So, my wife and I have something of a tradition regarding our anniversary. In the last few years, we've started taking little trips around the fateful day, just an overnight or a long weekend, just the two of us. The interesting part--she has no idea where we're going. Sometimes she doesn't even KNOW we're going, like last year when she came home from work to just me telling her to pack a bag and put on a fancy dress. And it's always great, because my wife is a details person...she likes to know things. "Control freak" is far too strong a term, but still, uncertainty does not play well with her. She's a software engineer, maybe that serves as an explanation.
Anyway, there's a point to this bit of potentially relationship-straining exposition. This year the super-secret trip is a little more involved in terms of planning: driving from our home in Cincinnati to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Historical B&B, hiking and horseback riding in the national park, antebellum plantation tours...should be great. You see, instead of taking Google's first choice for route, a somewhat roundabout but very dependable all-interstate trek, I opted for the more geographically direct U.S. 50 basically the whole way. Why not? It was 40 miles shorter, and actually clocked in at a minute faster. And besides, think of all the great scenic opportunities that we'd miss out on if we took the boring old "safe" interstate! Too often we miss real Americana when we travel, and it's disappearing. And the convenient halfway point was what appeared, again on Google maps, to be a charming river town called Parkersburg, WV, only 3 1/2 hours down the road.
If you'll permit me a momentary baseball metaphor, I may have been jumping for a first-pitch fastball, and nature threw a curve.
With an adventurous spirit, at around 4:15 PM on Friday, June 29th, we headed east. At around 4:20 PM, we noticed a storm rolling in from the west...fast. At 4:45 we were huddled in the basement of the Lebanon Public Library, with the electricity out, waiting for the raging winds and rain to lighten up enough to keep from getting blown off the road. While there, we met some nice people also looking for refuge, and some very patient library employees trying to close the place up and get the hell home. The library director, a very nice lady whose name I unfortunately did not get (and whose nametag was obscured by the storm-induced darkness), chatted with us a while about her 22 years in Lebanon, and gave a ringing endorsement of the small town nature it’s managed to retain even while doubling in size over that time.
So there you have it folks, Lebanon, OH: great place to cower in fear.
An hour later, and only twenty minutes into our trip, we were once again on our way. The storm we let pass, it should now be noted, was a whopper. We didn't really grasp this at the time, but as we traveled generally east-southeast, it became more and more apparent. A plan to stop in Chillicothe, OH (Ohio's first capital!) was waylaid by a lack of electricity. No matter, let's push on, there are plenty of places to get a quick bite, and we've already lost a lot of time. We were still saying that an hour or so later, passing through McArthur, OH (Vinton County seat and named for War of 1812 General Duncan McArthur!), looking in vain for a working stop light that would indicate modern civilization. And we'd really started to notice the debris. U.S. 50 passes through or near several notable national and state forests, and all of them tend to drop large branches and even whole member trees in big storms. One of these happened to fall across a power line over the road just east of McArthur and stopped traffic. After a series of GPS arguments, fruitless detour attempts on some truly frightening "roads," and one desperate roadside peepee stop, we decided to wait out the road crew to clear the tree. They succeeded just around sunset.
As darkness was now falling, we really became aware of the problem. We would learn the next day that approximately 2 million people in the Eastern U.S. lost power to this storm, and our path took us conveniently right down the middle of its wake. On either side of the road, nothing but darkness. Athens, OH (home to Ohio University, The Princeton Review's #1 party school in the U.S.! Go Bobcats!) was conspicuously lit up like nothing happened, which just makes me think the party school reputation is a cover for something much more sinister. By this point, we were thinking of nothing but getting to our hotel, but calls to confirm a later checkin were met with ominous busy signals...uh-oh. After passing what appeared to be the world's most popular gas station (RED FLAG!) in the oddly named Coolville, 20 miles down the road from the hilariously-named Guysville--I'm thinking a historical pissing match may be to blame--we continued on into the now-resumed blackness.
As we crossed the Ohio River into West Virginia, we were met with the sight of massive gas flares from a darkened factory along the river. Safety measures, of course, to burn off excess gas, but in the foggy evening it looked like the fires of the apocalypse. This was our frame of mind by this point in our "relaxed sojourn through Americana."
Now we were approaching Parkersburg (third largest city in West Virgina! Population 31,629!), which may as well have been a nameless swamp for all we could tell...the city was almost totally blacked out. The semi-trusty GPS pulled us up to our destination for the night, the historic and elegant Blennerhassett Hotel, which was of course encased in scaffolding for some sort of massive facade repair, and lit only by candles and gaslights around the foggy courtyard. Did I mention this hotel is haunted? No? Well, I didn't know either until after I'd booked it, but figured how creepy could it be? In a blacked out, storm-torn city, pretty God-damned creepy, that's how. I decided to withold this bit of information from the wife for the time being, as her relatively fragile spirit of adventure was beginning to wear thin. The next day (warning, foreshadowing ahead...) would wear it further.
It must be said, the staff at The Blennerhassett was exceptionally friendly and efficient for the conditions, and the nice kid who hauled our luggage up through the Shining-inspired stairwells and hallways was extremely helpful. A late dinner of cheese sandwiches (they forgot the ham, but we were too tired to care) was followed by crashing into the very plush, but very dark, accomodations, hoping for the power to be restored overnight.
There, that gets us to Parkersburg, WV: a 3.5 hour trip that ended up taking closer to 6. Next, I'll tell you about getting back out again...that's a better story, but with a much better ending.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Monday, January 2, 2012
Review of "The New Death and Others" by James Hutchings
The New Death and Others, by James Hutchings
Available from Amazon and Smashwords
The e-reader revolution has done a lot to preserve short form literature as a valid creative outlet for new authors. For a variety of legitimate business reasons, traditional publishing today tends to favor long-form fiction and series, novels and the like. Collections of short stories tend to be more limited in availability to anthologies of stories by existing authors (sort of paper-bound “All Star Games”) and maybe the occasional collection of single stories by emerging writers. And don’t even think about poetry, unless you’re talking “inspirational” stuff, or Maya Angelou. A writer who’d like to focus on short stories and narrative poetry doesn’t really have much traction with traditional publishers. But e-books have opened up as a legitimate option for writers to distribute their work, no matter how experimental, in short form to a wide audience. James Hutchings’ The New Death and Others is a book that can greatly benefit from these conditions, hopefully as much as the reader benefits from reading it.
Hutchings, an Australian indie author, has compiled an eclectic collection of fantasy stories and poems that reads quickly and entertains throughout. The lengths of the pieces range pretty far around the “flash fiction” spectrum, with the longest being several pages and the shortest little more than tweets. Subject matter is varied, but Hutchings infuses some element of fantasy into each, often returning to the fictional city of Telelee that much of his other work centers on. In terms of tone, however, the collection is all over the map. One will be reading a seriously dark story about the shadowy denizens of Telelee one moment, and immediately move on to a short allegorical tale humorously explaining the birth of reality TV. Reading the book cover-to-cover is a bit like flipping back and forth between Monty Python’s Flying Circus and The Twilight Zone. Not that that’s bad, mind you, but I was left wondering if this might have been better served as two separate, shorter books.
That said, the author’s language is just intricate enough to be engaging without being wearisome. He often mixes styles and subject matter, describing modern articles with the sort of archaic language found in older fantasy writings, and conversely pulling out modern slang and wordplay in the middle of a decidedly fantastic setting—a trick that works better than you’d think. Hutchings’ stories exhibit a great love and respect for allegorical figures, humble heroes, and the intelligence of cats, as well as a deep-seated dislike of internet dating, McDonalds (of all things), and fan-fiction. Although, to be fair, several of his poetic homages to great fantasy writers of the past (Lovecraft, Howard, Dunsany) skirt perilously close to that latter category. A pop culture reference-heavy parody of classic Sherlock Holmes (“The Adventure of the Murdered Philanthropist”) is one not to be missed.
Among my favorites were the thought-provoking “The God of the City of Dust,” the haunting and contemporary “Todd,” and the delightfully solemn (if that makes sense) poem “The Sailor.” And for other aspiring and sometimes blocked writers out there, “The Jeweled City” is a hilariously meta surprise. Several pieces were somewhat disappointing for their lack of any sort of direction…at least a few seemed designed entirely to throw the reader off base like an exceptionally good knock-knock joke. Again, if that’s what you’re looking for, they’re fine, but it highlights the thought that maybe this really wants to be two collections.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Thursday, December 29, 2011
James Hutchings Discusses Licensing for Aspiring Writers
Regular readers of this space will know that I'm starting (ever so slowly) to take my first steps into indie publishing. I'm somewhat casually researching the steps necessary and prudent to get my work out there for public consumption, so imagine my surprise and delight to have encountered James Hutchings. James is an emerging writer from Australia, who approached me recently for a review of his book (look for it here later this week). In return, he generously provided a great guest post on the benefits of licensing your work for public use, and why you may not want to worry too much about sharing it for free. Thanks, James!
-Jon
_________________________________________________________
Many writers, whether published or just starting out, are very nervous that someone else will steal their work, whether that be another writer using their ideas in their own stories, or someone making pirated copies of their books. When I put out a collection of my writing, I specifically gave permission for anyone at all to copy my ideas, or even to cut and paste whole stories. I also contacted the Pirate Party, a worldwide network that wants to lessen copyright, and told them that I was giving anyone permission to put my ebook on file-sharing sites. In this post I hope to show why I went against common wisdom.
Creative Commons
I used a free service called Creative Commons. Creative Commons is useful for people who want to give the general public permission to use their work, but with restrictions. In my case I didn't mind people using my work for non-profit purposes, such as posting on a blog, but I didn't want to allow anyone to make money off it. Similarly I wanted anyone who used it to give me credit. I could have just listed these things myself. However I'm not a lawyer, and perhaps I would have worded it wrong so that someone could twist what I said to do more than I meant. Also I could have been unclear about what I was allowing and what I wasn't allowing. Sure, someone could email me and ask, but the whole purpose of having a written statement is so that people don't have to ask.
Creative Commons has a series of different licenses, which give permission to do different things. They're all legally 'tight', and they're all summarized in plain language. So all you have to do is go to their site and answer a series of questions, to get to the license that does what you want. In my case I used the Non-Commercial License.
Why?
That's what I did. But why? Common sense would suggest that I'm giving something away for free that I could be selling. However I believe that, in the long run, I'll be better off. The main reason is that I've seen how many people are, like me, trying to get their writing out there. Go to Smashwords and have a look at the latest ebooks. Then refresh the page ten minutes later, and you'll probably see a whole new lot. The problem that new writers face isn't that people want to steal your work; it's getting anyone to show an interest in your work at all. If someone passes on a pirated copy of my work, it might get to someone who's prepared to buy it - and that someone would probably have never heard of me otherwise. Even if they don't want to pay for what they read, I might come out with something else in the future, and perhaps paying 99c for it will be easier than hunting it down on a file-sharing site. Science fiction writer Andrew Burt tells the story of someone who disliked his book, and to get back at him decided to put a copy on a file-sharing site. The effect was that he got a small 'spike' in sales immediately afterwards.
I also have some less selfish motives. Many people would assume that the purpose of copyright is to protect authors and creators. Leaving aside the fact that someone else often ends up with the rights (how many Disney shareholders created any of the Disney characters? How many shareholders in Microsoft have ever written a line of code?), that doesn't seem to have been the intention in the past. The US Constitution says that Congress has the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Note that protecting 'intellectual property' isn't mentioned. The authors of the Constitution seemed to see the point as getting ideas out there where people can use them: almost the exact opposite of keeping them 'safe' and 'protected'.
The original idea of copyright seems to have been a sort of deal: you have an idea, and we want you to get it out into the world where it will do some good. To encourage you to do that, we'll give you a monopoly on its use for a limited time. After that, anybody can use it (it will enter the 'public domain').
A lot of people don't know that copyright used to give a lot less protection than it does now, especially in the United States. In the US, it used to be that works were copyrighted for a maximum of 56 years. Today copyright in the US can last for over 100 years. In fact Congress keeps extending the time. In practice, they're acting as if they never want ideas to go into the public domain.
This is great for the owners of 'intellectual property'. But it's hard to see how this "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts," or how forever is a "limited time." In a sense it's a theft from the public. Anyone who publishes work has accepted the deal that the law offers, of a limited monopoly in return for making their idea known. Congress has been giving them more and more extensions on that monopoly, but doesn't require them to do anything to earn it.
It probably doesn't matter that much that Disney still owns Mickey Mouse, or that Lord of the Rings is still under copyright. But remember that these laws don't just apply to the arts. They apply to science as well. So an invention that might save lives could be going unused, because its owner wants too much money for it, or because it's tied up in court while two companies fight about who owns it.
Conclusion
I'm far from an expert on either the law or the publishing industry. However I hope that I've given you, especially those of you who might be thinking about publishing some writing, a different take on the whole issue of whether authors should worry about their ideas being stolen. At least I hope I've shown you that there's a different way of thinking about it, and that that way doesn't require you to just give up on making money; in fact that it might be more profitable as well as better for society.
---
James Hutchings lives in Melbourne, Australia. He fights crime as Poetic Justice, but his day job is acting. You might know him by his stage-name 'Brad Pitt.' He specializes in short fantasy fiction. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, fiction365 and Enchanted Conversation among other markets. His ebook collection The New Death and Others, is now available from Amazon and Smashwords. He blogs daily at http://www.apolitical.info/teleleli.
---
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial License
-Jon
_________________________________________________________
Many writers, whether published or just starting out, are very nervous that someone else will steal their work, whether that be another writer using their ideas in their own stories, or someone making pirated copies of their books. When I put out a collection of my writing, I specifically gave permission for anyone at all to copy my ideas, or even to cut and paste whole stories. I also contacted the Pirate Party, a worldwide network that wants to lessen copyright, and told them that I was giving anyone permission to put my ebook on file-sharing sites. In this post I hope to show why I went against common wisdom.
Creative Commons
I used a free service called Creative Commons. Creative Commons is useful for people who want to give the general public permission to use their work, but with restrictions. In my case I didn't mind people using my work for non-profit purposes, such as posting on a blog, but I didn't want to allow anyone to make money off it. Similarly I wanted anyone who used it to give me credit. I could have just listed these things myself. However I'm not a lawyer, and perhaps I would have worded it wrong so that someone could twist what I said to do more than I meant. Also I could have been unclear about what I was allowing and what I wasn't allowing. Sure, someone could email me and ask, but the whole purpose of having a written statement is so that people don't have to ask.
Creative Commons has a series of different licenses, which give permission to do different things. They're all legally 'tight', and they're all summarized in plain language. So all you have to do is go to their site and answer a series of questions, to get to the license that does what you want. In my case I used the Non-Commercial License.
Why?
That's what I did. But why? Common sense would suggest that I'm giving something away for free that I could be selling. However I believe that, in the long run, I'll be better off. The main reason is that I've seen how many people are, like me, trying to get their writing out there. Go to Smashwords and have a look at the latest ebooks. Then refresh the page ten minutes later, and you'll probably see a whole new lot. The problem that new writers face isn't that people want to steal your work; it's getting anyone to show an interest in your work at all. If someone passes on a pirated copy of my work, it might get to someone who's prepared to buy it - and that someone would probably have never heard of me otherwise. Even if they don't want to pay for what they read, I might come out with something else in the future, and perhaps paying 99c for it will be easier than hunting it down on a file-sharing site. Science fiction writer Andrew Burt tells the story of someone who disliked his book, and to get back at him decided to put a copy on a file-sharing site. The effect was that he got a small 'spike' in sales immediately afterwards.
I also have some less selfish motives. Many people would assume that the purpose of copyright is to protect authors and creators. Leaving aside the fact that someone else often ends up with the rights (how many Disney shareholders created any of the Disney characters? How many shareholders in Microsoft have ever written a line of code?), that doesn't seem to have been the intention in the past. The US Constitution says that Congress has the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Note that protecting 'intellectual property' isn't mentioned. The authors of the Constitution seemed to see the point as getting ideas out there where people can use them: almost the exact opposite of keeping them 'safe' and 'protected'.
The original idea of copyright seems to have been a sort of deal: you have an idea, and we want you to get it out into the world where it will do some good. To encourage you to do that, we'll give you a monopoly on its use for a limited time. After that, anybody can use it (it will enter the 'public domain').
A lot of people don't know that copyright used to give a lot less protection than it does now, especially in the United States. In the US, it used to be that works were copyrighted for a maximum of 56 years. Today copyright in the US can last for over 100 years. In fact Congress keeps extending the time. In practice, they're acting as if they never want ideas to go into the public domain.
This is great for the owners of 'intellectual property'. But it's hard to see how this "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts," or how forever is a "limited time." In a sense it's a theft from the public. Anyone who publishes work has accepted the deal that the law offers, of a limited monopoly in return for making their idea known. Congress has been giving them more and more extensions on that monopoly, but doesn't require them to do anything to earn it.
It probably doesn't matter that much that Disney still owns Mickey Mouse, or that Lord of the Rings is still under copyright. But remember that these laws don't just apply to the arts. They apply to science as well. So an invention that might save lives could be going unused, because its owner wants too much money for it, or because it's tied up in court while two companies fight about who owns it.
Conclusion
I'm far from an expert on either the law or the publishing industry. However I hope that I've given you, especially those of you who might be thinking about publishing some writing, a different take on the whole issue of whether authors should worry about their ideas being stolen. At least I hope I've shown you that there's a different way of thinking about it, and that that way doesn't require you to just give up on making money; in fact that it might be more profitable as well as better for society.
---
James Hutchings lives in Melbourne, Australia. He fights crime as Poetic Justice, but his day job is acting. You might know him by his stage-name 'Brad Pitt.' He specializes in short fantasy fiction. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, fiction365 and Enchanted Conversation among other markets. His ebook collection The New Death and Others, is now available from Amazon and Smashwords. He blogs daily at http://www.apolitical.info/teleleli.
---
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial License
Monday, November 14, 2011
Ed Gets Chopped!
And now, a first in JLOS history, a guest blog! Ed Scheid is a friend who shares a passion for home brewing, good wine, and of course great food. He's also a fantastic photographer. Check it out at his website, http://www.scheidphoto.com/
Recently, Ed's wife Christi threw down the culinary gauntlet: Cook an original, delicious meal with secret ingredients she picks out, a-la Chopped. Below is his recounting of the challenge, not to mention fairly detailed instructions on how to recreate it (way to give away your secrets, man). Thanks Ed!
________________________________________________________
Christi and I have pretty much become addicted to Chopped on the Food Network. If you are not familiar with it, it is a contest where four chefs compete against each other for $10,000. There are three rounds and after each round a chef is eliminated. The first round is an appetizer, the second is an entree and finally a desert. In each round the chefs are given four secret ingredients to use and they are typically ingredients that are pretty far apart on the culinary spectrum.
I'm not sure what got into the wife but she decided to toss me a challenge. I couldn't let my manhood be called out like that so I gladly accepted. She went out and bought my secret ingredients, two for an appetizer, three for an entree and two for a dessert. We decided to wave the time limits since A) I'm not a trained chef and B) our kitchen isn't even remotely equipped for such a challenge.
She went out and purchased her secret ingredients and here is what she came back with:
Appetizer:
The Appetizer
I figured Christi would get goat cheese since she loves it so much. Gouda goat cheese was a bit of a surprise but not too terribly different. A similar flavor but not crumbly. I like the almonds. They had a nice crunch and salty flavor. A salad instantly came to mind. For the first time I made my own dressing. It was a strawberry pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette. I decided to expand on the flavor of the almonds and candied them with brown sugar and bourbon. The gouda goat cheese is great by itself so I just shredded it on to baby spring mix greens. The tanginess of the dressing went great with the sweetness of the almonds and the creaminess of the cheese tied it together nicely.
Final dish: Bourbon candied Marcona almonds and Gouda goat cheese on baby spring mix greens with a strawberry pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette
The Entree
I wasn't sure what Christi would have picked for a protein. I leaned towards fish but would have never expected she would have picked cornish hens. No big deal, they are just little chickens. The fresh cranberries worried me because of their tartness. I love raw spinach but wanted to try something different and cook it.
To add a third element to the entree I wanted to add a starch. Potato pancake came to mind but I didn't think it would tie in very well. Having some butternut squash on hand I decided to add sweet potato and make a butternut squash and sweet potato pancake. I seasoned it with cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar to give it that homey taste. To help bring together the pancake and hen I made a zinfandel cranberry applesauce.
I simply roasted the cornish hen with my typical poultry seasoning (fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh sage, garlic salt, pepper and olive oil). I made a glaze of a cranberry and merlot reduction and glazed the hens about half way through cooking. I had to add a bit of sugar to the glaze since the cranberries were so tart. The glazed turn out awesome.
The spinach was a different story. I had never cooked with fresh spinach but I liked the idea. I kept it simple by wilting it in some bacon drippings, shallots and roasted garlic. I tossed in the bacon bits at the end. It was o.k. at best. I'll probably stick with raw spinach.
Final dish: Cranberry merlot glazed cornish hen with butternut squash and sweet potato cakes, zinfandel cranberry applesauce and bacon and roasted garlic spinach
The Dessert
Ahhh... dessert!!!! Mini bananas? Easy! Coffee beans with bananas? New to me! The first thing that came to mind was banana pudding. But how to pair the coffee beans? I know! Coffee whipped cream! To make sure I got the pudding right I actually referred to a recipe. Desserts aren't as forgiving when it comes to measuring. I used Alton Brown's banana pudding recipe (or at least 95%) of it. Basically it's vanilla pudding but I mashed up half of the mini bananas and mixed them in. To add another layer of flavor I took the other half of the bananas and mixed them with some caramel. I finely ground the coffee beans and added them to the whipped cream. I layered each of the elements in a wine glass and sprinkled in some Godiva milk chocolate. All I can say is that it was banana coffee love in a glass.
Final dish: Banana pudding with caramel bananas and coffee infused whipped cream
Verdict
All in all I think I rose to the challenge. Every dish except the banana pudding was my own recipe and new ones at that. The only misstep was the spinach but everyone, except grumpus August loved the meal. I can't image the stress the chefs feel actually competing. I'm just a dude who likes to cook and I felt like I had to be on top of my game. Every meal I cook makes me appreciate the people who do this for a living even more. Now how do I spend that $10,000!!!
Recently, Ed's wife Christi threw down the culinary gauntlet: Cook an original, delicious meal with secret ingredients she picks out, a-la Chopped. Below is his recounting of the challenge, not to mention fairly detailed instructions on how to recreate it (way to give away your secrets, man). Thanks Ed!
________________________________________________________
Christi and I have pretty much become addicted to Chopped on the Food Network. If you are not familiar with it, it is a contest where four chefs compete against each other for $10,000. There are three rounds and after each round a chef is eliminated. The first round is an appetizer, the second is an entree and finally a desert. In each round the chefs are given four secret ingredients to use and they are typically ingredients that are pretty far apart on the culinary spectrum.
I'm not sure what got into the wife but she decided to toss me a challenge. I couldn't let my manhood be called out like that so I gladly accepted. She went out and bought my secret ingredients, two for an appetizer, three for an entree and two for a dessert. We decided to wave the time limits since A) I'm not a trained chef and B) our kitchen isn't even remotely equipped for such a challenge.
She went out and purchased her secret ingredients and here is what she came back with:
Appetizer:
- Marcona almonds
- Gouda goat cheese
- Cornish Hens
- Fresh spinach
- Fresh cranberries
- Mini bananas
- Whole Kona blend coffee beans
The Appetizer
I figured Christi would get goat cheese since she loves it so much. Gouda goat cheese was a bit of a surprise but not too terribly different. A similar flavor but not crumbly. I like the almonds. They had a nice crunch and salty flavor. A salad instantly came to mind. For the first time I made my own dressing. It was a strawberry pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette. I decided to expand on the flavor of the almonds and candied them with brown sugar and bourbon. The gouda goat cheese is great by itself so I just shredded it on to baby spring mix greens. The tanginess of the dressing went great with the sweetness of the almonds and the creaminess of the cheese tied it together nicely.
Final dish: Bourbon candied Marcona almonds and Gouda goat cheese on baby spring mix greens with a strawberry pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette
 |
| Bourbon candied Marcona almonds and Gouda goat cheese on baby spring mix greens with a strawberry pomegranate balsamic vinaigrette |
I wasn't sure what Christi would have picked for a protein. I leaned towards fish but would have never expected she would have picked cornish hens. No big deal, they are just little chickens. The fresh cranberries worried me because of their tartness. I love raw spinach but wanted to try something different and cook it.
To add a third element to the entree I wanted to add a starch. Potato pancake came to mind but I didn't think it would tie in very well. Having some butternut squash on hand I decided to add sweet potato and make a butternut squash and sweet potato pancake. I seasoned it with cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar to give it that homey taste. To help bring together the pancake and hen I made a zinfandel cranberry applesauce.
I simply roasted the cornish hen with my typical poultry seasoning (fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, fresh sage, garlic salt, pepper and olive oil). I made a glaze of a cranberry and merlot reduction and glazed the hens about half way through cooking. I had to add a bit of sugar to the glaze since the cranberries were so tart. The glazed turn out awesome.
The spinach was a different story. I had never cooked with fresh spinach but I liked the idea. I kept it simple by wilting it in some bacon drippings, shallots and roasted garlic. I tossed in the bacon bits at the end. It was o.k. at best. I'll probably stick with raw spinach.
Final dish: Cranberry merlot glazed cornish hen with butternut squash and sweet potato cakes, zinfandel cranberry applesauce and bacon and roasted garlic spinach
 |
| Cranberry merlot glazed cornish hen with butternut squash and sweet potato cakes, zinfandel cranberry applesauce and bacon and roasted garlic spinach |
Ahhh... dessert!!!! Mini bananas? Easy! Coffee beans with bananas? New to me! The first thing that came to mind was banana pudding. But how to pair the coffee beans? I know! Coffee whipped cream! To make sure I got the pudding right I actually referred to a recipe. Desserts aren't as forgiving when it comes to measuring. I used Alton Brown's banana pudding recipe (or at least 95%) of it. Basically it's vanilla pudding but I mashed up half of the mini bananas and mixed them in. To add another layer of flavor I took the other half of the bananas and mixed them with some caramel. I finely ground the coffee beans and added them to the whipped cream. I layered each of the elements in a wine glass and sprinkled in some Godiva milk chocolate. All I can say is that it was banana coffee love in a glass.
Final dish: Banana pudding with caramel bananas and coffee infused whipped cream
 |
| Banana pudding with caramel bananas and coffee infused whipped cream |
All in all I think I rose to the challenge. Every dish except the banana pudding was my own recipe and new ones at that. The only misstep was the spinach but everyone, except grumpus August loved the meal. I can't image the stress the chefs feel actually competing. I'm just a dude who likes to cook and I felt like I had to be on top of my game. Every meal I cook makes me appreciate the people who do this for a living even more. Now how do I spend that $10,000!!!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Eat This! Autumn Seasonal Beer Pairing
It’s been a long time since I’ve written a food blog, but not because I haven’t been cooking. Just been waiting for an appropriate topic to cover here, and I think I’ve got it here.
The idea of pairing wine with food is a well-established culinary topic that everyone knows about, if few really understand. But there’s no question that an excellent wine pairing can truly enhance a dish, unlocking portions of the flavor profile that would remain hidden if eaten alone, and magnifying the portions that are already present. No arguments there.
However, it’s only been recently (like within the last 5-10 years) that the same type of attention has been paid to pairing beers with food, especially in the U.S. For this I blame the big, yellow-fizzy macrobrews that were the only thing that most people for decades knew as “beer.” These days the country has truly rediscovered its glorious, immigrant-driven brewing past (which was all but wiped out by Prohibition), and the availability of interesting, innovative, and rare artisan brews is widespread. This offers a great opportunity to the modern amateur chef…can I craft a menu with craft beer specifically in mind?
Well of course the answer is yes…you can find a beer that will pair with literally any dish, from burgers to foie gras. But making the connections when there are literally thousands of possibilities is the difficult part. Brewing aficionados will even go so far as to tell you that pairing beer properly can be more difficult than pairing wine because of the vast variety of styles that are completely different from one another, while one red wine shares a lot of the same baseline characteristics as most other reds. (This is of course a matter of opinion…don’t think I’m some sort of uncultured rube. Well, not for that reason anyway. If you must think of me as a rube, focus on my incomprehension of musical theatre instead.)
Anyway, all of this is leading up to a meal I recently prepared for a group of friends. The dinner was actually done as a charity event for outreach programs in my wife’s church, a type of dinner known as Dining For Dollars. Everyone buys a ticket for a limited number of seats at the table, and my wife and I cooked. Five courses following a theme of autumn seasonal flavors, with a specific beer paired to each. We actually held a test run of the dinner a few weeks ago...some of the photos are actually from that occasion, but mostly the same stuff.
Let’s talk about it!
Course 1: Appetizers
This one was a little loose and free, so I hesitate to call it a “course,” but it was still an interesting opportunity to introduce the guests to the concept of examining the way beer pairs with food, while giving everyone a chance to mingle and get to know each other. It was essentially a buffet-style spread of light, finger fair to roughly fit the theme. Apples, pears, table grapes, as well as a variety of cheeses to cover a range of the palette, from a soft, “fragrant” Chaumes to hard aged cheddar. A couple of dry Italian sausages rounded it out, a Sopressata and a red-wine salami, and various crackers and sour dough bread.
The pairings for this course were fairly easy, since you just need something that can lightly accent all the different flavors without overpowering any of them. In this case I chose Duvel blonde and a very nice kolsch from Reissdorff.
The Belgian Duvel is dry and faintly floral, with a very slight bitter finish and virtually no malt. I found that it worked beautifully with the fruit, and was still light and dry enough to cut through the heavy flavors of the meats and cheeses. The Reissdorf kolsch is an excellent example of an admittedly wide-open style, on the malty side with a fair amount of body. To taste it after the Duvel is to immediately recognize it as a very different beer, and yet it worked equally well with the food. I was not as impressed with the match to the fruit, but it was a generally good pairing to the heavier appetizers.
Course 2: Fall Salad
The first formal course was a complex little salad to highlight the season and touch on all the major flavors. A bed of baby greens was accented with candied walnuts, dried cranberries and creamy Gorgonzola cheese, with a fresh-made raspberry vinaigrette. Thus, one small plate contains bitter, sweet, salty, and sour elements, all pulled together by the subtle vinaigrette…an interesting pairing challenge.
The pairing chosen (after much deliberation) was Jolly Pumpkin brewery’s Calabaza Blanca.
This is a challenging beer for newbies especially, but a delightful surprise with the salad when first tasted. It’s a Belgian “biere blanche,” literally white beer, wheat/barley malt spiced with coriander and orange peel and aged in oak casks. It is one of the most complex tasting experiences I’ve ever encountered, running through several iterations from sip to swallow. It starts with attention-grabbing tartness, not unlike a lambic or other sour ale, but this quick fades and is replaced with a dry spiciness that mellows as it finishes. On the whole, the perfect way to draw and blend the various flavors of the salad without overpowering and engulfing any of them.
Course 3: Smoky Squash Bisque with Crème Freche and Bacon
For the soup course, I’m going to the safety of a recipe I’ve presented here before, with a small aggressive twist. The soup is a relatively simple combination of butternut squash, mirepoix, chicken stock and chipotle chile. I used bacon at the front end (aromatics sweated in bacon drippings) and the back (rendered bacon as garnish), with the crème freche to smooth the whole experience out and add a bit of needed fat. What results is a warm, hearty and savory soup, with a strong presence of heat from the chiles.
The pairing chosen would seem to be fairly obvious, Weyerbacher’s Imperial Pumpkin Ale.
When pairing beer with spicy food, I find it’s best to go with a malty brew that allows the heat to dissipate from your tongue slowly, without short circuiting it entirely. Since capsaicin (the chemical that makes chiles hot) is alcohol soluble, that helps too, although too much and your body actually reacts the wrong way by opening up pores and letting the heat in too far. Okay, maybe some of that is bullshit, but this imperial pumpkin ale works fantastic with the soup. It’s not spiced so much that you can’t even taste the pumpkin, and is high enough alcohol content (around 8%) that it helps with the mouth-burn. Squash notes still very present in the soup tie directly to their cousins in the ale, and everything just…works.
Course 4: Porchetta and Boulangerie Beans with Potatoes and Leeks
The main event, and far and away the most difficult of the dishes to prepare (it should be that way, shouldn’t it?). Porchetta translates from Italian as, roughly, “whole roasted pig,” and this recipe tries to recreate that with boneless pork loin and skin-on pork belly. An earlier test of the dish revealed it to be pretty bland and fatty (fatty, really? The hell, you say.) This was solved quite handily by brining the pork belly for two days before assembling the porchetta, using Fergus Henderson’s recipe . The result was a flavorful and moist (and yes, fatty, but in a good way) roast, accented by the fennel, garlic and orange worked into the roll, surrounded by that awesome, cracking skin.
How about a couple more pictures, huh?
The roast is rustically sliced and served on a bed of boulangerie beans and potatoes, with leeks as a beautiful addition. This is a version of a very classic French peasant dish—basically their version of Boston baked beans in terms of culinary anthropology. And let me say this one thing: I love leeks. Leeks are just the bees’ knees. Leeks are what onions could be if they’d just get off their ass and apply themselves. And leeks with butter could win the Democratic presidential nomination (but not the Republican one…too “elitist,” like arugula).
The pairing here is another one that could be considered obvious, at least from a cultural and geographic consideration: Saison DuPont
Yet another Belgian style (it wasn’t supposed to be the theme, that’s just what fell out), saison is a farmhouse ale, meant to be a table beer served with traditional “home-cooking.” Crossing some national boundaries serving it with an Italian main course, but it fits pretty perfectly. It’s actually cheating a little bit, because saisons will pair well with just about anything savory—heavier stuff like this, but also seafood, salads, you name it. It's also one of my personal favorites. The flavor profile is very complex but not as easy to separate out like our friend the Calabaza served with the salad, which suits the dish well.
Course 5: Dense Chocolate Tort with Salted Caramel Sauce
I will take no credit for the dessert course. My wife, who happily cedes most of the cooking duties to me, takes great pleasure and pride in her desserts, and this one clearly reflects that. The flourless tort is made with Irish butter, two different types of chocolate, and what I can only assume is some sort of black magic. It is a bittersweet dream to behold. The caramel sauce is made with a red sea salt from Hawaii that is one of her little secrets (sorry, babe, but the truth must be told). Oh, and she also likes to do sugar art, as you can see from the photo above. Amazing.
Such an amazing dessert deserves an amazing pairing that won’t total overpower or destroy it. And yes, of course you can drink beer with dessert—stop thinking like a yellow-fizzy. Southern Tier Crème Brulee Imperial Stout was the hands-down favorite.
Chocolate can go well with a lot of stouts and porters, or other malty styles, without much trouble. But this beer, with its creamy texture and burnt-caramel notes, seemed designed specifically for this tort. It’s made with dark caramel malt, real vanilla bean and lactose sugar, producing and incredibly smooth and mouth-heavy stout. Creamy, stable head on top enhances the nose as well. If you could make crème brulee drinkable, this is what you’d end up with.
------------------------------------------------
So that’s the meal. It worked so well that I think I’m going to do it more often, with different themes. Maybe a nice grillout with great summer ales and crisp IPA’s. Or a meal of reconstructed Cincinnati favorites—Skyline, goetta, and Graeter’s anyone?—with the best of the reborn Cincinnati brewing scene for accent?
Anyone have suggestions? And if you want any of the recipes described here, just let me know and I’ll send them your way.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Book Review, One Second After, by William Fortschen
A lot of energy has been expended in the last decade discussing—and arguing—about how best to defend our nation against attack from unknown threats. September 11th changed the way a lot of Americans thought about not only our security, but about our uniquely “American” lifestyle, and how it plays to the rest of the world. Some of the more radical have suggested that our pampered, affluent existence contributed to the sentiment behind the attacks, a few even suggesting that we deserved it.
William Forstchen’s One Second After, while clearly told from a very conservative and classically patriotic viewpoint, tends ironically to reinforce those views. The book is a work of speculative fiction, examining the aftermath of a massive and sudden EMP attack on the United States in the present day. Set in Black Mountain, NC, a small exurb of Asheville, the book’s central character and sole point of view is John Matherson, ex-Army colonel and professor of history at the tiny Christian college in the town. His life is bucolic and uneventful, though touched with melancholy over the death of his wife some years before and the ongoing struggles of his younger daughter Jennifer, who suffers from Type 1 diabetes.
It is during Jennifer’s 12th birthday party that the disaster occurs, though no one will fully realize it for some time. Initially considered just an annoying power outage, signs that something larger has happened begin to trickle into John’s consciousness: every car on the freeway has stopped in place; there are no contrails in a sky normally crisscrossed by air traffic; several mysterious fires burn on distant mountainsides. Most worrisome of all, no radio broadcasts can be heard, even on an ancient Ford Edsel radio.
Matherson, remembering some of the research he’d participated in as a professor at the Army War College, begins to suspect we’ve been the target of an “asymmetric strike.” Gradually the townspeople begin to realize that something terrible has happened, and things begin to turn much darker.
And darker.
And, oh GOD, even darker.
Listen, if you’re a person who likes to sleep soundly and worry-free at night, just…just don’t read this book. I’m not going to go into details about events in the book, because I’m not a spoiler reviewer. But suffice to say that living in our society after the lights—and 99.9% of all vehicular transportation, and communications, and any semblance of sustainable modern medicine—have gone out is not pleasant or leisurely. The world rediscovers the Dark Ages, and fast. Like within weeks. The consequences of the attack and its impact on society are dire and coldly logical in their conclusions. Perhaps pessimistic, but to my mind not implausible.
As readability goes, One Second After is really quite good, if a little clunky and prone to data dumps. A tendency to over-explain jokes and characters’ penchant for launching into long, improbably well thought-out monologues runs through the novel from beginning to end. However, Forstchen focuses narrowly on one place and set of primary characters, which moves the story along briskly and is seldom disorienting. He thus avoids a trap many post-apocalyptic novels tend to fall into by trying to tell the entire story of a global disaster. The devastating impact of the event is felt at the local level—much like every single other thing in the country from now on, because globalization dies the instant the EMP strikes.
Unfortunately, there is a big downfall, and it is one of message. Forstchen, through Matherson and several other “realist” characters, repeatedly makes the point that the current generation is “the most pampered in our nation’s history,” citing such softening factors as cheap and easily accessible drinking water, widely-prescribed antidepressants, and ADD-inducing electronic devices. No one seemed to realize these were so ingrained in our culture until faced with the reality that they were suddenly and permanently gone. While this is certainly true enough, the same characters, sometimes in the same breath, also complain a lot about how the nation turned a blind eye to the risks involved in living such a life, until it was too late to do anything about it.
This criticism is frustrating, because none of the characters, even the knowledge-font Matherson, offers any real preventative solutions that could have been taken. Some vague discussion of “hardened” devices in use by the military is bandied about, but very little else. Instead, the novel tends to mistily glorify the pre-solid state technology of the Greatest Generation—hardly a real option for most of us. The novel is meant to be a warning for us to do something before it’s too late, but what? Without offering possible solutions, Forstchen ends up sounding a bit like Abe Simpson, shaking his fist at the whippersnappers on his lawn, who should be using rotary telephones and medicating with bourbon, like in his day.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Complaints from a Sore Fantasy Football Loser
Fantasy football is my white whale. Every season, I’m called to join whatever league shows up on my social radar. It all seems so hopeful in August. The voices, Costner-like, tell me things that make me believe.
“This will be the year you draft the explosive, durable back that no one else knows about.”
“Former backup quarterbacks finally ‘getting their shot’ as a starter are a sure thing.”
“Kickers matter.”
And so I join a league. Never a pay league…I’m not stupid. Putting real money into what is effectively a glorified multi-player video game is not something I’ve ever considered. But I’ll almost always jump in and make a team with a witty name recalling some isolated chapter of my life, like “Chile’s Legion” or “Team Kaos.” Then the draft is announced, and all happiness begins to drain from my Sundays.
This is where I should mention that the leagues I always seem to play in are populated mostly by people much younger and less, let’s say, spoken-for than I. This year it’s a league at work featuring mostly under-25 engineers, many without wives, children, or mortgages. Other years it was with fraternity brothers who were mostly still active at college. College, where napping at 2PM on any given Tuesday is perfectly plausible, and staying out all night the following Wednesday even more so.
You can see where this is going.
League Commissioner: “OK, the draft is going to be Tuesday night at 11:00! Good luck everybody, or, if you’re a frail old man, set up your autopicks!”
 |
| Indeed I will! Now, who still wears the leather helmets? Those are the gents I want on my team... |
That…doesn’t work for me, and never will. Late weeknights are a thing of the distant past. The last ones I remember involved walking a hallway at 3AM with a colicky baby, and truth be told I don’t clearly remember most of those (that’s probably a good thing, since if I did I’d probably scowl inexplicably at the boy way more often than I do now). The concept of staying up well past midnight agonizing over which 3rd year running back is going to peak in his contract year and which one is about to reach the median NFL retirement age doesn’t even register for me. The following day at work would not be pretty, especially for any subordinates who have a problem I would normally cheerfully help them with. So, live drafting with youngsters—not advisable.
That leaves the autopick feature, helpfully included in almost all fantasy sites. The idea is simple: before the draft, go through the available players, pick out the ones you’d most like to have and arrange them in descending order. When your turn in the draft comes up, the site automatically picks the best one available on your list, filling the roster slots as it goes. Or, even better, do nothing, since the fantasy nerds at the site already rank every NFL player by whatever arcane witchcraft they use anyway. This idea was more attractive to me this year, since I doubt I know more than the nerdy witches, and in previous years every time I’ve tried to arrange my own list I’d end up with a bunch of Bengals because subliminally I’m a self-loathing diehard fan. So that’s what I did…nothing. I went to meet-the-teacher night at my kid’s school and let the draft gods do what they may that evening.
 |
| Allison Hannigan is like the 5th pic that shows up for a Google Image search of "nerdy witch." And while I'm sure you agree that's awesome, I doubt she knows all that much about fantasy football. |
The problem is, autopick is f-ing stupid.
Like any computer program, it’s limited by the parameters within which it is working. This year, the parameters did not include the fact that Peyton Manning could barely turn his head from side to side, and as a result would miss at least the first 4 months of the season. Autopick didn’t know this, he just saw that PM was rated #3 on the draft board this year, and pulled the trigger for me. It went downhill from there. 6 running backs (most past their prime or still waiting for one that’s not going to show), zero usable quarterbacks, and several slot receivers filled my roster the next morning. And since it’s a deep league, waiver pickin’s were slim (Kerry Collins? Why sure! Why the hell not?). I am currently 0-5, with no end in sight. Check out the results of last weekend’s titanic struggle:
 |
| Hey, great game Kolb. The pundits assured me that Philly wasn't a fluke. Chump. You thought I was kidding about Team Kaos, didn't you? |
Yeah, that's 118-38, and there are more scores like that behind it. So, this year’s not my year, sweet August voices be damned. But even in decent performance years, fantasy football is a burdensome yoke. Take the time factor alone. The draft is really just the tip of the iceberg there, since it’s over in a defined amount of time. The week-to-week research quickly becomes unsustainable. In case you’ve never watched an NFL game, it’s sort of a dangerous undertaking. Hulking men who are also faster than you’ve ever been smash into each other hundreds of times in sometimes horrible environmental conditions. This understandably results in injuries. Lots of injuries, especially to the delicate skill position players your roster is full of. So your whole world begins to revolve around the Wednesday injury report. If Adrian Peterson didn’t practice on Wednesday, you’d better start second-guessing. That will lead to further second guessing about the rest of the roster, based on their performance the previous week. Will he have another monster game like he did against the Seahawks? Of course not, everyone has a monster game against the Seahawks, you say. But if you bench him and he has another monster? You hate yourself until the following week.
 |
| Like all those stock brokers from the last few years, but with slightly less life-destroying. |
But the worst is the problem of compromised allegiances. I am an unfortunate Bengals fan, as referenced above. Even though I grew up in Browns country, the allegiance still took hold when I was young—my older brother was a fan, the striped helmet was cool, Cincinnati seemed like a way cooler city than Cleveland (true enough). Normally this is simple. I sit on my couch with a beer and scream at the TV like any other fan, and enjoy a simple, uncompromising hatred of the Pittsburgh Steelers and everything they stand for. But now superimpose a fantasy football team onto this idyllic scenario. What if my primary RB is Rashard Mendenhall? Who do I root for? I can’t happily cheer for my team in full, because to do so successfully would limit one of my only fantasy horses. And it’s worse when I have players from both teams. It also forces me to give a damn about games for which I could happily care less. Raiders-Broncos? Not interested…except for Knowshon. How’s he doing? And you’ll find yourself getting irrationally pissed off when the little stat tracker graphic on the TV coverage doesn’t pop up after a complete pass. I must know how many points he’s accrued! My Sunday happiness demands it!
That’s no way to watch football.
Why do I keep doing it? Not chicks, that’s for sure…my wife thinks I’m an idiot when I complain about the kicker for the Vikings shanking a field goal attempt, or Arizona’s quarterback sailing a pass to the free safety. I guess it’s for the same reasons lots of people do—a sense of camaraderie, the thrill of competition, the quest for glory.
Now, while we’re on the subject of glory, would anyone like to deal a mid-ranked starting quarterback and a healthy kicker for two goal-line specialist running backs and the San Diego defense? I’m telling you, it’ll pay off for you in the long run…just forget everything I’ve just written and think of the glory…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)