Hanne Blank's Blog, page 10

October Big Big Lovin'

It's time for some more Big Big Love!  

First, we start with two very different but equally relevant and good interviews… BBL in the Jewish Daily Forward, and BBL at Xojane.com.  Check 'em out!

This coming week will find me in Philly, Brooklyn, Boston, and Northampton, MA (town of my birth).  C'mon out and say hi, buy a book, get it signed… and you're always welcome, by the way, to bring other books of mine along for signing too.

Monday, October 10 at 5:30 pm

Giovanni's Room, Philadelphia

Reading, Q&A, and booksigning

Thursday, October 13 at 7 pm

Re/Dress NYC, Brooklyn

Reading, Shenanigans, Treats, Books, and Surprises!

Saturday, October 15 at 3 pm

Good Vibrations, Brookline, MA

Reading, Q&A, and booksigning

Sunday, October 16 at 5:30 pm

Oh My! A Sensuality Shop, Northampton, MA

Reading, Q&A, and booksigning

 

And, for those of you who listen to satellite radio, I'll be on the Tiffany Granath Show on Playboy Radio on Tuesday, October 11, around 3:40 pm EST (12:40 pm PST) — I encourage you all to call in at 1 (877) 205.9796 if you have the slightest inclination.  It's always fantastic to hear a friendly voice when you're doing call-in radio!

                                      

The Housekeeping Fetishist's Shop

I am not, for better or worse, a born entrepreneur.  Or even an entrepreneuse. Which is why I want to talk about the fact that lately I have been craving for someone to open a shop that does not, so far as I am aware, exist, namely, a very carefully curated and assembled shop for the housekeeping fetishist, a class of being to which I opinionatedly belong.

It is my devout hope that someone who is a born entrepreneur/euse will make my dream a reality, you see.

You may, even if you are but a haphazard and occasional housekeeper, have noticed that many housekeeping tools and products are, not to put too fine a point on it, crap.  They don't do whatever it is that they are intended to do very well.  They don't do it in a way that makes your life easier.  They don't do it effectively, efficiently, and directly.  They are, sometimes, more trouble than they're worth.

I will not enter into a litany of these items, enumerating their various failings, because I'd be here for a week.

Instead I will point out, in a more cheerful vein, that there are also housekeeping tools and products that are very good indeed.  They are efficient and effective.  At their best they are also aesthetically pleasing in some way.  They produce the desired results without incurring any undesired side effects.

Finding out which housekeeping tools and products are which is a thing to which the thoughtful housekeeper –or merely the housekeeper who likes it when things actually work the way they're supposed to, thus lessening the amount of time and effort required to keep the house — pays a fair bit of attention.

But finding your way to what works is difficult and time-consuming and often frustrating.  To say nothing of the fact that along the way one ends up doing a lot of  frustrating, less-than-optimal cleaning with substandard products because it's wasteful not to use them up.

I know a fair number of thoughtful, devoted, and diligent housekeepers.  Each and every one of us has our favorites.  Our favorites, in turn, have a fairly high amount of overlap.

Would it not be a public service to make such favorites available in one centralized, purpose-driven location?  Would not someone stand to make at least a moderate income selling stuff that actually, y'know, worked?  Stuff that made keeping house more pleasant and more satisfying and thus more likely to be done on the regular?  Stuff whose quality and sense of purpose honored the often invisible labor of the people who do the housework that keeps us from living up to our nipples in boggy morasses of our own filth?

I for one would drop a fair chunk of change with a vendor who took my housekeeping as seriously as I do and offered products chosen with the same amount of care that I choose them.  I can't think that I'm the only one.

I would, for instance, love a one-stop-shopping resource where I could acquire:

Milsek furniture polish
Hand-bound, high-quality brooms
Barkeeper's Friend

Washing (laundry) soda
Tibet almond stick
A really good dustpan
Fuller Brush Company's cobweb brooms
a well-made spout brush for cleaning tea and coffee pots
well-engineered, well-built, durable rubbish and recycling wastecans
Linen kitchen towels
Lint-free cotton flannel cloths
Microfiber dust mop pads and dusting cloths

And so on.  You get the picture.  Please, if you decide to make this a reality, feel free to let me know.  I'll consult in exchange for product.

This post brought to you by the fact that I spent much of my day today cleaning my house and thus thinking fondly about many of the tools and products I use to do this, and less fondly about all the trial and error that went into figuring out which ones those would be.

 

 

                                      

"You can get freaky at any size and it can be good."

As we say here in Baltimore: I know that's right.

Listen to that woman.  She knows things.

But, and it's a big but (even bigger than my own firm but pliant caboose): do not make the mistake of assuming that unless and until your self-esteem and body-love are at a point where you can saunter through any room utterly starkers and feel like a sex bomb every step of the way, at any time, any day of the week, you are "not there yet."

Do not make the mistake of assuming that unless you already possess all the self-acceptance, body love, and size-positivity in the known universe, you can't be confident and happy in sexual situations.

Or indeed, any situation.

Self-esteem and loving your body are not nouns.  They're verbs.  They're not destinations, but journeys.

There's a reason that once upon a time we might've called making a journey "a progress."  I'm just sayin'.

None of us are always "there," in that mythical magical land of loving all of ourselves, all of the time.  That's okay.  That's normal and real and human.

So. Let's not turn our failure to always be a resident of some imaginary wonderland of total constant perfect self-adoration stop us from being people with bodies having experiences.

Cut yourself some slack.  Take a step back.  Find things to laugh about.

(There's a lot of absurdity out there.  Just because everyone else is acting like it's all SRS BSNS doesn't mean it is.  If your inner 6-year-old wants to laugh at it, that's a good sign that it probably really is kind of absurd.)

It's all going to be okay.

You're a person with a body having an experience.

See what there is to enjoy about the experience.  See what there is that you might enjoy more if you leaned more to the left, or said "right there, just like that" in a timely manner, or let yourself out to play a little more freely.

There is no prerequisite level of self-confidence or body love that you must attain first in order to do this.

It's a bit like what Mrs. Avoirdupois says about having a "beach body":  "Have a body, take it to the beach!  How often the simple solutions elude us!"

How do you have a happily sexual body?  Have a body.  Have sexual experiences with it and in it, and see what there is to enjoy about those experiences.  See if you can figure out ways to experience more of the enjoyable stuff.

That's how it works no matter what you weigh.

That's how it works if you woke up this morning thinking that your thighs were too big, or your boobs were too small, or you didn't have enough muscles, or your pubic hair was funny-looking.

That's how it works if you didn't.

That's what each and every one of us, fat or thin or otherwise, has to work with.

The thing that's going to reliably get you walking across the bedroom naked thinking "this is going to be awesome" is nothing more, and nothing less, than the knowledge that you're a person with a body and you're going to have experiences and you're going to bring the best game you've got.

Which is how you have good sex.

And everything else.

 

 

All shall be well,

and all shall be well, and

all manner of thing shall be well.

— St. Julian of Norwich, 1343-1420

                                      

No, it is too much! Let me sum up!

Big Big Love launches with a big big splash this weekend here in Baltimore.  I'll be bringing out the homemade cupcakes at Atomic Books on Friday night, 7-9.  And the only My Big Fat Sex Workshop I'm teaching this fall at Sugar on Sunday.  Be there!

And speaking of Big Big Love, I am honored to present to you this wonderful, heartfelt, touching fan video about the first edition, made by the one and only Sugar Monster.

Big Big Love Q&A from The Sugar Monster on Vimeo.

(If you make a fan video about one of my books and tell me about it, I'll put yours up in this blog, too!)

                                      

Big Big Love in Salon

The fabulous Tracy Clark-Flory interviewed me about Big Big Love and fat sex in general for Salon.com.  It appeared over the weekend, and has been getting lots of attention.  Check it out!  (But as for the comments, as ever, caveat lector.)

I've done several other interviews that haven't hit print yet, but I will keep y'all posted when they do.  This new Big Big Love seems to be stirring up a lot of interest, which is really exciting to see in a number of ways.  The first edition was so out-there, for its time, that it was kind of difficult to get mainstream media venues to pay attention to it.  But times change, and so do people's ways of thinking, and it's fascinating (and affirming!) to see some concrete evidence of that.

Oh and!  My upcoming book Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of Heterosexuality got a very nice little review in Publishers Weekly yesterday.  You'll be able to get your hands on that one in January, 2012.

                                      

more than the sum of its parts

All the best cookery is more than the sum of its parts.

Pie is no exception.

This pie has a total of 10 ingredients.  11 if you count water, which traditionally doesn't get counted in recipe-writing. Your pie could have even fewer, potentially, and still be glorious.

Pie crust should not scare you.  If you own a food processor it is so easy it's almost embarrassing.  Even if you don't own a food processor it's not exactly juggling spent nuclear rods whilst rollerskating down the Filbert Steps.

Here is the ratio you need for a good basic sweet pie crust, sufficient for one 9 inch double-crust pie or 2 single-crust, with a little left over for baking in little strips as a snack.  Because snacks are important.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
16 Tablespoons unsalted butter (or vegan margarine), chopped into quarter-inch cubes
4 Tablespoons nonhydrogenated solid vegetable shortening

Have your fats ice cold and by ice, I mean put them in the freezer for 12-24 hours.  Having your flour be cold is also a good idea.  I store mine in the freezer.  The colder the ingredients the flakier and nicer your pie crust will turn out.

When you're ready, make yourself up a big measuring cup or small bowl of ice water.  Pack it with ice cubes, then fill with water.  Stick a tablespoon measure in there so you have it ready when the time comes.

Place the dry ingredients in your food processor.  Pulse once or twice to combine.  Add the fats and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal.  Not sure what that means?  Well, if it looks like wet sand looks when you stir it up with your toes, that's about right.

When you get to this point, pour this mixture into a large mixing bowl and grab a fork.  Sprinkle 7 Tablespoons of ice water over the top and begin to stir it in.  The mixture will clump, which is what you want.  You want to encourage the clumps to get bigger and to incorporate more and more of the flour/fat.  This takes some strength!  Some force!  This will not come together like iron filings clumping onto a magnet, you have to push and mash.  But do use a fork, because the heat of your hands can toughen the dough. Work quickly.  Pie crust making is a brusque and short process.  Don't think you have to baby it.

Sprinkle on another tablespoon or two of water once you get to the point where no more will incorporate easily.  It should take no more than 10 T total (and may take somewhat less) to get all the dough to come together.

When it has come together and you have a nice big heavy dense mass of dough, turn the dough out onto a floured surface.  Cut it in half.  Pat each half into a disc about as wide as your hand from heel to fingertips.  Pat the edges so that there are no big cracks.   Work quickly and handle the dough as little as possible, because again, the heat of your hands can toughen the dough.  It doesn't have to be pretty!  Wrap each one in plastic and put it in the fridge.  The cooling off time will let the flour absorb the water without creating gluten (which would toughen your pie crust).

So you have a pie crust.  Now, what to put in it?  This time of year in the northern hemisphere I strongly recommend some kind of apple situation.  Here's what I put in the one pictured above.

Apples — I used Bramleys, which are an outstanding cooking apple.  Any good cooking apple will do.  Cooking apples are tart, dense, and hard, not the crisp sweet things people look for as eating (dessert) apples.  Some possible varieties: Pippin, Empire, Northern Spy, Pink Lady, Gravenstein, Hubbardston.  Some apples normally used as eating apples, like Granny Smith, will make a decent pie.  But others, such as Honeycrisps or Red Delicious, do not make a good pie at all.

I usually prep my apples for pie this way: quarter, core, and peel, then slice across the quarters the short way into thin slices (7-9 slices per quarter apple).  This lets them stack evenly in the pie, increasing the likelihood that your filling will be dense, which is both satisfying from an eating perspective and architecturally preferable to ones that run all over when you cut into the pie and have to be served with a spoon.

Dried tart cherries — entirely optional, but nice.  You could as easily toss in a few handfuls of whatever other dried fruit you liked, chopped into small bits if required.  Raisins are good, so are chopped unsulfured unsweetened dried apricots.  But you can also just have apples.

cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice — these are the classic seasonings for an apple pie.  Heavier on the cinnamon than the other two, and you'll be using them in a powdered format.  Season to taste.  I'm also fond of Penzey's premixed Apple Pie Spice, which is delicious and convenient.

a little sugar — if your apples are super tart, or you just like a sweeter pie, add a little sugar.  A few tablespoons, no more.  It doesn't matter what kind of sugar you use.  White, brown, maple, whatever you have that you like.  But you don't have to add any sugar at all if you don't want it.  And sometimes you don't.

Mix your prepped apples, dried fruit (if using), spice, and sugar in the same bowl you mixed your pie crust in.  Don't wash it first, you want the remnants of flour and butter to get mixed in with the apples to help thicken the filling.  If you did wash it already, just toss in about 2 Tablespoons of flour when you mix the apples/spice/sugar, then dot the top of the fruit with a few small pats of butter before you put the top crust on the pie.

OK, so now what?

Now you roll out the pie crust.  Get your rolling pin out, and the pie plate you'll be using.  You'll need a big flat surface to roll on, and some flour to dust the surface with so the crust doesn't stick.

Roll one half of the pie crust out so that it's in a rough circle (this is not geometry class, don't stress) that is about 3 inches bigger around than your pie crust.  It should be evenly thick.  If it tears, moosh the torn edges back together and pat them down gently.

Transferring the rolled crust to the pan can be tricky unless you know how.  I'll tell you how.  Loosely and gently roll it up around your rolling pin, then lift the pin and the crust over the edge of the pie plate, then unroll and drape the crust across the pie plate.  Gently tuck it down into the pie plate so that the crust conforms to the shape of the plate.

Fill the pie!  With most fruit pies you want the fruit to stack pretty densely.  For apple pie, this means that most (not all, you needn't get all obsessive about it) of the apple slices will lie on their flat sides.  I also believe in filling a pie fully, which for fruit pies means that they need to appear slightly over-filled when you put them in the oven because fruit cooks down.

Obviously, the amount of fruit will vary depending on the size of your pie plate and the size of your fruit pieces: larger pieces take up more room, smaller ones can be compacted into less space. For a 9-inch apple pie, though, I usually end up using 7 or 8 apples.  More if they're tiny, fewer if they're huge.

Pat the fruit gently into place to ensure that it is happy.

Roll out the top crust the same way as you did the bottom crust.  Place it over the top of the pie with the same rolling-pin transfer method.  With a paring knife, trim both bottom and top crusts to the same size, leaving yourself an inch or a little more of seam allowance — where the crusts touch at the side of the pie — all the way around.

Pinch those "seams" together and fold them up and in toward the center of the pie to make a rim of sealed pie crust.  You can get decorative if you like, with pinching little divots into it or whatever, but that's totally optional.

The last steps, before you slide this bad boy into a preheated 350F oven, are two: steam slits and a cookie sheet.  Steam slits are the slits you cut in the top crust with a sharp knife to let some of the steam escape while the pie bakes.  Otherwise the top crust will end up soggy instead of flaky.  You can make these decorative or you can just stab the thing a few times and call it good.

A cookie sheet (preferably one with a rim all the way around — jelly roll pans are great for this if you own one) is what you put the pie plate on before you put the whole thing in the oven, so that in the not unlikely event that the pie oozes some juice out of the pie plate, it doesn't end up on the floor of your oven.  It's easier to wash a cookie sheet than it is to clean your oven.

Then you bake your pie.  How long?  Until the top crust is sweetly golden all over.  Not brown, just gold.  But definitely not pasty white.  The small amount of browning is crucial — the crust tastes better, the texture is better, and the additional cooking time it takes to get the pie nice and golden is a good way to make sure your fruit is thoroughly cooked.  Usually this takes about an hour, maybe a little more or less depending on your oven and whether you're cooking anything else in the same oven at the same time.  You're allowed to start peeking to see if doneness has been attained at around 45 minutes of baking time, but remember that every time you open the oven to peek, you let heat out and so it will actually take a little longer than you think.

If you do this a lot it becomes second nature and you can whip out a pie in barely more than 2 hours start to finish including the time it takes to make the crust and peel the apples.  And during that second hour, you can clean up the kitchen and still have time for a cup of tea and some quality time with a crossword puzzle.  Or Minecraft.  Or your cat.  However you roll.

 

p.s.  The leftover scraps of pie crust?  Collect them, moosh them into a ball, roll them out thin, cut into strips, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar,  and bake for about 15 minutes while the pie is baking.  When they are golden brown, pull them out and let them cool a little, then eat them with that cup of tea.

 

                                      

Picture this

I post this so that you are all aware of what it looks like around here when I am writing books.  Fez rides into literary battle on my shoulder on a regular basis.

It will be a little less painful in a month or two, when I am regularly wearing a sweater or a hoodie while I work.  She is sharp.

                                      

And the winnahs are…

Withoutscene and Glenda, please email me your mailing addresses.  I shall be adding your additions to my bio posthaste, and then sending you each a book!

In other important news, those of you in the mid-Atlantic might wanna know specifically about a few upcoming events that are happening this weekend and next…

On Saturday night (the 24th) I'm moderating a panel on Diversity in Genre Fiction at the Maryland Romance Writers stage at the Baltimore Book Festival.  Panel starts at 7 and like all Baltimore Book Festival events, it's free and open to the public.  There will be books on sale, including Big Big Love and Virgin and Unruly Appetites, and it looks like a great panel of writers so I'm anticipating a fantastic and insightful conversation.

Next weekend is my hometown doubleheader.  I am blessed to live in Hampden — I say that if you've gotta live in Baltimore it might as well be in Hampden — and because my neighborhood is just so damn awesome, I'll be doing two events within walking distance of my house.

Friday night, September 30 at 7 pm is the official authorized Big Big Love launch shindig at the one and only Atomic Books.  Free, open to the public…and I'm  bakin' cupcakes 'cause nothing goes better with a book launch than homemade cupcakes.   Vegan ones and dairy ones 'cause that's how I roll.

Sunday, October 2 at 6 pm I'm teaching — one time only! — my (in)famous Big Fat Sex Workshop at Sugar.  Tix are $20 (at the store, or click the link!) and there's a cap on the number of folks they can fit into their space, so sign up ASAP if you want to get up close and personal with some big big love action.  Will there be cupcakes?  Depends on how much time I have on Saturday!

Muchas gracias to Rachel and Benn at Atomic and to Jacq and her staff at Sugar for making these happen, and I hope to see you all there!  Don't be shy, now!

And!  I know I've been talking a lot about BBL in this space lately, but I'm gonna link you out to one more thing:  Illustrator Liz Tamny's blog entry about the book's release.

                                      

Big Big Love awesomeness in vlog form

Miss Mary Max's vlog on Big Big Love

 

Miss Mary Max lays it all out for you.  With extra bonus awesome readings of her favorite bits.

                                      

Write my bio, win a book!

This got kind of buried at the end of yesterday's long book day post so I'm reposting… Win a copy of Big Big Love! This time I'm giving out two books instead of one.

How to enter:  before 5 PM Eastern Standard Time on the 22nd (tomorrow), leave a comment below in this very blog (hanneblank.com/blog for those of you reading it elsewhere), 100 words or less, in which you detail a completely made-up, fictitious anecdote for my imaginary biography.

Tell me about the time I dug a tunnel under the prison wall only to end up in a septic tank.  Or the time we got stuck in traffic and ended up having a dance party in the bed of the pickup truck stuck in the lane next to us.  Or that time we were trying to earn money busking so we could finally get a ticket out of that backwater spaceport and get back to Alpha Centauri, but the only song we knew all the words to was "Stairway to Heaven"… well, okay, so that one's not fiction.

You get the idea.

Best two win books.