Cedar Sanderson's Blog, page 195

Happy Pi Day Recipe!

It’s Pi(e) for lunch!

I’d been asked for a quiche recipe, ‘without all the fancy ingredients’ not too long ago, and today seemed the like the perfect day to share it with my readers.

Everything but the kitchen sink (because that’s hard to swallow).

I was a little surprised when this was asked, because for me quiche has always been what I jokingly call a “garbage gut” meal. In other words, what goes into it is whatever I happen to have on hand. You can make a quiche with very little effort – you don’t even need to make a crust for one, crustless quiche recipes are easy to find, and for that matter, if you just bake the custard filling in a baking dish, you have one that’s gluten free and low-carb.

For this quiche, I had the crust leftover from making the Coconut Meringue Pie, so I used that. You do not need to pre-bake the pieshell.

Preheat the oven to 375 degF

All you really need is right here. 3 ingredients, but the variations after the decimal are endless…

In a mixing bowl, combine:

4 eggs
3/4 c milk
salt and pepper to taste

You could also add: garlic powder, paprika, a little nutmeg if you swing that way, or… pretty much anything. Pepper flakes would probably be fun. Onion flakes would work nicely.

Once the eggs and milk are beaten, add about 1-2 c shredded cheese. Some sort that melts will work best here. You could incorporate a non-melting cheese like Paneer or Queso Blanco, in chunks, but you’ll want the melty cheese too. I toss in some parmesan all the time, for flavor.

Ok, at this point you’re done. You can pour the contents of the bowl into the pieshell and bake for 40-50 minutes, until the center is no longer jiggly.

Ready to go in the oven

Fresh hot quiche – let it cool just a bit, unless you like debriding your tastebuds.

But wait! This is a perfect opportunity to get rid of any odds and ends that are lurking in the fridge. Only use anything that oozes if it’s cheese. If it gets up and walks away from your hand, that shouldn’t go in here, either. You will want to keep your additions to no more than a cup or two, and if you choose to add something like frozen spinach (the First Reader made SUCH a face at me when I floated the idea of canned collard greens past him) you will want to squeeze most of the liquid out of it before mixing it in.

You could add:

chopped bacon
chopped ham
chopped any kind of cooked meat. I’ve used leftover taco meat and salsa for a ‘western quiche’
chopped cooked broccoli, or spinach, or, yeah, collard greens.
chopped fresh herbs
chopped onion or garlic
Olives
Anything you’d put on a pizza

The possibilities are endless. Also, you can prep this the night before and slide it in the oven in the morning if you want a lazy brunch. I usually wind up making it for lunch.

Pie for Lunch! and tomorrow, Cake for Breakfast!

This was a cheese and Bacon Quiche, you can see that the cheese mostly floats (I’d mixed it in and then sprinkled some on top)

Simple, easy lunch

by

Finding a New Book to Read

The Mad Librarian

Looking for a good book for the weekend? My review of Agatha H, Girl Genius books didn’t have you clicking the ‘buy’ button?

I’m going to suggest a couple of places where you can go and find cheap, good reads, and even easier, you can sign up for daily emails of recommendations so you never have to click over to a site when you happen to remember it. I found them when I was looking for places to use as advertisement of my own work, but I’d be remiss in not passing them on to all of you, as well.

The Fussy Librarian is one, which seems to have a lot of books under a dollar, and a good selection of genres you can choose from, so you’re only getting suggestions of books you might actually want to read.

EbookHounds is the other, with a cute puppy who will ‘fetch’ you your next read. I really like the way they jury their books – you have to be a good book to make it onto their shelves. So if you’re looking for quality more than quantity, I’d recommend seeing what Bailey can fetch for you.

Don’t worry too much about overlap between them, there are a lot of books out there, and with that in mind, you can choose to be choosy (now, what Dr Seuss is that from?)

Looking for the book I have on sale? Pixie Noir is $0.99 for one more day, then $2.99 for two days, before returning to the usual price. I’m contemplating a sale on Trickster Noir, as well, to celebrate the release of Dragon Noir. What say you all?

 

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Pixie Noir (Pixie for Hire Book 1) (Kindle Edition)
By (author): Cedar Sanderson



You can't keep a tough Pixie down…

Lom is a bounty hunter, paid to bring magical creatures of all descriptions back Underhill, to prevent war with humans should they discover the strangers amongst them. Bella is about to find out she's a real life fairy princess, but all she wants to do is live peacefully in Alaska, where the biggest problems are hungry grizzly bears. He has to bring her in. It's nothing personal, it's his job…

"They had almost had me, that once. I’d been young and foolish, trying to do something heroic, of course. I wouldn’t do that again anytime soon. Now, I work for duty, but nothing more than is necessary to fulfill the family debt. I get paid, which makes me a bounty hunter, but she's about to teach me about honor. Like all lessons, this one was going to hurt. Fortunately, I have a good gun to fill my hand, and if I have to go, she has been good to look at."

Dave Freer, author of Dog and Dragon, The Forlorn, and many others, says: ""To those of you who thought there was nothing new worth reading in Fantasy: Cedar Sanderson’s Pixie Noir proves that you are wrong. The author plainly knows and loves her setting and characters, and this carries through to the reader. The pace picks up throughout, so save this book for a weekend, or you’ll be complaining about a lack of sleep at work. A very good read!"



Kindle Edition:
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by

Review: Agatha H

I’m reviewing two books today, the second and third in a series. I think I reviewed the first, one, you can find that review here. It looks like I didn’t review it, but I did review the comic itself. I really enjoyed reading these two, finished the one and started right in on the other. Fortunately, they are quick reads, because I stayed up until midnight two nights in a row after starting them about 9 pm after homework was done for the day. They kept me giggling all the way through, to the amusement of my First Reader, who told me he rarely sees me react like this to my reading material. 

And I bought these two books for my daughters, not me! 

I’m talking about the Girl Genius novelizations. The Foglios have taken their brilliant webcomic and successfully translated it to a rollicking-good-fun novel. Three of them, and more coming. Agatha, the young Spark who discovers her true identity in the first novel, appears in the Clockwork Princess as a damsel on the run, but not distressed in the slightest. When she falls in with a traveling circus, she loses herself in her work, repairing the elderly machinery they use for transport and other tasks. Along the way she bonds with the strange warrior princess Zeetha, and discovers new depths to her faithful cat companion, Krosp. 

I won’t get into details, I hate to spoil it. Basically, I love the characters, the absurdity of the clanks and the setting, and the whole tangled mess Agatha makes of her budding relationships. I really like that the authors keep her practical and grounded when it comes to those – feelings are interesting, but saving her world comes first, and any way, she wants a man who would build her a really good death ray. 

Lines that made me chortle: 

An injured character insists that Agatha remain with him, “Because she’s got a great big monster-killing gun!'” he exclaimed. “And I want it, and her, right here!” 

Agatha’s comment on romance. “People keep giving me rings,” she confided in him. “But I think a small death ray might be more practical.” 

Now that I have assured you this is well worth reading, here’s the bad news. Unless, like me, you can catch the Kindle version on sale, don’t bother with the ebook. It’s ridiculously priced, especially for a book with proof-checking issues. I’d bought it in hardback as well, for my Junior Mad Scientist, who loved the first one and is looking forward to these. I then bought #3, Voice of the Castle, in paperback, which was a bit of dissonance. The covers are not even remotely similar. Not sure why, the cover on Amazon looks proper. Ah, well, the story was good. Except… This is the part where I tell you to hold off on buying Book #3 until Book #4 is ready to come out. Voice of the Castle ends on one of the worst cliffhangers I’ve seen in a while – certainly outside serial novels (which I why I don’t buy those!). 

One of these things is not like the other.

 

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Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess (Girl Genius Book 2) (Kindle Edition)
By (author): Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio



Intrigue! Subterfuge! Circus Folk!

In a time when the Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare, mad science rules the world… with mixed success.

With the help of Krosp, Emperor of All Cats, Agatha has escaped from the massive airship known as Castle Wulfenbach. After crashing their escape dirigible, Agatha and Krosp fall in with Master Payne's Circus of Adventure, a traveling troupe of performers dedicated to staging Heterodyne shows—dramatizations of the exploits of Bill and Barry Heterodyne and their allies—who are unaware of Agatha’s connection to the Heterodyne line.

Pursued by the ruthless Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, his handsome son Gil, and their minions (not to mention Othar Tryggvassen, Gentleman Adventurer), Agatha hides in plain sight among the circus folk, servicing their clanks and proving herself adept in performing the role of Lucrezia Mongfish, nemesis to—and later wife of—Barry Heterodyne. She also begins training under Zeetha, swordmistress and princess of the lost city of Skifander. Together, Agatha, Krosp, and the performers travel across the treacherous wasteland of war-torn Europa, towards Mechanicsburg, and the ancestral home of the Heterodynes—Castle Heterodyne.

But with many perils standing in her way—including Wulfenbach’s crack troops, mysterious Geisterdamen, savage Jägermonsters, and the fabled Storm King—it’s going to take more than a spark of Mad Science for Agatha to get through…

From Phil and Kaja Foglio, creators of the multiple WCCA and Hugo Award-winning webcomic Girl Genius, comes Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess, a gaslamp fantasy filled to bursting with Adventure! Romance! And Mad Science!



Kindle Edition:
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Release date September 22, 2014.

Dragon Noir: Snippet 8

You can find the other snippets here...

First Marriage

“I’d been told I’d die, after the elfshot. But hours turned into days turned into months… Mother was concerned about me, I’m sure. But she seemed more concerned that I would die and there would be no one left to carry on the Mulvaney line. Our House might have fallen into disgrace, but even among society it was assumed that after the third generation, the Crown would be petitioned and Mulvaney would rise again. And I was the fourth generation from Alonso.”

Bella murmured quietly, “I’m going to hang that portrait of him.”

I squeezed her gently and kept talking. I only wanted to do this once. “Dionaea y Eudicott is from a dying family line. She was very proud of her heritage, and that she was the last of her line. I’m not sure what she promised Mother… You know about the Fae, and conception, yes?”

Bella looked up at me, her eyes wide. The room had been growing darker as the lamp someone had lit was dying slowly, but I didn’t get up to relight it. All I could see was the pale oval of her face and the bright whites of her eyes. “Pixies, fairies – and the only difference between us is name, and custom, if you hadn’t already picked up on that – we don’t have a child unless it’s by mutual arrangement. Accidental pregnancy is unheard of, Underhill.”

“I’d known the population was much lower here, than above. But I haven’t had time to consider it, and that’s a delicate subject. No one talked to me about it. But Lom, how?”

Our hands were still interlinked on her stomach. “We both wanted. Maybe not consciously, at that moment, but we did.”

I couldn’t see her blush in the gathering dark. Her skin, darker than mine, made a nice contrast where our hands were twined together.

“Why did you and Dionaea never have children? Especially since that’s what your mother wanted?” Bella asked.

“Never had a chance.” I laughed harshly, remembering the pain and confusion of a much younger man. I hadn’t unpacked these memories in a long time. “You have to have sex to have babies.”

“When I married her, I was too sick to care. I don’t remember much of the wedding, other than being in excruciating pain, nearly blind with a headache. After… not sure when, it was probably at what mother had gotten up for a reception, I vomited. All over Dionaea, because they were making me dance. I passed out, and woke up about a day later.”

“Not an auspicious beginning.” Bella said.

“Dionaea was unhappy from the beginning, even without that public humiliation. I would not live at Elleria. It made me ill to be in it. We didn’t know then that any level of magic use poisoned me slowly, and when I’m there, something triggers me to shield. Always has, I suspect. One day maybe I’ll go spend enough time to find out what.”

“That’s why it was shut up.” Bella filled in a gap in her knowledge. I shrugged.

“That, and the family couldn’t afford to keep it open. Another bitter pill for Dionaea. She had a dowry, but it wasn’t enough to maintain that monstrous expense.”

“And you didn’t want to be Duke.”

I kissed my bride on the forehead. She was a smart cookie. “Not then, not now.”

“But why?” Bella started to sit up and I held on.

“Stay there… because I wanted you. And I thought I was dying. Seemed the decent thing to do, to take care of you and greedy me, have you too.”

Bella subsided. “So she wound up here, with you?”

“This house was built for us. Proceeds of one of my first jobs. She hated it. The only thing she got that she wanted was incorporating Ellie’s tree into it. Dionaea assumed that by having the tree in the house, Ellie would be bound to her.” I chuckled, bitter still after all these years. “Ellie was a servant of the House Eudicott, as wood elves everywhere were servants. But Dionaea forgot that servant doesn’t mean mindless drone.”

“Ellie stayed with you. Not because of the tree…”

“Not because of the tree. Because when Dion discovered that it was Ellie providing the mental shield spells for me, she almost killed her with a beating. Then she came for me, while I was sick from protecting my mind with magic, and I almost killed her.” I shrugged again, feeling a chill like a worm crawling up my spine. “She’s irrational, and she’s dropped out of sight for a century. Fae are patient, Bella-mine, and Dion is…”

“Mad. Oh, Lom…”She shifted around so she could hug me. “This is why you’re so cool with your mother.”

“Yes.”

“Is she still…?” Bella sounded concerned. I knew she liked Lucia.

“No, she’s mellowed. Still likes to be in charge, but after a century she knows better than to try and push me around.” I kissed her soft lips. “You’re the only one who gets to push me around.”

“Mmm-hhmmm…” she couldn’t make words, but I got the meaning of that approving noise. And a minute later she had the clearance to say, “I’m pushing us to bed, mister.”

Which I understood perfectly even if it didn’t make sense, and was perfectly willing to obey my queen. We both needed what she wanted. Death makes life that much sweeter.

Coffee in the Fog

I’m sitting here sipping coffee with almond milk in it, looking out at the fog. There was a train a little bit ago, with the whistle blowing all the way through town because of the heavy fog. I’m still not used to train whistles, living in New England and Alaska, trains were not part of my landscape. My life has changed so much in the last couple of years, both externally and internally. It’s got me thinking, along with Sarah Hoyt’s post at Mad Genius Club about the changes in her life since she had her first book published.

Looking back it seems like it was only yesterday I was that writer who kept flinging stories into the void and getting them rejected. The writer of no future.

I’ve known Sarah for some time now. I’ve been proud to have her as a mentor. And I know how she feels. Dragon Noir will be my sixth novel, and I look at that number and wonder where it came from. I followed a different path than Sarah did, rather than knocking at the door until my knuckles were bloody, I found a stile and went over the fence myself.

This last year, I discovered as I totted it all up for the taxman, I actually made money on the books. This was… unexpected. I’d planned for my books to come out slowly, as I’m working my way through school, and in twenty years, to have them as a back-up retirement plan. Instead, they are flourishing and demanding more of my time and attention.

Without Sarah Hoyt and Dave Freer and Darwin Garrison and Amanda Green and most of all my dear First Reader, I wouldn’t have taken those steps to climb up on the stile, and then down into the pasture, filled with a little illicit glee at evading the Gatekeeper. Without my daughter urging me to write Vulcan’s Kittens I couldn’t have moved beyond the short stories I insisted were my natural writing length. But here I am, in the ‘published’ place, and it’s not that the grass is greener, it’s that it smells like freedom.

But the fog is lifting, and I should get back to the work of the day. I have a list, and the coffee, and maybe even some writing will happen.

If you want to get the recipe for Sticky Date Pudding, by the way, and don’t forget to pick up one of Dave Freer’s books while you’re there, follow this link.  I promise, you won’t be sorry you made it, unless you wind up eating it all yourself!

Food Photography Challenges

Capturing the Light

I’ve been challenging myself with food photography this winter, while the weather is too miserable to get out and find my favorite subjects: bugs and flowers. Taking pictures of food presents a couple of challenges. The first is lighting. Natural light, as I’ve captured in the top photo of berries in sunlight from my kitchen window, is best. In the winter, and more, at the time of day I’m cooking a meal, I have complications… Which brings me to the other challenge. I’m taking pictures while I cook, and of food I’m going to feed us. So I can’t take too long at it, or risk ruining a meal. I’ve come close a few times, with delicate and time-sensitive things like pancakes. And my First Reader is very patient with me fussing over the food before letting him sit and eat.

My kitchen table, staged for photography.

I’ve been working on setting up lights for when I’m working at a disadvantage to natural light. Above you see a clamp-on light attached to one of my kitchen cupboard doors, reflectors, and the table I do most of my shots on. Little kitchen, not a lot of room to work with. Also, I really need to find a different curtain since that’s my de facto backdrop. My summer curtains are a nice sunshiny yellow, but the heavy curtain helps with heat retention in this old house. Always compromises, and the photography has to work around them.

Shot of fresh bread with the clamp light and reflectors, plus built-in flash.

I don’t always take pictures of food at home. Sometimes it’s a quick capture of food when we’re out. Like the Mexican place I found at the big flea market, street food and delicious! For this, my cell phone isn’t good enough. For one thing, the phone I currently have stopped focusing properly shortly after I got it, and I haven’t yet figured out if it’s a hardware or software issue. For another, the big camera just takes better shots.

Tacos and soda, simple and so good.

I have a neoprene slip case, and the camera fits in my purse, even if the First Reader does tease me about the size of my purse from time to time. I like to have either the DSLR or the point-and-shoot Olympus with me, because you never know when you’ll find something you really want a picture of. Like your impromptu lunch! I don’t take much time with these pictures, when you see the shots I’ve taken in a restaurant they were done as quick snaps, as I feel self-conscious doing this in public. Not as much here, because this was essentially street food and anyway, I was telling the folks who cooked this how good it was.

On the left, lengua, and on the right, barbacoa.

The last thing I’ve started doing is collecting little bits and pieces to enhance the food photos. This includes things like placemats, which I didn’t have, pretty dishes, and garnishes. I can’t do too much of this yet, we haven’t room for much frou-frou in this kitchen, and with a move looming ahead in a mere year or two, I don’t want to have too many things I’m attached to. But they are fun to find at yard sales and flea markets.

The red dragon! It could be Beaker from my stories. I found two of these little teacups in a junk shop.

On Women and Writing, and Science

Dave Freer has an excellent article over at the Mad Genius Club today, and I wanted to share a bit of it – I encourage you to go over there and read the rest, if you like, but like him, I raise an eyebrow (maybe both) at someone who states numbers with no data to back them up. Makes you wonder where those numbers came from, and why they smell like that.

Justina Robson has put up an appeal in The Independent (UK) for more women to give sf a chance. Now, that’s an idea I don’t have any problem with. Me, I want all nice girls and boys, and nasty girls and boys, and all furry green aliens from Alpha Centauri, to give it a chance. What I disagree with her about is that women can’t deal with science and math in it, and somehow ‘the patriarchy’ is making it seem unattractive. Maybe there are physics or math or engineering students or lecturers who really don’t want pesky girls in their treehouse. Most of them that I’ve met, if you showed genuine understanding and interest in their subject, couldn’t care less if you were green and had three heads. They love their subject and if you’re one of them, other characteristics are secondary, and mostly irrelevant, except you might be the girl of their dreams because you are female and intelligent and able to share their passion – making you rare and wonderful.

 

This made me think of something that happened last week. While at school, I was talking about my writing, and someone handed me a flyer on a contest for women writers. I politely declined it. Not only would it be unfair for me, a professional, to compete against students, but I don’t think of myself as a woman writer.

I am a woman. I am a writer. I do not want to be called a woman writer. I find it highly insulting. My work should not be judged for the body I occupy, but on its own merits. Can I not compete with men based solely on my work? Or must I be patted on the head and given a stepstool labeled ‘woman’ so that I can rise to their level? I refuse it.

I love being a woman. I have borne children, a truly miraculous feeling, and I pity men, for they will never know that sensation of a heart beating inside them. I understand on a molecular level that there are differences between men and women, from the process of meiosis, to the hormones that wash a developing embryo’s brain, to the way we are raised in a culture. I understand that being a woman causes me, with my experiences. to write a little differently than a man. Less well, though? No!

And finally, because I am a STEM student, and I have homework to take care of (and thus need to wrap this up). do I see discrimination? Sure. I’ve been discriminated against in a class, within the last two years. By a literature professor (female), who dismissed my viewpoints in front of an entire class because “she’s old and experienced, but that doesn’t mean you have to listen to her.’ In my science classes? My genetics professor – quite male, and himself the father of a son – spent a significant chunk of class time ranting over the mistreatment of Rosalind Franklin at the hands of Watson and Crick.

So I don’t see it. I’m not denying that it’s happened in the past. But now? It’s gone quite the other way, from what I’m seeing, and I’m actually in the belly of the beast, as it were.

But I will not accept special favors simply because I’m female. Either I earn them, or I do not. To take handouts would not only destroy my soul, my honor, but would damage my daughters. Of my three girls, two want to become scientists. I want them to earn that, not to wind up feeling that they got positions to fill someone’s quota. That’s a corrosive sensation, and one that will do far more damage in the long run than struggling to get what you’ve earned with hard work and sacrifice.

One of my favorite authors, who writes excellent female characters. You can’t judge someone by their external appearance. It makes you a bigot, really it does.

Eat This While you Read That: Sarah Hoyt

When I asked Sarah for a recipe, I wasn’t sure what I was going to get. Sure, she’d talked for years (at her blog, According to Hoyt) about growing up in a small village in Portugal. And the favorite joke over in the comments at her blog is to watch out, or you’ll get carped.

I got carped. 

One slab of wood-hard carp!

This is bacalhau, the infamous dried, salted cod. And this is not a recipe to approach lightly. You’re going to have plenty of time to read, because from the form you see in the pot, which I started working with on Thursday, it took three days to meal on Saturday. So I recommend you begin with her fantasy set in Regency England, with dragons, and magic, and elves, and it’s difficult to sum up, but a whole lot of fun to read: Witchfinder. When you’ve finished that, there’s A Few Good Men (link at the bottom of the post) and don’t forget the Shifters series, which is practically set in a Diner. Sarah and I share a love of hole-in-the-wall dives with great food.

 

Before you start on the reading, put the dried cod into cold water (I cut the filet you see above into halves to fit it in my pot) and cover it. Put it in a cool place (I used my pantry, which isn’t heated) and let sit for about 12 hours. Go curl up with your book and a nice cup of tea.

When the time has come, drain, rinse, and put fresh cold water over the fish. Let it sit another 12 hours. Read, enjoy, and then when you drain off the second change of water, you will want to tear off a tiny pinch and taste the fish. At this point it will look almost like fresh fishmeat, but very tough. If it is still very salty, repeat the rinse, refill with water, and let it go another 12 hours.

After the first long soak.

When you have the fish to the point where you don’t taste much salt, drain, and set aside.

Reconstituted Bacalhau, smells slightly fishy, but it’s not overpowering.

Sarah takes over here, with her recipe.

Bolinhos de Bacalhau

Boil enough potatoes that when smashed they’ll be about double the codfish.  (It can be less than that, if you’re feeling generous with codfish.  One part codfish, one part potatoes is not unheard of.)  I food process the two together at this point, and add a couple of eggs, enough to make it stick together, not enough for it to be runny.  Add parsley and lemon and garlic to taste.  Salt if you overdipped the fish.

form into cakes by playing them between two soup spoons.  (Cakes will be oblong.)  Fry till golden.

Eat.

Codfish cakes with flour are southern and an abomination onto nuggan.

Another thing the village did with codfish, but which I never liked, was batter made of one egg, one spoon of flour, one spoon of water.  Beat together.  Thrown in oiled pan.  Put some codfish in middle.  Fold batter like omelet.  Fry till golden.  Eat.  (Called Isca.  Poor people’s food.  Which means we had it for lunch three days a week.    We weren’t poor.  Just ask grandma.)

 

Processed with two potatoes and two eggs.

I’ve always known that at some point with this challenge I was going to run into trouble. In thirty years of cooking, I’ve done a lot of meals. I’ve always been adventurous, and tried techniques sometimes just to say that I had done them. But along the way, it hasn’t always been smooth sailing. And for about ten minutes, I was sure I’d run up on the rocks with the Bolinhos. I was testing the oil to see if it had reached temp in my usual way, by dropping a spoonful of batter in – not much, but a bit to see what happened. It sort of sat there, so I knew the oil was still too cool.

I walked off and left it. I was still staging for photography, which is an added challenge to the cooking, and I knew from long experience that I’d fish that bit out when the oil go hot, and discard it (we have a dog. She highly approves of this tactic), and I wasn’t going far, it’s a little kitchen. When I came back to the pan, the oil was hot enough – and the bit of batter had dissolved. Oh, Carp… I fished out the lacy, crispy network of crumbs that was now floating on my oil, and dropped another spoonful in. With the cold oil, maybe the egg hadn’t cooked fast enough for the proteins to bind it together. Nope… this one did the same thing.

Quickly, I incorporated two more eggs (bring it up to 4 in the batter) and the rest of the fish into the batter. Now, it worked. Whew!

Finally, cohesive little balls of light, crispy bolinhos

With the bolinhos staying together, there was only one other big hurdle to clear. The First Reader doesn’t care for fish. He’s not opposed to trying things, though, so when I told him I was getting the first batch out, and draining it (note: use papertowels, my usual rack method does not pull out enough oil, and leaves them greasy) he came into the kitchen and tried a bite. His eyebrows went up. “It’s crunchy, and sort of like a potato pancake.” There was very little fishy flavor, mostly in some aftertaste. The texture is a lot like tempura batter – a little more solid than that, as the fibers of the cod give it a bit of ‘chew’ but it’s very light and crispy, surprisingly so.

The finished product, nicely crispy around the edges.

We also discovered that Sarah’s recommendation of a good beer was spot-on. With the oily, salty bolinhos the German dunkel we chose was perfect. We like a nice dark beer, I rarely drink beer at all, but happily gave this one, in combination with this meal, two big thumbs up.

Will we make it again soon? Well, I still have half the batter left – I wound up making more than I’d planned when I added the extra fish and egg to make it cohesive. I’ll either cook that up today, or toss it in the freezer and see what happens with it when thawed. The First Reader admitted he wouldn’t mind eating it again, once a year or so.

Served with olives, fresh bread, and a little salad.

Sarah also sent me her low-carb version of this recipe, which looks like it would be equally as good, and when a year is up, I may try it this way, too.

I made the codfish cakes with 1lb codfish, 2 cups (after cutting) of celery root.

Boil the celery root for an hour and the codfish for twenty minutes, food process together with four eggs. Because you need to balance the celery root, use some garlic powder, some dried onion (like three table spoons of the later and a sprinkle of the first.) and parsley (fresh, 1/4 cup)

Shape with spoons.  Fry in hot oil till golden. Drain on paper towels. They look like regular ones and taste pretty close too.

I recommend serving with olives, a light salad and good beer.

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A Few Good Men (Darkship Book 3) (Kindle Edition)
By (author): Sarah Hoyt



The Son Also Rises . . .

On a near future Earth, Good Man does not mean good at all. Instead, the term signifies a member of the ruling class, and what it takes to become a Good Man and to hold onto power is downright evil. Now a conspiracy hundreds of years in the making is about to be brought to light when the imprisoned son of the Good Man of Olympic Seacity escapes from his solitary confinement cell and returns to find his father assassinated.

But when Luce Keeva attempts to take hold of the reins of power, he finds that not all is as it seems, that a plot for his own imminent murder is afoot—and that a worldwide conflagration looms. It is a war of revolution, and a shadowy group known as the Sons of Liberty may prove to be Luce's only ally in a fight to throw off an evil from the past that has enslaved humanity for generations.

Sequel to Sarah A. Hoyt's award-winning Darkship Thieves, and Darkship Renegades, this is Book One in the Earth's Revolution saga.

At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (DRM Rights Management).



Kindle Edition:
Check Amazon for Pricing Digital Only

Getting it Easy

One of the big drawbacks in having moved the blog to the new hosting is that I orphaned some 450 email  followers. However, if you want to get the blog delivered to your email every day (when I post, anyway!) then that’s pretty easy to set back up. If you look below the text of this post you’ll notice there are two options. One is to fill in like you are signing up to comment (if you do comment and it doesn’t appear right away, that’s because I have it set to manually approve the first comment anyone makes on the blog. Keeps the spammers at bay) and then click the button that says ‘get blog posts by email.”

The other option is to scroll down a little further and subscribe to blog via email. Two things: one, I haven’t got any inclination to collect anyone’s info and sell it. I’m too lazy, and I hate that sort of things myself, so I wouldn’t do it to you. Second, I don’t even have access to the ‘follows blog’ list, which is why I was unable to let all the people know what was going on after the blog was moved in the first place.

Now, you may be wondering why you should do this. You don’t have to. I’m not going to make you, nor would I ask you if you subscribe to my blog if we ever meet in person. But for me, I like getting my blogs in the email, because on a busy day I can read them without the slow process of loading them on a mobile browser for either my phone or tablet. Email posts are nice that way, and I have several blogs I get in the morning and read throughout the day. If you’re really curious (or just asking for a friend) it doesn’t show up in my stats when someone reads via email without visiting the site. But I’m not terribly concerned about my site hits, I’m not trying to sell advertising here.

And before I go, a question. Currently the loose week’s schedule is as follows:

Monday – Writing or Publishing material
Tuesday – Art, either article or visual
Wednesday – Curmudgeon’s Corner or Cedar Musing
Thursday – Snippets or work in progress, and Cedar’s Otherwhere Gazette post
Friday – Book reviews
Saturday – I’m at Mad Genius Club, and a link round-up
Sunday  – Food, recipe, restaurant review, or something else. I’m currently running a long series of “Eat This While you Read That’ linking authors and their books with favorite recipes they have given me. This combines my three passions of reading, cooking, and photography.

If you’re a regular reader, is there anything you’d like to see changed up on that schedule? Added, taken away? I write this blog for you, my readers, and I want to keep you happy and coming back.

The Lazy Bloggess

Saturday Morning Tabs

I’m doing a link round-up this morning, from what I have on my open tabs this fine morning. I’ll skip the Organic Chemistry homework, unless you really want me to demonstrate an aromaticity problem? No? Ok, then…

Mad Genius Club – You too can help us assemble the greatest hits of how-to publish, write, and promote! Take a look at what I’ve put together, and suggest more topics.

Two great SF personages, one nifty listening experience. Leonard Nimoy reading Ray Bradbury short stories.

Cat’s Tongue Cookies… a Portuguese specialty. Sarah Hoyt shared this with me, and I think I’ll make them today.

An insightful post by Kris Rusch on ‘getting by’ which applies to a lot more than writing. I keep having people tell me they are surprised at what I do with my life. I point you to this post and tell you, I never learned to just get by.

Adorable pictures of a fox playing with an unkindness of ravens, I am seriously thinking of using this as inspiration for a painting. When I find time.

And last but not least! The Baen Fantasy Contest is still open for submissions until April 1st (no joke!) and although I have no plans on entering this year, you can read my last year’s submission, The One-Eyed Dragon.