Steven Harper's Blog, page 54
June 8, 2019
Impossible Burger: A Short Food Review
Yesterday, Darwin and I had supper at Red Robin. A new part of their menu is the Impossible Burger, a burger made of plant protein that's supposed to be indistinguishable from real beef. I decided to try it and see.
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Total win. The patty was tender and juicy, with the taste and consistency of beef. If you served me this without saying anything, I would have thought it was real beef. And it had fewer calories.
The manager stopped by our table and asked how the meal was. I gave him my opinion of the Impossible Burger. He asked me to fill out the customer survey on my receipt and mention this because he's trying to make the IB part of their regular menu. (Currently, it's a special item.) So I did.
I think this and lab-grown meat will have a big role in saving the planet. Go try an Impossible Burger! See if you agree with me.
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May 27, 2019
An Interview With Octavia E. Butler
In 1997, I learned that my favorite author Octavia E. Butler was teaching at the Clarion workshop in Lansing, Michigan, only half an hour's drive from my house. I reached out to her and arranged an interview for Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine. It was one of the highlights of my career--I got to spend an hour talking to the best SF writer in the world and got paid for it! I was shocked and deeply saddened when I learned she'd passed away from a stroke in 2006, and I shouted with joy when I learned Amazon Prime had greenlighted a series based on her Patternmaster novels.
Last year, I learned that very few of Butler's speeches or interviews had actually been recorded. I still had the tapes I used for the interview--a fiercely-guarded souvenir. But I realized they weren't doing anyone any good sitting in my desk. I asked the museum if they would like to have the tapes, along with a copy of the original transcript. They readily agreed, and the interview is now enshrined with the rest of Butler's work and papers at the museum in Pasadena. Scholars lined up to request access to these papers before they were even cataloged, and the collection is now among the most-accessed in the museum.
I posted the transcript of the interview at Curious Fictions. Go see!
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So Long, Seniors!
My seniors are done now. Their last day of exams was Thursday. Friday morning they came in for their caps and gowns. A number of them dropped by my classroom to say good-bye and tell me how glad they were to have me as their teacher. Yay!
And now I have a sharply-reduced schedule. (!) What will I do with all this time?
Concentrate on my freshmen, of course!
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And now I have a sharply-reduced schedule. (!) What will I do with all this time?
Concentrate on my freshmen, of course!
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May 19, 2019
Final Darkover
Look what came in the mail! This is the 19th and final anthology of dark over stories. My story "Sacrifice" appears in it.
I'm glad I got to write it. It allowed me to bring the story of David North and his friend Loret Castamir to a satisfactory conclusion. I think I'm the only author ever to write noir detective fiction for Darkover!
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I'm glad I got to write it. It allowed me to bring the story of David North and his friend Loret Castamir to a satisfactory conclusion. I think I'm the only author ever to write noir detective fiction for Darkover!
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Pre-Ordering Portals
My story "Brick and Mortar" appears in the upcoming anthology PORTALS. It's all about the gateways to another universe! You can pre-order at https://squareup.com/market/zombies-need-brains-llc
PORTALS: What mysteries…or horrors…await you on the other side? The lure of an open doorway is hard to resist. What lies beyond? Where will it take you—and how will you be transformed? Will it lead to paradise…or a living hell? You’ll never know, unless you have the courage to take that first step. In this anthology you will find sixteen stories of portals to exotic destinations, whether it’s a doorway in the desert that appears out of thin air, a fairy ring of mushrooms in the backyard, a crack in the road, or a train headed straight to Hell. Science fiction and fantasy authors Nancy Holzner, Esther Friesner, Ian Tregillis, Jacey Bedford, John Linwood Grant, Kate Hall, Gini Koch, Violette Malan, Juliet Kemp, James Enge, Steven Harper, F. Brett Cox, Jaime Lee Moyer, Jason Palmatier, Andrija Popovic, and Patrick Hurley invite you to step through a host of doorways to other realities with infinite possibilities, some horrible, some comic, and some just plain weird. So take my hand—not too tight!—and let’s journey into another world. The door is open. The portal awaits.
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PORTALS: What mysteries…or horrors…await you on the other side? The lure of an open doorway is hard to resist. What lies beyond? Where will it take you—and how will you be transformed? Will it lead to paradise…or a living hell? You’ll never know, unless you have the courage to take that first step. In this anthology you will find sixteen stories of portals to exotic destinations, whether it’s a doorway in the desert that appears out of thin air, a fairy ring of mushrooms in the backyard, a crack in the road, or a train headed straight to Hell. Science fiction and fantasy authors Nancy Holzner, Esther Friesner, Ian Tregillis, Jacey Bedford, John Linwood Grant, Kate Hall, Gini Koch, Violette Malan, Juliet Kemp, James Enge, Steven Harper, F. Brett Cox, Jaime Lee Moyer, Jason Palmatier, Andrija Popovic, and Patrick Hurley invite you to step through a host of doorways to other realities with infinite possibilities, some horrible, some comic, and some just plain weird. So take my hand—not too tight!—and let’s journey into another world. The door is open. The portal awaits.
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Stress Running
There's been a fair amount of stress in my life lately, and I've been waking up early with migraine headaches. I take meds, lay back down, and totally fail to fall asleep. The meds take away the headache, you see, but the slight buzz from them keeps me awake. So what I've been doing is making use of the time. If I'm going to be awake, I may as well do something useful. In this case, I do an early morning run.
I'm not a good morning runner. I do better, both speed and time, in the afternoon or evening. But I make myself get going. The advantage here is that I can burn the meds from my system faster AND get my run out of the way first thing. I do have to run outside instead of on the treadmill, since the treadmill and TV would wake up everyone else in the house.
Today, I had the Morning Migraine again, and the Morning Meds, and the Morning Sleep Fail, so I got up at 6:00 and went running. It was a lovely day for it, actually. The quintessential Michigan spring morning. All the trees are blooming and scenting the air with sweet blossoms. The birds were singing. The lawnmowers hadn't started up yet. I had the streets and trails to myself. It was delightful.
I just hope this doesn't become a habit!
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I'm not a good morning runner. I do better, both speed and time, in the afternoon or evening. But I make myself get going. The advantage here is that I can burn the meds from my system faster AND get my run out of the way first thing. I do have to run outside instead of on the treadmill, since the treadmill and TV would wake up everyone else in the house.
Today, I had the Morning Migraine again, and the Morning Meds, and the Morning Sleep Fail, so I got up at 6:00 and went running. It was a lovely day for it, actually. The quintessential Michigan spring morning. All the trees are blooming and scenting the air with sweet blossoms. The birds were singing. The lawnmowers hadn't started up yet. I had the streets and trails to myself. It was delightful.
I just hope this doesn't become a habit!
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May 15, 2019
Morning!
This morning I woke up at 5:00 and couldn't get back to sleep. At 5:30, I gave up and went for a run in the early spring day, with the birds singing and the sun peeking through the trees and me feeling virtuous. And now I'm paying the price with evening lethargy. At least I'll sleep tonight!
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May 10, 2019
Garden Time! (Not...)
It's spring! Frost is past! And the itch to get out and garden is . . .
. . . non-existent.
I don't garden. I hate yard work. I loathe weeding. But I want lots of plants around my house. Fortunately, this is why the Goddess invented the garden store!
My version of gardening is straightforward, easy, and it benefits the local economy. I go to the garden store, buy a couple dozen hanging flower baskets, and put them all around my front porch. Begonias go in the shady parts, petunias in the sunny parts. I set out petunias on the back deck, too.
Today, Darwin and I were running errands and I made him stop at one of the garden stores to look at baskets. Last year, I waited until it was too late and I ended up with some scraggly specimens of weird-ass flowers no one ever heard of and which did poorly on my porch, so this year I wanted to get an early start.
Surprise! The flowers were fuller and brighter than last year, and a lot cheaper--half what they were last year! I think last spring something must've gone wrong in the begonia industry. We loaded up the car.
Back home, we gave them a good drenching and hung them all around the porch. Took maybe half an hour, all told. And now my gardening is done!
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. . . non-existent.
I don't garden. I hate yard work. I loathe weeding. But I want lots of plants around my house. Fortunately, this is why the Goddess invented the garden store!
My version of gardening is straightforward, easy, and it benefits the local economy. I go to the garden store, buy a couple dozen hanging flower baskets, and put them all around my front porch. Begonias go in the shady parts, petunias in the sunny parts. I set out petunias on the back deck, too.
Today, Darwin and I were running errands and I made him stop at one of the garden stores to look at baskets. Last year, I waited until it was too late and I ended up with some scraggly specimens of weird-ass flowers no one ever heard of and which did poorly on my porch, so this year I wanted to get an early start.
Surprise! The flowers were fuller and brighter than last year, and a lot cheaper--half what they were last year! I think last spring something must've gone wrong in the begonia industry. We loaded up the car.
Back home, we gave them a good drenching and hung them all around the porch. Took maybe half an hour, all told. And now my gardening is done!
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May 5, 2019
Bite Me! (Well, Not Really)
I've posted a story at Curious Fictions. "Bite Me" was the cover story for CHICKS AND BALANCES. Go look! https://curiousfictions.com/authors/560-steven-harper
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Go Me!
I've lost 15 pounds in the last few weeks. Go me! But I have to give a chunk of credit to Darwin.
See, after the Great Hospital Trip of Doom, Darwin suddenly became a great deal more careful about monitoring his blood sugar. He flipped over to a high-protein, low-carb diet. He won't touch bread, or pasta, or potatoes, or even brown rice.
As head chef in the house, I found myself under orders to find acceptable substitutes for all carbs. Potatoes were once a standard side dish, but now? Out with them! Rice and noddles are forbidden. I stopped making cookies. Darwin can't eat them, even if I make them without sugar (the flour still spikes him), and for some reason, it never occurs to Max to eat them. They grow stale in the cookie jar. No more cookies. Chips are contraband. Carb-heavy store yogurt is gone.
This isn't the first time we tried this. See, a couple years ago, I bought a couple diabetic cookbooks in an attempt to find healthy foods Darwin might like. The books were AWFUL. The recipes were TERRIBLE. Either they required exotic ingredients or insisted on tasteless substitutes for flavorful foods. Additionally, Darwin was simply uninterested in lowering his carb intake, and would happily sabotage my low-carb attempts by cooking up some ramen or ordering macaroni and cheese at a restaurant. I didn't see the point in working hard to change things around for nothing, so I stopped trying.
This time, Darwin's mind-set has become more stringent, but instead of using the awful cookbooks (and the dumb-ass web sites that abound everywhere on this topic), I started relying on my own instincts and knowledge. A bunch of recipes are simply discarded. Others I modified
Potatoes became butter-sauteed carrots or steamed cauliflower. Rice and noodles transformed into quinoa. Stews and curries are chockful of turnips. Chips flipped over into peanuts and sunflower seeds. Store yogurt changed into home-made yogurt with artificial sweetener.
A side-effect of all this is that my own diet changed. I'm generally not up for cooking two different dinners, so I eat what Darwin does. Thanks to him, I've lost considerable weight.
Go me!
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See, after the Great Hospital Trip of Doom, Darwin suddenly became a great deal more careful about monitoring his blood sugar. He flipped over to a high-protein, low-carb diet. He won't touch bread, or pasta, or potatoes, or even brown rice.
As head chef in the house, I found myself under orders to find acceptable substitutes for all carbs. Potatoes were once a standard side dish, but now? Out with them! Rice and noddles are forbidden. I stopped making cookies. Darwin can't eat them, even if I make them without sugar (the flour still spikes him), and for some reason, it never occurs to Max to eat them. They grow stale in the cookie jar. No more cookies. Chips are contraband. Carb-heavy store yogurt is gone.
This isn't the first time we tried this. See, a couple years ago, I bought a couple diabetic cookbooks in an attempt to find healthy foods Darwin might like. The books were AWFUL. The recipes were TERRIBLE. Either they required exotic ingredients or insisted on tasteless substitutes for flavorful foods. Additionally, Darwin was simply uninterested in lowering his carb intake, and would happily sabotage my low-carb attempts by cooking up some ramen or ordering macaroni and cheese at a restaurant. I didn't see the point in working hard to change things around for nothing, so I stopped trying.
This time, Darwin's mind-set has become more stringent, but instead of using the awful cookbooks (and the dumb-ass web sites that abound everywhere on this topic), I started relying on my own instincts and knowledge. A bunch of recipes are simply discarded. Others I modified
Potatoes became butter-sauteed carrots or steamed cauliflower. Rice and noodles transformed into quinoa. Stews and curries are chockful of turnips. Chips flipped over into peanuts and sunflower seeds. Store yogurt changed into home-made yogurt with artificial sweetener.
A side-effect of all this is that my own diet changed. I'm generally not up for cooking two different dinners, so I eat what Darwin does. Thanks to him, I've lost considerable weight.
Go me!
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