Swedish Meatballs and other delights

Sometimes "retro" food tastes so good.  The last time I cooked up a batch of Swedish Meatballs is lost to history, but certainly not within recent memory, like the six years we've been in this house.  With the cooler weather, this dish just seemed right.  I got a good quality ground beef from the butcher shop and ground up 1.5 pork chops in the food processor, because I didn't like the look of the ground pork at the meat counter.  I had the rest of the ingredients except for white bread and heavy cream, but a trip to Shaw's solved that.  Then I forgot to add the cream, but we didn't miss it.  Making a huge tray of one ounce meatballs was tedious, as was the browning of same, and they were so lean that they rendered no fat, and when it came time to make the gravy I had to had butter to the pan.  Still not enough fat, and I fought the lumps battle (successfully), but then the low-salt low-fat beef broth did not thicken and I had to sneak some cornstarch in.  No problemo.

The end result was toothsome and for once I made enough mashed potatoes such that we could ladle on spoons of the savory gravy.  (Diet freaks stop reading now.) Confession:  last night and this morning when I walked by the fridge I reached under the foil and sneaked a meatball.  Plenty left for tonight's dinner, which will be noodles instead of mashed and carrots instead of peas.  Variety, etc.

I am finishing my novel, maybe even this week.  The following will happen:  a huge sense of accomplishment and then a big letdown.  I'll let the manuscript lie fallow for a while, with the distasteful task of cutting a huge number of words to look forward to.  Good words, all.  Well, maybe not all.

Grapeshot will try to do NaNoWriMo  this year, as I don't have involvement in a writer's conference which has sucked up the last eight Novembers.  I want to get an uncensored leg up on my 1928 California novel, Such Stuff as Dreams.  It's going to be hard to write.  I already know that, so maybe a vault into the story without too much thinking about it.  I do have an outline of sorts, which I must get out and add to.  Then I am at least following a story line. 

Very excited about going to Bouchercon in San Francisco next month.  Bouchercon by the Bay.  What a city!  And then a side trip to Reno to find the very final details for In Flight, stuff I may not be able to add or will have to cut!  Grrrr.

Onward.

Memories of Kansas

I completed the first assignment for the Food Writing class at Brown, writing about my Kansas grandparents chicken yard, garden and kitchen. It's a memoir piece, and I have to tell you I shed a few tears writing it, and now, of course, the rationalist, the cynic, wonders if it's too sentimental. Only the ending is sentimental, which I try to tie back to the beginning. It's hard to write heartfelt without getting soppy. It is for me. But I think it will be O.K. At least from my other writing, I've learned to appeal to the senses, which food writing should absolutely do, and to create some drama and have a beginning, middle and end.

I wrote another chapter of In Flight, and adding that to my five pages of short story for the Guppy Anthology, this has been a productive week. And in the garden, too, as we brought everything into the house but the geraniums. Winter is a comen in.

We went for a walk today and discovered a path to the swimming pool that we didn't know about. Good walk through the woods. Glorious maples. You just can't beat fall in New England.

And now the Red Sox (sob) are trailing eight-zip, and will have to get their act and their pitching together. I do still miss Manny, and wish Big Pappi would slam a few out of the park. Ah, it's a frustrating sport.

I actually survived not going to Bouchercon. Everyone has posted photos and it looked like loads of fun, but gosh I'm glad I kept that thousand dollar bill in the bank. Everyone around here is having garage sales to raise a bit of cash.

We really did eat beans tonight, navy bean soup and it was so tasty! The recipe called for fresh thyme and rosemary, and the usual bean soup fixins. The bacon was fried, drained and sprinkled on the finished soup. Yum! I halved the recipe which was for twelve, but we won't get three meals out of it, oh my no!

You have yourself a very fine Sunday evening!

Grapeshot

Bouchercon and I'm Not There

This year I've skipped Thrillerfest, Edgar's Week and now Bouchercon, taking place today and this weekend in Baltimore. O Poe! O Nevermore!

Bouchercon is the biggest mystery and crime writing conference, with many of the big names in mystery writing, and endless panels, some good, some dull, and high times in the bar. Always high times in the bar.

I went to Bouchercon in Chicago a few years ago. At that time, The Shadow Warriors was newly out and the bookstore actually sold copies. Now the rules have changed and it wouldn't be considered legitimately published and so the bookstore wouldn't have it and I wouldn't be listed as an author. How galling is that?

E-publishers are not now and never were "real" publishers, and POD is not a legitimate printing method in the eyes of most writing organizations, with more jumping on the "let's keep ourselves exclusive" bandwagon all the time. Sisters in Crime, formerly the most democratic of organizations has become "exclusive" too. It is hard to have one's nose pressed against the glass of the candy store, or book store or . . .

But that's not why I'm staying home. Instead, I went to The Muse and the Marketplace here locally, and I'm taking a writing course at Brown, and actually trying to improve my writing rather than rub elbows with other writers. I've been rubbing elbows until my sweaters need leather patches, and you know, there are people who really suck at networking and promoting themselves and I am one.

Of course I'll be at the New England Crime Bake which is only 20 miles down the road, and I trekked to Sleuthfest, and heard positive comments from the agent and editor and it came to naught. There's a lot to be said for Florida in late February-early March. Sun. Warmth. Beaches. Crab meals. Relaxation. Friends.

So it's back to writing and writing and writing and trying to write the best book possible, and then make it better, because that's the only thing that's going to count. Not schmoozing and smiling and propping my frayed elbows on the bar no matter how much more fun socializing is that sitting here staring at the screen.

Writing is hard work.

I hope this doesn't come across as a whine. As a kid you expect a level playing field and things to be fair and of course they are not and maybe you rail against unfairness and then you suck it up and become more realistic about life. I'm sure McCain rails at the unfairness of the economy diving into the toilet at this time. Not fair! So he and Caribou Barbie talk dirty about Obama. She is edging toward demagogue. I try to stay above all that.

Rolling in the gutter is for losers.

At Boucheron I would love to corner Dan Fesperman and talk about his Afghan book. So good. Wow, was it good! Should have made the best seller list, but then nothing about publishing is necessarily about quality, or even a good story, it's about what the public finds comfortable to read, those who do read, which are fewer and fewer; the public reads romances, little cozies, fantasies, thrillers with cardboard characters, and sometimes the excellent books that everyone can love. Just because many of the books that are published don't appeal to me doesn't mean they're not eminently readable.

I don't pretend to understand what resonates with the reading public. It ain't fictionalized computer crime, that's for sure. I hope when I use the vernacular, so to speak, that I don't start sounding like Sarah Palin. That's for darn sure.

O.K. off to the drugstore and a walk through town. Walking always puts me in a better frame of mind.

Grrrapeshot

Bouchercon Awards 2007 in Anchorage

Bouchercon is a HUGE mystery conference held every year. In 2007 it was in Anchorage, Alaska, and it must have been fun and exciting to be in the biggest state.

The envelope, please!

BEST NOVEL: NO GOOD DEEDS, Laura Lippman, (William Morrow)
BEST FIRST NOVEL:STILL LIFE, Louise Penny, (St. Martin's Minotaur)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL: ASHES AND BONES, Dana Cameron, (Avon)
BEST SHORT STORY:Simon Wood, "My Father's Secret" (Crimespree Magazine, B'con Special Issue 2006)
BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION:MYSTERY MUSES , Jim Huang & Austin Lugar, ed. (Crum Creek Press
SPECIAL SERVICES AWARD: Jim Huang

A hearty congrats to all the winners and especially to Dana Cameron, a member of our local Sisters in Crime and MWA chapters and a fun person, as well as an excellent writer. Yay, Dana!