Cheyenne Blue's Blog, page 20

Busy-ness and slow food

I’ve been running around like a blue-arsed fly this week. Moving housesit, which means the old one has to be left spotless and pets reassured they’re not being abandoned, and then into the new housesit, which means lot of blundering around opening cupboards and saying “Surely they have a kitchen scale/lemon squeezer/coffee plunger?”. This is a repeat assignment so it’s a bit like settling back into a friend’s house. The pets already know and love us, and the view is as great as it was when last we saw it.

This particular house is owned by a real foodie, so I’ve been diving back into his cookbooks and planning our meals around recipes I’ve always wanted to try. Any esoteric Asian ingredient I could possibly want is either growing in the garden or in a jar in the pantry. Tonight will be a slow-cooked braised beef Thai-fusion curry, with the red paste made from scratch. Tomorrow will be Nargisi Kofta (sort of Indian Scotch eggs in sauce) and Aloo Gobi. I’ll be grinding and chopping for hours. Heaven!

Because I’ve been enjoying Harper Bliss’ lists of things she did in a week, here’s mine (although it’s not as exciting as hers).

- Moved housesit. We are now back with our dear doggie friends – a Tenterfield Terrier and a Mini-Foxy. Add in a very sweet, very deaf mutt into the mix and there’s endless tummy rubs and cuddles and walks.

- Tried a new sourdough method. More complex, more kneading (air kneading, which basically means throwing it around and slapping it down on the bench).

- Had a fight with the boss in The Job That Pays Me Every Week. We called it a draw, and he’s been VERY nice to me all week. Which shows that it pays to stand up to bullies. Probably not the most intelligent thing to do in pay review week though.

- Made a big batch of Tomato Kasundi.

- Talked to the accountant. Now waiting to hear the damage.

- Had cortisone injected into my knee. No exercise for a week.

- Joined the new gym that has opened up 2 minutes from The Job That Pays Me Every Week. Step Aerobics starts Wednesday! Oh, but I’ve missed that. They also have a great boxing set up. Perfect for the lunch hour.

- Thought about writing something. Didn’t.

Morning, Noon and Night

Good morning Smutters and welcome to my post on Alison Tyler’s blog tour for “Morning, Noon and Night”.

Yes, it is morning right now. 5am, Australian time, to be exact. The sun is already up, I can see kangaroos grazing in the paddock out of the window and the lorikeets are making enough racket to make sleep impossible. I’ve been up for 45 minutes, been for a run, and I’m now sitting down (all sweaty and stinky) with a coffee to write this post.

When Alison put out her call for “Morning, Noon and Night” she asked us to nominate the hour we would like to write about. Unsurprisingly, I asked for early morning, and she gave me 7am. At first, I was thinking about writing wake-up-and-pump the day sex, about hook ups at the gym, about coffee, about camping and waking way too early because nylon mesh is so crap at keeping out daylight. But instead, what emerged was a story about the change of day.

My story, “7am: Change of Shift” is about Andrea, a night-shift nurse, and Kai a junior doctor. Their working hours mean they often only connect as one is coming home from work and the other is leaving. So for Andrea, their lovemaking is sleepy-time sex, bone-tired, drifting, low energy sex, but for Kai it’s fizzing, just awake, let-me-at-the-day sex.

There’s no gyms or tents in this story, but there is coffee.

Here’s an excerpt:

He nods. He understands the jerky pace of the operating room at night: adrenaline, and hasty bites of tepid cafeteria leftovers when it’s busy; chatter, catnaps, and reheated home cooked food when it’s quiet. He glances at the clock and Andrea says, “You can sleep for another hour if you want.”

“No.” He moves to one side of the bed. “Join me?”

“I need a shower first.”

“Later. After I’ve left.” He flips the sheet back and reveals his erection, large and luscious, lying flat against his belly.

Kai’s morning time erections are indeed a thing of wonder. Kai is far from her first lover, but his cock is impressive, even by Andrea’s standards. It’s as if his arousal is tied to the dawn, running in sync with the building of the day. She’s watched him before, and as dawn’s fingers creep through the cracks in the blinds, as darkness segues to gray morning, Kai swells along with the light.

The luscious Jeremy Edwards wrote a lovely review of my story, and I wrote a review of one of my favorite stories, Kristina Lloyd’s “5pm: Somewhere”.

Do check out the rest of Alison’s blog tour. There are prizes!

1/13 Alison Tyler

11/14 Sasha White

11/15 Vida Bailey

11/16 Cheyenne Blue

11/17 Donna George Storey

11/18 Aisling Weaver

11/19 Teresa Noelle Roberts

11/20 Cora Zane

11/21 Angell Brooks

11/22 Justine Elyot

11/23 Kristina Lloyd

11/24 Preston Avery

11/25 Ashley Lister

11/26 Victoria Janssen

11/27 Always Each Other

11/28 Tamsin Flowers hosts Jeremy Edwards

11/29 Tenille Brown

11/30 Kat Watson

12/1 Alison Tyler

12/2 Sommer Marsden

Morning, Noon, Night and 7am Change of Shift

A couple of days ago, I reviewed Kristina Lloyd’s wonderful “5p.m. Somewhere” as part of Alison Tyler’s circle of love – authors reviewing authors.

Now, the lusciously literate Jeremy Edwards has reviewed my story in “Morning, Noon and Night”. I have to say that Alison’s introduction and Jeremy’s review have made me insufferable all day. Inane grinning and non stop good humor can really annoy people, especially if you don’t tell them why. Check out what Alison and Jeremy have to say. Yowsa!

Morning, Noon, Night, and 5pm Somewhere

When I receive a new erotica anthology, the first thing I do is check the table of contents. Mainly it’s to check that I’m really there (after eleven years and over seventy stories I still can’t quite believe it), but after that it’s to check who else is there. Writers that I’ve come to love over the years or the newer writer whose story I adored in a previous anthology. And although I always read the stories in order, I have a sort of mental list: “Ooooh, story by A. coming up next!” or “Clever title story by someone new to me soon”.

Kristina Lloyd is in the first category. Quite simply, I love her stories. So when Alison Tyler, editor of the upcoming “Morning, Noon and Night” called for writers with a story in the anthology to do a mini-review of another story, I jumped on Kristina. Well, not literally.

Kristina’s story “Five p.m. Somewhere” is everything I love about erotica. It’s smart, it’s clever, it’s original, it shows the imperfections and the people behind the tab A into slot B, and it’s hot.

Kristina’s story is about a couple who celebrate their wedding anniversaries by recreating the cocktails they drank on their first date: whisky sour for him, dirty martini for her. Only problem is that Brynn forgot the gin. And they’re snowed in miles from the nearest grog shop. Kristina’s character gets pissy. She sulks, she takes a bath, and that’s when Brynn shows his creative side

One thing I love about this story is the reality of it. Erotica can be, well, somewhat fantastical at times (and there’s nothing wrong with that, says the writer who once wrote about a couple having sex on the wing of a biplane). But the stories that touch me most, the memorable ones, the slice of life ones. Real people. Real situations. Real sex. Real hot sex. Kristina has nailed all of these. I love the way she works the little details so skillfully in the writing: Brynn’s hair wonky with static. The feel of a rough towel on tender places. Of a 69 with someone, not for the first time but the 1,000th. Kristina’s writing flows with a natural fluency that is so easy to read, so easy to get carried along in the story.

I’m not going to give away the details of Kristina’s story, but I defy any reader not to love Brynn’s solution to the no gin problem.

I’d like to borrow Brynn. My cocktail of choice is a Harvey Wallbanger.

Cowboy Lust – the blog tour

Today I’m blogging over at Long and Short Reviews as part of the Cowboy Lust blog tour.

Swing on over (please *puppy eyes*) and check me out.

Girls Who Score

I’m blogging today over at the website for Girls Who Score – lesbian erotica with a sports theme, edited by Ily Goyanes.

You can read an excerpt from my story “Run, Jo, Run” here.

Cowboys and Athletes

Which is not the theme of a single anthology (although maybe it should be). No, two separate collections, “Cowboy Lust” edited by Delilah Devlin and “Girls Who Score” edited by Ily Goyanes, both of which are blog-touring at the moment. If you check them out you get to preview some of the excellent stories. If you leave a comment on a Cowboy Lust post you also have the chance to win prizes – books! tee shirts! gift vouchers!

You can check out the Cowboy Lust posts here and Girls Who Score posts here.

Cowboy Lust Countdown

The countdown to “Cowboy Lust”, edited by Delilah Devlin, has begun. This collection of rollicking hot cowboy stories includes my Australian tale, “Under the Southern Cross”.

Today I’m blogging over at the Cowboy Lust website. Check it out!

How far did your breakfast travel?

I love to shop local. Buying from roadside stalls, farmer’s markets, and in the IGA which tends to have more locally sourced products rather than Woolies or Coles (the big chains).  As we were eating breakfast today, I started adding up how far our breakfast had travelled to become our breakfast. It stacked up pretty well.

Coffee from Columbia (bad start) with milk from a dairy 22 kms away.

Home-made sourdough bread (Australian flour) with a free range egg from a chook roaming around Ironstone Creek about 10km from here. Bacon from a butcher in Tewantin who does his own curing. Not sure where the pig grew up, but I’m sure it would be eligible for a Queensland driver’s licence (if it weren’t a pig!).  A sprinkling of parsley from the garden. Mandarin from the garden. Tomatoes grown by SO in his job in a local tomato nursery. Worcestershire and Tabasco sauce from god knows where but bought from the IGA.

All in all, not too bad.  Mind you, my normal eating wouldn’t be nearly this good, so I can’t hoist the virtue flag too high. Chocolate from Cadburys via Woolies because it’s close to work. Wine from Victoria because Queensland wines are diabolical and expensive. Crackers from Italy. Dumplings from China, edamame beans from Japan, and a whole heap of Asian condiments from the Pacific rim.

How far did your last meal travel?

Morning, Noon, and Night: Erotica for Couples

Alison Tyler is a goddess of erotica. No, really, she is.  When you pick one of her anthologies from the shelf, you know it will be filled with classy, hot, well written, steaming stories.  I’m at home with a cold right now, chock full of cold medicine which has sent me (and my blood pressure) stratospheric, swilling gallons of turmeric and ginger tea*, and reading “Cold Comfort Farm”. How appropriate.

However, I wish I were reading Alison’s upcoming anthology “Morning, Noon, and Night: Erotica for Couples” instead, because the line up is enough to make my mouth water, even after a surfeit of pseudoephedrine has made it drier than the moon.

A story for each hour of the day (and an extra).  You can see the table of contents over on Alison’s blog. In the meantime, check out the cover.

My story, “7 a.m. Change of Shift” is about a night nurse who returns home after her shift just as her partner, a junior doctor, is waking up for work.

 

*Turmeric and Ginger tea – it helps if you live in the subtropics where both grow freely, and it helps if you have a lovely friend called Judy who grows both in her garden.  But assuming you can get hold of fresh turmeric and ginger, then slice both finely, about half a mug’s worth, and steep in boiling water. Judy adds black pepper, but that tastes weird to me. Drink and keep drinking, hot or cold, topping it up with fresh boiling water for up to three days. After that it starts fermenting, which sounds interesting but is probably not in the best interests of health and hygiene.