Alanna Peterson's Blog, page 8

5-Minute Muesli

For many years, I have been on a quest to find the perfect breakfast: something quick to prepare but packed with nutrition. Something that I dont mind eating frequently. Something that will keep me satisfied all morning long.

Muesli to the rescue! This unassuming food had never really been on my radar until a recent visit with my aunt. When we all stumbled downstairs in the morning, she busted out the dry oats and a bunch of nut and dried fruit fixings for a DIY muesli breakfast bar. I was...

The Quarantine Diaries: Week 1

Though I had a different blog post planned for this week, its been hard to focus on anything lately. My attention is pulled in a thousand different directions. Because over the past few weeks, my life has turned upside down.

This is not a unique story. It is common to everyone else here in the Seattle area and in other U.S. locations and the world at large. Right now, all of us are grappling with the impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Sequestering ourselves. Upending our routines....

When We Vanished on NetGalley!

Just popping in with a quick announcement: my debut novel, When We Vanished, is now available to read and review on NetGalley! You can check it out there in advance of the official release on June 2, 2020.

I have to say, it really gives me a thrill to see the book out in the wild, sitting on virtual bookshelves with other novels for the first time!

So, if you are interested in reading an advance copy of WWV, head over to NetGalley (you can sign up for a free account if you dont have one...

Tempeh Kebabs

One of the joys of working on the Call of the Crow Quartet has been doing a deep dive into Iranian culture and learning more about its art, language, and cuisine.

Though I’ve been eagerly exploring international cooking ever since I became vegetarian, I’d never known much about Persian cuisine. This may be due to the fact that many traditional dishes are fairly meat-heavy (although there are plenty of Iranian vegans out there!).

But now, mention sangak (giant pillowy sheets of sourdough...

A Playlist for When We Vanished

Music is a central component of my debut novel, When We Vanished. Much to my regret, I’ve never been able to play any instruments myself. But I’ve been an avid music listener ever since those pivotal teenage years, when I spent countless hours listening to the local alternative radio station, perusing the indie section at Tower Records, and decorating my bedroom with band posters. Back then, music was my obsession. It was a perfect outlet for my adolescent angst, and offered a window into the...

Cherry Hand Pies

Some days, you just need some pie. But what if you don’t have a fork? No worries. Hand pies have got you covered.

I love these little pastry pockets so much that they’re one of the first dishes mentioned in the Call of the Crow Quartet, right there in Chapter Two of When We Vanished. In the text, though, I called them turnovers. This is the term I used until recently, when the much cuter (or maybe slightly macabre, depending on how you choose to interpret it) phrase “hand pies” jumped onto the scene.

But no matter what you call them, what’s not to love about a flaky, portable pie? The recipe that follows uses a coconut oil crust, so it’s vegan-friendly. If you want to make it gluten-free too, you could substitute your favorite GF baking blend for the flour. The filling is quite basic, allowing the cherries’ natural flavor to shine through, and it isn’t overly sweet. Feel free to taste it and add more sugar if you like it sweeter, or jazz it up a little with additional ingredients (lemon zest, almond or vanilla extract, cinnamon, etc.).

The recipe is easily doubled if eight pies won’t cover your pastry needs. I know it was barely enough for my pie-loving family!

Print


Cherry Hand Pies


These delightful little pastry pockets are both delicious and portable!

Course DessertKeyword vegan, vegetarian

Prep Time 30 minutesCook Time 30 minutesTotal Time 1 hour

Servings 8 pies




IngredientsFilling Ingredients10 ounces cherries pitted; frozen or fresh2 Tbsp sugar1 Tbsp arrowroot or cornstarch3 Tbsp waterCrust Ingredients1 cup all-purpose flour1/2 tsp sea salt5 Tbsp coconut oil solid3-5 Tbsp ice water
InstructionsMake the FillingCombine cherries and sugar in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat until mixture starts to simmer, about 5 minutes. Whisk together arrowroot/cornstarch and water in a small bowl, then pour into the cherries, stirring constantly. Cook another minute or two until thickened. Remove from heat and allow to fully cool to room temperature. If you're pressed for time, you can stick the saucepan in the freezer and stir every so often. Just make sure you don't forget it's there! (Not that I've ever done such a thing….) Make the CrustPreheat the oven to 375° F. While the filling cools, make the crust. Mix together the flour and salt, then cut in the coconut oil using a pastry cutter or two knives. Note, the oil needs to be solid for this recipe, so if it's summer and your coconut oil has melted in the heat of the house, you'll need to put it in the fridge until it firms up. Once the coconut oil has been incorporated (make sure there aren't any large chunks remaining; the mixture should look sandy), add the water a tablespoon at a time. Mix with a fork until the mixture starts to come together. You don't want to add too much water or the crust will lose its flakiness, but if you don't add enough it will be difficult to roll out, so stop adding water when you are able to form the dough into a ball. Roll out the dough. At this point, you have several options. You can either cut it into squares for triangular pies, or use an upturned bowl like a cookie cutter to cut out rounded pies. The bowl method tends to make more uniformly sized pies (unless you break out the ruler, I guess) but involves more rolling since you have more scraps. Up to you! Place the dough squares/circles onto your baking tray and fill each one with a few tablespoons of the cherry mixture. Try not to overfill or you'll have a lot of juice spilling out when you seal them up. Seal the edges with a fork and slice a small opening in the top to let steam escape. You can also sprinkle the top of the pies with sugar at this stage. Bake for 25-30 minutes at 375° F. When finished, the bottoms should be golden brown and there will probably be a few delicious little pools of cherry filling bubbling on the pan. If desired, you can drizzle with a simple glaze (confectioner's sugar mixed with a small amount of non-dairy milk and/or vanilla extract). Or just serve as is once they've cooled for a few minutes. Enjoy!





Your Thoughts

If you try this recipe, let me know what you think! Any questions about ingredients or prep instructions? Take to the comments!

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My Favorite Bird: Crows!

Ah, the ubiquitous crow. No matter where you are (at least here in the Pacific Northwest), you can be assured that crows will be there, too.

My own fascination with crows didn’t start until I moved up here, and gradually noticed that everyone had a crow story (if not dozens of them!). Soon enough, I started collecting my own.

One of the most memorable happened on a long-ago afternoon, when my now-husband came running up the stairs to our apartment thoroughly freaked out after being dive-bombed by a crow. After he calmed down, we theorized that the crow had probably been provoked by the shiny black motorcycle helmet he was wearing. Maybe she was protecting her nest and saw him as a threat? I suppose we’ll never know.

One of our friends had a crow story so intriguing that it inspired my husband to write a song. Check it out… it even features vocals from yours truly!

My interest was further piqued when I read Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s book Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness. She featured many incredible crow stories, including several tales of crows who left small, shiny “gifts” for the humans with whom they had bonded. I highly recommend checking her book out if you, too, are intrigued by corvids.

More recently, I’ve discovered that my house sits on a “crow highway.” During the winter hundreds of crows fly overhead everyday at dusk, making their way to the staging area where they spend the night. (In fact, the music video above features ample footage of this phenomenon!) I love looking out the back windows to see them pass by, or standing on the front porch and listening to the sound of their beating wings.

Though crows are often seen as harbingers of death, I see them rather as evidence that life finds a way, no matter the obstacles—which ties perfectly into many of the themes of When We Vanished. So, it feels quite fitting that they occupy a central place in the narrative.

Your Thoughts

How do you feel about crows? Do they creep you out, or do you find yourself drawn to them… or both? Let me know in the comments below!

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On Location: When We Vanished

Instilling my novels with a tangible sense of place is very important to me. Plus, this gives me an excuse to explore some of my favorite spots in the Seattle area under the guise of doing book research. (Although, in my world, pretty much EVERYTHING is book research.)

Check out these galleries of some of the locations mentioned in When We Vanished!

Seward Park





The path
behind the Audubon CenterMadrona tree meadowThe Amphitheater, from the frontThe Amphitheater, from the sideThe MountainThe shady woodsCan you see why this is one of my favorite places on earth??





Downtown Seattle



Pike Place Market entranceSeattle from on highBuilding rooftopsUnder the eaves of the Seattle Central LibraryView from the top of the Columbia Tower
(Harborview Medical Center in the foreground)



Mount Rainier / Tahoma & Orting



The peak of the MountainMossy treesBrrr… a very cold riverMorning dewOrting Farmers Market signMajestic



Your Thoughts

Any book locations I left out that you’d like to see? (Um, except SILO, which thankfully doesn’t exist IRL.) Have you been to any of the places featured in this post? If not, which ones would you like to visit? Allow me to be your Seattle tour guide – feel free to ask your questions in the comments!

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Naming a Character is Just As Hard As Naming a Baby

Trust me – I’ve done both things! The stakes are admittedly lower when choosing the perfect name for a fictional creation compared to an actual human. But I’ve put nearly as much thought into naming my characters as I did my children.

There are a few advantages with character naming, of course. They’re much easier to change, so you can always reconsider them once you’ve gotten to know the character. All four of the main characters in the Call of the Crow Quartet have evolved over the years, and it took some time for their names to settle into their final forms.

Andi Lin

林 安地

In the beginning, this character was known as Alex, though her full name was Alexandria. But, for a while there, it seemed like every YA book I read had a female protagonist named Alex. So I looked for an option that was a bit more unique. Since her maternal family is Taiwanese, I wanted to find something that would also work as a Chinese name.

My go-to source for names is a book I picked up at Goodwill years ago, The Baby Name Wizard. (Soon after bringing it home, I crossed out “Baby” on the front cover and replaced it with “Character,” lest a visitor see it lying around the house and get the wrong idea. My daughter also decorated the book with a charming stick figure.)

It’s a bit dated now, and limited in options for certain cultures and countries. But I love that it takes into account a name’s popularity over time, which is helpful when naming across generations.

After combing through The Baby/Character Name Wizard, I decided to stick with Alexandria, but shorten it to Andi instead of Alex. I was quite excited when I found out that both “ān” and “dì” are Chinese characters, so it all fell very neatly into place. True, “ān” isn’t pronounced quite the same way as the first syllable of “Andi” in English, but I figured this wasn’t critical. Her name would be pronounced differently in Mandarin anyway since it’s a tonal language.

So, as written in Chinese, Andi’s name is 林 安地. The first character is her family name, Lin, which was suggested by my dear friend (who provided lots of valuable feedback and advised on the Taiwanese aspects of the manuscript). It means “forest,” and the character even looks like two trees, a little detail I just love. The second character, ān, means content or calm or peaceful. The third, dì, means earth or soil. So there you have it: a many-layered and very grounded name that, in my opinion, fits this character perfectly.

Naveed Mirzapour

نوید میرزاپور

In Persian, Naveed means “bringing good news.” Which, considering his storyline, may seem a little ironic—but wasn’t the meaning of the name that drew me to it so much as a personal connection that goes back to my own high school days.

Yup, I even have this album on tape! (Courtesy of my husband’s cassette collection.)

The summer before I started high school, the song “Naveed” by the Canadian rock band Our Lady Peace was in heavy rotation on our local alternative radio station. I loved it then, and I love it still. There’s something about the soaring chorus that gives it a hopeful tone despite the dark lyrics, and every time I hear the song it takes me right back to the teenager I once was. This bridge to the past, the reconnection with the person I used to be during those challenging high school years, was essential for me to channel while writing. 

I debated whether to include some mention of the song in the book. Andi’s dad would certainly have been familiar with it, since he was well-versed in the mid-90s alt-rock scene. But in the end, I decided to leave it as a tiny Easter egg for those in the know (which now includes all of you!).

I also went back and forth about how to transliterate this name. Most often, I’ve seen it spelled “Navid,” but I decided to use the double-e instead, in order to make the pronunciation a little clearer for non-Persian speakers. (It still is a little tricky, though; the first syllable is pronounced like “nav” in “navigate,” but that’s a lot harder to capture with the English alphabet.)

Cyrus Mirzapour

 کوروش  میرزاپور

At first glance, Cyrus may not seem like a Persian name at all, but its status as a common name in modern-day Iran comes from the ancient history of the region: Cyrus the Great was the founder of the first Persian empire back in the 6th century BCE. Even though I’m decidedly not a fan of imperialism, this particular emperor had a few admirable qualities.

He is known for respecting the religions and customs of the lands he conquered, for freeing slaves and enacting reparations. The Cyrus Cylinder, a decree inscribed in cuneiform on a clay cylinder, is widely regarded as an ancient declaration of human rights. He loved gardens, too, and was by some accounts a vegetarian. Plus, he could really rock a battle helmet.

This ancient king seemed like the perfect namesake for Cyrus-the-character. It’s a lofty name to live up to, and reflects his desire for recognition and power. But at the same time he knows, deep down, that such things should never come at the expense of others.

The different forms of the name also reflect the different roles he plays in various parts of his life. His best friends call him Cy; his family calls him Kourosh; the world at large calls him Cyrus. It’s a shape-shifting name that evolves depending on his surroundings – fitting for a character who manages to nimbly adapt to whatever gets thrown at him.

Roya Mirzapour

رویا میرزاپور

Working on Roya’s chapters are always such a treat! She has a very unique point of view, and it’s truly a pleasure for me to step into her shoes and see things the way she does: with an underlying sense of wonder and curiosity, and a deep love of the natural world.

Finding the perfect name for her wasn’t easy, so I enlisted my Iranian beta-reader to help. She suggested the perfect family name, Mirzapour, and gave me a list of potential first names. I pondered this list for a while, testing them out in various sentences, but it didn’t take me long to choose The One.

In Persian, Roya means “dream” or “vision.” It’s the perfect encapsulation of her fanciful personality, active imagination, and tendency toward magical thinking. But, of course, dreams aren’t always pleasant. They can be strange, unnerving, scary. And this darker side comes into play for her character as well.

Case in point: the first time we enter her point of view in When We Vanished, she’s in a pretty unpleasant situation. But she handles it in a characteristic way: by embracing darkness and light in equal measure, and dreaming up creative plans to get what she needs.

Your Thoughts

What do you think – are these names fitting? Are you curious about the story behind any of the other names in When We Vanished? Have you ever struggled to name a character, or a child, or a pet? Let me know in the comments!

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Welcome!

Hello, and welcome!



I’m a novelist with a background in molecular biology and nutritional science. I’ve also spent the past few years getting involved in the food justice community (you can read more about me here). Based on this background, I’ll be bringing you blog posts in three main categories:



Recipes

All the recipes on this blog are plant-based. I’ve been vegan for nearly two decades, so it’s pretty much the only way I know how to cook!

 

In addition, the recipes I share will be easy to make and budget friendly. We are all at different stages in our culinary journeys, and I want this to be a place for you to find inspiration to experiment… and maybe make a few messes. Perfection isn’t what I’m striving for. Just good food, prepared with love.

Food Justice

I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned through my volunteer work with food-related nonprofits and while researching my novels, all of which involve various aspects of the food system.

My Stories

From time to time, I’ll pop in to bring you stories about my own life as a writer, publisher, mother, gardener, etc. This category will also contain the “story behind the story” of the novels that I’ve been writing.

So, that’s what you can expect from this blog. Anything else you want to see? Let me know in the comments!

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