It’s that time again
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Thirteen Gastronomic Orgasms The challenge here is to come up with thirteen omigod food experiences which I haven't blogged about. Let's see how far I can get before I have to fall back on some old favorites. 1. Funky red bean paste dessert. Let me describe this Chinese confection to you, since I don't know the proper name. It uses a sheet-like wrapper derived from tofu to enclose sweetened red bean paste. The packet, sort of like a flat burrito, is deep fried and sprinkled with powdered sugar. It's amazing -- hot, sweet, a bit salty. 2. Shrimp scampi at La Pergola's, North Beach, San Francisco, early 1980s. Yup, you'll need a time machine for this one. Karen and I went back there in the mid-80s, ordered the scampi, and it just wasn't the same. The key features of die-and-go-to-heaven scampi: fresh prawns cooked to perfection, and a buttery sauce, no skimping on the garlic. This has to be one of the most commonly messed-up recipes, since I am inevitably disappointed. 3. Eggplant parmigiano, Il Giardino Restaurant, Ashland, OR. I make a mean eggplant parmigiano, but mine does not compare to Il Giardino's. Theirs is unparalled for melt-in-your-mouth goodness. I suspect they use Chinese or Japanese eggplant, since your typical fatso aubergine won't turn behave like this, no matter how you coddle it. And, yes, I've tried salting it, rinsing it, and squeezing out all the excess water. No go. 4. Soft tacos, El Grullense, Redwood City, CA. As hard as I try, my soft tacos can't hold a jalapeno to the ones they make at El Grullense. We first ate there in the mid-80s, when they were a hole-in-the-wall place serving food to go, lines spilling out on the sidewalk. Now they're a chain, and as busy as ever. My guess as to the secret ingredient: pork lard, and lots of it. The perfect soft taco: pork carnitas (or lengua -- beef tongue) on a homemade corn tortilla, garnished with chopped yellow onion, cilantro, salsa, and a squeeze of lime juice. 5. Any sausage at Top Dog, Berkeley, CA. Certain moments in my life have crystallized as images of paradise. One such is the time I ate three sausages in a row at the Top Dog on Durant Ave. It was summer, the sky was that shade of China blue I've only ever seen in the Bay Area, the temperature was around 70, and those sausages (a Polish and a couple of brats, if I know me) slid down the gullet like raw oysters. The counter guy joked I'd need a new stomach. Wrong! 6. Thai seafood hot pot, Berkeley, CA. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but they've long since closed. This hot pot featured unbearably fresh scallops, prawns, and calamari, all simmered to perfection, along with an exquisite balance of pepper, garlic, fish sauce, and cilantro -- yet another Wonder of the World I have not been able to reproduce in my kitchen. 7. Hazelnut gelato, Vivoli's, Berkeley, CA. Gggrrrhlllhgggrrllhgglarrrrhll. 'Nuff said. Oh, and the alternate lifestyle wimmen who own and run Vivoli's -- total fantasy material, hairy armpits and all. 8. White sandwich bread, Virginia Bakery, Berkeley, CA. Are you beginning to understand why I miss Berkeley so much? If I won the lottery, first thing I'd do, I'd buy a house in Berkeley, north of the campus. I went into Virginia Bakery one day and asked the counter gal, "My God, what smells so good?" She had just pulled a tray of white bread loaves from the oven. I couldn't believe white bread could smell so good, so I bought a loaf. "I'm taking this home right now," I said, and she encourage me to try a slice. What, no butter, no jam? Yes, just a dry slice of white bread, and yet it tasted like heaven. Nothing compares. 9. Soft shell crab, New Orleans. I wish I could remember the name of that place -- a converted church, if that rings anyone's bells. Karen and I ordered one helping of the appetizer. The waiter said, "What? Only one?" Um . . . yeah. "But there's only one crab per order," he said. This shocked us, given the price of the appetizer, but aw hell we're on vacation let's splurge and get two. Two of the BIGGEST mofo soft shell crabs we had ever seen in our lives, each one swimming in its own sea of clarified butter. Needless to say, we had no room left for dinner, let alone dessert. 10. Bread pudding with whiskey cream sauce, Palace Cafe, Santa Barbara, CA. At last, something we have been able to reproduce at home. Karen uses Wonder Bread, believe it or not. If I had a loaf of white bread from Virginia Bakery for Karen's recipe, we would all die with smiles on our faces. 11. Fried clams from the East Coast. Will one of you east-coasters tell me if there are still fast food joints that serve nothing but fried clams and French fries? I remember this from childhood, our occasional 12. Blood pudding in France. I mentioned this on someone's blog recently, but never here. When Karen and I honeymooned in Europe, we tended to order without knowing what it would be. I'm not sure I would have ordered blood pudding knowingly. I remember something savory, spicy, so good I was sopping up the remnants with my bread and wishing for more. 13. Mussels in Paris, in a place across from the Louvre -- also during our honeymoon. I don't think I had ever tasted mussels before, so I didn't know quite what to expect. I've had good mussels since then, but nothing quite as good. There's nothing worse than a bad mussel, and nothing better than a perfect one. Yippee! I did it. Not a single repetition from previous food posts (I don't think; although, it's hard to imagine I've never raved about Top Dog before on these pages.) Okay, your turn: what gives you a resounding gastronomic orgasm? D. The Thirteen Crowd: 1. Kate Rothwell holds forth on writing; 3. Joan imagines a bunch of stuff |
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Dormies
Maybe it’s the grappa.
Fanatic Cook’s recent post on HDL (“good” cholesterol) led me to vow to drink more alcohol, so the other day, Karen and I dropped some dough at our local liquor store. We bought grappa, gin, and port. Tonight, we cracked open the grappa.
It’s, um, stronger than I thought it would be. Drank it three hours ago and I’m still buzzing. Mazzetti liquor de l’Oro, if you’re curious, but I’m not recommending it just yet. It’s sweeter and stronger than my usual Brandy Peak grappa, which gives me a happy buzz. This Oro stuff is making me feel all sappy and sentimental, and when I get sappy and sentimental, I scan old photos.
Me first by myself
Travis Frey, a 33-year-old Iowa man, is facing charges that he tried to kidnap his wife. She has provided to prosecutors the “Contract of Wifely Expectations” he asked her to sign. She didn’t sign it . . . and yet, jeez, she still married the guy. When someone opens up his heart to you like this and shows you the maggots inside, don’t you, um, think twice about saying, “I do”?
When we are at home , and alone as a family, you will be naked within 20 minutes of the kids being in bed, and then sleep naked, unless instructed otherwise. If I am not home when the kids go to bed you are still to be naked before I return home. The only exception will be during your menstrual cycle.
This is a man whose marriage manual is Pauline Reage’s The Story of O. How soon before he insists on branding her?
During my time, you WILL —
1. Be submissive, subservient, and totally obedient.
2. To do what you are asked, when you are asked, exactly how you are asked.
3. . . .
There’s more. Much more.
What would you put in your marriage contract?
Hat tip to Daily Kos.
D.
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Pestopia
I remember the first time I held hands with a girl, and I remember my first dish of oh-my-God-what-IS-this-stuff pesto, and I would be hard-pressed to tell you which moment was more intensely pleasurable.
Better than sex, that’s for sure. Capellini con pesto, angel hair pasta with pesto, piping hot on a plain white dish served from a hole in the wall restaurant somewhere on the Venice Beach Boardwalk. I was twenty-two, maybe twenty-three, and until that moment I had thought scampi was the ultimate food. Never more.
Tangent Online reviews . . .
For what it’s worth, my reviews are up:
“Different Flesh” by Claude Lalumière (but you might also want to check out PBW’s comments, below).
Top of the page at Tangent, you’ll find E. Sedia’s review of Apex #4, and Paul Abbamondi’s review of Shadowed Realms #9.
Also, many thanks to Hedgehog and SxKitten for telling me how to show off my ass to best advantage. They don’t teach these things in school.
D.
My ass is back
After working out three times a week for six weeks, including 35 to 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer at each workout, my ass has returned and is here to stay.
Sadly, the picture doesn’t do it justice. What you really need is FeelAround.
“It’s no good,” I told Karen. “It just looks like a standard skinny white guy’s ass. If my pants slipped any lower, I’d look like our plumber.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That’s the best of the dozen. I’m not taking any more.”
“You need to take a photo of it without all the clothing in the way.”
“No. Uh-uh. No way.”
“But –”
“Besides. You’d have to shave your ass, or else people still wouldn’t be able to see it.”
Okay. I’m game.
D.
2089 words
. . . and it feels good. I wrote the opening to Flight this morning. As I mentioned previously, even though Flight is all written, I have a good deal of scene addition/scene subtraction to do. Flight needed a punchy opening, and I think I managed it. See what you think of the first two paragraphs:
The odor came from his grandson’s duffel bag. Ankh knelt beside it, worrying the lock with his talon. What sort of nine-year-old locked his luggage? He smelled something musty in there, something long dead.
Dirty laundry. Ankh hopped from his study to the kitchen closet where he kept his tools. He snipped off a length of stiff brass wire, then used his beak and hands to shape it. That’s all it is. Dirty laundry. The way Jeryn and Kord rushed off this morning, it’s a wonder they got the boy here with any of his things.
Ankh gets a panicky phone call. While figuring out that his world has changed forever, he also manages to unlock his grandson’s duffel bag and discover what’s inside.
Maybe it’s a cheap trick, but I thought it worked well.
D.
Somebody kidnappable
Somebody Wonderful by Kate Rothwell
It is true that I made Karen read this book first. Because, you know, my wife’s a chick, forty tarantulas notwithstanding, and chicks know romance. “Here, you read this,” I said, and Karen plowed through it in a day.
It’s also true I only picked up Somebody Wonderful to see if Kate knew how to write something other than a blog. By the third or fourth page, I was in a state approaching awe. I was reading a romance . . . and I liked it!
Finally, it is true that I would be reluctant to give a friend’s book anything but a glowing report. So you’re probably wondering if you can trust this review.
You’d do better to wonder about the worth of a review written by a guy who has only ever read two other romances, both of which had paranormal mishegas — Holly Lisle’s Last Girl Dancing, and Lilith Saintcrow’s The Society. Despite my shameless pandering to the romance crowd, I’m really a romance virgin.
Or, you know, whatever it is you call those girls who do it a few times and then wear white gowns at their weddings.
If only Karen liked flowers
It doesn’t get much more clever than this.
The kind folks at SaveMyAss will mail your sweetie flowers on all the major dates, and send her flowers randomly every four to six weeks:
If you’re a successful professional whose career demands the bulk of your time, you know the situation. You want her to be happy, but work keeps you so busy… and maybe you’re just not as good at being romantic as you’d like to be. Imagine how she’d feel if you sent her flowers on a regular basis. Sign up for this service once, and we’ll take care of the rest.
I wonder. If I asked nicely, would they send Karen tarantulas instead?
Hat tip to Ishbadiddle.
D.
Reading, riting, but no ‘rithmatic.
Don’t know about you, but I’ve had a productive day.
After a satisfying bit of Technorati whoring (see post below), I spent the morning shuffling scenes and chapters in order to create a Book Two. Working title: Flight. The trilogy will be Nest, Flight, and Shrike. Book Two will pack even more of a cliffhanger than Book One, I’m afraid, but I suspect if folks stick with me that far, they’re in it for the long haul.
Flight will be a tougher edit than Nest, with more scenes to add and subtract (maybe I will work in some ‘rithmatic yet!) and quite a bit of gruntwork with regard to one of my major storylines. I’ve fixed some problems in my head, but I still need to fix them on paper. Or, as we used to say in med school, “in computero.” What fun.
Next, I reviewed a cool story for Tangent, “Different Flesh” by Claude Lalumière. If you don’t want to wait for my review to show up at Tangent, I give high marks to “Different Flesh”. Go. Read it. Enjoy.
Good, you’re back. I finished up some laundry, then burned a box of Nature magazines from ’97. Slowly but surely, I’m cleaning out our garage. Charged up by my pyromania, I finished my other assignment for Tangent, Amityville House of Pancakes. Now I just have to write the reviews. Verdict: of the four stories, one is meh, one is godawful, one is good, and one is so great I went online and bought the author’s first novel.
Her name is Adrienne Jones, and her novella for AHP, Gypsies Stole My Tequila, rawked. I read lines out loud to Karen, that’s how good it was. For more details, you’ll have to wait for my review. But Tequila was so good I bought Jones’s Oral Vices, and paid hardcover prices for a paperback (what’s up with that?), so you can bet I’m going to review it here, good or bad.
And since I can’t order only one book from Barnes and Noble, I also bought Mel Helitzer’s Comedy Writing Secrets. Because, you know, making y’all spray your monitors with coffee isn’t good enough for me. I want you to piss your pants, too.
D.