Marian Allen's Blog, page 431

Is A Puzzlement

Mom and  haven’t been to White Castle for some time, so we went yesterday. We’ve been gone too long: She had forgotten how small, thin, flavorless and cardboard-like the “hamburgers” are. Maybe that’s why I, as a picky eater (this was when I was young–I’ll generally eat anything that doesn’t bite my head off first, now)…. I lost my place. Oh, yeah: Maybe that’s why I, as a picky child, liked them so much.

I still like them. There’s nothing else like them on earth, unless you soak actual cardboard in grease and put a world of fried onions on it. Mmmmm…! I do love ‘em! And the onion rings are actually, honestly, delicious. When I was expecting (expecting a child, I mean), the only thing that settled my stomach was a White Castle slider.

But I digress.

While we were “eating”, I examined the boxes and found this proud claim on the bottom:

Speaking of food, the penultimate post in the blog book tour for THE CORNER CAFE is at Monti Sikes’ Notes Along the Way.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character eats something he or she loved when younger and is disappointed. Or is not disappointed.

MA

The Queen of Foods

The other evening during supper, Charlie said, “It’s starting to taste like summer.” That’s because one of the enterprising vendors at the farmers’ market had started plants in the greenhouse and had green tomatoes to sell.

By husbandential fiat, we can’t pick any green tomatoes until after July 4th. The stakes for the Ripe Tomato By The Fourth Of July competition are high: top bragging rights for the whole year. –”I won the Nobel, Pulitzer, Pushcart, and Booker prizes.” –”Really? I had ripe tomatoes by the 4th.” –”Wow! Can I have your autograph?”

If you’ve read Fannie Flagg’s wonderful FRIED GREEN TOMATOES AT THE WHISTLE STOP CAFE, or if you’ve seen the movie made from the book, you know the store we fried green tomato eaters set by the dish.

There is no “right” way to make them. Make them the way you like them. Make them different every time. Here’s a link to the recipe used by the restaurant Fannie Flagg used as the model for The Whistle Stop Cafe. Sounds kinda frou-frou to me but, as Grandpa used to say, “If you ain’t tried it, don’t knock it.”

Here’s my recipe for fried green tomatoes, cucumber salad, ripe tomatoes and marriage, all wrapped up in a poem:

DOMESTIC SCIENCE

by Marian Allen

You can’t just fry green tomatoes,

Aunt Louisa tells me.

Can’t just toss em in a pan

Like virgins in a marriage bed.

The flour’ll come right off.

No damn good unless they’re crusty.

Slice em middlin thin and salt em.

Flour em after that. Then the flour’ll stick.

Onions and cucumbers, she says.

Soon as you pick em, while the skins are tender,

slice em kinda thin into a bowl.

Pepper and salt em–heavy on the salt.

Cover em with sweet milk and let em set.

Salt draws out the bitter,

sweet milk makes em kind.

Cucumbers can hurt you

‘less you fix em right.

Ripe tomatoes,

Aunt Louisa says.

Don’t pick em pink and

set em on a windowsill.

Tasteless and mealy, took before their time.

Pick ‘em ripe and slice em thick.

You can’t be hasty with tomatoes, girl.

You can’t be stingy.

What’s the taste of summer to you?

The blog book tour stop for THE CORNER CAFE today is Maryann Miller’s It’s Not All Gravy. Hop over and see her.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Two characters get into an argument about the “right” way to do something.

MA

Hand-Selling, Holidays, and Hoorah!

I took some of the Southern Indiana Writers’ books to the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church Dutch Fair the other day, but nobody bought any. This, despite my attempt to hand-sell to what seemed like a natural market. In spite of my stellar salesmanship, she resisted all blandishments in favor of gustatory refreshment. Tough crowd.

Still, it was a beautiful day, and I bought plenty, so that balances it out, right? Right? Right?

The Southern Indiana Writers’ anthology, HOLIDAY BIZARRE is ready to go live. I’m appalled at how many of my stories (and a poem) are in it. We started with our out-of-print CHRISTMAS BIZARRE, which had one of my stories and the poem, took out stories by members no longer attending, and asked the current membership for new stories on other holidays. I wrote one (“Lonnie, Me and the Battle of St. Crispin’s Day”) and then, afraid we wouldn’t have enough pages, added reprints of another short story (“The Cautionary Tale of Silas Rockport”) and two flash fiction pieces (“Holiday” and “Goldie”). I’m not the only one with multiple stories, of course. Don’t worry about that. It’s a good collection.

I’ve also been invited to contribute to a winter-holiday collection for which I have what I think will be an amusing idea. We shall see. Time will tell.

Hoorah! I finished my July story for The Summer Reading Trail! That will go live on July 1. It’s a cozy mystery featuring three new characters — four, if you count the sheriff.

It’s Tuesday, so I’m posting at Fatal Foodies today, on the subject of Beets. Yes, beets!

The blog book tour for THE CORNER CAFE is in its final week. Today’s post is (or will be, depending on what time you read this post) on S.B.Lerner’s blog.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character tries to sell something with no success.

MA

Clarify Your Style

Not your writing style — Well, yes, your writing style, of course, I’m not saying you shouldn’t, I’m just saying…. I start again.

My guest today, the wonderfully named Bianca Chesimard, has written a gorgeous book called STYLE CLARITY. If you’ve seen how I dress If you know me well, you know my style usually runs to blue jeans and T-shirts (That’s a style! It IS! It is TOO!). I also have a closet full of clothes I don’t know whether to keep or get rid of. Bianca is helping me, through the agency of the book and through our connection on Polyvore.

Talk to us, Bianca!

With the rise of new visual tools like Pinterest and all the fashion apps on phones, people don’t seem to talk about Polyvore as much as they used to.  But I would like to encourage everyone to give it a try! Polyvore is a fashion tool, where you can create outfits on a fashion board using pieces already stored in their system, or by “clipping” clothing items you like from the web.

In The Style Clarity Workbook, I discuss many exercises and activities that help you create a style identity. Polyvore is a great place to do some additional style activities.

You can pull in a single article of clothing that you LOVE but aren’t sure how to wear yet. By playing around with different outfit options, you can find ways to fit the item in your wardrobe. Sometimes visualization is key in fitting clothing together.

You can also find a way to create the feel of the item you like, and turn it into something workable in real life.

You can use Polyvore to store an approximation of your own wardrobe, and use it for outfit planning. You can mix and match pieces you have right from your laptop – discover new combinations to wear.

You can also use Polyvore to express your creativity. One of the subjects covered in the Style Clarity Workbook is the idea that while you have a style you love, it may not fit in your life. Suppose you have a penchant for ballgowns and elbow length gloves, but you are a preschool teacher, with very few galas to attend. Polyvore is a great place to exercise your “fantasy” wardrobe.

These are all fun ways to play with Polyvore and use it to help develop and stimulate your wardrobe!

Bianca Chesimard is the author of The Style Clarity Workbook, and the creator of the Style Clarity website and blog.  She spent several years in the data analysis field, which, combined with a love for fashion and style, led her to develop the Style Clarity method and write the workbook.  She is a wife and mother, and enjoys a stylish life in Virginia.

See you on Polyvore, where we will clearly be stylish!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Use Polyvore as many authors do, to create or discover a style for your characters.

MA

#SampleSunday – Intrusion

Intrusion

by Marian Allen

Near the sun-up gate, where the moonlight doesn’t reach at this bird-sleeping hour of the night, a blight touches the roots of a rose bush. A line of darker green… then brown… creeps up the stem, out a side-stem, along the leaf, through the veins, until it touches the tip-most leaf of another bush.

The blight spreads to the new bush like watercolor through damp paper, down the leaf-stem to the side-stem to the main stem, across and out to other leaf-tips till it finds one touching another in the sun-down direction. On to another bush.

Reaching a path, the blight subsides to the base of the hedge, then creeps across, using fallen leaves, drifted petals, grains of pollen like living stones to cross a gravel stream.

Near the sun-up gate the blight fades from the rose’s roots, its stem, its side-stem. The pink buds take back color, though they will shrivel and fall unopened. So, too, the bush beside it, then the bush beyond.

Meanwhile, the blight progresses into the garden’s core and settles in the heart of the maze, drawing its trailing tendrils after it.

It is waiting, now.

Waiting for tomorrow.

Waiting for the crowds who love to thread the maze–the crowds which, tomorrow, will find more in its center than they have ever found before.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What happens in a garden after dark?

MA

Caturday – George and Roger

Once upon a time, there was a stray cat who lived in New Albany, Indiana. One day, he met a tender-hearted young woman whose parents lived in the country and she sweet-talked her parents into taking the cat in. They named him Roger, after a similar-looking cat the man half of the couple had once had.

Then the mother of the woman half of the couple retired and bought some of the couple’s land and the man — let us call him Charlie, for that is his name — built her a house on it. The plan was that she would move there when she retired, bringing her father and step-mother with her.

During the building process, Roger spent more and more time at the construction site. By the time Mom — for it was she — moved in, she had a cat.

Roger favored Grandma, until she passed away; then he was Grandpa’s cat. He was pretty rough-and-tumble until he went out and stayed out for several days (the cat, not Grandpa), and then he was much milder. He also had diabetes (still the cat — well, Grandpa had diabetes, too, come to think of it, but anyway).

Grandpa is gone, and so is Roger. But now they’re on the internet, forever friends.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Did your grandparents have any pets? Did your main character’s grandparents have any pets?

MA

Tattoos, Zombies, and Free e-Books

Where can you find Tattoos, zombies and free e-books, all in one place? At FANDOM FEST, that’s where!

Not us. Neither of them. Sorry.

The Southern Indiana Writers Group and I (and a bazillion other people) will be there the last weekend in June (Real Soon Now).

Fandom Fest is the Fright Night Film Fest plus a Literary Track, gaming, merch, art, and media celebrities. BRUCE FREAKIN’ CAMPBELL! Sean Astin! Corey Feldman! Peter Davidson! Peeps from The Hunger Games! You may or may not recognize those names, but the people who do (crossing my eyes to look at myself) are Kermit-flailing all around the house.

Here’s the Fandom Fest home page, and here’s the guest list, and here’s the literary track (I’m on it — doing some panels, a reading, and a signing).

There will probably be many raffles and giveaways. One that I’m in on is happening online, courtesy of author J. H. Glaze. He’s giving away a Kindle and a bunch of free books, including my sf/cop/humor novel FORCE OF HABIT. Enter online.

The ‘Fest will be at The Galt House this year. Last year was somewhere else. Somewhere with no air conditioning in the literary dealers’ room. For a True Story of what happened last year, click here.

If you attend, come by one of my panels or the SIW book table and say Hey.

The blog book tour for THE CORNER CAFE continues today at From The Back Roads.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: When were you most physically uncomfortable? Make that happen to a character, but triple it.

MA

Why I Hate The Solstice

I do not like driving in the dark, especially along the back roads leading to my house. I’m not afraid of the boogie man — I’m a post-menopausal woman; let the boogie man be scared — but I do worry about being mugged by a deer. Or a possum might run out in front of me and bite a hole in the tire. Or a sweet little bunny might go tharn and I’ll have to throw on the brakes and go headfirst into a tree or a ditch. It happens.

Yes, I’m taking my medication, thank you for asking.

Woman Clothed With The Sun by Alice Pike Barney

It’s been great, having the hours of daylight increase, so I could leave on errands earlier and stay at meetings later and still not drive in the dark. Happy! Happy!

But now the Solstice is past, and the days are getting shorter. They get hotter, but The Winter King is in the ascendant.

I also love the Solstice, because it means the harvest is starting to come in: Yeah, the seasons work differently when you live in the country. Y’all city people think October and November are harvest time, but that’s more like end of the harvest and get what you can into storage to last over the winter time. That’s a nice, snuggly, abundant, tucky-in time, and I do love it, and I love all the fresh fruit and vegetables in the waning of the year.

Still.

The sun starts pulling her skirts in around her ankles and it’s dark out here. The shadows are full of cute little baby animals. ~cue the creepy music~

Okay, that’s enough of that.

I’m posting today at The Write Type about our warp-speed project, THE CORNER CAFE.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character who hates the waning year and one who loves it interact. Is it pleasant? Healing? Destructive?

MA

Pinterest Broke My Heart

Okay, so I found this recipe on Pinterest. Not really a recipe, more of a technique. Instead of — Yeah, I know, when you hear somebody say, “Instead of doing this the way everybody has always done it satisfactorily in the past, do it this other, wacky, way!” you want to throw on a full suit of body armor and run away.

But I didn’t. Shut up and listen. You’re always interrupting; that’s so rude.

Ugly eggs. Ugly, ugly eggs.

ANYWAY, this technique said to hard-cook eggs by putting them (in the shell) into a muffin tin and baking them at 325F for 25-30 minutes. So I did that. Well, they were big eggs, so I turned the oven off after 30 minutes and left them in there for a bit longer.

“So easy!” True. “Makes them easier to peel!”

Look at the picture. You tell me. Don’t look at the baking pan, by the way. Some guy came in the window and sprayed brown gunk on the pan and then jumped out of the window again and laughed and laughed. My baking pan is totally not gunky. Not.

But you know what they say: If life hands you lemons, shine your kitchen and bathroom fixtures with them; they brighten them up and make the house smell lemony fresh! Okay, the Pinterest window is closed as of now.

No, what they really say is: drop back ten yards and punt. Or maybe not. Anyway, I know they say something.

Here’s what I did: I cut the eggs in quarters and got some good ones. Put the ugliest ones together and used the prettiest ones for this picture. Dollop of mayonnaise in the middle, olives (could use cherry tomatoes) between the quarters. Sprinkled with salt, powdered mustard, and smoked paprika. Sort of a deconstructed deviled egg.

So remember, kids, just because all your friends are baking their eggs doesn’t mean baking eggs is the right decision for you to make. And, if you’re going to try out a nifty new recipe and/or cooking idea, for the love of all that’s holy, do it as I did: when you’re cooking for yourself and maybe a forgiving spouse, and not for company.

I’m a sucker for a shiny new kitchen experience, but I’m no fool.

The month-long blog book tour for THE CORNER CAFE continues today at Shonell Bacon’s ChickLitGurrl.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character ignores my advice and tries something new for company.

All This And Butt Drugs Too

My little town. Gotta love it.

Here, side-by-side (or, as the old folks put it, cheek-by-jowl — I am not making that up), we have businesses that have been around since God was a plumber and we have fabulous new places opening.

The long-standing business is Butt Drugs, established 1952. They have an actual soda fountain where you can get a soda, a float, or a cherry phosphate. If you haven’t see the Butt Drugs commercial on YouTube, go watch it. I’ll wait.

Wasn’t that a hoot?

We have a unique new restaurant called The Green Door, where top chefs produce classy food from mostly local ingredients and you pay what you think it’s worth. I’ve been told a couple of people have been asked not to come back because they didn’t think it was worth enough to cover costs, which makes for hard feelings but makes total economic sense. If you’re losing money on a transaction, you’re not going to make it up in volume.

A place that hasn’t opened yet but is already swarmed by would-be customers is the Point Blank Brewpub. Jesse Marshall Badger, top chef at The Green Door, has left that post to another top chef and is working on the foodishness at the brewpub. He has a blog, False Pretensions, on which he chronicles the foody part of his life. I’m stalking it, the better to be prepared when the brewpub opens. ~wipes drool from face~

The blog book tour for THE CORNER CAFE continues at Pat Bean’s wonderful travel blog with an entire flash fiction story by Helen Ginger! Try before you buy!

And, this being Tuesday, I’m posting at Fatal Foodies on puppodums.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Find a small business, in your town or on the internet, and read its history. Pick one incident in that history and use it as your prompt for a story.