Hanne Blank's Blog, page 13

once more into the breach

I'm writing a couple of book proposals right now, and it's always more surprising than it should be just how great a leap of faith it is.  Book proposals — like dissertation proposals, for those who are more familiar with that process — require you to do some but not all of your research and planning ahead of time, so you can explain to other people what it is that you intend to write and why they should endorse you to do so and write you a contract and give you money so you can buy the cat food while you're working on it and all that.

Except of course that you haven't actually done all the research and planning.  So you don't really know all of what the book is likely to involve or contain.

Since you've done relatively little writing on the topic, you also haven't necessarily found the approach or the voice you will want to use when you write the actual book.  There is additionally the highly functional temptation to write the proposal in a somewhat breezier and more engaging (see also seduction mode) tone than that in which the book is likely to be written.  This is facilitated by not having done all the research and planning and not knowing all of what the book is likely to involve or contain, naturally, as anyone who has ever made 20 minutes of cocktail conversation out of a headline and three sentences of the lede of a newspaper article can tell you.  Knowing very little is an asset if you wish to remain free to be insanely entertaining.

This makes for treacherous going.  How do you map out, for example, a prospective table of contents for a book when you don't actually know all that it will need to encompass?  This is the task in which I am currently embroiled, and I do not mind admitting that it gives me stage fright.  I do not get stage fright when it comes to actual performance, I never have.  But this wakes up the butterflies in my stomach.

Handwaving is, to some extent, appropriate to the task.  But at the same time you know — or at least you do if you've been through this process before — that no matter how many times you include the words "provisional" and "projected" in a proposal, any editor who is willing to buy your book will have found something in your proposal to which sie has become a little bit attached.   You will not necessarily know what this is, but you will find out, sure enough, if it ends up not being part of the final manuscript… or even if it is just substantially different from the way in which it was originally described in the proposal.  Killing your own darlings is difficult.  Killing someone else's can be… sticky.

So you try to be careful, but there can at this stage be no guarantees. You try to be conservative in your scope, but at this stage, you know that it doesn't matter what lines you draw now, you'll be coloring outside of them shortly after the ink is dry on the contract.  You try to be moderate in your tone, even though you want to catch people's attention, to make them think the book is a wonderful idea, knowing that you don't actually know whether the book will sound like you're making it sound right now.  All you can do is make educated guesses and speak calmly and clearly while you smile and try not to look too confused.

You do all that and you know you are simultaneously a) telling the most fair and transparent version of the truth about your proposed book that you have to tell right now and b) making things up as you go along and lying through your teeth.   As nervewracking as I find it, it's all part of the job.  Being a writer means writing proposals while simultaneously accepting that the process of writing a book changes both the author and the book.

If it doesn't, I daresay you're doing it wrong.

 

                                      

Taishan or Iowa or Anywhere

As a non-Chinese, white American cook who cooks a lot of Chinese and Chinese-style food, I have taken a particular interest in what happens to American ingredients when they're used in a Chinese idiom.

There's been a fair amount written about "American Chinese food," which as some of you probably know is its own culinary vernacular with its own history and traditions — see also Jennifer 8. Lee's book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles, among other sources, or the neat little piece in the first issue of Lucky Peach about yatka mein — that centers around how Chinese food adapted to America and Americans adapted to Chinese food.  I don't have or pretend to any kind of encylopedic knowledge on the subject, though I find it fascinating.

Partly it interests me because it's relevant to the way I cook.  I cook a lot of Chinese and Chinese-influenced food.  In terms of ingredients, I cook what I can get that's good and fresh that I enjoy.  And, especially in summer, a lot of what meets those criteria is what grows here and what is native to the landmass that I live on.  Squash.  Beans.  Sweet corn.  Tomatoes.

Which is, in essence, also what a lot of Chinese cooks did when they came to America, and what a lot of Chinese cooks do today when originally American ingredients show up in Chinese markets.  I have never encountered a vegetable that a Chinese cook couldn't and didn't happily make use of.  Just because things like tomatoes and sweet corn aren't native to China doesn't mean they haven't become part of the Chinese food culture.  They have, with a vengeance.

One of my favorite Chinese recipes for high summer includes both corn and tomatoes, as it happens.

I first discovered the Cantonese penchant for combining corn and tomato in the form of corn soup with tomato, which is usually made with chicken broth for its base, and seasoned with ginger and a little garlic and some sesame oil and maybe some cilantro.  Sometimes it has minced velveted chicken in it, sometimes egg beaten and swirled into the boiling broth to make "egg flowers" or "egg clouds," sometimes a little soft tofu cubed and dropped in just long enough to heat all the way through.  You can also make it with a broth made from boiling corn cobs after you've sliced off the kernels, which is actually quite nice, sweet and comforting.  Or you can make the corn cob broth, then simmer chicken or pork or dried mushrooms in it.  Or more than one of those things, which takes things from merely nice to quite decadent.

This was very very good.  Then, later, I encountered stir-fried corn and tomatoes, I think in a recipe by Mary Tsui Ping Yee if I'm not mistaken, and I think my heart skipped a beat.  You need roughly equal quantities by volume of sweet corn cut off the cob and tomatoes, chunked into largish but still bite-sized pieces.  Don't waste your heirloom tomatoes on this unless you are growing them yourself and have a surplus.  You want a reasonably firm tomato for this.  Field tomatoes are fine.  Plum tomatoes are good too.  So long as the tomato has good flavor and a good amount of acid, it will be just fine.  (Don't use yellow tomatoes.  They are like a certain flavor of Regency heroine, pretty and highly-bred and anemic.)

You'll want a fairly goodly amount of green onion, diced, about half again as much by volume as either of the other vegetables.  You need a little cooking oil, like peanut or canola.  You need a little brown bean sauce, which is a concentrated semi-fermented salty paste you can get at Chinese markets.  A blob about the size of an egg yolk seems to work out OK most of the time for me. (Or you could use some dark miso, which would be different but still good.)  A skosh of Asian sesame oil.  And you'll want to have on hand a few tablespoons of cold water in which a couple teaspoons of cornstarch have been mixed.

It's a simple simple dish.  Heat the wok, swirl in a little cooking oil, add the corn, stir-fry until it's starting to brown in places, add the tomatoes, toss in the  brown bean sauce (how much depends on how salty it is, and how big a quantity of veg you are cooking — you can figure it out, it's not rocket science), stirfry as the tomatoes release some water, and to finish the dish, throw in the green onions, stir, and then add about half of the cornstarch/water and stir it well while letting it heat through to activate the thickening power of the cornstarch.  If this doesn't thicken the dish adquately — it should end up like a thick gravy — add the rest of the cornstarch/water and stir it well and let it cook for another minute or two.

Serve with rice.

If your bean paste is not super salty, you may want to add a little soy sauce or fish sauce, depending on how you roll.  Black soy is nice because it is slightly sweet, which plays well with the sweet corn and sweet tomato.  Fish sauce is funky and salty and a revelation with tomato in any capacity.  Fish sauce with sweet ingredients is definitely a South Seas sort of move.  It's delicious either way, in Taishan or Iowa or anywhere you have corn and tomatoes and an appetite.

                                      

the new world order

On the left, a fez. On the right, a Fez.

 

Since Mrs. Calabash's death, our younger cat, Fez, has become extremely demanding about attention.  When Callie was alive, Fez bullied Callie for affection multiple times a day.  There was a great deal of forcible ear-washing, back-of-neck washing, and snuggling.    She's an odd little cat, this spotty little creature, one who will come and scream at you for twenty minutes without letting herself be touched, only to collapse into an ecstasy of purring and kneading if you later come sit down next to where she has ensconced herself on the bed or the couch and give her some skritchies.  I don't think this is so much getting the hang of seeking attention from the monkeys as it is an expansion of earlier patterns and habits… she's always done it, to a lesser degree, with her monkeys.  (This is a cat who has always been a few bubbles off plumb.  She also sings to her litterboxes.  Not while she's in them, just while she's deciding which one she wants to use.)

One thing Fez seems to appreciate a great deal in the absence of the Elder Statescat, is the presence of the BeloveDad, who spends fairly lengthy periods sitting on the couch or in an easy chair, and can thus be colonized for catkind with relative ease.  She has taken to sitting with him once or twice a day, often snuggling up against his leg when he sits on the loveseat in his bedsit.  For his part, he will crook one arm around her and with the other hand stroke her head and rub her ears and nose, which she loves, and together in this way the two of them can pass quite some time.

Occasionally, the BeloveDad falls asleep during the cat-loving process, sort of halfway slumped over the cat, who seems quite content with the arrangement.  He had done so just the other day, when I went to wake him to tell him that I was leaving the house to run an errand, since I didn't want him to wake up and be alarmed to find himself all alone in the house.  I said the BeloveDad's name loudly, but got no response.  This is not unusual, since he has poor hearing, so I laid a hand on his shoulder and gave it a gentle shake.

One of the BeloveDad's eyes opened just a tiny bit.  He gestured with one finger at the cat snuggled beneath him and, in a very firm whisper, said "Sssh, the baby is sleeping."

I am relieved to know that our new household priorities are firmly in place.

 

 

                                      

Urban Femme Renewal

One of the ways I have been staving off cabin fever during this abominable heat wave has been by engaging in acts of Urban Femme Renewal.  This is a category in which I put all the various self-care and beauty rituals that I am usually too busy to do on anything like a regular basis, but which I enjoy and like to do when I can.  What with the heat and all, though, I've had some spans of time in the past few days where all I was really good for, even with a/c and unlimited supplies of iced Peet's "Pride of the Port," was settling in for a nice leisurely session of girly whatnot.

I do not cotton to this whole idea that the product you use makes or breaks your beauty ritual.  There are a few cases in which I have a moderate amount of brand loyalty, to be sure, but what brands I am attached to I like simply because they do exactly what I need them to with a minimum of doing things I don't need them to.  For example, I do not need a moisturizer that makes me smell like a teenaged girl after a session at the perfume counter at Macy's.  I merely need a moisturizer that moisturizes.  I do not require a razor blade that leaves a slathering of what I can only assume is meant to be protective mucus all over my legs.  All my razor blades need to do for me is shave the hair off.

This results in a certain catholicity in product use.  Many of the things I use are drugstore products, many of which work quite well and are available in formats that do not have unwanted bells, whistles, and cheap nasty perfumes.

Now that I am north of 40, taking care of my face means washing with Cetaphil and following it up with what used to be called Oil of Olay and is now apparently called just "Olay," except that everyone I know still calls it Oil of Olay.  You can get Olay stuff in unscented, hypoallergenic versions, which I recommend unless you want to smell faintly of grandma.

Once or twice a week, I scrub my face with Queen Helene's Cocoa Butter scrub.  It's an exfoliating scrub but it's not too harsh.  If I run out, I just use some oatmeal mixed with warm milk or an egg yolk, which is kind of goopy but gets the job done and leaves your skin feeling nice.  In general I believe that nothing that lathers really belongs on your face.  Most soaps are too drying and many are too harsh.  Clean oil will take dirty oil off just as well, and a little friction can't be beat.

I am a big Queen Helene fan, incidentally.  I do know a few people who look down their noses at this brand because it's cheap and tends, at least around here, to be sold in downmarket beauty supply stores.  These people are fools.  Queen Helene products have been around for 80 years for the very good reason that they do what they say they will, and they do it without selling anyone a bill of goods.  (Try the Cucumber Massage Cream.  It's fantastic as a cold cream. Or schmear on a thick coat, wait a few minutes, wipe it off with a warm wet washcloth.  Babies' bottoms wish they felt as smooth and soft as you.)

I am also an enormous fan, speaking of economical beauty secrets, of the Salux exfoliating washcloths from Japan.  You can get these at Asian markets for about $3, and they hold up very well to regular use in my experience.  What this is: about a yard of a foot-wide strip of loosely-woven scrubby fabric made of nylon.  They are long enough that you can grab both ends and scrub your back easily, they generate tons of lather from a small amount of soap or shower gel.  Every week or so I try to spend some quality time with my Salux cloth and give my whole epidermis a general resurfacing: this, kittens, is DIY dermabrasion of the kind you've experienced if you've ever gone to an old-school bath house where the attendants scrub you into a whole new skin.  You need not be quite so aggressive unless you choose.  I feel that If you tingle a little as you step out of the tub/shower, you're doing it right.  (Masculine people, incidentally, tend to adore these things.  I encourage this because nice soft exfoliated masculine people are a treat to smooch on.)

Less bargain-oriented, but still on the exfoliation tip, I cannot recommend highly enough the scrubs by Villainess called "Smooches" — they're oil-based scrubs with phenomenal scents.  The balance of scrubby to unguent is nice, and although they do, as all oil-based scrubs do, leave a film of oil on the tub/shower that leaves you with the need to scour out the shower/tub afterward, they also leave a film of oil on your freshly-exfoliated hide which obviates the need to lotion yourself down afterward.  Timewise it's six of one, half dozen of the other, but maybe you can talk someone else into scrubbing the tub.

These are particularly good on feet and knees and elbows, I find, though I also enjoy them as whole-body scrubs now and then.  The fact that you can get scent-coordinated body creams (called "Whipped") with a great texture is a plus.  In some cases you can get the perfume oils by themselves, too.  I am partial to "Scintillating," "Chloroform," and "Jai Mahal" of their regular scents, but they do a lot of special seasonal scents that I have also enjoyed.  "Pipevine Swallowtail" was one of their summer scents, and it's fantastic.  Smells like tomato plants and cut grass.

What else has been fueling my Urban Femme Renewal?  Butter London nail polishes.  Argan oil, which is great for your hair and helps keep summer frizziness down.  Bumble & Bumble Sumotech, which I mix with a few drops of argan oil for the perfect summer blend of de-frizzification and a little bit of control.  Oh, and the gorgeous handmade spritzes made by my herbalist friend Jenny, who brews them up from scratch — I currently alternate between a Green Tea/Jasmine/Rose/Orangeflower one and a Spearmint/Sage.  A few spritzes in the face feel fantastic, smell blissful, and do nice things for my complexion.

So there you go.  Product recs out the wazoo.  Not the usual sort of thing for this blog, but then again, the weather's been a little out of the ordinary too.  And in closing, I note that all of these things may be used with pleasure and benefit by non-femmes, too.  Enjoy!