I obsessively proofread the upcoming “Immersion” in Clarkesworld; I think I’ve got everything, but probably I haven’t Kind of worried how it’ll come across: I seem to have moved in a new phase where I attempt very ambitious and very personal things, and end up always worried I’ll get something wrong or get howled at by everyone (OK. Not that very different from the Impostor Syndrome. Just turned up to max, for no reason I can see).

Cooking wise, this was very much a week for not trying out anything new–bought some coconut milk to make a bánh chuối nướng in order to consume leftover bread; of course ended up with leftover coconut milk, so made cà ri tôm (sort of a merge of this recipe and this recipe with half the ingredients substituted for something else). Next week, however, I have some crab to use up, and I’m going to be more adventurous (might even open the VN cookbook and check out promising stuff, ever-so-slowly and with the help of my trusty dictionary ).

Now I’m off to buy some running shoes and celebrate a birthday–and eat the last of the chả lụa Grandma brought back from Saigon (which is going to make me regret Vietnam all over again…).

See you on Wednesday

And, I have to admit, he’s right. There are many many things that I find outright creepy in them–the insistence on overtaxing companies (er, can I point out that companies you overtax will just move to another country where taxes are lower?), on curbing immigration and promoting French values at the expense of Europe (yeah, sure, let’s step back a few decades).

But that’s not the pathetic thing. The thing is–all of those leaflets, save one [1], fail on a very simple basic criterion: they don’t make sense. They present a presidential program that does a combination of: incoherent measures, promising something we already have in place (like separating investment activities from credit activities. We already have that), and/or promising something intenable (you can’t actually hand out gift measures to everyone, and promise we’ll balance our budget by 2017). And I stare at them, and think, oh my God. That’s leaflets for voters. They think we’re going to swallow this hook, line and sinker. They think we know so little about our own country, that we have so little logical and critical sense that we’ll believe all of this.

It’s… scary. Probably not in the way that they intended, but it doesn’t make me very optimistic about the coming years.

*happy writer*

The first two are of the Ngũ Hành Sơn (mountains of the Five Elements), better known in English as Marble Mountain: it’s a major Buddhist temple complex near Đà Nẵng (centre of Vietnam), which has a slew of pagodas and shrines on moutaintops, as well as temples carved within caves that are truly impressive. Easily my favourite place (though not very favoured by Western tourists; the crowd was mostly local) of the trip: serene and unearthly, and with fabulous views over the surrounding countryside. Easy to see why they built the temples here.

And this is the tomb of Khải Định, the second-to-last emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty: Huế is surrounded by the mausoleums of all the emperors–they’re all in very different styles, and this one is a striking fusion of Eastern and Western (see the octogonal pavillion vs the crosses that line the terraces). Inside, it looks a lot like a Vietnamese Versailles, with lots of ornate ceramics on the walls, and it has a golden likeness of the Emperor (the actual body is somewhere under the palace) and a shrine to honour his memory.

That’s all from me–tommorrow it’s back to novel brainstorming and cooking

(on a not-sarcastic note, my heart goes out to the families of the dead, whether it’s the three soldiers or the schoolchildren and the teacher. It’s a truly devastating thing to go through a death of a loved one, especially without rhyme or reason. And I hope they catch whoever is behind all three shootings before they can make more victims. But I have absolutely no pity for the politicians who think fanning a climate of xenophobia is the way to win a presidential campaign)

And today, we went and celebrated the Nebula nomination (yes, I know, fashionably late), and I used the opportunity to drag him to Chinatown Olympiades for the first time, one of the biggest Chinese restaurants in the XIIIe (which turned out to be kind of busy a Saturday at noon, lol). I introduced him to their dim sum menu (which is extensive compared to what you get in a lot of Paris Chinese restaurants), and we had a very pleasant meal altogether.

Afterwards, we joined the queue of people in the Asian food stores, and bought a 5kg bag of the 2012 crop of jasmine rice. *happy cook*

I sent off everything for the Obsidian and Blood omnibus as well: all being well (haven’t heard back yet), the volume will contain all three Acatl short stories in addition to all three novels, a new Introduction by the author aka me, and a character index that was sadly missing from Master of the House of Darts. And I’m hoping we’ll be able to fix various egregious mistakes that were around in the text (as pointed out to me by translator extraordinaire Laurent Philibert-Caillat). So definitely worth investing if you’re a fan

Misc other Obsidian and Blood news: Master of the House of Darts has been entered into Book Spot Central’s annual tournament, where books face off against each other. It’s in the same bracket as Patrick Rothfuss, Mira Grant, N.K. Jemisin and other powerhouses, so very much doubting it’ll get past the first round. But just in case… voting is March 13th-March 15th, I’ll try to post a reminder when it actually happens.
And Servant of the Underworld is book of the month over at Absolute Write Water Cooler’s Book study, so if you feel like discussing its merits (or lack thereof), feel free to hop on over to the thread and speak at length.

Meanwhile, we’re having stuffed zucchini with soy sauce, and I’m once again amused by the fact that, whenever we’re given a choice, the H uses the French/Western-shaped knives, whereas I feel much better when I have the santoku in my hands (I hate French knives, they feel all wrong, balance-wise).

And started counting down to Eastercon. Wow. Can’t quite believe it’s so soon.

You can find the index here: it’s still very much under construction, but I realised to my shock that I’d published 29 recipes on this blog, and that they were, erm, as well organised as my desk (which bears witness to the slow increase of entropy as time goes by).

Any brilliant ideas for publishing and/or organising recipes on WordPress very much welcome at this stage, since I really feel I’ve done nothing but a short-term hack to fix the problem…

In the process, I reorganised my website a bit, and moved a few pages around (hopefully nothing traumatic), as well as set up missing pages (*cough* Obsidian and Blood omnibus *cough*).

And the weekend was meant to be spent looking at my US taxes, but this has come to a halt because the H is acting as some kind of virus incubator, and is therefore not entirely up and about… At least I have brainstormed more Jade in Chains, and am currently reading through Kate Griffin’s A Madness of Angels (after finishing Ben Aaronovitch’s Moon Over Soho). Interesting contrast between the two so far.