Kim Harrison's Blog, page 37

Homemade Treats!

You guys can bake! Wow, I am amazed at how talented (and adventuresome) everyone is. As promised, I collected some of your photos you gave me on FB. If you gave me a bunch, I just reposted one.

I hope that some of these inspire you this weekend, and remember, it doesn’t have to look like the picture in book or on Pintrest. ;-)

Little Chocolate Stonehenge

It took another cup of sugar and a few hours, but I got something that could be eaten this time! Sea Foam Candy. I have a few ideas on how to make it even better, but that’s for next year. I do believe I’m about all baked out.

This is the recipe that I used. http://www.cooks.com/recipe/7p1qo3g7/sea-foam.html The dipping chocolate was a pound of semi-sweet chocolate chips, an ounce of bakers chocolate, and an ounce of paraffin melted over a double boiler.

If you made treats as well, drop a picture on my FB page so I can see them! https://www.facebook.com/KimHarrisonsHollows?ref=ts

 

Everything looks right if you dunk it in chocolate

My attempt at sea foam candy may have looked right, but I am clearly going to have to try to make it again today. The baking soda didn’t give it enough bubbles to lift the candy long enough for it to solidify. Either that, or I didn’t cook it long enough and it collapsed before it solidified, or the Karo syrup was old, which is a distinct probability since I think I moved it twice over the course of five years. Or perhaps the heavy day made a difference. Or the tablespoon of molasses I put in. I know better than to modify candy recipes, but the Karo syrup was really heavy and it needed to be cut with something. I’m also wondering if the instructions to add the vinegar and then cook it to 300 might be off. The chemist in me is thinking it should go in after taking it off the heat, right with the baking soda.

The chocolate covering it, too, wasn’t right, but I blame the vague instructions of “dipping chocolate.” I know what they mean, but I don’t have dipping chocolate. I have cocoa, and bittersweet, and paraffin. My “dipping chocolate” never got hard enough to handle. But I can fix that.

I’m a big believer in eating your mistakes, but it all went into the trash after I tried to eat a piece and it almost pulled out my tooth. I’m trying again this afternoon with fresh Karo syrup, a drier, cooler day, and my own recipe for “dipping chocolate” from another recipe I use all the time. Not to mention a bit of knowledge to “whip it, whip it good.”

Do I sound annoyed? Maybe a smidge. I hate throwing food and effort away, but even though sea foam candy is a treasured treat with lots of memories tied to Christmas, I’ve never made it before. It usually takes me a few tries at anything to start showing any signs of success.

So if I get my work done early enough today, I’ll give it another go. Tomorrow, pictures.

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/7p1qo3g7/sea-foam.html

Rain

This morning, I was faced with rain when I woke up, which is about what I expected, seeing as I fell asleep to the sound of it on my roof.

I’ve got the best bedroom, if you’ll excuse me for a moment. We had it remodeled last year, which was more than repainting and new drapes. It involved taking out a cramped, tired bathroom that shouldn’t have been put in, which gave the room back its spacious feel. A kitchen was removed from the other side and changed into a more central bathroom that serviced the entire top floor. Ideally it would have been a private bath, but there is no way I’m going to put two bathrooms in the upstairs just to have a little more privacy when in a few years, that upper spare room is going to be a spare room once more instead of Thing Two’s.

We refurbished some of the now not-code windows, which make for a lovely nod to the age of the home. (130 years), and supplemented them with even more (which are code) to let the light come in all day. The floor was brought back to code, (it was built during World War II, and they tended to under build back then, though the 2X4s are really 2 inches by 4 inches) and all the walls now have insulation. (One of them didn’t.)

A defunct chimney was removed, and at the urging of our contractor, we put in a sky light in its place. Which brings me to my favorite part of the room. The ceiling.

Don’t laugh. It’s beautiful. My contractor had a vision, and I let him go. Despite my hesitation of having a no-space roof, he raised the ceiling to the rafters to help balance out the new size of the room, insulating them throughly before finding someone to rough cut a beam for the center support, staining it and the visually supporting rafters to match the dark color that 130 year old wood turns. Behind it is corrugated tin, which may sound odd, but it gives the room a wonderful back room, maid quarters look which is what he was going for. But the best part is how the light moves against the metal, picking up the dark of the beams and interspersing it with flashes of startling silver. There are shades there that don’t exist except for the mixing and bouncing of light that the corrugated tin cause, and I love it. Photographs don’t do it justice.

And with the rain . . . it is a beautiful thing to fall asleep to.

Where’s the snow?

No snow. I’m so bummed. We’ve been spoiled the last few years with a white Christmas. But Guy is liking it, hoping to get out on the road on his bicycle this afternoon. Blahh. This means we’re going to have a cold summer. I know it. Although . . . I will admit I’ve been enjoying the mild temps as much as anyone else.

I put some time in this weekend to make up a candy-cane tea cozy, which sort of helps get me in the mood if the decorating, baking, and lights don’t. (grin) This year, though, I’m making stars as my knitting go-to. Soon as I have a few, I’ll take a picture. They are easy to whip up and don’t need a lot of thought.

Book work is moving as expected this time of year, which means slow. I did dialog on Friday, which pretty well gets the chapter sketched out without putting in the effort in of actually writing it. It is okay as it is, but it bugged me all weekend, and I think I’m going to change the setting from an apartment to a more vibrant lunch room. I’ll have to drop the secondary-character development I put in, but putting them in the middle of a lunchroom has a much better chance of slipping world building and involving more than two characters. Since I’m at dialog, it’s not too big of a shift and it won’t slow me down much. Still, it’s going to mean a few more hours at the keyboard today.  Good thing it’s Monday.

Feels about right

So, I’ve gotten up to about page 33 in the back burner work. I’ve given up on trying to take this slow, and I’m just going to do what I feel like. It goes contrary to everything I tell people when they are looking for advice, but since what I feel like is usually six hours M-F, not two hours twice a week, I don’t think it’s going to matter.

Page 33, brings me to the end of chapter three, and all ready Roy is now Dylan because I wanted to change William (tech guy) to Riley (tech woman) and it’s a no-no to have two people with the same first sound in their name in the same book. It’s not a big deal, but  if you can avoid it, do so unless there’s a reason for it. (like all of Jenks’ kids having the same first sound.) Trice (young girl snot) has become Walt (young boy snot) and though I ache to be letting such a great name like Trice go, I’m really liking young snot as a boy. The girl was cool, but the boy is charming. He’s got such a great ego, much like Jenks, I’m afraid. Even Jo’s boss has had a name change from Bob, which truly was nothing more than a place holder, to Lloyd, which captures his attitude perfectly.

If you look for names, check out this website from the Social Security office. I’ve used it for years. It has practical information about how a name has changed in popularity for over 200 years in some cases, but mostly I like it because they are real names and browsing about doesn’t get you diaper ads in your news feed. 

I particularly like doing a search by year. If I want a dignified name or one for an older character who was born in the 30’s, I do a search on the 1930’s, and if I want one for a younger person, I hit the 2000’s. You can even search by area, making your character’s name very southern, or eastern, or west coast.

 

 

If you build it, they will come

If you’ve been lurking about the drama box, you will probably have seen my sock feeder before, but I recently upgraded to a nifty version that has a filling reservoir. It took awhile, but they adapted. But by far the most important part of my feeders is the water. Guy got me a heated bird bath a few years ago, and I’ve never looked back. :-)

This shot is actually my old feeder, but it’s so pretty with the snow I had to share. I have a bad feeling we won’t be getting much snow this year. Guy and the I jinxed it by getting a snow blower, so you can all thank  us when there is no snow in Michigan.

Six Years?!

Yesterday I was making noise, (not really complaining) about the six hours it takes to make Marzipan, and how I’ll never do it again, but next year, I’m going to try something different to keep the glaze from crystalizing so soon. While all the while, out in my office, a six-year flower was unfolding.

A tiny slip of a miniature orchid that a reader gave me . . . oh, it had to be six years ago, finally blossomed. I’d been watching it all this last month, seeing the two flower buds forming, and yesterday was the day they opened. Honestly, these things are smaller than my pinky nail, and just beautiful. Now that it’s bloomed once, I’m hopeful that it will do so again next year. Sometimes it’s all about finding the perfect light. If it’s happy, it will bloom. I’ve got one that bloomed four times this last year, a very happy orchid. (It’s got another flower stalk coming, which will make it five. Dudes!)

So find your perfect light and bloom, even if it takes six years.

Six hours?

I’ve got three cookbooks that I reach for since I’ve been out on my own.

The first is a Betty Crocker–good all around solid food. Good place to start.

The second is my collection of spotted and faded index cards where the family recipes are–the odd favorites you can’t find anywhere else, like chess cakes or familiar ones with a local twist, like my mom’s banana bread. (The likes of which you can’t find in a recipe book.) They bring me back to who I am, ground me.

The third is my posh cookbook, with stuff that takes so friggin’ long that you don’t bother to make it unless it’s a special occasion or you want to impress someone.  I open this one up quite a lot, actually, to quickly check the temperature of turkey, or find a conversion factor, or even make something special. This particular cookbook gives estimates of how long it’s going to take to go from cupboard to table, so I wasn’t surprised when I reached for it yesterday, wanting to make Marzipan, but still, six hours?

Every year I swear I’m not going to make them, and every year I do it again. This year, I added bananas to my repertoire. I was pretty happy with them until I glazed them. Something was off with it, either the temp or the way I applied the glaze, because they crystaled up. I’ve never had that happen before, but I’ve got a few ideas as to why. I might have to do them again.

Arrg!

Slow start, but still, it moves.

I remember once telling an interviewer in jest that I thought I became a writer so I could name things, but it sounds about right. I’ve been taking my work in little chunks lately–the holiday season is a tough beast to tame. It needs a steady hand, so the work is more of a framework this time of year to structure the day around.

And yet, things do eventually cross my desk, going from idea to paper, and from there into the “cabinet of awesomeness.” (Rolls eyes-you gotta put ideas in the cabinet before you can pull them out.)

I’ve been naming things this last week: ideas disguised as characters, the human condition concealed in the plot, wishes hidden among the world building–and there’s a new ream of paper starting to grow in my cabinet. Just a few pages so far, but it moves. It won’t move fast as this is not front burner, but back, but still it moves.

 

P.S. Mr. Gnome is making a good impression of me in his winter cap, surrounded by paperclips, sticky notes, and colored pencils as I sit and think beside a Christmas tree, (which right now, symbolizes that life keeps moving, so you’d better keep moving with it and fit the work in when you can.)