seafood congee

There's a place called Blue Koi in Kansas City, a sort of upscale pan-Asian cuisine place. A friend introduced me to it a couple of years ago and I recently persuaded my husband to go back and try it with me. Yesterday was our third visit in as many months. It's a bit pricey by Chinese-cook standards but in my opinion, the freshness and well-designed quality of the food is well worth it.

The weekend special was seafood congee with shrimp rolls on the side, and oh my, was it good. Rich, flavorful, briny, perfectly textured except a couple pieces of chewy calamari. The shrimp and lobster and scallops were all melt-in your mouth tender, and there was a generous amount of fish in the mix. The shrimp rolls––minced shrimp rolled in narrow phyllo straws and flash-fried––were dipped in a hot/sweet sauce that complemented them perfectly. I'm actually not the world's biggest shrimp lover but the spices and seasonings in Southwest Asian cuisine really bring out its best qualities.

While lunching, we overheard the owner talking to a couple of young men at the next table. One guy apparently had little experience with Asian foods, asked a lot of questions and finally settled on soup with fried tofu in it, instead of plain tofu. The owner gently explained that fried tofu was not a good idea for soup, texture-wise. The patron sort of cluelessly insisted it was ok. The owner took their order and went away. A few minutes later the waiter came back and reiterated what the owner had tried to explain: tofu soaks up liquid; fried tofu would just get soggy and turn to glue in the soup. The patron graciously gave in.

I had to respect that––the house considering the textures and end-quality of its food, the gentle insistence, not that the patron was wrong, but the education, the assertion of, "Trust us, we'll give you the best dining experience."

My husband had the roast duck with a gentle sauce and a big bowl of rice. Normally this dish is served with a sort of pickled carrot salad and roast peanuts. The Sparring Partner asked for another vegetable instead, and got pickled cucumber––chilled, thinly sliced, lighty dressed in vinegar and sugar for a tangy-sweet flavor. It was very good with the rich duck.

"The food in this place is a lot higher-level than I thought it was," my husband said.

"I agree," I said. "It's a lot higher level than you thought it was."

the epitome of Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day is the first since 1990 or so that I did not dress in black. I hate Valentine's Day, despite being happily mated to the love of my life--I just resent manufactured holidays that encourage consumerism. This year I am working from home and no longer shop at chain stores or big box stores that will assault me with pink and red advertisements and the stink of cheap chocolate. Also, since I work from home, there's no real reason for me to get dressed at all unless I feel like it; on sewing days I wear workout clothes since I'm crawling around on the floor a lot. Today I have on stretchy jeans and a pale pink hoodie with some kind of Chinese dragon stenciled on it.

But I digress. Calendar dates mean little to me and the Sparring Partner in terms of romantic occasions; in fact the last two years we forget our own anniversary. Holidays and birthdays, if we observe them, are excuses for me to make fancy desserts.

the hardest word

Elton John said it was "Sorry," but for a editor/agent/peer the hardest word to say to a hopeful author who's waiting, bright-eyed and strung tight with anticipation, is "Boring."

I rejoined my online crit group two weeks ago, to get my head back in the critting/ storybuilding gear. After all, the best way to learn something yourself is to teach others. I've read 5-6 stories so far, written crits on two of them.

They are all painfully dull.

oatmeal peanut butter cookies

I made these by combining a few different recipes. Depending on the bake time, you can either get a chewy, peanut-butter-textured cookie, or you can overbake them and cool for a crisp granola-type cookie.

Preheat oven to 350º F.

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
1 c flour
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c dark brown sugar
1/4 c coconut flour (optional--adds fiber and makes a drier, crisper cookie)
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch salt

1/2 c butter, melted
1 c peanut butter
2 eggs, room temp
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 bag chocolate chips

Combine dry stuff in large bowl. Melt butter, remove from heat and stir in peanut butter til semi-combined. Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in butter & peanut butter. Add 2 eggs and vanilla. Stir by hand until well combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Mixture will be crumbly and tend to shed.

Scoop pingpong-ball sized balls of dough onto cookie sheet and flatten slightly into disks with the back of  a spoon. If you have used the coconut flour, cookies will NOT spread as they bake.

Bake 10-12 minutes for chewy cookies. Let cool on sheets 5 minutes, then cool on racks for another 10.

For crispy cookies, bake 10-12 minutes, then turn off oven, crack door open, and let the oven cool until cookies are dry and crispy.

Makes about 3 dozen thick cookies. Very filling--eat slowly!

so close, yet so far

Yesterday evening I spotted this headline on Yahoo:

Fried foods not direct cause of heart risk, new study finds.

And I'm like, HA! SUCK IT, low-fat proponents, because I've been saying that for years.

But then the article goes on to say,

"We currently recommend swapping saturated fats like butter, lard or palm oil for unsaturated fats as a way of keeping your cholesterol down and this study gives further cause to make that switch...Regardless of the cooking methods used, consuming foods with high fat content means a high calorie intake. This can lead to weight gain and obesity, which is a risk factor for heart disease."

And then I'm like, Sigh, alas alack, they still ain't getting the big picture.

In the first place I don't know of ANYBODY, aside from myself and a few other crackpots in the Primal lifestyle crowd (and I can't be sure those are real people, anyway), who cook with butter, lard, or palm oil. It's corn and soy oil 'round these parts. I was raised on Crisco, which I haven't eaten since I left my mother's kitchen, and which was giving me heartburn at age 25.

Calories do count, but much less than the soundbites would have you believe. The important thing is to make sure the calories you ingest are nutritionally dense, and helpful, rather than detrimental, to the body. Animal fats--butter, lard, tallow--are fats we evolved to eat. They're about as natural as you can get. Olive oil is natural--it's pressed out and unadulterated. Corn and soybean oil are frankenfoods. They're not good for your digestion and they're not good for your liver.

I have a great interest in the insulin theory, but it tends to be rather complex and difficult to explain to people, so I just think of it this way: if you eat calories that your body can't use, then it shuffles them aside and demands something else with some actual vitamins in it. That's why you can have a huge meal of processed foods and still feed unsatisfied.

The other problem with American fried foods is they are often breaded, and heavy batters of wheat flour are not good for you. I've used almond flour, parmesan, oat flour, gluten-free baking mix, and coconut flour for breading; they are all decent alternatives.

But sauteeing in butter or olive oil, the way they do it in France/Italy/Spain, is about as healthy as you can get, plus it tastes good. See? That's the real reason French women don't get fat.

there are days

.... When I hate the Internet and everybody on it.

moreau's daughter

“—how will you find him? Will you recognize him if you see him? The police believe the killer may be using disguises.”

“I don’t have to recognize him,” Lily said, with grim pleasure. “He’ll recognize me. ”

=======

I wrote a bit of a story over the weekend; more of a character study, really.

As alluded to previously, I wanted to transplant my assassin character into a steampunk setting and let her run free, to see how she'd talk, move, think, and operate under the constraints of Victorian society and clothing.

Also, I've always kind of wanted to write a story in which Jack the Ripper gets taken out by a vigilante chick.

It ain't great literature, but it was a fun exercise.

Read a sample here.

cosplaying a different race from your own

Here's a doozy. 

I've been researching a new character for a story. She's the offspring of Chinese prostitute and a British sailor, born in Shanghai in 1870 or so. One of the theoretical themes of said story is of ostracism and finding a place of your own.

Partly out of interest in researching the story and partly because I'm a big geek who likes to dress as my characters, I've been considering ways to make my very white-girl face look more Asian, or at least Eurasian. Looking at photos on the internet of mixed-race actresses and models demonstrates the incredibly wide variety of genetic recombinations you can get from an East-West hybrid. I'm especially interested in Maggie Q and a model/activist named Celeste Thorson, because they have longish faces and prominent jawlines, like myself.

Predictably enough, it's a big hot-point with people in the fashion and cosmetic industries, when Asian girls tape their eyelids to create folds where they weren't before, or European models tape their brows to make them look straighter or more elongated, because we're all supposed to be satisfied with what we have and not bow to the pressures of western beauty standards, or seek to satirize Eastern appearances... or whatever. Frankly I tend to think that if enough women on either side of the International Date Line are doing it, it should all balance out and everybody could quit hollerin', but I've always been crazy that way.

So what do you guys think? It's kind of trendy these days to put skinny people in fat suits to teach them sensitivity, or dress people as the opposite sex to get a different viewpoint--if you could change your features and/or skin tone *temporarily* to spend a day with the shoe on the other foot, would you? What kind of reaction do you think you'd get? 


The cosplay community I interact with is generally pretty tolerant of crossplay, e.g. dressing as the opposite sex, or re-gendering a character to suit the cosplayer's own sex, so I'd think cosplayers would be accepting of cross-ethnic-play, at least more so than the public at large.

Thoughts?

a character does not exist until you give her a name

So I spent all week jerking this rewrite out of my guts with various implements of destruction--believe me when I say, it's much easier to just write the damn thing correctly the first time, than to go back and try to take it apart and fix it later.

I actually hacked through to the end yesterday. Finished around 8:30 p.m. As I'm getting ready for bed it finally dawned on me that my face was breaking out and my gums were sore and the muscles in my neck hurt because I am COMING DOWN WITH A COLD, DUMBASS.

This morning I have a touch of headache, touch of swollen throat, touch of malaise, but I'll survive. None of that is really important, the important thing is that all the time I was writing yesterday, I had this concept chugging along in the back of my brain, a new concept, new character, new situation.

I've been thinking about my Eurasian steampunk assassin for several weeks now, and she has gradually been taking shape. Wednesday night I hounded my sifu for name options in Cantonese and he gave me one that worked. Personally, I can't work with a character until s/he has a name. I can think in general terms––what kind of character has the best personal motivation to be the right "fit" for this conflict––but I can't really find a voice until I have a name. I mentioned that to Sit t'other night and he was very pleased, for obscure Chinese reasons. "Ah, she follow Confucius," he said. (I swear I'm not making this up, so don't accuse me of perpetuating stereotypes.) "Confucius said nothing is real until you give it a name."

So on Wednesday, Lily Quinn became a real person to me. Her Chinese name is Shiao Yin, which means 'little swallow.' She needs an assassin name but we're still working on that.

And over the course of yesterday, while I was forcing myself through the wastelands of Wyoming, the story-building machinery was slowly coming to boil in the back of my brain. Character motivation A meshed with Historical Event B and layered neatly into literary reference C, thus throwing narrative Point of View D into neat focus.

There's a reason why we refer to plots as 'formulaic'. That's exactly what they are: alchemy. Cold fusion, even.

skinny models and yellow journalism

Saw this link today with the sensationalist headline: "Most runway models meet the BMI criteria for anorexia." Of course I knew it was just yellow journalism, successfully designed to drive up click-thru traffic. And of course I clicked on it.

I have several thoughts about the article, and probably none of them are going to win me any friends.

First, the article in question is in a magazine aimed at plus-size female readers, so of course they want to make their readers feel good, but they do it by denigrating the models as freakish. Tearing down anybody to make someone else feel better is not okay in my book.

Second, there's the quote, "Twenty years ago the average fashion model weighed 8% less than the average woman. Today, she weighs 23% less." That is probably true, but without knowing where they got their numbers I'm willing to bet that the difference comes less from the models getting skinnier and more from the "average woman" getting fatter. This should not be news to anybody; we all have eyes.

Third, humans––I'm going to say Americans because this is basically a first-world problem––have this constant demand for bigger better faster more––it's in our cars, our movies, our music, our social mores, and our perceptions of what is sexy. Ergo, it's inevitable that those perceptions will become more and more polarized to accommodate personal bent. So of COURSE the models are going to get skinnier, as the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widens, because the universe requires balance, and the everyday is a good deal fatter than it used to be.

We are saturated with input and numb to everything but the next shock, or the next bite of sweet/salty/sour/bitter. We are all overfed--literally--to the point of stupor. Here we sit in front of our computers sucking down Diet Coke or designer coffee, bitching about how some magazine doesn't feature women who look like me. Duh! Advertising isn't there to make you feel good about yourself! Advertising is there to make you feel wanting, so you go out and buy yet another thing to fill the hole.

Here's an idea: put down the magazine, step away from the internet, close the refrigerator. Go outside for a walk. Breathe deeply. Stop thinking about things that only serve to get people riled up. Strife is not healthy.

secrets of apple pie from scratch

This is awkward for me to admit, but my standard for good apple pie is a vague memory of the fried apple pies McDonald's had when I was a child. The ones they sell now aren't nearly the same. I'm pretty sure the old ones were fried in lard, because this was pre 1984/animal-farms-are-bad/it's-a-brave-new-world of-corn-oil days.

Anyhoo, in my mind apple pie filling should have a perfect balance of sweet/tart/spicy; it should be juicy, but not runny or gummy, and the crust should have a flaky top and a cooky-chewy underside.

Keeping in mind that pie-baking is more art than science, so your mileage may vary. 

goals for 2012

I don't do Resolutions, but last year I set myself three goals: to finish The Curse of Jacob Tracy, to find a literary agent, and to leave my day job. I'm a bit gobsmacked to realize that all three of those came to pass.

So, as prompted by my friend Mary Ann, I'm writing down my goals for 2012, to make them more concrete and keep them in focus.

1. Publish Trace and get a nice fat advance on it.
2. Finish writing the sequel to Trace, Curious Weather.
3. Start teaching kung fu.
4. Pay off the home equity line.

Bring it on, 2012!

new ebook publisher: Eggplant Literary Productions

Long-time readers will remember that waaaay back when I was still writing as if I enjoyed it, a nice lady named Raechel Henderson offered to publish End of the Line as an ebook. Despite our best intensions, that was not to be; Eggplant Literary Productions went on hiatus for a few years.

Now it's starting up again. Eggplant's startup page is here (God love Wordpress!) and their guidelines page is here. They are looking for novella-length ebooks, and short-shorts for a literary magazine. The focus for both lines is fantasy/science fiction.

I always respected Raechel's professionalism and taste as an editor. (Easy to do when somebody wants to publish your stuff, eh?) So if you got a story that's a wee bit too long for any of the other markets, and aren't up to self-publishing your e-book, pass it by Eggplant.

motley Christmas

Five years married and we just bought our first Christmas tree together. In past years I used a little miniature three-tree grove which I believe came from my parents' old business office. Last year we didn't even decorate. I think we were too tired and cranky, probably too reluctant to spend money. Somewhere along the way I'd bought some lights and plain glass ornaments that were never opened, but other than that and a half-decorated wreath, we had nothing. It's a measure of how hard and fast I fled from my old life, that I didn't even take any ornaments of my own, either from my parents' house or from my ex-husband.

We bought a Black Hills Spruce from the Optimists in the grocery store parking lot. It's been too warm this week for the trees to be properly chilled, so they're looking a bit desiccated. We borrowed a few boxes of crap from his mom's basement (she had 60-odd years' worth collected, including some scary looking string lights), put a bunch of tacky tinsel garland on the boughs, and the Sparring partner hung old satin-thread ornaments and faded wooden toys all over, while I worked on finishing the wreath. I put on gold cord and red braid, and black-gold net. Then I added a gold bow, blue oversized jingle bells, and a few miniature toy ornaments in red and white.

"That looks like Christmas exploded," the SP remarked when we were done. And it does. No Nieman-Marcus designer-themed tree for us. But then again, we aren't people who live in a decorator-showplace house, with three-color schemes and accent pillows. All our stuff is patchwork--furniture, curtains, artwork--things we've found, liked, collected. And really I suspect most people's Christmas decorations collections are the same way--things that were given to them by, or chosen for, someone they loved. The mangled pipe-cleaner ornament made by a child. The falling-apart foil angel that belonged to someone's great-grandmother.

As we were sorting through boxes of musty tissue paper and limp tinsel, we remarked on what we'd keep and what we'd return to the basement, what we'd quietly get rid of and what we might acquire in future to accent the good stuff.

It's fashionable these days to disparage Christianity. It's fashionable to talk about the pagan influences of Christmas trappings, as if those factoids are supposed to make hypocrites of those who still celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday. Since my divorce I've been conflicted about Christmas. I lost the will or the desire to worship or pursue God; I am firmly in the agnostic camp--not so much "I don't know" as "wait and see." But since I was raised by Christian parents, and schooled in a liberal arts college, and hang out with a decidedly Zen crowd, and am an Existentialist by nature, I got to a point where I couldn't hardly act or believe in anything without feeling I was reacting to something else. It's hard on a writer to feel as if every available option is a cliche.

But I think we need festivity in our lives--me, especially. Holidays--holy days--were days of worship, but in the pagan and Christian faiths (pretty much any religious group that doesn't indulge in human sacrifice, really) they were also days of rest and community.

Routine and even-keel are good things. But so are renewal and celebration. There's a difference between cliche and convention; in fiction, the conventional tropes let you know whether you're reading a romance or hard sci-fi. So you might say I've decided to embrace the formulaic this year.

where everybody knows your name

I love my writer's group.

Met with them Saturday for our monthly enclave. We critted. We chatted. We laughed. I whined. They sympathized. It's good to go hang with like-minded people, sharing an activity you all enjoy, where they listen to what you say and act like you know what you're talking about. Even if they don't agree with you. Everybody should have a place like that.

It's also very cool when they say matter-of-factly that I need to get used to editing screenplays because my book will get made into one in the not-too-distant future... and then someone else counters with, no, they'll take my book and process it into blockbuster pulp--but at least I'll get the rights check.

And then there was the part when I mentioned I had an idea for "Steampunk Quinn" and their faces all lit up and they went "ah!" That was extremely gratifying. They never were particularly fans of Quinn Taylor, in the old manuscripts, but they have more faith in me now. In some ways, I think what crippled the Quinn Taylor stories was my tendency toward Victorian restraint and archaic morality--things I no longer suffer from, so the anachronistic transfer is going to be interesting.

I took my own advice this weekend and printed out a fresh new hardcopy of Trace. Everybody took a section and skimmed as fast as they could, reading the bits where I had flagged the updated Boz sequences. The consensus was that I had done good things updating the emotional arcs. And now that I have a hard copy I'm better able to sit down and SEE the damn thing, as a whole. I just can't read on the screen the way I used to.

I have bits of Horseflesh yet to finish. I am resolved. I shall continue to work every day, away from my sewing room whenever possible, away from the house if I can manage it. I will jot down notes, outlines, and scenes longhand before I go to bed at night, so I have something to work on the next morning. I will stop second-guessing myself. I will accept that even when the words don't flow like wine, even when the muse isn't singing in my ear, what comes out on the page is generally pretty readable. I will put down words even when I don't feel like it. I will finish this thing.

custom Batwoman costume

I love this. Black and red, how can you go wrong? This is Kristin in the Batwoman costume I made for her. She was really open to using the matte black PVC, which I love.

The cape is two layers of lightweight synthetic fabric. The bodysuit is black matte stretch PVC, with red PVC accents. The gloves are matte red spandex and the accessories are sculpted leather. You can order custom items like this one through my Etsy shop.

Kristin is a repeat customer of mine. She's a careful and dedicated cosplayer, she really puts thought and time into the characters she wants to portray. She's also an artist and cartoonist. You can see her work on her DeviantArt page.

things I hate about fabric stores

1. Polyester. With the exception of some very high-tech, high-priced and fairly rare microfibers, it's nasty fabric. It's rough, slick, ravels, sticks to your skin, fights you when you try to sew it. And it occupies about 75% of the fashion fabric shelf space.

2. Polyester fleece. Occupies 75% of the floor space that could be utilized for--I don't know--real fabric? Silks, cotton twill, wool? For people who actually sew? Comes in an assortment of tacky colors and prints.

3. People who buy polyester fleece. They always buy 15 different cuts at the same time. For Christmas gifts. Disregarding the likelihood that the people who received a polyester fleece blanket LAST year have not worn it out, indeed probably have not used it, and do not need another. There is no excuse for blanketing your entire social circle with poly fleece. Pare down your Christmas list and make something meaningful for the people you actually like.

4. People who buy poly fleece who put their screaming children on the cutting counter, where the kid kicks, grabs, and drools on everything in sight, including other people's fabric. I was very mean about this when I worked at the fabric store. People were not permitted on my cutting counter.

5. People buying 15 yards of 15 different bolts of poly fleece who insist on finding something inadequate with each bolt of fleece, thereby requiring the cutting clerk to unroll the entire bolt to cut from the end without the glitter on it. (Seriously, lady? You're not going to wash the thing before you use it? Do you live in a world without germs, too?)

6. People trying to buy upholstery fabric for their interior designer/upholsterer, although they have never before bought fabric and are unprepared for questions about whether the design will be railroaded, or whether those 12 yards can be in two pieces, and hold up the line talking loudly on their cell phone for 10 minutes. THIS IS WHY YOU LET THE PROFESSIONAL DO THE BUYING. YOU ARE NOT SAVING MONEY BY DOING IT YOURSELF.

7. There is apparently only one home decorating fabric distributor left in middle America. Joann's and Hancock's have virtually the same stock these days. Competition? What competition?

8. Similarly, Joann's and Hancock's are on automatic stock reordering systems--when I was at Wal-Mart they called it "continual inventory system," which is a lie because they still took a physical inventory every year--so they only get in 3 or 4 cards of each button type at a time. So they generally only have in 1 or 2 cards of a given button type at any given time. Which means, if I need 14 buttons for a project I have to drive to at least 3 different stores, and/or wait 3 weeks until they get their stock replenished, because God forbid the store manager should be allowed to order anything for a customer who needs it.

planet comicon 2011 video!

Obviously I haven't Googled myself enough this year. I just found this two-minute video interview the nice people at Costume Hub did when they stopped by my table at Planet Comicon back in March. I remember them being there, but at the end of the weekend I never thought to look online for the video.

Check it out! I manage not to sound stupid, but I need to learn to smile more before I have to go and do book interviews!

And then there's this nice little blurb by a sexy Dr. Quinzel cosplayer I found on Tumbler:

"Awkward moment.

This is my “Holy-shit-did-Holly-Messinger-just-ask-for-my-picture” face. I was lookin’ at comics and all of a sudden I hear “DOCTOR QUINZEL!” I whip around, eager to find the beautiful soul who recognized me. (TWO Jokers passed by that day and didn’t even say ‘Hi!’ back to me… they acted like they didn’t know who I was! ..No, as in really didn’t know who I was. Hmph. Damn Dark Knight.)

All of a sudden, I see an angel in a steampunk Poison Ivy dress. HOLLY MESSINGER! AHH! I recognized her work from Elise Archer’s cosplay!

I was paralyzed ‘cause I was so starstruck and failed to strike a pose.. so sad.. haha.

My friend found this somewhere on the internet and sent it to me. Pic by Holly Messinger!"

Just for the record, I LOVE cosplays that can pass for street-clothes. It's like a secret identity of your very own. I like to go out in public in almost-costume and watch the looks on peoples' faces as they try to figure me out.

Now I'm eager for another convention. You guys are the best!

never be ashamed of your success

From the SFWA blog: Having a saleable novel doesn’t make you a sell out.

"Turn your nose up at Dan Brown all you want. Besides selling a zillion copies, the man’s storytelling was so believable, other authors wrote NON-FICTION to DISPROVE his MADE UP STORY."

I needed this right about now. 

review: the twelfth enchantment

I know it mostly seems I only review books to grouse about 'em, but this is one I really really enjoyed: The Twelfth Enchantment by David Liss. It's a seamless fusion of historical regency and gothic fantasy--I'd say Georgette Heyer and someone gothic, except I can't think of anyone appropriate in the fantasy genre of the time--Charles Dickens, maybe?

Anyway, it's about a poor relation named Lucy, who lost her father, sister and comfortable home, who now lives on the charity of her uncle who wants to marry her off as quickly as possible to the local industrialist. Pretty standard regency fodder--but then Lord Byron wanders into the picture, under the influence of a curse and mumbling mysterious messages for Lucy. While trying to lift his curse, Lucy meets a Woman of Independent Means who becomes a good friend and benefactor--and shows Lucy she has a talent for magic.

Stolen inheritances, sinister suitors, malicious faeries and Luddites all are braided together in an intriguing romp, with a dash of romance that is never cloying and a steadily-accelerating plot that comes to a satisfying conclusion. There's even a touch of women's lib, although it is never anachronistic.

I highly recommend this. It is a fine and masterful balance of plot, character, history, magic, and theme. Fans of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell will probably enjoy this, although to my mind it is far superior to that constipated opus.