Caught sight of this via the interwebs: Desdaemona, by Ben Macallan (aka Chaz Brenchley). Released at the end of May. It’s got a nifty eye-catching cover; and an intriguing premise (Jordan sounds like a cool character, and people who have done Very Bad Things with immortals certainly promise much delightful mayhem). I haven’t read the book, but I’ve read some of Chaz’s stuff, and I have no doubt that this is going to be delightful and scary and full of awesome literary goodness–and very much NOT your average urban fantasy.
Plus, we definitely need more Brits trying out their hands at this sort of thing (I for one am getting tired of all those US settings and mindsets, and very much welcome stuff like Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London/Midnight Riot, and Suzanne MacLeod’s Spellcrackers.com).

So, if you feel like checking it out, now’s the time… I’m off to preorder my own copy.

Still chugging away at my edits…

Today’s dish was thịt kho, pork simmered in caramel. Definitely worth the caramel-making, and super easy to cook. It would, of course, have been even nicer if I hadn’t sliced into my finger while chopping garlic, but he, you can’t have everything in life…

Also, beginnings of April means I get to order books on amazon (or, as it happens, on the Book Depository). Got myself The Threefold Lotus Sutra plus a commentary.

Oh, and I saw a 3DS with a demo of Pilotwings. Impressive, though I’m not really sure I’d enjoy having the depth of field all the time (the geek within me, though, is busy wondering how it all works. It’s a curse, I tell ya…)

More coherent thoughts soon, I promise. Meanwhile, I shall go back to planning deaths and general mayhem.

Aka nước màu.

I used the recipe in Mai Pham’s Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table, which basically consists of making dry caramel in a deep pan, and then taking the pan off the heat and pouring boiling water over the sugar to stop the burning process. Good thing I’m paranoid and stood a long way off when pouring the water, because the reaction is, let’s say, quite dramatic, with plenty of sputtering and hissing (and burning sugar, let me tell you, is hot enough for very nasty surprises).

Next up: kho dishes! (nope, I don’t have the required clay pot, but I’m planning to use our Le Creuset French oven for those–we got it as a wedding gift and haven’t actually used it. Figured now is as good a time to break it out).

Note: it’s slightly darker than most pictures around the Internet, because I used “sucre blond” (unsure of how to translate that in English. I think it’s blond cane sugar) instead of white sugar. It’s apparently not recommended to use anything other than white sugar to make caramel, because impurities in non-refined sugar lead to caramelising failure; but unless I missed something, everything went fine here…