Balls and Walnuts
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One-upped, snap!
Restaurant openings don’t make front page news in Brookings, but they should. They’re rare as golden goose eggs and (as far as I’m concerned) every bit as valuable. Imagine my delight that we have two new upscale restaurants, a reopening under new management of one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, and an expansion of my friends’ Elliot and Suzie’s restaurant, Suzie Q’s.
I had to share this knowledge with the first person possible: my favorite pharmacist, whom we’ll call Nicole.
“Some new restaurants opened up,” I said.
“Yeah, I know. The Grill is great. Good food, good service, reasonable prices. I’m going to the Nautical Inn tonight, though.”
“Eeeew.”
“Oh, I don’t want to hear that,” said Nicole. “I heard they were good.”
“They’re painfully slow. I hope you like spending all night waiting for your food.”
“Nicole’s an awesome chef,” said Stevie, Nicole’s pharm assistant.
“Really?” I said. “We oughta have a cook-off.”
“You’re a chef, too?” said Stevie. Nicole smiled like the Cheshire Cat.
“Yeah,” I said, bold as Keanu Reeves in Speed. (In other words, a total doofus who acts ballsy, and does a damned unconvincing job of it at that.)
“WELLLLLL, Nicole went to Cordon Bleu, and stayed on as faculty.”
For a moment, we all listened to the sound of tens of thousands of pills settling in their respective bins.
“You’re kidding me,” I said. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”
Nicole told me that the only folks who make any money are the executive chefs. Unless she landed one of those gigs, she’d be making eleven bucks an hour. What she really wants is to save up enough money to open a bed and breakfast.
“So what’s your best dish?” Stevie asked me.
In the face of the real thing, I gagged. No, really. Now I can think of my best dish (sweet potato ravioli in sage and brown butter sauce), but at the moment, I could only come up with focaccia.
“At least, my family seems to like it,” I said, suddenly and unusually humble.
“Yeah,” said Nicole, “focaccia’s easy. Not too many ways to screw it up — you just need to avoid overworking the dough.”
I thought: I knew that.
“Desserts are my weak suit,” I offered, now wallowing in my newfound humility.
“I would have been a pastry chef,” said Nicole.
“She makes an incredible Bundt cake,” said Stevie. “Oh, gaaawd.”
“I’m not baking for you,” Nicole told her.
“How’s your spaghetti?” Stevie asked.
“Nothing special,” I said. “But I do great meatballs.”
“Round meatloaf,” Nicole said.
“Nothing special,” I agree. “But they’re from Marcella Hazan’s cookbook and they’re awfully good.”
“Nicole has tons of cookbooks.”
“I’m drowning in them,” Nicole said.
***
Meanwhile, I’m thinking, I must cook for this woman.
Maybe she’ll reciprocate.
D.
Noooooo! Anything but cartilage!
What prompted this high-pitched wail? Lyvvie wants to pierce her nose.
I like to explain to my teenage patients that my objection has nothing to do with puritanical morality. Pierce anything else, I tell them (then dodge mom’s fist), but stay away from the upper part of the ear, and keep the hell away from your nose.
Why? Perichondritis, that’s why.
From Revista Brasileira de Otorrinolaringologia.
Perichondritis is an inflammation (and usually an infection) of the perichondrium, the layer of tissue which nourishes the underlying cartilage. If you think this picture is a one-of-a-kind fluke, think again. Here are more scary pictures.
This condition is a problem because it often leads to permanent deformity of the cartilage. If you’re a woman with long hair, you can hide the deformity with an appropriate hair style. If you’re a guy, you may be out of luck.
Nasal perichondritis is worse. Unless you’re Cousin It, you can’t hide your nose.
Lyvvie? Get your tongue pierced instead. Your husband will thank you for it.
D.
Thirteen things I learned from Cosmo, Part Deux
That last one was so much fun, I just had to buy the August issue of Cosmo. Particularly given their headliner:
SHOCKING!
THE SEX HE CRAVES
Thousands of Men Finally Admit What They’re Secretly Aching For
Guess what: thousands of men get it all wrong. More below the cut.
A Brief History of Falafel
I had me some more of Cap’n Dyke’s beet salad tonight, which means I’ll be peeing a fine Robert Mondavi Rosé for the next two or three days. And in honor of that observation, I changed the blog’s subtitle. See above.
A combination of tonight’s dinner and an otherwise blank slate from the blog muse led to tonight’s topic. Drumroll, please, for a brief history of falafel . . .
Review of Helix SF, Issue #1
Here’s the review. This is an invitation-only gig, so SF and fantasy writers, don’t get your hopes up about the new market.
Later tonight: A Brief History of Falafel.
D.
Cap’n Dyke’s aphrodisiacal beet salad?
Delicious, but it needs to come with a warning.
You are not peeing blood.
You are not crapping blood.
It’s the beets.
D.
Just friends
Am I brilliant or what? With this photo, I can (A) do some Random Flickr Blogging, (B) segue into my Smart Bitches Day post, and (C) show three hot Asian babes and one Asian guy who is even more sexually non-threatening than yours truly. Booyah!
Back to SBD in a moment. I had a great writing day yesterday: nearly 4000 words, well over that if you count blog posts and my Tangent Online review of Helix SF Issue #1. (I’ll post a link to the review once Eugie puts it up on site.) And the words they did flow. Among other things, I wrote a scene that had been percolating in my mind since the first conception of this novel, namely, Barb teaching Lori how to give the world’s best blow job. Y’all are gonna love it, I hope I hope I hope.
On to the subject of today’s Smart Bitches Day post: opposite-sex-best-buddies in romance.
End logic
Of all the books you have read, what are your favorite endings?
I’ve been thinking about endings ever since Tam wrote about it (scroll down to June 29, but along the way, don’t miss yesterday’s post on method, or the July 1st post on discipline). Tam’s bottom line:
Main storyline’s finished? Major support threads dealt with? Fine, you bastard, you’re OVER!!
Leave it to Tam to end her books with a bloody ax 😉 Anyway, I began wondering whether I could find any common themes among books I consider well-written. In the examples which follow, I’ll try to avoid spoilers, but I ain’t making any promises. I’m hoping you’ll think of your favorite endings and share some ideas with me in the comments. I’m especially interested in you mass devourers of romance. When all of the novels end in an HEA, what constitutes a good ending versus a bad ending?
On to the examples.
Butterflies, sweetbreads, and pommes frites
Seattle has two butterfly exhibits, one at the aquarium and one at the zoo. We’re not big butterfly fans (Karen, you’ll recall, is a tarantula-keeper, Jake loves his kitties, and I’m into poison dart frogs), but there’s still something mighty cool about being surrounded by hundreds of gorgeous butterflies.
At the Pacific Science Center, you enter and leave a large greenhouse-like enclosure through an antechamber. That way, the butterflies have a harder time making a break for it. The docents are vigilant about brushing butterflies off the path, so we didn’t see any colorful corpses.
Weather, for Seattle, was unseasonably hot and rain-free. The butterfly enclosure felt like a sauna. Still, how often do you get to see so many of these cuties in one place?
As for the zoo, their tarantula collection impressed Karen. Hers is better (of course!) but she was happy with their obese Poecilotheria regalis. (Arachnophobes, don’t click on that link.)
We just missed the lions having sex by about two minutes. We were within earshot and it was kind of obvious. Roar. Roar. Roar. Roar roar roar roar roar roar . . . eh, you get the idea.
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