Calling on the combined wisdom of readers of this blog…
Would anyone happen to know good recipes which involve tortilla flour? (not tortillas, obviously :-p. We don’t own a tortilla press, and it’s a bit too much of a hassle without one).
Thanks in advance!
Swamped. Or ocean-ed, quite possibly.
Working on a new short in the Xuya continuity, involving spaceships and poets.
Made my first serious phở ersatz, mostly pre-prepared broth and paste, but with veggies and spices thrown in for a better taste. Yummy… Next up, I think, is using pre-prepared beef broth (instead of the pre-made phở broth, which is full of MSG). The full broth including beef is at least three hours’ simmering, too long to make for an evening dish, but I can live with cubes of beef broth and additional spice. Now to find some cloves, which my local supermarket doesn’t stock…
Vietnamese continues apace; we now have a book. Or rather, four books, out of which the first one is entirely dedicated to pronunciation. Arg. Still struggling with normal vowels and consonants, and then we move to diphtongs…
Fun stuff I’ve learnt: my default tone isn’t the level one (ngang), but rather the falling-rising one (hỏi). When I’m really tired, I default to this, with hilarious results…
Also, the day I can pronounce “Wednesday” in Vietnamese is going to be a red-letter one (“ngày thứ tư”, lit. “the fourth day”, regroups four sounds I can’t manage,, the “ng”, the “th” which should be somewhat harsh but distinct from the “t”, and the “ư”).
Went over to the supermarket to buy some celery. When I got to the tills, the cashier looked at the vegetable with a dubious air. He then turned to his colleague brandishing it and asked, “How much is that?” His colleague shrugged and said he had no idea what the thing was.
“It’s celery,” I pointed out.
He still looked very much bemused. After he found the barcode for it and I was in the process of paying for the shopping, he wanted to know if there was any use for it and what you actually did with this weird-looking veggie.
Clearly, celery isn’t as recognisable as carrots :=)
As the radio silence might indicate, I’ve been fairly busy, though most of it wasn’t writing. Had a fun and busy weekend with friends and family, saw Neil Williamson on his way through Paris, tried an Asian recipe (cha siu, which turned out awesome and which I heartily recommend. There will be pics next time, I swear), and worked my way through more Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.
And now it’s back to the grind–aka researching the next Obsidian and Blood novel. I’ve already got a fairly good idea of what it’s about, but now I need a detailed outline and a plot that (hopefully) makes sense. Got a pile of books on the sofa, a full teapot, and my trusty notebook…
In an Asian cookbook that was among the bookstore’s pick for the month:
“Nước mắm sauce: pick it amber, and not black and/or smelly, as the last denotes inferior quality.”
Er… I guess it depends on your definition of “smelly”? My nước mắm sauce is as smelly as they come, and it’s certainly not inferior quality (it’s got the official Vietnamese seal of approval). Amber says weak to me, aka the Thai fish sauce I tried a few months ago that just wouldn’t decent dipping sauce no matter how much I poured. But I guess if we’re talking about European palates…
(yes, the BF thinks my latest batch of nước chấm is a little…extreme? I think I finally managed to mix it with the proper kick)
Yesterday, my Mom and I went to eat Vietnamese–and Mom wrangled some freshly-ground chillies from the restaurant, which she gave me to take home. So, yesterday evening, all proud of my new toy, I mix some fresh nước mắm sauce, and my hand hovers over the chillies, wondering how much to put in. After a while, I settled on the smallest unit I knew, one coffee spoon–dumped it in, and mixed everything.
After trying out the sauce with some fried rolls, I might need to rethink my smallest unit…
Also, it’s been said many times, but don’t let me loose in an Asian foodstore. I managed to get out with only a handful of bottles (sesame oil, undiluted nước mắm, and rice vinegar) , some fresh noodles, some fruit and some ginger, but still, it was a heavy trek back home. (also, I’m now the proud owner of a garlic press, various wooden spatulas of different shapes, and a large vegetable peeler…)
And as a parting short, via SF Signal: Samurai Wars, aka the Star Wars Universe redone in ukiyo-e (traditional apanese) style. Made of awesome (for some reason, can’t link to any of the images, but check out the following: Admiral Ackbar, Jabba the Hutt, Obi-Wan Kenobi).
Well, it’s official: I’ve caught the grandmother of all colds, probably spread to me via the air conditioning system. The only question now is how long the BF will survive without catching it 🙂
On the plus side, my books arrived today–I immediately lent the Alastair Reynolds to the BF, who needed reading for a train journey, and kept the Daniel Fox in my grubby little paws. Also made some progress in a new story, after a couple abortive starts–1500 words so far, aiming for 2,500 so should be done soon.
In the cooking experiment series, we bought fresh Chinese noodles yesterday, and I cooked them with cha lua (alias Vietnamese sausage/ham). Yummy. I love this; usually, I stick it in a sandwich or cook rice to go with it, but frying noodles, scallions and putting soy sauce on top of everything was pretty nice.
800 words today. I’ve successfully locked my main character in a room with a knife-wielding maniac, always a good recipe for success (well, for the story. The character’s chances must be lower). Darn, it feels good to be tormenting someone again. I haven’t been doing any first-drafting since Worldcon: I’ve done edits and copy edits, but haven’t actually started to write another story since then.
Tomorrow, celebrating the novel sale with my work colleagues: to that end, I’m making ham and goat-cheese cake. So far, the cake
(at least I know why the second point: I went a bit overboard on the baking soda…).
I’d post the recipe, but first I need to taste it.
EDIT: Matthieu pointed out that I’d screwed up with the oven’s settings, too, and that the thing was burning faster than it was baking. Sigh. Me, and cooking: 3 different people.
