OK, so no pictures, but my latest cooking experiment, a quick way of jazzing up Asian egg noodles when the cupboard is (nearly) bare. This goes well with strong-tasting dishes (I wouldn’t advise serving it with something bland, as it’s somewhat bland itself).

You will need:
-two nests (half a packet) egg noodles
-1 teaspoon ground ginger
-1 tablespoon chili-garlic sauce
-1 tablespoon fish sauce, OR a solid pinch of salt, OR 1 tablespoon oyster sauce (slightly different effects depending on what you use for salt content).
-1 tablespoon sesame oil
-1 garlic clove, chopped (or to taste)
-handful of spring onions, green and white part separately, chopped into little pieces

1. Cook the noodles in boiling water. There’s a trick to that if you don’t want an unholy tangled mess, which, first, take the nests from the wrapper and comb through them to untangle (do NOT dump into the boiling water tangled, or it will only get worse). Second, after you dump the noodles into boiling water, stir regularly, until the boiling starts again. Should be 2 minutes. Don’t leave more than that, or they get over-soggy. Then rinse the noodles under running water until most of the starch has gone away (it’s hard to describe; but mostly the noodles don’t feel quite so sticky). Keep untangling as you can. Personally, I’ve never quite managed to keep them separate, but that probably reflects more on my general cooking skills than anything else. If you’re not going to use the noodles straight away, leave them in cold water until needed.

2. Put a wok/frying pan with oil on high heat. Add the chopped garlic, the white part of the green onions, and fry for about 30s, until fragrant. Drain the noodles, and put them in the work. Swirl and keep untangling. Work in the chili-garlic sauce, the fish sauce/salt, and the ground ginger, making sure to mix well so all noodles get equal amounts of spices. Do this until the moisture is all but gone and the noodles are starting to brown. Then add in the spring onions, work in the sesame oil, and take off the heat.

Serve with a dish with a strong taste, as they’re still somewhat bland (it’s a bit my equivalent of white rice for egg noodles).

Also, having been hit by real life (again), this blog is going to remain in sort of in zombie mode for one further week. I could say I’m getting lots of fascinating ideas for blog posts, but mostly all I want now is some chocolate, a hot tea and a silly movie.

PS: btw, how many readers of this blog would be interested in a post on basic rice handling and cooking? I’ve never done it because it seems so obvious and I’ve been doing this my entire life, but it seems wrong to post so many Asian recipes and never tackle this at all… (hint: it is NOT about boiling a lot of water with a pinch of salt, flinging the rice in it, and cooking until the grains are perfectly separate).

You can now listen to the podcast of my pseudo-Chinese story “As the Wheel Turns” over at issue 9 of Dark Fiction Magazine (where I am in the stellar company of Juliet McKenna, James Barclay Andrew Reid and Kev Clark).

Click here for the podcast. Thanks to Sharon Ring, Kate Sherrod and the rest of the Dark Fiction Magazine team!

-Malinda Lo on “What does ‘authentic’ mean, anyway?”. Some really interesting thoughts, especially the impossibility of saying “so-and-so is more authentic than…” (ie, authenticity isn’t an objective criteria and everyone has different experiences). Even though it’s a tricky business, I definitely think that Malinda is right when she says you can have, say, a character in Ancient Vietnam who insults her mother–but you have to be aware that, within the wider culture, she’s going not only to be viewed as unusual, but as an unfilial daughter, and there will be heavy consequences for her.

-Somehow ended up on deepad’s DW, where I found an old-ish post about emigrants vs. sourcelanders (to over-simplify, the diaspora versus those who remained in the “home” country). Interesting discussion especially as regards authenticity (though I’m not sure I agree with everything. Some of the arguments about who “owns/gets to write about” the cultural heritage of a particular country, for instance, make me more than a little uneasy, though a. I’m hardly neutral on the issue, obviously, and b. I can see where the frustration comes from–an all-too-familiar case of minorities/majorities in Western countries getting more attention than their “sourcelander” counterparts). ETA: sorry, this is the blog post in question. As a bonus and because, on second thought, the post, its comments and some of the attendant assumptions make me deeply uneasy, here’s a set of links to Asian people blogging about their various hyphenate experiences and how it’s affected them. Especially love this one by ciderpress.

-Two Dudes in an Attic reviews Servant of the Underworld (particularly like the description of Acatl as an emo wanker who would be moping and writing bad love poetry, were he alive today).

-Amy Sanderson reviews Servant of the Underworld.

And, on the French side of things, D’Obsidienne et de Sang gets reviewed by Blackwolf. And appears to have been longlisted for the Prix des Blogueurs Planète SF (a Bloggers’ Award; wasn’t shortlisted, sadly, but the longlist’s already pretty nice ), and to have been a notable work as far as the jury for the Prix Masterton is concerned (the award is for horror and dark fantasy, and the shortlist is out in January 2012 or thereabouts, I think).

And I feel as if someone has neatly struck me between the eyes with a big hammer, so I’m going to bed with a hot tea and a good book… (NOT Le Cinquième Soleil, which requires a bit more energy than I can spare at the moment).

Sorry. Will come back to a more regular (and interesting) blogging schedule when we finally get rid of all the boxes and get properly moved in.

…into a new neighbourhood:
-find two local bakeries: the one that makes the best bread (if necessary, split between the one that makes the best baguettes and the one that makes the best loaves); and the one that doesn’t make the best bread, but is open on Sundays.
-find the local Asian (Vietnamese/Chinese) takeaway (which has the advantage of being open 7/7). Not difficult, as there are three of them within a 2-minute walk.
-find the local pizza delivery place, preferably one open late at night and on Sundays. Not as easy as the Asian takeaway; we finally found a kebab place that also doubles as a pizzeria, and makes their own dough by hand. Yummy. Drawback is over-reliance on eggplants (I love eggplants to bits, but the H is less obliging).
-find the nearest Asian (ie Vietnamese) food-store. Normally, this would be Chinatown, but we’re in luck, as there’s a small grocery store that carries a handful of basic supplies. Already bought some chả lựa and spring onions
-find the nearest open-air market. Theoretically done, but we haven’t been yet.
-find a cheesemonger, a fishmonger, and a butcher. Got the cheesemonger, still working on the other two.
(and yes, it’s all food. I can’t see why there’s a problem there…)

Let’s see…
Kitchen: almost done. Dishwasher working. Rice cooker reinstalled. Broken cupboard was fixed this morning.
Living room: furniture almost in their final locations, except for my desk which will possibly move around a bit. Not yet unpacked: my computer, misc. papers, and books.
Bedroom: my clothes unpacked and sorted. The H’s are still in boxes.
Bathroom: most of the stuff is elsewhere, because the cupboard isn’t installed yet. But the washing machine is working (we had a bit of a fright because it wouldn’t restart–turns out it was a plugged filter).

Missing: a dresser for holding the excess dishware and cutlery. Sorting out the duplicate materials in the cellar.

All in all, a most profitable weekend

Oh, and I did manage to finish editing Foreign Ghosts, as well as tentatively plotting two sequels, Unwelcome Spirits and Revered Ancestors. One thing down, several billions to go…

Sorry about the lack of news–it’s not that the internet has been lacking, but we’ve been spending a lot of time unpacking boxes…

The piano has arrived, though sadly it had a big gash, and we’re seeing with the movers about that. And I’m re-discovering the joys of line 13, our most (in)famously packed subway line: basically, you don’t need to hold onto anything to be able to stand throughout its run between stations, you’re propped up by the other passengers…

This weekend, it’s put-the-books-away, and put-the-boxes-away. What fun

Meanwhile, I’m off to finish edits on Foreign Ghosts before shipping it off to my agent.

… I have seen the draft versions of the illustrations Larry Rostant did for the French translation of Harbinger of the Storm and Master of the House of Darts.
This would be the point where I go all Gollum and say “my precious” over and over. All I’m allowed to say is that they’re as pretty (or maybe more pretty) than the first one.

In other news, had a pleasant week: saw Chaz Brenchley and his girlfriend Karen Sunday; had dinner with James Patrick Kelly and his wife Pam today; and got my French translation of Harbinger of the Storm to peruse. Also, trying to sort out a synopsis. Almost there…

The move went well, even though the piano didn’t make it (the movers hadn’t foreseen the lift wouldn’t be large enough, and it takes special people to move a fragile piano upstairs). The H is a little sad, but normally we should have it on Monday.

Our flat has been completely done over, and it’s very pretty (parquet floor, nice kitchen with all-new appliances, and the suppression of a wall that cost us space in the living room).

I’m also close to the new job (about half an hour, as opposed to the hour I used to commute before), which definitely feels nice.

Computer’s still in storage, so I’m typing this from the small laptop–and, of course, we’re in a room full of boxes (they’re winning, trust me). And yeah, writing has been pretty much not happening in this corner of the woods…

And our move has been under the sign of Doctor Who: we finished up the Tennant specials during the packing of boxes (nothing extraordinary, though I can’t quite understand the bile against them. They’re pretty average episodes with nothing special, except perhaps “Waters of Mars”, and “The End of Time”, which doesn’t have a fantastic scenario, but is worth it just for Timothy Dalton as a Time Lord ). And our new, mini living room setup was christened with the first few Matt Smith specials (so far, I like Smith more than Tennant, and I have to say “The Eleventh Hour” was a terrific ep).

Now, if only we could have a TARDIS to move things around…

-Athena Andreadis has two posts on “Safe Exoticism”, where she tackles the challenge of representing concepts that you don’t master (both on the science front, and on the culture front).

There is nothing wrong with writers using other cultures than their own, especially if they’re good storytellers with sensitive antennae. But when such works are taken for the real thing, the real thing often gets devalued or rejected outright, just as real science gets rejected in SF in favor of notions that are false or obsolete and often duller than the real thing.
(…)
There’s another equivalence between science and non-Anglo cultures in speculative fiction. Namely, the devil’s in the details. You need to have absorbed enough of your subject’s essence to know what counts, what needs to be included for verisimilitude. You may get the large picture right by conscientious research; you may get by with bluffing – but small things give away the game even when the bigger items pass cursory inspection. The diminutive of Konstantin in Russian is not Kostyn, it’s Kostya. Hellenic names have vocative endings that differ from the nominative. The real thing is both more familiar and more alien than it appears in stories written by cultural tourists. And often it’s the small touches that transport you inside another culture.

(I’ve lost count the stories set in France which got the first names completely wrong, so no argument there. Though tend to be more unforgiving of stories that get the details right in obsessive minutiae, and then completely fail on the mindset. I’ve read stories set in Ancient China where the main character insulted their father to his face, which is pretty much, er, fail?)

Read more here and here.

-Bryan Thao Worra on Lao steampunk (funnily enough, Minh Mạng’s reign was one of the possible turning points I envisioned for Việt Nam’s history in the Xuya continuity , but in the end I decided to dispense with the ill-fated Nguyễn dynasty altogether).

Packing up the boxes in the cellar tonight, and then perhaps an episode of Doctor Who (1st ep of S5), or, if we have more time, Trần Anh Hùng’s The Vertical Ray of the Sun, which looks nice.