A Writer's Day

My life seems normal to me, but sometimes I wonder. Today--up early, read papers, and start up bean soup. The ham bone to die for, soaked beans, onions, celery carrots, herbs, chicken broth, all bean soupy ingredients. And garlic. Lots of garlic. Get the soup going and iron all the Christmas napkins, etc. Marathon ironing.

The infamous ham bone!

We run errands for the umteenth day in a row. Huge backlog of errands, still. Finally home and ready to start on the robot fish. Eeek! The CNN video of the Colombian Navy boarding the drug submarine has disappeared. I find lots of other stuff, including some very interesting details about the Cali cartel, and it turns out I have actually intuited lots of good stuff in my In Flight book. Save and print huge amounts of drug trivia and not so trivia. The novel fed the short story and now the short story is feeding the novel and I am learning all kinds of interesting facts about the cocaine trade. Just what every woman needs to know.

S.O. and Annie are taking a nap, and I'm going to sneak upstairs and watch the food channel. So far not one word written but lots of good fodder.

And the soup upstairs, looking yummier by the minute and calling my name.

Grapeshot!

Yup!

Pine Needles Underfoot

The main floor of our house is infested with pine needles. We got the tree early, left it up late, and kept it watered, but man, after weeks, that tree was dry, and when it was consigned to the outside it shed needles and more needles as we dragged it kicking and screaming out of the house. The needles are all over everything: rugs, the cats dishes, clothes, everyplace. It's like there was a big pine needle explosion.

Yesterday was a truly miserable day, weather-wise. Temp barely above freezing, raining cats and dogs, slush everywhere, puddles too big for one's personal best broad jump, and we had seven, count-em, seven errands to run, appointments that just couldn't be blown off.

Got home late and had a 1)piggy house and 2) dinner to cook for company. Finally, at six I sat down with a big glass of rum with ice. Just the ticket. I made jambalaya with shrimp and andouille sausage. Lots of spices and hot stuff (Tabasco and cayenne). Zowie! Our noses were running but was it tasty. And enough for tonight, too. I whipped up a batch of apricot bars with apricots from the 'Cot King - Gonzales Orchards in California. http://www.apricotking.com/. Zowsa!

This recipe was the best and I added some grated lemon rind and a soupcon of lemon extract to make it extra yummy. Easy to make, too.

Another overly-busy day today, and what happened to the long, dreary days of winter? Now they're short dreary days, although we had sun today with plenty of black ice this morning to keep the pulse pounding and the legs attempting to balance. May I humbly suggest that Sperry makes good shoes to grip the road, the sidewalk or whatever. The boat deck, too, of course.

Tomorrow, my heart gladdens because I've got a ham bone (see photo) the size of Cincinnati to put into the navy bean soup. Ah, it will be a winter feast. And there is joy because no weight was gained between Thanksgiving and New Year, at least not weight which was not immediately discarded.

I was looking at e-publishers today and got myself into a funk again. Poor old World of Mirrors does not look like it is going to find a "traditional" publisher, and it is such a fun book. I had so wanted to have a book signing at the cute little bookstore in Hiddensee. Maybe one on Ruegen, and another in Stralsund. Merde.

Onward, onward. Through sleet and snow and dead of night and agent queries la la la!

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Fifteen pages!

During a busy week, I have written fifteen pages, which is a huge amount for pokey 'ol me. Maybe it's the impetus of the food writing class. Maybe I'm actually a non-fiction writer. Who knows? I even sent in two queries, and tried to figure out where to send the pimp short story.

I'm not sure that it's even crime fiction, although one guy pulls a knife on another. Nobody gets hurt, at least not physically. The fish story is not really concerned with crime, although drug running plays heavily into it. I'm voting for the loosening of the marijuana laws in Massachusetts. Did you know that MJ is the#one cash crop in the U.S.

Of as we used to say back in the dark ages of high school. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Ha ha. Just kidding.

There was a confrontation north of Winnemucca (Northern Nevada) between pot growers and some biologists working for the BLM (Bureau of Land Management). When the smoke (another ha ha) had cleaned the growers bailed on five million dollars worth of plants and some already harvested crop. They were growing it along the river in the middle of nowhere, but as my young friend likes to say, everywhere is somewhere. Not quite far enough into the middle of nowhere. Nowhere close to where I was visiting.

In my novel and even my fish short story, I'm writing about the submarines that the drug runners are now using to ferry "product" between Columbia and ports of call in the U.S. These submarines can't be detected by radar and each can carry a huge stash of coke. When they are discovered, the crew scuttles the boat and has to be rescued. There's no evidence, so they can't be prosecuted. Clever, eh?

Just think if all the effort that went into breaking the law were harnessed for some kind of good. Zowie!

Caribou Barbie is speaking in New Hampshire tomorrow, and I would think seriously about going up there to heckle her, except that I have a meeting to attend. No, not that kind of meeting. The Republicans have stooped lower than a snake's belly with their rumors and innuendo. Will a campaign ever be fought (and won) on the issues? Not in my lifetime.

Something that no one mentions: if investments continue to tank, and jobs continue to be lost, and no one has any money, where will the tax revenues comes from to bail the country out? Seems like one impact of what's going on will be less tax money. People seem to hate economics, but how about Paul Krugman? Yay! Love his columns in the NYT. He was even on Bill Maher. Or was it Jon Stewart? Can't remember anything.

Tonight is the last night of the delicious bean soup. I ran out of salad fixins', so we're having a cute little antipasto. Call it creativity in the kitchen.

Bon Appetit!


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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!

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