Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Monthly Archives: July 2006
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.
(more…)
Holy crap, this is good
As part of my current assignment for Tangent, I’m reading “Going to See the Beast” by William Sanders.
What a delight. I’m only a third of the way through, but I don’t want it to ever end. Let’s see: we have Bobby Joe, Joe Bob, Ann Coulter*, and the Antichrist. Who could ask for anything more?
Go. Read it. Come back later and I’ll have more Seattle-foo for ya.
D.
*I figured it out from one of the first sentences: “She give me this little bitty smile, without showing no teeth. It made her look exactly like her picture in the newspapers that she used to write for.” Bingo! I always knew she’d be Left Behind.
Blue ovaries
In the comment thread to this post, Vanessa writes:
CAN GIRL’s GET BLUE BALLS OR IN OTHER WORDS †BLUE OVARIES�? I HAVE HEARD OF IT BUT I DONT KNOW IF ITS A PROVEN FACT…
I know you can “knock” an ovary by rough-housing it during a pelvic exam. Supposedly, the effect is equivalent to getting kicked in the nads. But will prolonged arousal sans orgasm result in the femme equivalent of blue balls?
My first thought: how the hell should I know?
My second thought: you may not know, but some of your XX readers might.
Comments?
D.
‘Tis the season
May has been talking about cast iron pans — and, yes, I agree, there’s nothing as indispensable as a well-seasoned cast iron pan. I use mine to make pan-fried steak or pork chops, chicken marsala, just about any meat recipe which requires the development of a sauce from a fond. A properly seasoned cast iron pan cleans up in a snap and requires little or no fuss.
How do you season a new pan? I looked around on the ‘net and discovered that some cast iron pans have a protective coating of wax. This needs to be scrubbed off prior to seasoning. I’ve never had to do this, so perhaps there are regional differences.
I found a number of formulas for seasoning. Some claimed you had to use bacon grease or lard for seasoning, since vegetable oil leaves a sticky coating. This is only true if you season the pan in a low temperature oven (300 F or lower). With my high heat method, vegetable oil works well.
Seasoning
Coat the pan ALL OVER (top, bottom, handle, the works) with vegetable oil. Put it in a 400 F oven. Turn off the oven and leave the pan in overnight. Alternatively, leave the pan in the 400 F oven for two hours, then carefully remove it.
I repeat this two or three times until I see a thin, almost shiny coating covering the entire pan.
Cleaning
The sources I checked claim you can use hot, soapy water to clean your pan. Since I was taught to never, never, never use soap, I’ve found other ways to deal with a greasy mess. I use rock salt to scrub off anything that sticks to the bottom and then I rinse with hot water. I wipe any remaining grease away with a paper towel.
For really messy jobs, try boiling water in the pan before scrubbing with rock salt. Kosher salt works, too.
More Seattle travelogue tomorrow.
D.