Scribbles & Munch

      In case you missed it, April 15th was National Eggs Benedict Day. Mark it on your calendar for next year. My Mom insists that, due to the decadence of eggs, ham, and Hollandaise sauce, eating Eggs Benedict is a sin, and therefore should only be committed once a year. I don't know about that, but I DO know that leaving the dish for a special occasion renders it extra luxuriant.
      I also know that if you order Eggs Benedict every time you see it on a menu, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. Tough ham, lousy Hollandaise, and poorly poached eggs are bound to show up, and nothing makes me begrudge my restaurant tab more than knowing I could have made it better myself. So, my answer is to only eat this dish when it's made at home! And a proper Benedict starts with a well poached egg.
      Poaching eggs is one of those so-simple-it's-bound-to-get-messed up approaches to cooking. When done correctly, it's relatively quick, there's very little clean up, and the finished texture is perfection. When done incorrectly, you'll either have a rubbery egg or a liquidy mess. So let me give you the rundown, nice and easy.

1) Make sure your eggs are fresh. Fresh eggs hold their shape better, and they taste better, too!

2) Use a skillet or saucepan that's deep enough to hold an inch of water, and has a tight-fitting lid. Also make sure it's wide enough to provide at least a full inch of space between each of your eggs.

With a lower side, skillets are easier for egg transfer--but more important is a good fitting lid, so in a pinch a pot works just fine.

3) Put a splash of plain, white vinegar into your water. Just a splash--a teaspoon per egg will work just fine.

4) Put the water over medium high heat, and bring it to a low boil. While you're waiting, crack your eggs into heat-resistant cups! It's easier to smoothly slide an egg from a cup than it is to smoothly drop it out of a cracked shell. So dirty a couple extra mugs and just crack your eggs in advance!

If - IF - you've had practice, and your eggs are very fresh, you can crack more than one egg in a cup, because you'll be able to slide them out one at a time. But if you're new to this, don't try it yet--just stick with one egg per cup for now.

5) When the water is just come to a boil, slide in your eggs, spacing them evenly. Then quickly put on the lid, kill the heat, and set your timer for 5 minutes.

Gently boiling water. If it's a full boil, the eggs will break apart when you slide them in. If your water reaches a full boil before you put in the eggs, just turn down the heat and let the water cool to a hard simmer.

6) While you wait for the time to pass, make toast. Poached eggs are great on toast, whether it's sandwich bread, crumpets, or croissants!

7) When your timer goes off, remove the lid and lift an egg with a slotted spoon, carefully tilting to pour off extra water. Eye your egg closely: you want the white fully set - no translucent jelly bits - and the yolk still liquid in the middle. If you see undercooked white, return the egg to the still-warm water, clamp the lid back on, and let sit for one more minute.*

There will be days when your eggs are not as fresh as you thought. Not-so-fresh eggs may develop "streamers" or foam. You can fish out larger streamers of stray cooked egg white if you want, or just abandon them.

8) When your eggs are done, remove from the water with a slotted spoon, tilting to pour off extra water, and then slide onto your toast. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, break open that yolk, and NOM!

Poached eggs are part of this complete breakfast!

WARNING: This post contains severe geekiness. For your protection, I have separated it into three parts. As you advance, the geek level intensifies. If at any point you feel uncomfortable/out of your depth, just stop. It's Ok. There's no judgement here.


LEVEL ONE: Star Wars
      Just in case you haven't seen it yet, the second trailer for the new Stars Wars movie came out yesterday. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngElkyQ6Rhs

      How do you know you're a geek? When you cheer more loudly at Han's line at the end of this trailer than you have at any sporting event, ever, in your whole life.
      Guilty as charged.


LEVEL TWO: Game of Thrones
      A week ago the first four episodes of season 5 of HBO's "Game of Thrones" series were leaked. These were made available for free online - all at once - the day before the first episode was set to air on HBO. However, since they were versions specifically made available for critics to preview the season, they were not in HD. So...to watch, or not to watch? That was the question.
      I won't lie: my husband and I do not have cable, so in previous years we have been unable to watch GoT legitimately. And yet, somehow, I've seen all the episodes. In HD. Multiple times. I will leave it to you to imagine how we accomplish this. So when we heard that now we could see the first four episodes right away...! We had to have a very serious discussions.
      In the end we opted not to watch the leaked episodes. Here was our reasoning:

a) My husband, at least, has read all the books, and already knows what's going to happen.*
b) We have a great TV set and really like watching things in HD.
c) If we watched the leaked 'sodes, then we'd have to wait a whole month before getting another dose.
d) Frankly, I like the wait.

      Yes, it's true. I like the wait. The excitement of opening my childhood gifts on my birthday was always greater than the thrill of trying to find where they were hidden around the house. For me, the excitement is all the greater for the wait, so I'm content to let the suspense build. The anticipation makes great foreplay.
      Now, is this the case for everyone? Obviously not. For some people, the thrill of hunting down the forbidden - or of getting there first - is the spice that takes things to the next level. Which is fine, it takes all kinds. No, the problem is that some people assume everyone is like that, and these are the people to pollute the internet with spoilers. (Perhaps there is an additional thrill in showing off, "look what I watched before you did!") This is where my relative online ignorance comes in very handy. I get my news from newspapers and radios. I don't read a ton of blogs. I'm not on Facebook (for now). I don't do Twitter (again, for now). And so I've remained happily oblivious to any possible spoilers that may come from the GoT leaks. This has not been the case for my unfortunate husband. But then again, he wasn't too disappointed; he's read the books.


LEVEL THREE: Attack on Titan
      If you read the title of this section and went, "Huh?" just turn back now.
      If, on the other hand you read the title of this section and went, "Have they finally announced when the next season will be aired!?!!" keep reading.
      No, they are still postponing the next season of the anime, "Attack on Titan." But my husband just apprised me of this astonishment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njH4Y1UBucw

      Yeah, that's right: Live Action "Attack on Titan."  Just sit back and ride the high.
Here's more info: http://asianwiki.com/Attack_on_Titan_%28live-action%29


     Ok, Geek Out session is over. Back to cooking. *whew*



*Since I started the show first, I intend to watch the show to its conclusion, then read the books. If I had started the books first, I would have read all of them before watching the show (which would be a problem, since the series isn't finished yet). It's just how I roll.

      While I work through the excellent feedback from my beta readers, I have a list of other tasks to complete before I'm ready to submit my novel manuscript to potential agents. Among these, my least favorite task of all: composing the synopsis.
      Ah, I can feel the collective wince of empathy from those of you familiar with the process. I can also sense the politely questioning blinks from the blissfully ignorant. Allow me to explain.
      Agents, editors, and publishers receive thousands of submissions a year--sometimes tens of thousands. They do not have the time to read your entire manuscript.* Instead, they want a well-written query letter. Some also want to see sample chapters. And lots of them want a synopsis. When I submitted my last manuscript a year ago, I contacted 45 agents, and fully 20 of them wanted a synopsis. And why not? A brief, concise overview of the story tells them almost everything they want to know.
      Too bad for me that writing a synopsis is torturous!
      Consider: you've spent months - maybe years - crafting a marvelous work of tens of thousands of words in a precise, poetic order.** There's flow! There's subtlety! There are description and dialogue that evoke powerful emotional response! It's your masterpiece, and you can't wait for someone to read it! But instead...
      ...instead, they want you to squash your 80,000 words down to 1,000 and still somehow get everything across.
      Wait, did I say 1,000 words? I'm sorry...I meant more like 500.
      Agents and editors are so busy, it makes sense that they need it short and sweet. So how short should a synopsis be? An average length of two pages is best (I say "average" because unless an agent specifies a desired length in their instructions, most will accept between 1 and 3 pages as a "short" synopsis). So you the writer must somehow convey what feels like the majesty of the Sistine Chapel ceiling with only a few stick figures.

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

My attempt to render the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in stick figures. Pretty sure a person could get ex-communicated for doing this--don't try it at home.

      If you've never written a synopsis before but find yourself needing to do so (you poor bastard), you can find some great suggestions - even instructions - online. I started with this set of recommendations by Glen Strathy, and this article by editor Beth Hill. I still find them both useful. But for me the process of writing a synopsis continues to feel like a rude chopping routine. I write out what I think the synopsis should be, covering the points that feel important. Then I realize it's waaaaay too lengthy, even for an acceptable "long" synopsis (which averages 8 pages). So I start hacking away at it. I hew off bits one at a time. I realize this scene isn't actually central to the plot (even though it's filled with suspense!) so that gets whacked off. I decide this character isn't REALLY a main character (even though we'd never know the protagonist's character-enhancing feelings towards his father without their awesome dialogue!) so she gets chopped out. I whack and hack and stab away at the damn thing in big, hard blows...until finally I have something the proper length!
      Then I read it over, and think, "Wow, this is crappily written--it doesn't capture the feeling of my story at all!" Thus begins the refinement. Because it has to be refined to show the talent. If brevity is the soul of wit, then a synopsis is every writer's chance to flaunt their acumen. It's gotta be small, and sweet, and precise, and intriguing.

In other words, you're using this...

...to make this.

      Sound like fun? HA! Oh, you silly masochist, you.
      Seriously, there are probably some people out there who can do this with ease. There are some who can do it with poise, possibly even panache. I want to know who these people are, so I can stalk them until I learn their secret so I can ask them for tips and references. And if they were (as I suspect) blessed by a Fairy Godmother, then I will simply sigh, whip up a batch of brownies to soothe my frustrated feelings, and then pick up my metaphorical hatchet and get typing once again.
      Oh, and just in case you're wondering, current synopsis word count: 3,804 rough ones. Target word count: 1,000 refined ones. I'll keep you posted.

P.S. - Speaking of eggs, today is National Eggs Benedict Day! And trust me when I say that whipping up a Hollandaise sauce from scratch is easier than writing a great synopsis. I recommend Julia Child's recipe on this one. And yes, the leftovers really do freeze like a dream.



*In fact, I have yet to find a legit agent who even wants your entire manuscript; on the contrary, I've come across several who swear that if you send your unsolicited manuscript, they will toss it in the recycling without even cursory glance. Why? Because they make it VERY clear on their websites how they want you to submit your work. And if you don't follow their instructions, they take that to mean (correctly so) that you aren't interested in following their direction, and would probably be a very difficult client to work with. It's a great way for them to weed out the unwanted. And following their instructions for submission is a great way for writers to show agents that they're serious.

**At least it feels poetic to the author--sort of like every parent thinking their kid is a genius.

      Welcome to my 100th blog post!  *confetti*
      What with 2015 being the Year of the Breakfast in my own inner world, I promised something delicious, and deliciousness there shall be. I'm a big fan of nearly all things breakfast (nearly--I still shudder and retch at the idea of eating "Cream of Wheat"), but when it comes to celebrating the first meal of the day, one delight stands out above all others: waffles.
      There are so many good waffles in the world. There are yeasted waffles (my friend Flutterby makes some spankin' fabulous ones), buttermilk waffles (gotta go with Alton Brown on that one), sour cream waffles (the Gladstone family specialty, so light they'll float right off your fork), and even chocolate waffles (if it doesn't call for both cocoa powder and chocolate chips, it's not worth making). Then you get into your savory versions, made with cheese, or bits of bacon, or all of the above. The chicken-and-waffle combo is particularly prized--I have only tried these once, and it was a little disappointing, but I am very open to a corrective experience. Of the many gifts that come to us from the Belgium-Austria-Germany corner of the globe, waffles may be the most beloved. They certainly are in my house.
      And yet...I do not own a waffle iron. Yet. The reason is simple: limited space and limited budget. I could probably get one, but I'll be moving in about a year's time and I'm already trying to downsize--a heavy kitchen uni-tasker doesn't sound appealing until I'm relocated and unpacked. So how do I make waffles? As luck would have it, I have some very lovely Jewish friends who were ready to lock their waffle iron in the basement during Passover. Being helpful by nature, I offered to hold on to it for them! (I'm so nice.) That means I've been making waffles like crazy this last week, and freezing them for future use. Some waffles freeze better than others. Toasters really are the best way to reheat them.
      I will have to return the waffle iron soon, so I decided to finish Waffle Fest Spring 2015 with something awesome. I drew on all my intensive waffle experience and baking know-how and composed this extra-spectacular recipe just for my 100th blog post:

Toasted Coconut and Sweet Potato Waffles!

     You like? I like! They're a little fussier than regular waffles, but for the fabulous flavor combo, they are sooooo worth it!* Just bake the sweet potato a day or two in advance, and then time your waffle prep intelligently. A couple ingredient notes: you can use either regular sweet potatoes or garnet yams in this recipe, depending on your preference. I like the regular, with their cream-colored interior, but the yams pack a little more flavor. Also, be SURE that you're using unsweetened shredded coconut (what they call "desiccated coconut" in Australia), and not sweetened flaked coconut. Bob's Red Mill offers a good one, and you can buy it in bulk at Wholefoods and many other grocers with a good bulk foods section.

Z.D.'s Toasted Coconut and Sweet Potato Waffles

Ingredients:
1 Cup  dried unsweetened shredded coconut
1 egg, separated
2 additional egg whites
1/4 Cup coconut oil, melted, plus extra for greasing the waffle iron
1 medium sweet potato, cooked, peel discarded, slightly warm
1 Cup whole milk, room temp
1 Cup flour
1/4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp baking powder

Directions:
 - Pre-heat your oven to 400º F. Spread the coconut in a thin layer on a metal baking sheet, and place in the oven to toast, stirring at least once, about 8 minutes.

If they some out looking like toasted panko, you've done perfectly!

 - Meanwhile, beat all three egg whites to stiff peaks, and set aside.

Stiff peaks means that the whites hold their shape firmly. Note how when you remove the beaters, the little peaks they leave behind do not bend over, but stand upright like a Hershey's Kiss.

 - Mash the coconut oil, sweet potato, and egg yolk together in a small bowl. When thoroughly combined, add the milk, and mix together until blended.

When you mash the oil, potato, and yolk together, you want the potato slightly warm so that the cool yolk doesn't congeal the coconut oil, and the hot oil doesn't cook the egg yolk. If your sweet potato is just warm to the touch, that will balance out all the temperatures just right!

When you add the milk, you should have somewhere between 13 and 16 oz of wet ingredients, by volume. Less than that and your batter will be too thick--add more milk. More than that and they'll be too runny--just leave some liquid out.

 - In a large bowl, whisk together the remaining dry ingredients and about 2/3rds of the toasted coconut (keep the rest for sprinkling on top of your waffles). Stir in the wet ingredients until just combined.

When you first add the wet ingredients, this should be thick and dry, almost like a biscuit dough.

 - Preheat your waffle iron and grease with coconut oil. Just before cooking, fold the egg whites into batter, until barely incorporated.

Then when you fold in the egg whites, it will come together as a wet, airy batter--perfect for waffles!

    Cook according to your waffle iron's directions, and keep warm in a low heat oven directly on a rack (the undersides will get soggy on a plate). Your finished waffles will be golden brown and fragrant. Top as desired! I liked using the stout caramel sauce from last week and some of the extra toasted coconut (as you saw at the beginning of this post). My husband went with traditional butter and maple syrup, and declared it marvelous. Next time I intend to use sliced bananas and whipped coconut cream for tropical brunch bliss!

Depending on how you define a waffle, this recipe makes either two or eight. It makes two large waffles that divide into four smaller squares, as you see above. So you can have either two big servings, three moderate servings, or four smart servings from a single batch.

*And both sweet potatoes and coconut are health fads right now! Look how healthy you are by eating these!

      Yep, you read me right: podcast. Me. And my friend and fellow writer, Camela Thompson. We've started a bi-monthly podcast called "Shadows On The Sound," about mythological and supernatural creatures, the stories we tell about them, and what they teach us about society. (And how much they rock.)
      The name of the podcast is sort of a pun, because we're both from the Puget Sound region. Get it? "Shadows On The Sound?" Yeah, yeah...we're nerds....

Artist Credit: Lori Seaman http://fineartamerica.com/featured/rainy-night-over-puget-sound-lori-seaman.html

      My friend Camela Thompson, author of "The Hunted" series, wrote a blog post the other day about love and relationships in fiction. It's an excellent post, and I recommend reading it in its entirety. I will offer a brief summary: popular fiction often depicts dramatic, passionate love, which would be very, very unhealthy - even psychotic - in real life. Most readers know the difference, but some don't. Then she asked if authors have an ethical responsibility to portray healthy relationships in certain genres.
      Honestly, as a writer, this is a question I wrestle with. I know I have taken many of my moral and practical life cues from fictional characters. I've been inspired by Elizabeth Bennett's ability to admit her mistakes. I've worked to adopt Anne Shirley's knack of meeting hardship with humor and philosophy. I've been emboldened by Hermione Granger's unwillingness to suppress her genuine personality even when it made her unpopular. All of those heroines overcame obstacles and found a loving life-mate, and I have yearned for that, also. If I ever get published, who knows what readers might be influenced - consciously or unconsciously - by my characters?
      I believe writers have an ethical obligation to depict healthy relationships in the same way all human beings have an ethical obligation to choose an environmentally sustainable diet: yep, it's there, it's real, and we regularly ignore it. It's not as interesting, and it's definitely not convenient. Another concern is that it can be self-defeating; I don't think stories about healthy relationships garner as much interest, and if nobody's reading it, then what's the point?
      Readers are drawn to stories and characters with whom we can relate. The biggest common denominators among human beings are, in no particular order: family, food, love, and sex. Almost everyone has felt the emotional swells and descents of passion in their adolescent years. Wise adults realize that they wouldn't really want that brand of romance every day for the rest of their lives--but in retrospect, it sure was fun! Reading about those dramatic, unhealthy relationships is a way of dipping our toes back in without getting swept away in real life. Obviously, some people do decide to dive back in head first, ditching or disregarding healthy partners in pursuit of those impassioned states. But most readers do not. They just want to use their imaginations to wade every now and again.
      That all being said, healthy, mature love is not entirely absent from fiction, just...rare. Because it's one hell of a challenge to write. True love does not look like the early radiant emotions of "The Princess Bride"; it looks like the plodding companionship of "Date Night."* And making that interesting requires some pretty bizarre plot twists. Nobody wants to read about the patient and mostly contented state of a happy, healthy marriage. That love is real, and deep, and abiding because it has withstood so much--not the dramas of war, famine, or financial ruin, but the wearing, painful grind of everyday life. And why the hell would anybody want to read about every day life when we live it...well...every damn day?!
      Writing about this kind of love and making it interesting is hard. Really hard! In fact, it's a straight up challenge! And it's a challenge I hope every serious writer will strive to undertake at least once in their career. Ok, you're not eating local, sustainable, environmentally sound food 100% of the time, nor will all of your stories have protagonists that epitomize the healthiest relationships. But if you can at least work it in there a little more, maybe that can make a difference. The writing would be hard, but I bet it would also make us all a little wiser.



*The two best love stories on film - in my personal opinion - for the very reasons stated above.

      My brother is the caramel sauce master. He makes unreasonably delicious concoctions like eggnog caramel, brown butter caramel, and banana rum caramel; they make me strain my brain to think of more things I can douse with caramel sauce before devouring (oatmeal's a good one). But he recently found himself stumped on how to make a good beer caramel. He started with a number of existing recipes, only to be disappointed in the lack of apparent beer flavor (one didn't even taste like caramel, a very sad situation indeed). So he invited me to give it a try, and I did.
      I can't honestly swear that you'll taste this and go, "Oh hey, that's beer!" But you WILL taste it and go, "Oh hey, that's freaking delicious!" Plus, it's relatively easy, so you give it away as gifts and impress people.
     A note on selecting a cooking beer: normally, I am not a brand person. Whenever I read a recipe that includes a brand name product in the ingredients list, I roll my eyes and go, "Oh gee, I wonder who came up with THIS?" It's a turn-off. But I've had some misadventures in cooking with stout. Some can leave decidedly bitter or burnt flavors behind (or in some cases no flavor at all). It probably has to do hops and malts and alcohol percentage, but I'm not about to fuss over all that at this point in my career. Rather, let me simply recommend Rogue brewery's Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout, with which I have had nothing but gastronomical success. The leftovers make fine drinking, too.
     You may also notice that this recipe calls for a small addition of soy sauce. If this gives you pause, I merely remind you of the overwhelming popularity of salted caramel. Soy sauce is basically just salt. And so do NOT use low-sodium soy sauce for this recipe. In fact, just don't bother with low sodium soy sauce at all. I can't tell you how many recipes I see that call for both low sodium soy sauce AND salt--talk about redundancy. Just get the real deal and use it in moderation like a sane human being, and we can all save space in our pantry.
   

Z.D.'s Stout Caramel Sauce

Ingredients: 
1 Cup Rogue Shakespeare Oatmeal Stout
1 tsp soy sauce
2 Cups vanilla sugar
1/2 Cup water
1 Cup heavy cream

Directions: 
 - In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring the stout to a bare simmer. Cook until reduced to 1/2 Cup, about 10 minutes. Keep an eye on this and DO NOT REDUCE BY MORE THAN HALF! If you do, you will get burnt beer, which is neither pleasant to smell nor taste, and belongs nowhere near your caramel sauce! Stir in the soy sauce and set aside to cool.

This should have a nice malty scent.

 - In a heavy medium saucepan over medium-high heat, combine the sugar and the water. Stir a little JUST UNTIL THE SUGAR DISSOLVES, then remove your stirring implement and touch no more, lest you accidentally make rock candy.*

Once the sugar is dissolved, agitation will cause crystallization. Just let it boil away untouched, at least ten minutes.

 - Let the sugar syrup come to a light boil, and boil, and boil, and boil.... You're melting the sugar and allowing all the water to cook off. You know this is happening because the liquid becomes thicker and bubbles start to stack up on one another. When all the water is gone the sugars will start to caramelize, and the syrup will start to turn increasingly deep shades of amber. STAND BY.

It can be hard to see the color under all the bubbles, but just keep a close eye.

 - Watch the color of your syrup. You want it the dark brown color of the top of a good creme brulée. As it's browning, you could (and should) give it a little stir now and again, to make sure there aren't pockets of high heat where the sugar will brown too fast. Once the syrup is a strong brown and you see any hint of a wisp of smoke from the surface, kill the heat, pour in the cream all at once, and stand back.

It took me four attempts to get this shot because the steam kept blinding my camera!

 - It WILL bubble up like a thing possessed, as the water in the cream boils off fast and hard, and the milk fat steams as it settled into the sugars. Once the insanity subsides, return the pot to medium heat and stir until the lumps of caramel dissolve. Oh, and resist the urge to taste at this point: it is dangerously hot!

The sugar and fat both hold heat waaay more efficiently than water or air--professional cooks call this stuff liquid napalm!

 - Stir in your beer reduction, and bring the contents to a simmer. Stir and simmer gently until the flavors are combined and more liquid has evaporated, about 6 to 8 minutes. This will be thinner and darker than most caramel sauces - mine came out a distinct shade of bittersweet chocolate - but the flavor is out of this world!

THAT...is a pot of deliciosity.

*A couple tips: Don't use a metal spoon or whisk for stirring, as the metal conducts temperatures too quickly and will leave cool spots in your syrup. I like to use a silicone spatula, but if you have one give it a good sniff first: silicone can pick up smells really easily, and will transfer them to whatever you're cooking. If your silicone implements smell like oil, or spice, or dish detergent scent (gross), give it a good wash by hand in hot water with unscented dish soap. If the smell's still there, you'll need to let it sit in a jar of baking soda for a few days.
Oh, and if you do accidentally crystalize your sugar into rock candy, add hot water and stir until dissolved, then start over.