Susan Rooke's Blog, page 3

The Colonoscopy Diaries: Part 1

Hey, we’re gearing up for some fun out here in the country! (Fun in the Buns? Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.) Glen is scheduled for his colonoscopy in a few days and mine comes in late October. And we both managed to arrange them for our birthday months! It’s truly one of the most thoughtful gifts we can give ourselves, but I think my reluctance to open mine (open my GIFT. Geez, where is your mind??) is understandable. Glen, on the other hand, always rips the giftwrap off his with a brisk, “let’s get this over with” attitude.

In doing a little probing around online I learned that the colonoscopy as we know it today has been around for only fifty years and didn’t become common practice for more than ten years after that. It wasn’t until the mid-’80s when Ronald Reagan had some polyps removed that the general public began to take notice. My mother died only a few years ago, but she never had one and her mother certainly didn’t. I was surprised to see that in some circles—Canadian ones, for example—there is disagreement about the procedure. Many people just don’t believe that the American Cancer Society’s colonoscopy recommendations are medically necessary for those of average risk.

But then you have the unsettling fact that there are people of average risk who go unscreened and end up with full-blown colon cancer. That’s a good enough reason for me to observe the ACS’s guidelines. (Or try to. I’m two years late for this screening. Better late than never, though.)

The huge turnoff for most of us, of course, is the prep. That’s why I was eight years overdue for my first colonoscopy. (Okay, so I don’t observe the guidelines. But I feel guilty when I don’t, which has to count for something.) However, in the seven years since I had my first screening there’s been an interesting development: HyGIeaCare® (that’s an “i” as in “hygiene,” not an “l”). It’s an alternative type of prep that takes only about an hour and you go right in for your colonoscopy when you’re done. Best of all, it doesn’t require drinking a half-gallon or more of disgusting liquids. Glen’s gastroenterologist, for instance, prescribes polyethylene glycol, which I could have sworn was antifreeze.

HyGIeaCare® is a great innovation for some people, I’m sure, even after taking into account the couple hundred dollars extra it will add to your bill. But after reading about it on their website, I’ll have to pass. (On the new prep, that is, not the . . . Oh, never mind.) Our insurance agent playfully calls HyGIeaCare® “The Sit ‘n’ Spin,” which makes it sound like a giggly ride in the teacups at Disney World, instead of what it really is: a sterile nozzle shoved up—pardon me, I meant to say “introduced into”—your cabinet of curiosities, so that a gentle stream of warm water and your colon can have a play date. (Most of which will be spent making mudpies, I imagine.)

Um . . . no. I’ll do my prep the old-fashioned way, thanks. Especially now that I hear you can wash your laxative down with Crystal Light® Lemonade instead of Gatorade®. As for Glen, he’s fine with just drinking his antifreeze.

So stay tuned! At some point there’ll be a “Colonoscopy Diaries: Part 2,” probably after my turn in October. And when that comes you can bet I’ll be flashing this gift from The Daughter. Maybe the gastroenterologist will get a laugh out of them.

Ageism and the “E” Word

So the other Sunday morning Glen and I were watching an episode of North Woods Law. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s one of the reality shows about game wardens on the Animal Planet network, and is set primarily in Maine. (The other is Lone Star Law, which is set, of course, in Texas.) We enjoy watching scofflaws trying to lie and weasel their way out of hunting violations, keeping undersized/oversized/too many fish, boating while intoxicated, illegal camping and all the other things they can do to flout the fish and game regulations. Both shows are entertaining, sometimes shocking and always informative. And kind of frightening. There are some seriously disturbed people on our public lands and waters.

Due to Maine’s dense forests and sparsely populated areas, the game wardens on North Woods Law occasionally have to form search parties for hikers and hunters who get lost in the woods. That’s just what happened in Sunday’s episode. This time the missing person was described as “an elderly man with Parkinson’s.” As well as using the “E” word, the narrator also gave the man’s age in years. I thought his age and the fact that he had Parkinson’s (relevant because if he stayed lost for any length of time he’d miss his seven-times-daily medication) should have been description enough.

Maybe I’m overly sensitive. After all, I do have (yet another) birthday coming up soon. But as Glen and I watched the show while enjoying our Sunday breakfast of spicy elk sausage omelettes, toasted homemade bread and Bloody Marys (also spicy, thanks to vodka I infused with homegrown jalapeños, fresh herbs, lemon peel and black peppercorns), it occurred to me that someday I might get lost in the woods, too. (Probably not in Maine, but you never know.) Somewhere, somehow, I might make it into the local newspapers for all the wrong reasons. And if I did, how would they pigeonhole me? I’m not “elderly”—yet—but nevertheless I’ve seen women years younger than I am described in the news that way. Also as a “grandmother of [X number of grandchildren here],” and a “senior.” That’s fine if it’s in the context of a piece about family or schooling. But it never is. The women in question are always either missing, dead, or they got all feisty and fought off a purse snatcher. These descriptions must be there for a reason, right? What are they intended to make us feel when we read them? Pity? Superiority? Comfortably non-missing/still kicking? Younger?

Personally, I think it’s the writer’s ageism showing, projecting his/her own assumptions about the “elderly” person onto the reader. Try this on for size: Martha Stewart and Harrison Ford are 77 years old—three years older than the missing man with Parkinson’s (whose story had a happy conclusion when he was finally found, by the way). Ann-Margret and Raquel Welch are 78. So is Bob Dylan. Never have I seen any of them described as “elderly.”

What do arbitrary, irrelevant categorizations such as “grandmother,” “senior” and “elderly” really have to do with anything? Well, in this plastic fork, paper napkin, disposable diaper, polystyrene foam to-go box throwaway society, I would propose that they’re the first step toward devaluing people, in order to eventually close the lid on them like moldy leftovers and throw them away. The law enforcement, search dogs and helicopters mobilized for rescue are just postponing the inevitable. People in the limelight seem to get a pass, unless they develop dementia or a debilitating disease, and then they’re fair game for condescending adjectives just like the rest of us.

I’ve had enough of it. Remember Peter Finch’s brilliant scene from the 1976 movie Network? He made this line famous: “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!”

Well, that’s me.

“Intransigent curmudgeon Susan Rooke went missing today near a pecan bottom in Central Texas. She was last seen wearing a purple T-shirt, blue jeans and pink clogs, and standing in the shadow of an enormous elm while sipping a habanero-blackberry margarita (claimed by her husband to ‘have some heat to it’). Authorities advise the public that Rooke is long-winded and easily riled, and if found, should be left the hell alone.”

About the Writing (Mostly)

Since I’ve not blogged about it recently, today I thought I’d share a couple of writing-related items. First, here’s what’s happening with the Space Between fantasy series.

Of the (at least) three books planned for the series, so far two have been published. The Space Between: The Prophecy of Faeries was released September 12, 2017, and The Realm Below: The Rise of Tanipestis followed on January 22, 2019. Somebody pinch me, because I must be dreaming. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I would’ve said that’s two more books than I ever thought I’d see on my own bookshelf, let alone anyone else’s. (Yes, people are reading the books, which is thrilling beyond description. A huge thank-you to all of my readers! Reviews are crucial, so if you enjoyed the books, would you be so kind as to leave a brief review on Amazon and/or Goodreads? One sentence is all it takes!)

Around the start of this year I began writing Book 3. It was slow going at first, for two reasons:

1. I was still attending to matters connected with the publication of The Realm Below—mostly promotions and obsessive rereadings. It was difficult to concentrate on the third book when I hadn’t quite pushed the second one out of the nest. (And it turns out that obsessive rereading isn’t enough. It took reading TRB aloud to Glen on our April road trip [hey, don’t look at me—I’M not driving his pickup truck 3,000 miles!] to catch the last few typos. That was THREE months and FOUR editors after the book’s release. Clearly, Glen and I will need to take another road trip when this next one comes out.)

2. The second reason was trickier to negotiate. I had to begin Book 3 by weaving together the threads left dangling at the end of The Realm Below. I won’t reveal anything in case you haven’t read TRB yet (not even Book 3’s working title, because it might be a spoiler), but TRB ends with a number of unexpected events and a major cliffhanger. It’s kind of like a game of pick-up sticks: The characters get thrown into the air by unfolding events and then come down in new places and crises and relationships. Before I could do anything else at the start of Book 3, I first had to allow my characters the freedom to react and realign to those new places and crises and relationships, and only then could they forge ahead.

Both reasons are behind me now, I’m happy to say, and I’m working on the meat of the story. I’m not a fast writer, but with a regular routine I’m getting it done. It’s fun to show up at my desk every day and be surprised by what turns up on the screen. My characters have their own ideas of what they should be doing and they’re not shy about taking the lead. I just write what they tell me to.

The second development might seem at first glance to have little to do with writing, but to me, it’s a game-changer. If you’ve been with me awhile you’ve read my grousing about our satellite internet. This is how naïve I was when we moved away from the city: I had no idea that, by and large, rural people don’t have the same access to internet service that urban populations do. I knew in advance that the lack of infrastructure on our remote country roads meant we’d be dependent on satellite. But the much higher bills (no such thing as bundling the TV, internet and phone out here), the unreliability during stormy or very overcast weather, the random outages? The data limits?? I had no clue. It never crossed my mind that after we moved I would no longer be able to leave my email open, listen to Pandora all day, or spend much time online doing the banking, reading the morning news, paying bills, or seeing what I could make for dinner on Food52. (I love Food52. Highly recommended for all who enjoy cooking and food.) When someone broke the news to me right before Glen and I moved in to the farmhouse, I was a little dismayed, but still didn’t really get it. Then, the first month we lived here, we used up all of our data in less than two weeks and were forced to buy more. That’s when I realized our way of life had changed. But a few weeks ago, a friend suggested to Glen that we investigate a miraculous technology called fixed wireless. (You can read more about it here. I wouldn’t dream of trying to explain it.)

We couldn’t believe it might work for us, but Glen made some inquiries and got the all-clear from the provider. (Who was zoomed in on our house on Google Earth while he had Glen on the phone. Even more miraculous.) By the time you read this, our service should be set up, and Glen and I should have unlimited internet again.

So how is this writing-related? Because if fixed wireless functions as promised (you can see I’m still hedging my bets), I’ll be able to submit my work—mostly poetry—to journals again. Since moving out here more than four years ago, I’ve submitted to a grand total of two publications, both of which I’d worked with before. This is a huge decrease; I used to keep five or six batches of poems in circulation each month. That number dropped because making targeted submissions requires researching each publication: the submission window and preferred submission method, number of poems considered in each batch, editorial statement, samples of recently published work, response time, rights acquired, etc. Plus more particulars I didn’t list. The most efficient way (I would argue the only way) to learn these things is online.

Yes, I write fiction and blog fortnightly about life, but I’m also a poet. I’ve missed being able to send my work out into the world. I’m excited to do it again.

And when I do, I’ll be listening to Pandora. The Charlie Haden station.

The Big(gest) Bang

I hope everyone is well and happy and that my U.S. readers are celebrating a wonderful Fourth of July with family and friends!

Of course it wouldn’t be the Fourth without fireworks, would it? I enjoy them, but you won’t catch me handling them. Even sparklers kind of scare me, so I’m happy to leave incendiary devices in the hands of the professionals. You know, people like your hotshot neighbor with the umpteen cars, the go-fast boat and the ginormous house. Or your judgment-challenged husband. Yes, I’m speaking of one particular July 4th that none of us in this family will ever forget.

Long before Glen and I moved to the honest-to-goodness country four years ago, we had moved outside of the Austin city limits. The last place was a one-street subdivision with acreage lots: the sort of place where, unlike in the city, setting off fireworks isn’t illegal—provided no burn ban is in effect. Only half the lots had houses on them, which gave all of us neighbors plenty of elbow room to do pretty much as we pleased. That changed once the rest of the houses were built, but those first few years were heady times. Which brings me to one memorable Independence Day around twelve years ago.

That evening at nightfall, fireworks began to bloom in the sky above a couple of houses on the street. Glen, The Daughter and I, plus a few friends who’d come to celebrate with us, went outside to watch. Glen had bought some fireworks for us, too, and he set off several in the driveway. Then the free-spending neighbor across the street (“across the street” only in the most literal sense; he was still two or three hundred yards away from us) got into the act. He was having a July 4th party and doing some showboating, putting on a display for his guests that was calculated to impress and keep them talking about it until the next July 4th. We watched for a time, oohing and aahing, and then Glen touched off a few more of ours. This seemed to send the neighbor into an explosive frenzy.

Shrieking, whizzing, starry bursts and meteoric booms filled the night. Every time Glen sent up another firework, four or five skyrockets and Roman candles launched across the street. The wind was blowing toward us, and soon we (and our house and our yard and our driveway) were covered in the gritty remains of the neighbor’s spent fireworks—that stuff that’s such a nuisance to sweep and rake up the next day. (Katie and I should know; cleanup duty was always our job.) Some of it was still burning and we had to run to stamp it out. What had started out as an amazing display was becoming annoying.

At last there was a lull. Clouds of smoke drifted across scorched asphalt and concrete. We assumed the neighbor’s show was over; all of our own fireworks were long gone. So we brushed the paper shreds and ashy bits out of our clothes and hair, did a last check for small fires on the landscape and started to head indoors. But that wasn’t the end of it. Turns out the neighbor was re-arming. Soon, fresh volleys of fireworks began hurtling skyward, and each new blast seemed bigger and louder than the previous one. Call us paranoid, but we all felt there was a bullying, “mine’s bigger than yours” taint to his extravaganza. (Interestingly, not too long after that night he ended up in a bit of trouble with the feds over some pesky fraud charges.)

Finally, Glen had had enough. “I’m going to my truck,” he said. “I’ll be right back.” Then he vanished into the acrid haze as spent fireworks debris continued to rain down on us.

When he returned, we could see he had something small in the palm of his hand. He went to the circular parking pad at the end of our driveway and waved at the rest of us to stand well back. We didn’t retreat far enough to suit him, so he waved us back some more, and then still more. As we peeked out from behind a stone wall by the front porch, hands over our ears, we saw him put a lighter to what looked like a pencil stub and drop it to the concrete.

And then he ran like hell.

The roar that followed felt like it was going to bring the house down. It was seismic, cataclysmic, like the detonation at the end of the world when the Earth tilts screaming into the Sun. At the very least it should have blown out our windows. But amazingly, everything stayed in one piece. Even the driveway.

In the aftermath there was a deafening silence. We stood there for a few minutes—stunned, wide-eyed, gasping—waiting for the pyrotechnic barrage across the street to resume. It didn’t. There was not another . . . single . . . firework. Glen raised his arms, triumphant.

As we all went into the house, giggling like fools, I asked him, “What in the world was that?”

“Just a little dynamite,” he said. “I figured a quarter-stick should do it.”

Happy July 4th to my U.S. readers! (And don’t try this at home!)

Hummus: A Recipe

Every six or eight months I get a craving for hummus, and when that happens, nothing less than instant satisfaction will do. Luckily, I came up with a great recipe for it some years ago, and I’m sharing it with you today (in case you’re the sort of person who develops sudden urges for hummus, too).

This one came about in much the same way my recipe for vichyssoise did: I’d sampled so many bland, indifferent versions of hummus that I decided I should probably devise my own. Unlike the perfect vichyssoise I’d eaten at La Louisiane in San Antonio as a child, though, I didn’t have a perfect hummus in mind to base my attempt on. For all I knew there was no such thing, because I’d never tasted one. It didn’t matter if it was from a grocery store or a restaurant.

First, I investigated a number of recipes, making sure of my ingredients and getting an idea of the proportions. The recipes were all pretty similar, but after a little research I chose what sounded like the zestiest of the lot and made it. After all, I reasoned, if it turned out to be the perfect one for me, I could stop right there and no further work on my part would be necessary. But, sad to say, it was just like all the other hummuses in my life had been: flat and disappointing. However . . . it was still in the food processor. I could save it, by adding everything I thought it needed more of. In some cases, a LOT more. So I did. And then I wrote it down.

Here is the resulting recipe, which I’ve since made many times, for many people. This makes enough for a gathering, so if that’s more than you’ll be consuming over a few days, cut it in half. It’s easy (no need to cook chickpeas; canned work splendidly), immensely flavorful (Garlicky! Lemony! Tahini-y!) and satisfying. It’s equally delicious with cocktails or on its own with a few chips for breakfast. (Which is how I ate it this morning. And it would probably be amazing under the mashed green stuff on avocado toast, come to think of it.) Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you . . .

HUMMUS

2 15-oz. cans chickpeas (aka garbanzo beans), drained and well-rinsed

4 large cloves garlic

1 c. tahini

½ c. fresh-squeezed lemon juice

¾ c. good olive oil (at least)

½ c. water, or a little more

½ tsp. paprika

red pepper flakes to taste

salt to taste (I start with 1 tsp. fine sea salt and go from there)

1 handful flat-leaf parsley (leaves and small stems)

1. In the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade, put the garlic, the tahini and ½ cup or so of the beans. Process until the garlic is finely minced.

2. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the parsley and process until smooth. At this point (depending on how dry the beans are), the consistency may be too dense and more olive oil and/or water will be necessary. I add in both, with a bit more oil than water.

3. Taste for seasoning, especially necessary if more olive oil and water have been added. I usually add more salt and red pepper flakes, tasting several times along the way.

4. Last add the parsley and process until the hummus is delightfully creamy and smooth. (This is when I have to stop myself from eating it out of the processor bowl with my finger.)

5. Transfer to a container for storage in the refrigerator, or serve at once. If I’m not diving in right away with a bag of tostadas (hellooo, breakfast!), I like to garnish the top with a drizzle of olive oil, some chopped parsley and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes.

Enjoy!

Wising Up

There’s an old saying that I heard when I lived in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country decades ago:

“Too soon old. Too late smart.”

I spent a year there when I was nineteen, still young enough to believe that these words held no relevance for me—then, or ever. The old folks who quoted the saying (who, now that I think about it, weren’t nearly as old as I believed at the time) would often accompany it with a chuckle and a rueful shake of the head. I, armored by my youth, would feel somewhat superior and amused at the corniness of it all. With no earthly clue what they really meant.

But now, on the cusp of being eligible for Medicare, I think I’m finally starting to figure it out. A contented heart is way more important than . . . stuff. Than convenience. Than proximity. Or at least, that’s what it comes down to for Glen and me.

The other day I texted The Daughter that her father and I have been getting a lot of enjoyment out of life lately. Largely because we spend as much time as possible with each other. With increasing frequency, when there are errands we can combine into one day trip to town, we do them together. Usually it’s Costco, the grocery store, the bank, the post office (sometimes three banks and two post offices), then lunch before heading back home to the country. (After a quick stop at the feed store. Those cows have to eat.) Occasionally there will even be medical appointments. Yes. Astonishing as it seems to me, my husband and I have reached the age when we go to the doctor together.

Then in the late afternoons, we put that busyness behind us and sit out on the porch with our drinks. We watch the cows and the birdlife, study the clouds. We talk about what we accomplished that day, and what the next day might hold. Dull as it sounds, we’ve even been known to bring up the price of hay and what steers are fetching at auction. But it’s not dull, not to us. It’s peaceful. And restorative.

“Hear that?” Glen asks me, when we’ve had a chance to let the quiet settle over us.

“No, what?” I say. “All I hear are the birds.”

He smiles. “Exactly.”

Eventually we go inside to eat something simple and delicious. Dinner is often a collaborative effort. He does the grilling and smoking. I cook in the “freaking working kitchen.” We’ve always got homemade bread on hand, and during the hot months of the year, there’s homemade ice cream. Glen provides much of the meat in the freezers. There’s venison from the whitetail deer and the elk that he hunts, and Black Angus beef from our own steers that he raises. In the fall, there will be dove.

There’s nothing complicated or fussy or elaborate about the meals we make, nor about this new life we live, but it feels luxurious to us. And the more deeply rooted we become, and the more we count on each other for everything that nourishes us, the more distant our old life in the city seems. The conveniences. The easy distances. The stuff. All less necessary than we’d believed.

Too soon old. Too late smart. But give me a little more time. I’m learning.

“Hear that?” Glen will ask me.

“No,” I’ll say, “just the birds.”

Exactly.

Skunked

The other morning Glen and I were going into town together and drove through a lingering patch of skunk funk. That’s all too common here from about mid-February to mid-May. Skunks are mating in February and March, then raising their young, and all this activity evidently creates many opportunities for them to spray. Forcing the non-skunks among us to avoid breathing as much as possible for those three months. Because even in our climate-controlled houses, we can’t escape the stench that hurtles miles across country on the evening breeze. In our cars, we try not to drive over the still-pungent black-and-white-striped pelts flattened on the asphalt. (So many bodies!) If we’re lucky, that’s as personal as our skunk interactions get.* Some of us, however, are less fortunate.

Thirty years ago, Glen and I were living in a tiny South Texas town. It was our 5th wedding anniversary, the evening of Valentine’s Day. (Yes, we got married on Valentine’s Day; it seemed like a good idea at the time. But once we were a couple of anniversaries in, we realized going out to celebrate on that day was too foolish to attempt and the food at even the nice restaurants was sub-par and available only from a prix fixe menu. Prime New York Strip? Not hardly.) The Daughter was a toddler, not quite a year old yet. The date was meaningful to us, but otherwise it was an ordinary weeknight. We had no special plans. Just quiet time at home watching a little TV, then bed.

Dinner was over and cleared away, and Glen had settled down in his easy chair in the family room with a big bowl of popcorn. I was on the sofa nearby, and Katie and the cats and the Chow Chow Kodi were amusing each other at floor level. So far so good on the quiet part of the evening. Until all at once a horrendous sound—a hissing, shrieking, scrabbling sound—filled the room. It wasn’t the TV. It came from an air conditioning vent set high in the wall above Glen’s head.

We leaped from our seats and turned to look up at the vent. In our confusion and surprise, we couldn’t quite believe what happened next: A cloud of fine mist sprayed from the vent and settled on everything within a 6- or 8-foot range. And the room—no, the whole house—filled up with skunk stench.

That moment is seared into my memory. The aftermath, though, is kind of a blur. I can’t recall what happened to Glen’s popcorn, what the animals did, if we burned the clothes we had on, how we managed to get to sleep, or what Katie’s reaction was to it all. (Knowing Katie, she barfed. She’s always been an Olympic class barfer, that girl.) I do remember that we hired an AC service to come out the next morning. Turns out a partially exposed metal duct low on the exterior of the house had holes rusted in it, and that’s where the skunk crawled in. After wandering around in the ductwork for awhile he came upon the family room vent and decided we needed some excitement. Then, like Elvis, he left the building. The AC people did a thorough cleaning of the ducts and found no skunk in residence.

It was indescribably foul in that house for a time, but after a few weeks—thanks to the ductwork cleaning, continuously opened windows, air sprays, etc.—the worst of it faded. About 18 months later, we moved back to Austin.

We couldn’t leave skunks behind, though. One spring night eleven or twelve years after the skunk-in-the-duct, Glen’s Akita Zori encountered one. (Supposedly, Zori was one of the two family dogs, but we all knew who she’d swim through quicksand for.) Then she came to the back door to be let in. And Glen—failing to notice the reek because a sharp blow to the head had sheared off his olfactory nerves a year or two before—obliged. He somehow overlooked her copious drooling, too, even though his eyes are perfectly fine. Luckily, I was nearby, so I hustled her back outside before she could spread the fumes everywhere. Then Glen and I washed her together.

Apparently she learned nothing from the experience, because a few weeks later, she was sprayed again. And this time, in a stroke of good fortune for him, Glen was out of town. So there I was, hosing down “our” dog on the patio at midnight with V-8 juice and carpet shampoo. (I probably should have been prepared with something more effective, but who knew the dog would do it again?)

Happily, all’s been calm on the skunk front for years now. I was afraid we’d see an uptick in activity after moving to the country, but we haven’t. Our Australian Shepherd Lucy won’t approach them, and has strong feelings about other animals to avoid, too. Because of that, we’ve recently started calling her “Snake Dog.” Lucy’s barked alerts could give Lassie’s some competition. Sure, “Come quick! Timmy’s fallen in the well!” sounds impressive, but Glen and I think it’s nothing compared to “Look out! There’s a rattlesnake behind you!”

*Fun fact: While most sensible predators avoid skunks for the same reason we do, the Great Horned Owl actually snacks on them. Go Owls!

Pistachio Ice Cream: A Recipe

In the summer of 2017 I shared two of my recipes for homemade ice cream: Coffee Cinnamon and Chocolate Pecan Brickle. Both are uncooked, meaning they require no eggs or standing at a hot stove on an August day when your air conditioning struggles to blow tepid air and you have to keep stirring the custard until it thickens. They’re super easy to make and also fast, since you don’t have to wait for the hot custard to chill before you can churn the ice cream. These uncooked versions are endlessly variable, and so rich and delicious that I’ve seen no reason to make a custard base in decades.

But also in that post I promised that one day I’d share a method for making equally delicious “custard” ice creams without actually cooking a custard. So here’s what I do if I ever miss that custard flavor, that extra creamy sweetness: I use a trick my mother Eloise taught me.

I cheat.

Mother, God rest her soul, was kind of a snob about custards and puddings. Never under any circumstances was it okay to take shortcuts. Not by buying pre-prepared puddings in the dairy case, and certainly not by using boxed pudding powders. (She considered instant mashed potatoes another abomination.) She passed these convictions on to me, with the result that all the custards and puddings (and mashed potatoes) served in my house are scratch-made. However, when she bought a kitchen countertop ice cream maker (in the days when even those small electric models still needed ice and salt), it came with a little recipe booklet suggesting the option of using instant pudding mixes as an alternative to spending the effort and time homemade custards required. Since she didn’t enjoy waiting around for a hot custard base to cool any more than I did, she deep-sixed her scruples and gave convenience a whirl. The resulting ice cream was a huge success with both of us.

After a little experimentation [The Ice Cream Trials. Such a daunting, thankless task, but somebody has to eat all that test ice cream], I came up with the sublime recipe I’m sharing today, the one that makes Glen’s eyes roll back in his head. (Literally. You should have seen him last night when he put the first spoonful in his mouth.)

So here it is, the cheater’s version of:

PISTACHIO ICE CREAM

In a large mixing bowl, place:

1 c. sugar

5 Tbs. instant pistachio pudding powder, straight from the box (see photo above)

1/8 tsp. salt

1 ½ tsp. almond extract

3 drops green food coloring

Add:

2c. half-and-half

Beat together until the dry ingredients are mostly dissolved. A hand mixer is fine for the job. Then add:

2c. heavy cream

Stir all together until thoroughly blended and pour into the cream can of your ice cream maker. Process according to manufacturer’s instructions for most of the allotted time. Then, 5 minutes before the end, add:

½ c. (rounded) coarsely chopped salted pistachios

Finish processing and then transfer to a suitable container to finish hardening the ice cream in the freezer. Makes a bit more than 1 ½ quarts.

And if you’re craving some Chocolate Shell to top your Pistachio Ice Cream (it’s a spectacular pairing!), you can find that recipe here.

Enjoy!

The Mulsus Cocktail: Two Recipes

If you haven’t yet read The Realm Below, book 2 in the Space Between series, then you probably don’t know that at the end of the book there’s a little pilón, as my mother used to call it. That’s a Spanish word that in Mexico means “something extra.” The pilón in this case is a short appendix offering two original cocktail recipes that The Daughter came up with after the release of The Space Between. They’re inspired by the descriptions of mulsus (a favorite drink of my faery characters) in the books.

I’m writing this a few days before Glen and I are scheduled to go out of town to visit Katie—and The (best) Son-in-Law (in the world), Wesley—and if all goes as planned, by the time you read it we should have been back home for a couple of days. But since we’ll still be trying to get caught up after our return, the appendix will be part of today’s post.

Both mulsus versions below are exceptional, but then, Katie’s cocktails are always worth sharing. In fact, she has started recording cocktail-making videos that she posts at intervals on her YouTube channel, Take Your Time Gaming (the channel mostly features Katie and Wesley, separately and together, in hilariously snarky gaming episodes). The cocktail videos are entertaining and informative (especially fun when viewed on a TV), and each time I watch one I resolve to shake things up a bit (ha!) to make the cocktail hour more interesting. And oh, how I envy her technique with a cocktail shaker! My so-called technique makes me look like I’m caught in a cement mixer.

These drinks have pronounced, assertive flavors, so if you feel the need of accompanying nibblies, I recommend something fairly bland that won’t compete for your taste buds’ attention. Macadamias, for instance, or sesame sticks.

And now, here is the appendix:

Readers,

I didn’t want to leave you without this little extra something: two sophisticated recipes for mulsus that my daughter Katie, a skilled and enthusiastic crafter of cocktails, has created especially for the Space Between series.

The mulsus imbibed in the books is not a cocktail, being more of a honey-sweetened liqueur or cordial made from the fermented needles of the yew trees growing on the grounds of the Keep. It’s an acquired taste and even small amounts are poisonous for non-faeries. The Daughter’s versions, however, are quite delicious, while still hinting at the aromatic, resinous quality mulsus is known to have.

You won’t need to drink these cocktails from tiny, dark-tinted glasses like the Penitents do. Neither one looks anything like pond scum, thank heavens. Though Adrian tells Mellis in The Space Between, “We like to drink it, but we try not to look at it,” Katie decided that in our world, we can do without cocktails that look disgusting, so there is no food coloring in the recipes. You can easily find online the method for making clover honey syrup.

The first recipe is a little closer to what I envision the taste of faery mulsus to be. The bitters are an essential component, making this version taste like a very pricy cocktail served at an elegant restaurant. The second recipe is polished and urbane, but a little more accessible.

Enjoy!

Mulsus #1

1.5 oz London Dry Gin

1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice

.35 oz Bärenjäger

.35 oz 1:1 clover honey syrup

.25 oz Green Chartreuse

.25 oz Yellow Chartreuse

4 drops Prohibitters

Shaken and strained into a chilled coupe.

Mulsus #2:

1.5 oz London Dry Gin

1 oz fresh-squeezed lemon juice

.45 oz 1:1 clover honey syrup

.35 oz Bärenjäger

.25 oz Green Chartreuse

.25 oz Yellow Chartreuse

.25 oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur

1 dash Orange Bitters

Shaken and strained into a chilled coupe.

The Empty Nest Cat

Sunday morning I got up much too early—before 4 A.M. I’ve never been a very sound sleeper (maybe that’s due to sleeping with my eyes open *snort*), but for the past ten years it’s been worse. And for the cause, I can point with a reasonable degree of certainty to this:

That’s Phoebe. Part Maine Coon. Part dominatrix. And guess who’s 10 years old? Uh-huh. Coincidence? I think not.

Ever since Glen and I adopted her from the Austin animal shelter when she was about 8 weeks old,

Phoebe (aka Tatonka, Jabba the Catt, Queen of All She Surveys and Tons o’ Fun [or Squirt, as Katie calls her]) has ruled the household with her incessant demands. And many of her demands interfere with my sleep.

Sunday morning, for instance, she demanded that I arise at 3:50 A.M. and entertain her. I wasn’t done sleeping, but that didn’t stop Phoebe from chewing the bedside lamp cord, chewing the bedside table leg, chewing my flipflops (bedside) . . . chewing anything she could fit in her mouth. (Also a lifelong pattern, in case you couldn’t tell by looking at her.) All just to make noise and get me out of bed.

Does she ever go to Glen’s side of the bed and try to wake him up? Don’t be silly. She knows he’d never hear her. A good thing she doesn’t, too. She’d probably fry herself chewing on his lamp cord. And Lucy’s hopeless; she’s the soundest sleeper in the house.

The situation is now so bad that I’ve taken to sleeping with a spray bottle full of water within grabbing distance. One good spritz will keep Phoebe at bay for two or three nights. Only rarely do I get to use it, though. As soon as I rise up on one elbow and reach for it, she scampers off (okay, galumphs off) into the darkness making gleeful little trills and chirps. At that point she’s too far away to spray and I’m too awake to go back to sleep. So I get up. And that explains Sunday morning.

The Daughter, on the other hand, is mother to the consummate companion cat: a 14-year-old Tonkinese named Tsuki. Less than half Phoebe’s size, Tsuki is oozy, clingy and adorable, and as limber as a Chinese acrobat.

Katie needs a warm furry neck scarf? Tsuki is there.

An advisor at the card table? Tsuki will oblige.

How about a rip-roaring game of hide-and-seek (daylight hours only)? A decorative centerpiece? A cat-in-a-blanket?

Tsuki’s available for all of it, always loving and perfectly behaved, never making unreasonable demands. (Well . . . maybe occasionally. She’s still a cat.) This has made Katie smug. She is fond of telling us that Phoebe is our “empty nest cat” and that as a consequence, “mistakes were made.” Meaning we made them. Oh, swell. How does that help us now?

But she’s right, of course, and it’s Glen’s fault. Mostly. It all started when Phoebe was still a kitten and he encouraged her to drink water from the faucet at his bathroom sink. She’s always had a bowl of fresh water available to her, but from her very first taste she preferred the cool water flowing from the tap. So much that multiple times each day I’d hear her meowing from the master bathroom, demanding (there’s that word again, but no other will really do) that someone (i.e., me) come at once and turn the water on. It didn’t take her long to realize that she was really thirsty at night, too. (Did Glen get up for those nighttime waterings? What do you think? Even though each time Phoebe leaped up to the sink, she thumped the cabinet loudly enough to wake the dead. But Glen slept on.) Tap water was at the top of the slippery slope, and from there it was just one misstep after another.

The last straw for Katie came one morning when she walked into the kitchen and saw something I’d sworn I would never allow: Phoebe stretched out on the kitchen table while I ate breakfast. (Yes, Tsuki has been on Katie’s table many times, but apparently not during meals. So how is this different?)

Now that Phoebe’s 10, diabetic and spherical, the bathroom sink is beyond her leaping capability. Thankfully, drinking from the water bowl on the floor doesn’t cause nearly as much commotion. But she continues to wake me in the wee hours, perhaps even more often now to compensate for what she can’t do anymore. And after she’s had her fun toying with me, she gets to sleep all day—a win-win for any cat.

But despite her shortcomings (and how I felt about her Sunday morning), Glen and I wouldn’t trade our empty nest cat for anything. Even Katie thinks she’s pretty special. We’ve never had another cat like her. Unflappable, not fussed by strangers, loud noises or dogs. If someone comes into the house, she doesn’t hide. She goes to greet them and investigate what they’re up to, and, if possible, sit smack in the middle of it. (Right, Gerard?) No, we wouldn’t change a thing. As far as we’re concerned, the mold was broken when Phoebe was made.

Probably because she sat on it.