of Nolents Silver; I absolutely love it. Flowers, roses, berries, violets. My favorite mixer: 1 part Nolents, 1 part cranberry juice, a splash of sour mix, and plenty of seltzer, over ice (think of a gin Cosmo). Excellent as a Collins with a bit of lemonade. Or just plain with seltzer and ice. This is not a tonic-friendly gin. Tonic water overwhelms the botanical nuances.

 
Just opened a bottle of Brockman's. Reviews mention berries, citrus and hibiscus. The scent is wonderfully fruity, the ingredients include blueberries and blackberries! Plain with a splash of water to open it up, the taste is quite dry, more lemony. The trad juniper is low in the mix, in my opinion, which is OK. I'll smash a few blueberries into my next serving...just like the maker recommends...

Irish Seafood Chowder, a bit overdue

 We went to the World SF Convention in Dublin in 2019, little knowing it would be our last trip abroad...well, since then. Because freaking pandemic. 

Dublin was a new city for us, a new country, and we had an excellent time. The convention had some Issues, but the convention center is conveniently located just steps from the Samuel Beckett Bridge and one of the tram lines, and it's really easy to get to other desirable locations from there. So we did. 

Our hotel was also conveniently located. A stop for the other tram line was literally right under our window--so hitting the road every morning was simplicity itself. 

There were terrific gastro pubs nearby as well. We love a pub, and were not disappointed. Atmosphere in the nearest ones was maybe a bit touristy--hardly surprising, given the neighborhood--but the food was excellent. Do people actually complain about the food in Ireland the way they complain about the food in England? If so, they're not going to the right places. 

Dinner: chips (fried potatoes), a rare steak, some veggies

Look at that feast. Steak, chips, veggies...it was so ridiculously good! And I absolutely adore a good Irish breakfast. Our hotel featured a nice breakfast buffet and oh did I ever take advantage of all the white pudding and black pudding and Irish bacon and brown bread. Oh did I ever. 

Breakfast: Irish brown bread, black pudding, white pudding, Irish bacon, eggs

(I guess it helps if you like black pudding...which is just a firm blood sausage made with pork and oats. I like every variant of blood sausage I've ever had, including German blutwurst and Dominican morcilla. White pudding is the same thing without the blood. Also extremely tasty.)

Our favorite culinary discovery was Seafood Chowder. A chunkier, more satisfying version of comforting and familiar New England Clam Chowder, this ubiquitous soup really is a meal in a bowl, with a couple slices of delicious Irish brown bread. This one featured salmon, and peas.

Salmon seafood chowder, brown bread on the side

And in Temple Bar, I perused the cookbook created by the chef at a restaurant we lucked upon, and discovered the recipe for the delicious concoction we ordered for lunch.

Simplicity itself. Onions, potatoes, carrots, peas, herbs, butter, cream, white wine, fish. SO GOOD. 

So when we returned home, I decided to put my own versions of this soup into regular rotation. I already was making a summertime corn-tomato-fish chowder, so changing it up a bit was easy-peasy. 

This version has onion, celery, carrot, broccoli, peas and firm fish--bluefish in this case. Softened the veggies in a little butter first, added cream and milk, simmered, added the fish last and broke it up when it was cooked through. Similar results for shrimp, scallops, etc. Pretty much any fish will work if it doesn't get mushy when simmered in broth. 

Bluefish and veggie chowder, my own concoction

Vegetarian creamy chowder

As usual, I decided to make vegetarian versions besides fishy ones. Inspired by the tasty Cream of Broccoli soup served by our local diner, I added lots of broccoli to a chowder chunky with onion, carrot, potato, corn and frozen peas. Cauliflower is also an excellent addition. 

The vegetarian version has become a regular favorite of ours, as I nearly always have suitable veggies in the fridge, and cream and milk. Though I'm thinking of trying a cream soup trick Julia Child wrote about: you cook a suitable amount of white rice and puree it, having thinned it out a bit with broth. A vegetarian broth would work well, suitable to the flavors of the soup. The craze for cauliflower-in-everything is waning, but pureed cooked cauliflower would be good here too, added to the rice. 

Welcome to My World: The Magpie Prince Tales

Books help soothe us, inspire us, inform us, distract us, thrill us, terrify us, amuse us. Etcetera. I love to read all sorts of stories. Turns out I like to write all sorts, too, all within what I'm calling The Magpie Cycle, or Tales of the Magpie Prince. 

SEVEN FOR A SECRET, the first novel I finished a couple of years ago, is not soothing. It's a story about trauma, hubris, psychological abuse, misuse of authority, the urge to violence, and the terrible burden of trying to love one's family no matter what. The characters are nearly all demon-bred witches with varied magical powers, none of which keeps them from making terrible mistakes. There is bloodshed. Children suffer PTSD. It's set in 1955, in postwar northern England, and things that happened during WWII are still fresh in people's minds. The story is narrated by Gerry, the child most affected by events in the books, describing events from the perspective of an older man looking back.  

I don't think I realized quite how nasty all that was, when writing it, but it felt right, given the set of characters I'd created. They are likeable and also dangerous. Some of them have done terrible things but it's brushed off by those who love them, owing to social expectations. It's okay if this person has done terrible things...the results were worth it! They did it for the best reasons! And children take that in, and some of them learn to also accept it, and others do not and never will. 

This is the descriptive for the sales sites:

Gerry Llewellyn's mother is teaching him death magic, and his grandmother thinks he might help their family take over the world. He's eight. 

Waning magic in their land, and a legendary curse, meant British demon-bred witches were unable to enter the Otherworld, source of their strongest magic, for 200 years. Gerry and his father are the first seventh-born witches in all that time, a signal the curse may soon end, heralding a new era of greater power for them. But even his family can't agree whether this is a good thing. They have peaceful lives, blending in with the rest of humanity, doing much as they please in the more tolerant postwar years of the 1950s. Are vague promises of fabulous divine gifts worth upending that?

Already scarred by family secrets and politics, precocious Gerry hates being treated as a miracle child. And now Gerry's eldest brother is getting married, so the Llewellyn children have lots to do besides dealing with their emotionally damaged parents, death demon siblings, and a sundry lot of fractious relatives.

They are all about to learn that seventh sons are special all right, but it's their mothers you really need to watch out for...

THE RAGE OF CALIBAN is, I think, more amusing and inspirational.

I won't include spoilers, but will explain a bit. The book takes place ten years after SECRET, and includes many of the same characters. SECRET is set in 1955, CALIBAN in 1966. Lots and lots of things have happened to those characters since then, both good and bad. Gerry, the narrator of SECRET, is mentioned as “Morgan’s baby brother” but not by name, and does not actually appear. That was deliberate, as Gerry tends to take over a room. His brother, sisters and father are major characters, however, and his Manchester aunts and uncles, and even his grandmother. 

CALIBAN's main character, Phoebe Starwood, marries Gerry's older brother Morgan in 1964. She alludes to the wedding having been a bit of a disaster because of Gerry, but they remain happily coupled and now have an adorable and very loud infant daughter. 

I’m working on what may end up being three VERY long stories that happen between SECRET and CALIBAN. All are told from Gerry’s POV, and document his adventures between 1960, when he turns thirteen, and 1965, when the massive mess he’s made of his life really catches up with him. LUCKY THIRTEEN, GIRLFRIENDS AND BOYFRIENDS AND OTHER BAD HABITS, and HELLHOUND ON MY TRAIL will show up…eventually. Most of the story is written, but not properly stitched together. I'm writing as fast as I can. 

Phoebe and Morgan’s wedding takes place in GIRLFRIENDS. Other characters in CALIBAN, including Lizzie and Daphne, show up in HELLHOUND. Saying anything else would be spoilers…

I'm also working on a related book that takes place at the same time as CALIBAN, with other characters we see in Gerry's stories and who are mentioned in CALIBAN. I'm tentatively calling it THE STINK OF MAGIC. 

My explanation for my (extremely fictional) demon-bred witches is that long ago, demigods (offspring of humans and godlike beings, see many ancient mythologies) kept mating with mortal humans gifted with a certain amount of fortitude. Some of those offspring went and did great deeds in the mortal realm—both good and bad—while others withdrew to the Otherworld of wherever they lived, and marinated in magical power and became what many mythologies think of as demons. A lot of magically gifted people ran into all sorts of trouble, and over the centuries their numbers rose and fell and rose. They learned to escape persecution, they developed new cultures within their families and clans, and now and then mated with demons to bring fresh magic powers into their blood lines. Non-human magical beings also exist, but are largely unseen by non-witches. I have a lot of fun with this idea.

I do also have a LOT of fun designing my book covers. Art school had to be good for something. 

The Rage of Caliban: NEW BOOK FROM ME!

The world is burning down. Other people have terrible, true stories to tell. I am astonished I have the nerve to write fiction and try to finish it and hope other people will like it. 

 I bloody well did it. I finished a second novel. I have self-published it as an ebook on all major platforms available. I am very bad at marketing and self-promo, but I'll do my best. 

Available: Kindle Amazon, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, Apple iBooks, Scribd and some library apps. 

"Never, never ever make a witch annoyed with you. Just…don’t.

Painter Phoebe Starwood-Llewellyn is struggling to create an art career despite specializing in portraiture, which simply wasn't fashionable among mid-sixties English art critics. A young woman, and a mother, she is also a witch, part of an ever-growing tribe of people with demon ancestry and inherited magical powers.

Phoebe doesn't consider herself particularly skilled in magic, but a wealthy art collector tempts her with a lucrative if morally questionable challenge requiring spells her fellow witches think impossible. She becomes determined to see if she is up to creating a version of one of the most famous pictures in English fiction: The Picture of Dorian Gray.

As you may already know, there’s never any telling what a witch might do."

No spoilers for my own book, duh, but I'll say there's LGBTQ characters, an adorable and very loud infant, adult smooching (no graphic sex, which simply didn't belong), and stuff about painting, art critics and art collectors (hey, I was an art major). Phoebe was a lot of fun to write. She is quite level-headed for an artist, probably has a touch of ADHD, and just enough self-confidence in her talent to make a serious art career. The question was, did she have enough confidence in her magical abilities to meet a mad challenge? 

THE RAGE OF CALIBAN is, I think, more amusing and feel-good than my first novel, SEVEN FOR A SECRET, which is kinda violent and filled with traumatized kids.

I'll discuss the relationship between SEVEN FOR A SECRET and CALIBAN in greater detail in another blog post. Suffice to say this book contains many of the same characters, but ten years older, taking place in 1966. CALIBAN also alludes to things that happened in SECRET, and to things that are still unpublished in the greater cycle of Magpie Prince Tales, the story of Gerry Llewellyn and his large family. Phoebe was a relatively minor character, aside from marrying Gerry's older brother Morgan, but I always knew she was an artist. 

I truly appreciate who read this and liked it, and those who helped make it better, and 

SEVEN FOR A SECRET is also available from all major ebook sources:
Kindle Amazon, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo, Apple iBooks, Scribd and some library apps. 

Reading is Hard

 I used to read something like 50-60 books a year. 

I never thought I would burn out on reading. Or just find it difficult 

I have burned out on knitting, a couple of times, for varying lengths of time...once for nearly two years, more recently for about a year. Odd, how that coincided with my reading burnout. But I'm not alone, in that people who have taken the pandemic seriously have often found it hard to concentrate on things that were once enjoyable pastimes. Many of my friends have complained they can't focus on reading fiction anymore, or finish simple knitting projects, or paint, or...whatever they do. My plant growing friends seem to be an exception: the plants need care, and abandoning them seems cruel. Um, likewise. My orchids are doing pretty well. New shelf arrangements, new light fixtures, new plants via online order. 

The knitting is still going v e  r   y    s   l   o  w  l  y  these days but my once-a-month knitting group helps a bit, I actually made progress on a new piece the other day. And I'm nearly done with a super-super simple garter stitch shawl I only work on during long phone calls. 

But finding myself unable to dig into books properly, and read for several hours on end like I used to, is a whole other world. I began hitting a few roadblocks several years ago, even before pandemic times. I started to fall asleep while reading. Didn't matter what book, what subject, how fascinating...after about 20 minutes, zzzzz. Self hypnosis? Annoying as hell, whatever the reason. I get plenty of sleep! I don't work in an office, I sleep late if I need to! 

I used to read a great deal while commuting to/from work, on city buses that often got stuck in traffic. Yay, more time to read! Tore through a lot of paperbacks that way, then started to read ebooks on the move instead, with the Kindle app on my phone. If I wasn't knitting knitting knitting on a longer trip, I was reading reading reading.

Then something happened. Was it writing my own stories that absorbed all my reading desires? Was it just a shift in mindset? I still WANT to read. But starting a book...stopping after a few pages...not returning to it for days...that just wasn't ME. And the sleepiness thing often curtailed my stubborn attempts to dig into a new book. 

I came up with strategies. Read shorter books! Read novellas! Fortunately several favorite authors (Ursula Vernon aka T. Kingfisher, Premee Mohamed, CL Polk, KJ Charles, Martha Wells) are also prolific authors of shorter works. Other faves came out with new books I absolutely had to read (Becky Chambers, SA Chakraborty). I caught up with several rock musician memoirs, finally started tearing through the Johannes Cabal books (Jonathan L. Howard), finally read The City We Became (NK Jemisin), Piranesi (Susanna Clarke), Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller) and some older novels, as well as some pretty interesting non-fiction. I tore through both of Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb novels as soon as they were released, so there's that, too, and hope the third will be equally easy to devour. 

So I'm feeling a bit better now about my reading pace. It's MARCH dammit and I only just finished four books so far this year! Two of which I started LAST year! 

The two big things on my reading plate: The Tyrant Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson) and Perhaps the Stars (Ada Palmer). Tyrant is third in an incredible trilogy, a masterpiece of worldbuilding and character development, and I TORE through the first two books. This one is still sitting moribund in my Kindle queue. I haven't been confident enough to attempt it. But I will. 

The Palmer book is fourth in a series. I hardly ever buy hardcover fiction, but I made an exception for these books. The long wait between each one was no obstacle, for the first three. But now...I opened the new book and my heart dropped. I'd FORGOTTEN everything. I couldn't remember the salient details of what happened in the third book, or the others. I read five pages in a total fog, and realized to my dismay I'd have to go back and at least partially re-read the third book. That's fine, as I loved it. A lot happened in it. But oh, the delay in gratification...

Rejoining the Internet (aside from Twitter and FB)

I am rather aghast to realize my last post here was from the Day Before Lockdown. 

We are healthy. We are OK. I have stupid random tachycardia attacks, under a cardiologist's supervision, and I'm having my teeth fixed and we are both getting our booster shots this week. 

Doomscrolling on Twitter throughout the first OH GOD 21 months of Pandemic felt both necessary and nasty. I still do it, several times a day. Hours on end. I retweet a LOT of shit. I really want to keep to Weird Twitter posts but it's been impossible to ignore TFG crap and not keep retweeting critical information. Somehow I've amassed over 1140 followers. Yay? Lots of people retweet my retweets. Yay? Lots of people seem to like my replies to tweets involving art or birds or publishing or politics. Yay? Yay! 

Twitter recently reminded me of my 12 year Twitterversary. Twelve years?! I joined Twitter in order to share orchid meetings. Now I'm a communist. No, wait, I was always a socialist, raised by two socialists, so "now I'm a socialist" isn't strictly accurate...oh never mind, it's a Twitter joke. 

I won't give up on Facebork just yet. I don't have the negative experiences so many people complain about. 

"Oh my terrible family and their terrible pro-Republican and crazy Q posts!" Well, I hardly have any family, and I certainly don't have any family on FB. So I don't see that.

"Oh those horrible people I went to high school with and I'm forced to see their terrible pro-Republican  and crazy Q posts!" Well, I still have BFFs from high school, and I'm friends with nearly 100 of the wonderful and amazing women who were my classmates. We gladly attend our 5 year reunions. No stupid dramas, no bad memories, no bullies to shudder and commiserate over. My school was hardly typical, of course. But again, seeing those women posting their triumphs and lows on FB makes my life better, not worse. 

"Oh those terrible rabbit holes people fall down and become radicalized!" Well, I don't fall down many rabbit holes, I guess. I have extremely fixed online interests: orchids & rare plants, SFF books, birds, knitting and cooking. I don't deviate from those groups. I don't go hunting for trouble. I don't WANT to see politics on FB. I see plenty of it on Twitter, where it's much easier to ignore or engage anyway. My friends do share political views and posts, but--I know!--THEIR VIEWS ARE MOSTLY SHARED BY ME. I don't have friends who are assholes with views strongly opposed to mine. (LOL of course I'm convinced that I'M Not the Asshole either.) So I'm not forced to see that shit on FB. 

If I were bored? If I were at loose ends and actively looking for rabbit holes that might hide toothy tentacles? I still wouldn't find shit I'm opposed to. I'd rather read a book or watch TV. I'd rather watch Curse of Oak Island or the Weather Channel than go down FB rabbit holes into bullshit and madness. 

But that's just me, I guess. And several hundred of my friends. I am always grateful for my friends. Most of whom are real people to me, not just FB photos and posts. I'm lucky and I know it. But even so, I'm not on FB much these days. It's not as much fun as Twitter for me, but I do treasure the long personal posts my friends share. And it helps me remember birthdays! 

Speaking of friends, I'm also grateful that we've been able to have lunches out with friends again, and weekend knitting, and weekend dinners at their homes. We were able to go to the Catskills twice this summer. We're so lucky and we know it. 

I still can't read at my old pace...finishing books just takes me forever now. I'll link to a few of my recent Goodreads reviews in another post. 

Shelf-Stable Goods

I visited the NY Botanical Garden with my BFF yesterday, whose special-needs kids will likely be home for weeks so I won't get to see her for a while. They won't get educational therapy while they're at home, so she despairs of keeping them entertained while trying to get work done.

The orchids were very pretty. There weren't many people around. We had lunch in the sit-down restaurant, overpriced but tasty; the place was more than half full.

I went with my friend to the Aldi on Broadway in the Bronx. The lines wrapped up and down the aisles, and she later reported the shelves weren't being restocked because the cashiers are supposed to do that. I didn't need anything from there so I went home; I had a shopping list for my own neighborhood, as Spouse started working from home today.

The express bus passed the Met Museum, where fewer people than usual were lingering on the steps. I felt heartsick for the street vendors who won't have thousands of tourists thronging their carts for weeks and weeks. I hope they can survive.

As I rode a bus home, my iPod offered up, in a row:
The Weeping Song, Nick Drake
I Wanna Be Sedated, the Ramones
Bad Medicine, Bon Jovi

THEN the supermarket all-70s muzak offered up OH MY MY by Ringo Starr. "I called up my doctor to see what's the matter, He said come on over, I said do I haveta..."

THANKS UNIVERSE.

I bought a lot of durable groceries this week, to supplement the stuff we already had: rice, pasta, ramen, canned tomatoes, butter, cheese, potatoes, turnips, carrots, hummus, peanut butter, crackers, chocolate, cookies, frozen sausage, frozen veggies, matzoh, popcorn. Hot sauce for all the rice and beans in our future. WINE. Got a hunk of corned beef for the weekend and a head of cabbage, enough to share with Spouse's elderly aunt whom we are still planning to visit on Sunday.

(We already had beans, coconut milk, jam, canned soup & shelf-stable broth, corn chips, pumpkin, couscous, bulgur, cornmeal, coffee, tea, cereal, raisins, nuts, granola bars, chutney. Ordered more Birds & Beans coffee the 2 of us usually drink 3 cups a day total.)

Eggs keep for over a month in the fridge. We eat a lot of eggs. I bought a lot of eggs. There were plenty in the stores.

The supermarket has lines, as does the gourmet market, but I've seen worse on just regular weekends. Shelves were being restocked all week. The usual stuff was flying out: paper goods (we have plenty), bread (we have enough), Clorox wipes (we have LOTS). I did buy extra laundry detergent and dishwashing liquid. Gourmet market coffee was partly cleaned out today -- a lot of people won't be going to Starbucks next week as usual.

I got good at prepping due to 9/11, Hurricane Sandy and various big blizzards. I know how to cook meats and veg nobody else seems to bother with. Today I got oxtails that I can freeze, and make stew whenever, same as I did during Sandy when more popular fresh meats were scarce. The freezer also contains random sausages, a package of ground bison for chili, and a roast chicken carcass for soup.

Pretzels don't seem popular with food hoarders, while chips & popcorn go fast. Judging by what's gone first, I suspect a lot of the folks emptying the shelves don't actually cook very much, and aren't entirely sure what to buy or how much. They aren't buying things to eat NOW -- fresh fish or fresh produce, only fresh meat, so maybe they're freezing all that chicken? First rule of prepping, don't eat the storeable goods until all else is gone!

I should've bought fish for tonight's dinner but I forgot as soon as I had ground lamb in hand, so oh well, so much for my own advice...

NaNoWriMo 2019 OMG

WHAT HAVE I DONE

I wrote 40k words of a NEW NOVEL in one month. I did THE THING.

National Novel Writing Month has become quite a phenomenon among young writers. I do NOT say would-be writers, as all writing counts. I don't care if you only write fanfic for personal consumption, or share it on AO3. I don't care if you only write blog posts twice a year. I don't care if you have dozens of short stories that still haven't sold, or have sold only one story of those dozens. Writing is writing. Art and self-expression matter. If you're not a writer, maybe you draw or paint or knit or sew or bake cakes or sing karaoke or dance or weave or make your own soap or take pictures of birds or collect cat figurines. If you're not hurting anyone with your art -- including yourself -- then enjoy it.*

And even if I didn't already believe that with all my heart, meeting a lively group of fellow NaNoWriMo participants last month would convince anyone. These were terrific folks who love to read and want to write but need some extra incentive to sit and commit words strung together into stories. Some were doing NaNo for years already, and had never finished anything, or worked on their novels the other 11 months. That's ok. Others had finished novels of varying lengths but hadn't done the cleanup necessary to try and find an agent or publisher.

Some of these folks are incredibly busy working and raising kids and managing elder care and facing all sorts of other challenges. Some are just young and still finding their voice. Others are trying to find the right idiom for their expression and aren't thinking about being published.

All of it is good. NaNo is a great challenge to just SIT and WRITE and get a story told. I'm glad more and more people take the challenge. Now, I do hear that agents and publishers get absolutely inundated with barely-finished, sub-par 50k novels every December and January -- that a lot of NaNo folks feel their stream-of-consciousness masterpieces are DONE once the calendar ticks over to December 1. Well, those folks are unfortunately delusional, and are cluttering up the lives of publishing professionals with unprofessional work, and that's a shame.

Very few people who write ever get published. That's a fact. That's why there are millions of self-published stories and novels out in the world now (hey, including mine). Publishing is a very weird business and not everyone can stand the weirdness. Lots of writers have one published novel and then are never heard of again -- sometimes its the publisher's fault, sometimes the agent's, sometimes the writer just can't produce more good work, sometimes the next work gets rejected. It's disheartening to hear the stories writers can tell about this.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE. Here's what I did: I took what I thought was a pretty good short story, took my writing group's advice on making it much much better, and then started looking at SFF genre short story markets. They are incredibly hard to sell to. There are thousands and thousands of really good writers selling short fiction and I've realized I'll never be one of them. I don't think in 1000 - 10,000 word bursts. I'm one of those elaborately wordy bitches who can't build a world or a story that short. The story I wrote, "The Rage of Caliban," takes place in the same world as Seven for a Secret, with many of the same characters (now about 10 years older). The group thought it was a great opening for another novel. NOOOOOOO. I was already working on three other novels in that story cycle!

But I thought about it for a few months, and ultimately gave in. So in September I started expanding the existing 8000 word story, and by November 1 I had 23k done. I plunged into NaNoWriMo with great enthusiasm. It seemed the ideal way to approach just getting the whole darned thing done.

And it worked! I fell short, I only achieved 39k on the scoreboard. Tacked onto that original 23k I ended up with 62k of a nearly-finished novel. I've kept going, I have no intention of NOT finishing this sucker. The Rage of Caliban will probably end up around 80k, a respectable length. I've started back-editing as a way of correcting some continuity issues, and shuffling characters around,

Seven for a Secret is about the angst of a young demon-bred witch boy born into an impossibly damaged family confronting an impossible situation. Gerry's not a "chosen one" among his people, he's the thing that allows someone else to do the thing a chosen one customarily does. And that's much worse, from his point of view.

The rest of his story cycle -- four more novels and novellas, if I'm dogged enough to finish them -- takes Gerry on his life journey towards adulthood. He's not nice. He's scarred, selfish and arrogant, thoroughly an asshole, though he tries to be better. He loves deeply and hates fiercely. He makes some terrible mistakes that ruin other people's lives. Everything good he tries to do goes wrong. The people around him try to forgive and forget -- he was born special, after all, and they can't quite shake that -- but eventually the mistakes pile up and force him to humility and responsibility. This arc covers 1955-1965, mostly in northern England. The cast of characters is bloody enormous, and I refuse to apologize for that. It's still smaller than that of Game of Thrones. I also really enjoy all the British Invasion blues and rock research I continue to do.

The Rage of Caliban takes place in 1966, with Gerry's older brother's wife as the focus. (Gerry doesn't appear in the story at all, except for a couple of mentions.) I adore Phoebe Starwood, I created her years ago but didn't do much with her--mainly, she stood by rather helplessly as Gerry and his girlfriend unintentionally wrecked her wedding. I knew she was an artist. She liked snapping pictures of family events and travel scenery, and made the best of having fallen in love with a member of the most notorious (and dangerous) coven in Britain. When a story idea popped into my head, I knew she would be the POV character, and would deal with the situation with stubborn intelligence. I knew I would really enjoy torturing her! It was also really fun to get myself out of Gerry's head, and into hers instead. Unlike her terrible brother-in-law, Phoebe is not an asshole. 😁

I really hope I can finish Rage by the end of December...I'll definitely do a new round of agent queries with this one. Wish me luck.


*"Harm" takes many forms. Endorsed bigotry and racism and misogyny in a story is harmful, as opposed to your narrative making it clear why those things are bad and have bad consequences. Harming yourself or people around you can happen if you begin to ignore the real world and its responsibilities, and possibilities -- you might start acting like a dick without even realizing it or getting therapy or other help. Don't be a dick.

Melodious Blend, the Bestest Blend!

HWAET! I come to inform you of the wonders of TJ Melodious Blend.

If you are a Trader Joe’s fan, or even an occasional shopper, you almost certainly have a wagon-load of favorite, staple items that you’ve come to love, depend on and feel bereft of when out of stock or out of season. I have a couple of dozen such favorites in my pantry and freezer.*

Melodious Blend is in the frozen foods, and like many TJ packaged goods it is a godsend when you don’t know what the f-word else to cook, want a leguminous meatless or nearly meatless meal that isn’t just opening a can of beans again. Not that I lack for recipes that include opening a can of beans of pretty much any variety. (Note: Spouse and I Do. Not. Like. Tofu. It is not part of our diet. It is not something we’ll ever heartily embrace unless every mammal, bird and fish on the planet goes extinct in our lifetimes—in which case soybeans and humans are probably doomed as well.) (Well, we are probably doomed, but it’s my fervent hope that enough vertebrates outlast us to kickstart evolutionary diversity again in a few hundred years.)

Anyway. Melodious Blend. As you see from the package, it’s pre-cooked and only needs heating to make it savory and delicious. You COULD choose to believe the TJ copywriters, or you could believe me instead. Without a bit of additional fuss, MB is tasty but bland. Not that some people don’t enjoy that. But it’s pretty easy to make it a bit more interesting. I will use today’s dinner as an example in several easy steps, as today was nasty and cold outside and I decided that cooking from the freezer and fridge veggie bin was better than going to the store. I mean, this is WHY I even have MB in the freezer.

First step: note that the ingredients of MB are primarily green lentils, red lentils and green chickpeas (which are just regular chickpeas cooked before being dried). It also includes olive oil and some tomato. This last part is technically accurate but honestly, a bit misleading. Cooked by itself, MB’s seasoning is barely barely detectable. Legumes are tasty but they do need significant seasoning--witness pretty much the entire world's cookery. So while I ordinarily go along with the vaguely Italian seasoning, you could in fact concoct Indian, Middle Eastern, French or pretty much any other flavoring you enjoy. Plan accordingly. 

Second step: decide which fresh or frozen veggies need to be used up. Canned are OK too if that’s what you have. Pretty much anything goes, at this step. Choose any two or up to six, at which point this becomes too much work and doesn’t get any tastier.

Possibilities: Bell pepper, jalapeno pepper, summer squash/zucchini, winter squash/butternut squash, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, bok choy, cabbage, kale, spinach or similar greens, carrot, turnip, parsnip, peas, potato, green beans, okra, leeks, fresh or sun-dried tomatoes, olives…you get the idea. The legumes in MB are bland enough to go with pretty much ANYTHING. Mix up whatever combo you like. Precook or parboil whatever you feel needs it, though my methodology includes that step and will work for most root veggies.

Third step: heat a large pan with a good glug of (olive) oil, and chop a medium-sized onion into coarse dice, and fling it into the pan. Add some smashed or minced garlic too. Add salt to get things started. Meanwhile, prep and chop your chosen veggies, and begin adding them in order of necessary cooking time. Tonight, I added the zucchini, butternut squash and eldritch (Romanesco) broccoli as the onions were starting to color a bit, along with some water, and covered the pan to get those veggies good and steamed. 

I also sometimes add diced sausage of one type or another. Picture above is a single link of (frozen) Aidell's Andouille. Pretty much anything goes. Crumbled Italian sausage is really good, as is BACON I mean, bacon, or ham. Any plant-based sausage you might prefer would also be good, or tofu, or tempeh. 

I have a  jar of Mystery Hotter than We Thought herb/spice seasoning (from an upstate NY supermarket no less) and it went great with the veggies and Andouille sausage. The vague ingredient mix has only the obvious items; someday I'll figure out what the heck else is in that mix. Hasn't killed us yet, though. 

I haven't tried it yet, but I'm pretty sure MB would be a good coconut curry base. Use coconut oil for sauteing, use Indian (curry powder, cumin, coriander, turmeric, etc.) or Thai (lemongrass, cilantro, lime, fish sauce) seasonings and add coconut milk to make a nice gooey sauce. 

Fourth step: it is optional but conventional to prepare a starchy side and turn your effort towards the Rice and Beans spectrum. We always do this, but you needn't. Pretty much any grain or pasta you like will go, with whatever veggies you've chosen: rice of any kind, bulgur wheat, quinoa, couscous, etc. You could also incorporate your starch into the dish and turn it into a kind of pilaf. Your dinner, your choice. 

Fifth step: Once the veggies are nearly cooked, add the MB. DO NOT THAW IT FIRST. DO NOT RINSE IT FIRST. Just open the package and dump the contents into the pan. There will be ice crystals. Don't worry. Just break up the lumps, add a bit of water (depending on how much liquid is already in the pan with the veggies), stir it all a bit, and cover. Stir it again after about 3-4 minutes. Add another glug of oil if you want, maybe more liquid. (Doesn't have to be water, could be broth or even a bit of wine.) Cover and cook another couple of minutes. Done! 

We added more hot sauce anyway. Hot sauce is yummy with legumes; there's a REASON most cultures that have both always combine them. Anyway, a nice Gewurtztraminer was also a nice accompaniment. 

Hope you're feeling more inspired on your What Do I Cook days! 

*Dark Chocolate Covered Cherries, Dark Chocolate Covered Blueberries, Almond Chocolate Chunk Cookies, Chocolate Almond Spread, frozen Vegetable Masala burger patties, frozen Sweet Potato Gnocchi, frozen Palak Paneer and Vegetable Biryani, frozen Paratha bread, frozen Scallion Pancakes, various granola bars, Greek yogurt with almond butter, Greek yogurt with coconut, quick-cooking brown Basmati Rice, Inner Peas, Movie Popcorn, organic raisins...ETCETERA. 

2017: An okay year for birds, part 1

It would be hard to beat 2016 as a year for new life birds, without making extensive new travel plans, and that we did not do in 2017.

We returned to Boynton Beach, Florida in late January, and discovered that it wasn't nearly as birdy as late February 2016 had been. It was disappointing, but we still had a wonderful time and managed to scrape up a few more life birds apiece. Knowing more about the region this time, we were determined to visit all three of the local wetlands within easy driving distance. (Not that we were dong the driving. Our wonderful friend Adam Castro did the driving.)

Loxahatchee wetlands is a tiny slice of the Everglades, a National Wildlife Refuge with a lovely nature center, lots of alligators, and a chunk of nearly-extinct cypress forest, all alongside encroaching farms. Just driving there, I was extremely lucky to spot a Crested Caracara flying across the road in front of us. Alas, no picture. Alas, Ed did not also see it. But the bird was utterly unmistakable in flight, with its short wings with a big white flash, its black-and-white head. Mind you, I'd never seen one. But I had memorized the image from the bird books, and I had zero doubt what I saw and shouted out as soon as I saw it.

There were Loggerhead Shrikes on the wires. No photos from either of us, but there's no mistaking their silhouettes. Definitely birds we want to see more closely in the future. [Spoiler Alert: WE DID, but 2 years later.]

Another bird we came to see was not a disappointment. Our first ever Pileated Woodpecker! We heard him before we saw him, as we traveled on the cypress forest boardwalk. You better believe we RAN towards the sound -- it was like someone hitting a big tree with a smaller tree. And there he was, in his pileated glory! Of course he flew off after we got only a few shots...

I hadn't been feeling well, so I stayed behind while Ed and Adam went chasing after gators. There is a nice deck with shaded benches behind the nature center, facing into the cypress forest. I sat and found a few warblers and gnatcatchers, which made me happy.

Then this happened. One of Florida's ubiquitous Turkey Vultures landed on the railing only a few yards away from me.

Then a few more showed up. And performed an aerial ballet in the wide clearing in the cypress forest that was right in front of me. I had seen one up close before, but not so many. Not like this. 

They are BEAUTIFUL. They are made of bronze and sunshine. 

They spent a good fifteen minutes lazily circling and drifting about in the clearing. A couple of them drifted away, a couple others landed to enjoy the sun. If I hadn't been feeling unwell, I'd have missed the show. Turkey vultures. Damn.

After Spouse and friend failed to find alligators, we departed and visited Wakodahatchee. Like Green Cay, this is another "artificial" wetland created for purposes of water treatment, surrounded by developments and shopping centers. The birds don't seem to mind.

The special thing about Wakodahatchee is how close you can get to LARGE BIRDS and their extremely um, adorable babies. Great Blue Herons and Wood Storks really are extremely large, and it's extremely startling to realize their nests are sometimes just a few feet away from the boardwalk.

There was a system to the mixed flocks in the low, broad trees. Great Blue Herons had the top of each tree -- one or even three pairs. Then Storks and Great Egrets below. Then Snowy Egrets, Cattle Egrets, Anhingas and Gulls crowding into whatever branches happen to be left over. Cormorants seemed to have their own trees to themselves. Wood Storks mostly had their own trees too. Iguanas hung out on the lowest branches nearest the water, not doing much.

We'd never seen colony nests like these before.

I'd also never seen a Great Blue Heron try to swallow a duck before.

And I hope never to see that again, anytime soon.
(For the record, he gave up, a turtle made off with the carcass, and then he tried again...at which point we got on with our lives and departed.)

Cormorants were everywhere, flying and swimming and diving and hanging out. One of them was another lifer, a Neotropic Cormorant. Yay!

It pays to pay attention to even common looking birds. You never know.

Alas, there was only one Roseate Spoonbill. Dat spoon, dat spoon, dat spoonbill.

We visited Green Cay again the next day, to witness what we already thought of as The Usual Assortment of wetland waders and swimmers. Lots of Anhingas, Common Gallinules, Blue-winged Teals, Great Egrets, Little Blue Herons, Tricolor Herons, Pied-billed Grebes, Gray-necked Moorhens, Green Herons, various swallows, Red-winged Blackbirds, Boat-tailed Grackles, Limpkins, White Ibises, Glossy Ibises, etc.(Pretty much the same birds as Wakodahatchee, but in different blends.)

Any visit to Green Cay is a good one, though.

Lamb: it's what's for dinner

Having grown up eating lots and lots of lamb, I'm happy to keep figuring out new ways of incorporating it into dinners. I'm lucky that Spouse also enjoys lamb any number of ways.

Lamb shanks are a favorite winter stew. They take 3 hours to cook properly, but it's worth all the trouble. My base recipe is onions, garlic and a few cups of durable chopped vegetables--turnips, carrots, parsnips, mushrooms, winter squash, cauliflower--plus either beer or wine as the cooking liquid, and generous amounts of whatever seasoning suits our fancy of the evening. I'm particularly fond of Herbes de Provence, Kofte Kebab spice, or sorta-kinda Italian herbs.

If you're lucky enough to find breast of lamb riblets, as I frequently am in my local supermarket, they are a bit of trouble but are absolutely delicious. They need VERY long roasting for such small amounts of meat, but it's nearly impossible to mess up. Just cut up the breast section into smaller pieces -- 3 or 4 ribs per piece -- season with salt & pepper and any spice mix you fancy with lamb, and lay them on a bed of onion, celery and carrots in a deep roasting pan. Roast at 350F for between 2 and 3 hours, which will seem ridiculous but honestly, it's necessary. The meat just won't be tender otherwise. The result is tender (but still slightly chewy) meat that falls of the tiny bones, with richly browned fat. Don't bother trimming before cooking: just be resigned to eating and ejecting some gristle. If there's enough meat to use a knife and fork, yay! Otherwise just pick up and nibble, same as any other ribs.

Roasted breast of lamb ribs with a lot of roasted veggies. 

My parents ate a lot of lamb mostly because it was cheap when I was a kid. My dad bought my mom a hacksaw JUST so she could cut up whole legs of lamb we bought on sale. Each leg fed us for over a week: steaks to broil or saute, hunks for stew, shanks to freeze until we had enough for another stew. Just roasting that leg entire was a treat for Easter. I still make roast leg of lamb if we're having company, but I usually buy a butt-half leg partially boned, or have the butcher bone the whole thing so I can stuff it with garlic and herbs. 

If I buy a supermarket boned leg, it usually comes wrapped in a string net, and is a royal mess that needs cleanup with a good sharp boning knife. All that lamb fat needs to come off. And that thick membrane, the fell, that covers muscle groups...you can't eat that, and the seasoning won't penetrate it, so you gotta use that knife and gently peel it all off. 

If roasting or stewing lamb is too much effort and the grocery budget allows, loin lamb chops are amazing. Tiny T-bone steaks! Thin ones can be pan-sauteed. Thicker ones can be pan-roasted (started on the stovetop, moved to the oven to finish).

But ground lamb is our favorite thing these days. There is so much you can do with it! I get that not everyone can easily find it, but if you have any kind of access to it, try it. It's mostly made from lamb shoulder meat. It's a bit fatty, that's unavoidable, but i

There are tons of lamb burger recipes all over the internet. ALL OF THEM ARE GOOD. You can't go wrong. I have settled on a simplified Ur-Lamb Burger -- ground lamb plus salt, pepper, seasoning of choice, 1 beaten egg per pound, 1/2 cup bread crumbs (either dry or fresh). I'm not fond of burgers stuffed with cheese bits, but YMMV. Bulgur and yogurt are nearly always good sides. Note that pan-fried burgers will end up swimming in their own grease. All you have to do is put them aside to drain them. Grilled burgers have no such problem, of course.

On days when seasoning and mixing and forming and cooking burgers is too much trouble, which is most days nowadays, I do what I've come to call a Lamb Scramble. You can call it whatever you like, and use ANY lamb stew, tagine or curry recipe as a starting point. Here's a mock-Moroccan dish I made with ground lamb, onions, garlic, butternut squash, olives and peas. (Probably a few other things I've forgotten.) Side here is mashed golden potatoes and golden cauliflower.

This lamb & butternut squash stew (from Cooking Light) is a great guide for experimentation. (Don't use beef stock! Use wine! Or beer! I don't care for so much liquid in this recipe anyway.) Use carrots instead of squash, use spinach instead of kale. When I made it, I used Kalustyan's KOFTE KEBAB seasoning in addition to the recommended spices, and the result really honestly tasted like kofte kebab, or doner kebab! (Oh, I also didn't bother to use the oven, I did it all stovetop.)

Pretty much any lamb curry recipe is faster to make using ground lamb. I tend to make what I consider Fake Curries, flinging a bunch of things in a saute pan after glancing at a recipe book. I gave up using lamb shoulder chops ages ago. The results my way are quicker and tenderer.

Tonight, I started with a pound of ground lamb and a bunch of Greenmarket veggies that needed to be cooked. Started by sauteing the lamb in olive oil, with lots of kebab seasoning. Added chopped onion and red bell pepper (a banana pepper or poblano would be awesome too), a coarsely chopped zucchini, green beans (big ones, broken in thirds), some butternut squash noodles (which dissolved and disappeared), a chopped tomato and a couple of handfuls of baby spinach. I also had some freshly cooked fresh cranberry beans on the stove, so I added a few spoonfuls. It was a glorious, delicious mess. Served it with bulgur wheat. Forgot to serve some yogurt on the side.

Try lamb scrambles with: winter root veggie medleys, a meat-and-mushroom mix, springtime greens, summer tomato and peppers, or any combo thereof. Beans are a terrific addition, especially lentils and chickpeas if you want a Middle Eastern, North African or Indian vibe.

And, of course, the same goes for ground beef, ground turkey and ground pork.. for which there are no shortage of recipes out there.

How to Rescue Wrinkly Grape Tomatoes

We like tomatoes. We like tomatoes A LOT. We mostly do without in the winter, except for sales on pints of organic grape tomatoes. If they're not tossed into a salad, they're delicious with hummus and cucumbers as a snack.

In summer, unused tomatoes tend to rot. I buy mostly heirloom tomatoes, and even when kept out in the open, treated tenderly (just short of being coddled in cotton batting), a few will over-ripen and split and ugh, the smell is usually my first warning that the bottom tomato has given up.

In winter, in our house, unused grape tomatoes tend to dry out. Weird. Kept in their plastic pint container, in cool temperatures and fairly low humidity, they slowly turn wrinkly and slightly leathery. When I notice this happening, I usually slice them in half and add them to a stir-fry or saute -- nice juicy little nuggets of faux summer in my otherwise (mostly) seasonal dishes.

I had an entire pint go wrinkly not long ago, as I simply forgot about them. It happens. The wrinkly tomatoes were still juicy inside. I was in an experimenting mood, so I sliced the lot, put them in a baking dish, sluiced them with olive oil and a bit of salt, and roasted them. I was baking a pie that day, anyway.

I think the oven was set to 350F or 375F. I stirred the tomatoes every fifteen minutes so they wouldn't stick. Forty-five minutes later, I had a baking dish full of what tasted very like sun-dried tomatoes, but much squishier. Sweet, savory, chewy, with charred notes that were beyond delicious.

A few days later, these little flavor bombs became a homemade pizza topping, Mushrooms, anchovies, lots of shredded mozzarella, and fresh-made dough from my local gourmet shop, and behold. A thing of wonky well-meaning and very tasty beauty.

BTW sliced chorizo -- another wonderful product of the same gourmet shop -- is another revelation when roasted. The next time I made pizza it was chorizo, roasted tomatoes and "Mexican cheese mix" from Trader Joe's. There was space around the edges of the foil-lined baking sheet (yeah, no pizza stone in this house) so I laid out six spare slices to cook. SPICY BACON BEST EVER THING OMG.

Seriously, do the tomatoes thing and also the chorizo thing. Totally worth the trouble.

Catching Up, Part 1: Summer 2018

Been a long time since I made a blog post. Much has happened in our lives since I last nattered on about birds and orchids and cookery and books I like. I reckon I’ve felt distracted.

We recently went to Ireland for a week to attend the World Science Fiction Convention in Dublin, and that seems to have knocked loose some inspiration, some renewed desire to natter on again outside of Facebook.

Spouse and I made two trips to new places back in 2018: San Jose, CA (again for Worldcon), and Punta Cana, Dominican Republic (for a birdy vacation). (SEE NEXT POST for more about that trip.)

California is a delight to us because we know delightful people there. We stayed in Piedmont (part of the Bay Area) with a delightful family for a week, from Spouse’s group of amazing friends. They made us comfortable and fed us and entertained us and we did our best to be good guests. We love and adore these people and feel so lucky that they seem to like us too. The August weather was cool and bracing; we enjoyed the open windows in our guest room every night, and only once in that week did we catch whiff of the terrible wildfires destroying huge swathes of northern California that month. (The fires did come much closer in the next few weeks, but we were gone by then. Our friends were fortunate to suffer only from the choking smoke, though for asthmatics that is plenty terrible.) (See above for a sunset view from their home.)

One thing we did that was necessary was to visit the American Museum of Bookbinding in San Francisco. Our hospitable artist friend needed to see the place, and we wanted to see author and friend Madeleine Robins again, as she now works there. (Do please visit her page in Book View Café. We are fans of hers as well as friends.) I highly recommend this museum to anyone with a love of books, a geeky love of the history of technology, and a love of the arts of covers and type. Witness the efforts people have made over the centuries to make the written word not just more widely accessible but also attractive to have and hold.

What else was wonderful was our new appreciation for the bird life of the Bay Area. When last we visited it wasn’t quite one of our obsessions yet. But now? I paged through the guide to Western US birds on the plane, with emphasis on those creatures featured in the eBird lists Spouse had shared. One of my rewards was to stand on our host’s rear deck overlooking a forested canyon road lined with native scrub as well as hill gardens, and know INSTANTLY that the twittering cigar with wings swooping at eye level had to be a White-throated Swift. The backyard also yielded Anna’s Hummingbird, California Scrub Jay, Lesser Goldfinches and Hermit Warbler. Spouse later saw Bushtits, and I was sorely vexed to have missed those. They remain a target bird for me.

We visited Lake Merritt and we found an Oak Titmouse and Chestnut-backed Chickadees, a Bewick’s Wren, California Towhees and Brewer’s Blackbird. California and Western Gulls were abundant, as were both White and Brown Pelicans. Black Phoebes were on the wires. No Bushtits. Argh.

San Jose was close by but oh so different. The sun felt so much hotter, for one thing. It’s a smaller city than San Francisco or Oakland, but has quite a distinct personality of its own. The public transit trams run frequently, there was bike and scooter sharing, and a lengthy pedestrian (and tram) street mall lined with shops and good restaurants. The Museum of Art was small but quite wonderfully inviting, with intriguing exhibits and good public space inside.

Our convention-block hotel, the Fairmont, faces Cesar Chavez Plaza. Spouse had learned from eBird and elsewhere that Acorn Woodpeckers, a normally shy and non-urban species, had established themselves in the palm trees of the park, and when we actually arrived at the hotel and saw the park we were skeptical, to say the least, that shy birds would enjoy living there. But lo! We exited the hotel after checking in, and FIRST THING we saw looking up was not one but two Acorn Woodpeckers flitting about above our heads. It turned out there were dozens of them. Magic. We soon got to know their favorite trees for acorn storage, and really enjoyed watching them going about their lawful woodpecker business every day. Furthermore, there were Black Phoebes casually perching on the backs of benches, something we’ve never seen Eastern Phoebes do in Central Park. Made more remarkable by the large numbers of people using the park every day.

Worldcon 2018 was quite enjoyable, shared with multiple friends also in attendance, and I might’ve bought a few books and um, some jewelry. The panels were good, except that towards the end the crowds did exceed many room capacities. I'll always have fond memories for attending.