Scribbles & Munch

      This is a truly lovely pie. It's lovely to smell while it's baking in the oven. It's lovely to look at with its scarlet juices and gold-tinged crust. And it's especially lovely to eat, served with a scoop of the smoothest vanilla ice cream you can find (homemade is best, of course). The flavors just scream "Christmas" to me, but you can make it any time. It's the perfect foil to a cold day, a reminder that even the dreariest winter has treasures to offer.

      A little over a week ago, my laptop refused to turn on.
      It had been ailing for awhile, shutting down spontaneously and hesitating before restarting. It had also developed an identity crisis, believing itself to be a desktop instead of a laptop computer, and only working when plugged directly into an outlet. Yet despite these obvious symptoms, I was in stark denial: my trusty computing device was scarcely over two years old! My husband has the same computer, of roughly the same age, and he wasn't experiencing any problems. Whatever was going on must be a temporary quirk, I reassured myself.
     Until that day - Black Thursday - when it just refused to turn on at all.
     I was lucky, really: Apple said it was a manufacturing error and all the repairs and replaced parts were done for free. Otherwise, the cost would have been somewhere between $300 and $600, which is not how one wants to be stretching one's wallet during the holiday season. But taking my laptop into the "Genius Bar" was rather embarrassing. Why did it have to be MY laptop that broke down? I never do anything with it! I don't edit blockbuster movies, or write computer code, or work on complex astrophysics equations. Heck, I barely even visit "YouTube!" I check email, read comics, look up recipes, and write. And occasionally research the kind of bowler hat that was worn in the historical era where my story takes place. That's it.
      Now I'm starting to wonder if my laptop broke because it was experiencing ennui....
      This kind of behavior isn't limited to my computer usage. I don't use a smart phone, I use a clamshell that makes phone calls, and occasionally receives text messages. I shy away from GPS (this is partly because of the multiple, dramatic GPS failures in my life), and the MP3 player I use is a hand-me-down that's nearly 10 years old. Why? Because that's all I need. My father was a "buy a good product and use it until you wear it out" kind of man, and that's a value I happily embrace. But try explaining this to someone whose livelihood (and possibly their life philosophy) depends on promoting the Next New Thing, or a friend who seems to have the technological capabilities of the USS Enterprise* in their pocket, and it's amazing how stupid you can start to feel.
      Then, while my laptop was broken, my "whatever" attitude towards technology was brought into question. I was not without computer technology at this time: I still had an iPad mini (originally used for a business venture that fell through last year), and an older PowerBook G4 from when I was in graduate school (which my husband has nicknamed "Lazarus"). The iPad mini was good for browsing the internet and checking email, but even with an attached keyboard it was NOT going to accommodate Word in the way I required. Lazarus still had an old version of Word, but over time it had developed an unhappy glitch where I could type a whole sentence, and only the first half would appear on the screen right away. It would take a second or two for the rest of the words to slowly appear, as though a ghost were transcribing them for me. This was probably because my fingers were working faster than Lazarus' poor little microchip (I am a very fast typist, on a comfortable keyboard I average 90 words per minute). When I made a typo, or decided halfway through a sentence to change a word or two, these quick corrections became very slow. This put a serious cramp on my composition.
      And don't even get me started on the painfully sluggish attempts at Google Drive and similar cloud-based documents...if I had a dollar for every time I saw that spinny rainbow wheel of distress, I could probably have bought Christmas dinner for eighteen people.
      But great stories don't require computers, I told myself. Hell, the "Epic of Gilgamesh" was pressed onto clay tablets with the tip of a reed! I swore to myself I would not allow this to interfere with my writing: I would do as countless geniuses have done before me, and write on paper! And I did...a little. Not as much as I should have. Which led to embarrassment and frustration and gnashing of teeth. So apparently, I have come to rely on a certain level of technological comfort? And then I realized: I'm not a rebel, I'm too lazy to keep up with technology. And the feeling of stupidity sank in even further.
     My brother is a software engineer in Silicon Valley, so I called to tell him of my woes while awaiting news of my laptop's fate. I expected him to tease me, or offer some gentle prompting towards joining my generation for once. Actually, he told me something brilliant. He said, "Technology is supposed to make our lives easier. So if what you do with your life is read email and write stories, and your laptop makes that easier, then that's a good thing. But when we start manufacturing reasons to have more technology in our life, then it's not making our lives easier, it's changing our lives to suit the technology. And that's stupid."
      It may have been my imagination, but I think at that moment, there was a part in the clouds, and beam of golden light shone down upon me, accompanied by a harmonious sustain chord of singing.
      I got my laptop back yesterday. It's running as good as new, and I'm "happy as an angel...merry as a schoolboy," to quote a certain famous fictional curmudgeon of the season. I immediately starting typing merrily on my story, looking up recipes for Christmas cake and latkes, and updating my blog. Life is good. Life is easier with my laptop...because that's the kind of life I lead.

      Now I know a lot of you are trying to figure out what's going on with the pie situation. There will be two pie updates before December 25th, I promise. One will have photos, and one will not. The one with photos will be a Turkey Pot Pie, made with leftover Thanksgiving turkey (you all froze some, right?). The other will be Pear & Cranberry Pie with Gingerbread Crust, which I have made before, but will not be making this year, due to the presence of eight kinds of cookies, two other pies, a flourless chocolate torte, and a wild huckleberry trifle at my holiday table. Yeah. That's how my family rolls. But if you're looking for something utterly wonderful for a holiday dessert, and you don't need pictures, my pie recipe will be well worth the effort.
Stay tuned.


*NCC 1701-E, no less

      I promised a review of my Thanksgiving attempt at Alton Brown's Super Apple Pie, and I am nothing if not a woman of my word when it comes to food. If you care to read the recipe (go ahead...I'll wait), you will see that it has taken the construction of what most people consider one of the simplest fruit pies to a level of complexity that may be best summarized in the following analogy. Regular Apple Pie : AB's Super Apple Pie, is like One Room Log Cabin : Frank Lloyd Wright's House of Falling Water. Ok, everybody on the same page now? Good.
      But I was game. Unable to locate good Braeburn apples, I only used three of the four recommended varieties, but I think that was no biggie. I also refused to go out and hunt for a two-inch deep tart pan with a removable bottom (can we say "uni-tasker," AB?), so instead I employed one of my many springform pans, a nice 9-incher I inherited from my maternal grandmother. And I am pleased to say that it worked perfectly in every respect, so I recommend one for pie purposes.
      The final pie was indeed delicious. The apples were tender but not mushy, the flavor was distinctly apple without being overwhelming. The applejack made for a tasty, tender crust.

And that little pie bird poking its head out is ADORABLE!

      But would I make this pie again? Probably not. I don't think the final product was sufficiently superior to my regular apple pie to warrant the extra time and effort. The thing is, my own recipe for pie crust is consistently tender (and if I infuse the vodka with ginger, the added flavor is awesome). I know enough about buying good pie apples that I don't need the melange. I cannot honestly say I got much flavor out of the Grains of Paradise--maybe I should have added more? The amount called for in the recipe seemed small. And frankly, I've never had much trouble getting pie out of a regular pie plate. *shrug* I guess I'm just talented that way.
      What I DID take away from this recipe was the use of tapioca flour (not to be confused with tapioca pearls) as a thickener for the filling. Bloody Brilliant! At first I was feeling disgruntled that I was buying yet ANOTHER flour for my kitchen*, but once I discovered the silky results, I was sold. I highly recommend that you try it.
      One of the reasons I made an apple pie for Thanksgiving was tradition. Tradition was also responsible for the turkey**, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (thank you again, dear guest, for bringing the best sweet potato dish I have ever had in my life, EVER), and even the plate of carrot and celery sticks that everyone ignores. Tradition also dictated the way I set the table, and the dishes I used. My guest and every friend and family member I talked to on the phone that day brought up their own traditions at least once.
      Another Thanksgiving tradition is football, and the Ohio State/Michigan game is always held the weekend following the holiday. As my husband was pointing out, that rival game is also fraught with tradition, including the OSU marching band forming the word "Ohio" with the tuba dotting the "i."
      Being a writer, these kinds of things prickle my mind on multiple levels, and I started thinking. At what point, I wondered, does the repetition of an action constitute a tradition? Let's start with the food thing: someone brings a dish to a holiday meal - let's say collard greens - and people enjoy it. The same dish is brought the next year. And then the next. Now, there are a few possible reasons for this recurrence, which are not mutually exclusive. There's the popularity of thing--if everyone likes it, then you know you have a hit, and of course you want to please. Then there's the also the laziness factor: you don't have to go through the process of deciding what to bring, digging out the recipe, making it, and then risking the displeasure of your fellow diners if you fall back on a previous success. And after enough time those collard greens may become expected, and you don't want to disappoint people. Which, I'm starting to think, may be the point at which it becomes a tradition.
      Traditions provide a feeling of security and continuity, adding to the over-all comforting effect of holidays. They can also bind us with the past, as with my family's traditional recipe for stuffing, which I believe now spans five generations; making it is not only adding something delectable to the meal, it brings back memories of previous holidays, and makes us feel closer to the dearly departed. Some people cleave to tradition as though it were a matter of life or death. Others eschew them, either casually or with intense deliberateness. Most of us do a little of both.
      As a writer, it occurs to me that which traditions are embraced and which are discarded say a LOT about a person, and makes a wonderful tool for character development. In the first chapters of my zombie story, our protagonist seeks out fellow professionals, and is greeted with varying levels of respect and tradition, which allows me to sketch their characters quickly and efficiently. This was not a deliberate choice at the time, but now that I'm thinking about it, well...go me, that was a great choice!
      How about you? Got any great - or crappy - traditions to speak of? Do you use them at all in your writing, or can you think of any that lend spice to a favorite story?


*I already have AP flour, cake flour, spelt flour and white rice flour on hand at all times, and bread flour throughout the cold months. My pantry space is not infinite. In my perfect universe, entering my pantry would be not unlike going through the wardrobe into Narnia, except my mythical world would be a cross between the awesomest grocery store, Pike Place Market and Candyland, and everything would be free. But alas, this is as yet only a fanciful dream.

**Incidentally - and not to brag o'er much - I am the turkey queen. Seriously, I have obscenely good luck with roasting delectable, tender, photo-worthy turkeys that are juicy through-and-through, with no weird gimmickry. I'm not going to blog about it here, but if you want to know how I do it, just ask.

      After four days of carb-loading and sleeping in, getting up at 5:30 this morning was rather a bit of a shock. Sometimes when I'm sleep deprived I get grumpy. More often, however, I get goofy, and not necessarily in safe or helpful ways. Which means I probably shouldn't be blogging right now. But, in the words of McWatt, "Oh, well, what the hell!"
      So here's two random things to start your week. First of all, how out-of-it was I this morning? I went to go put on a pair of socks, and just stood there, staring at the plethora of various foot clothing, for no less than four straight minutes. I couldn't decide which socks to wear. I was paralyzed by the plethora of options! So many socks! So few feet!!! How was I going to get out of my pajamas and into real clothing at all!?!
      I did, eventually. Or at least that's what you're led to believe. You can't see me. For all you know I might still be in my pajamas and slippers, utterly sockless. You'll just have to trust me.
      And now random #2, which I'm sure you'll find much more enjoyable that stories about my to-stocking-or-not-to-stocking dilemmas...
      ...the first teaser-trailer for the new Star Wars movie came out over the weekend! NERD-GASM!!!!!
http://www.starwars.com/video/star-wars-the-force-awakens-official-teaser
      There! Isn't that awesome?! Isn't that awesome!?!? Did you see the people? And the stuff? And the effects? And the Millennium Falcon!?!! This already looks sooooooo much better than the last movie. My inner child is going to be holding its breath in anticipation until the release date in December 2015. Which she can do without asphyxiation because, you know, she's a psychological metaphor.
SQUEEE!

      Why yes! Yes, that is what I made for breakfast on Thanksgiving Day! And they were - not to put too fine a point on it - scrump-diddily-umptious!

      They were an experiment with a most happy conclusion. As you may recall, I am one of the few citizens of the U.S.A. who does not like pumpkin pie, but that isn't to say I don't like pumpkin! So as a salute to that glorious orange gourd on this most thankful of days, I thought, "Huh...I need to make something for breakfast, don't I?"
      In my household we already have a favorite cinnamon roll recipe, one that involves Yukon Gold potatoes, which lend a marvelous tenderness and help the rolls stay moist for days (most cinnamon rolls, tragically, turn dry and tasteless within mere hours of baking). I was thinking about this recipe and I realized that pumpkin has a similar effect. I mean, have you ever had dry pumpkin bread? I sure haven't--if anything I've had the opposite, a baked pumpkin product that claimed to be bread but had a consistency more like bread pudding. So with this in mind, I decided to combine this two "P" products and see if I could start the day with something both delicious and calorie dense. Because, you know...there aren't enough calories in Thanksgiving dinner....
      Since the pumpkin wouldn't contain starch like the potatoes, I decided to swap out the Yukon Golds with a Russet potato. They're both starchier and easier to find. I also decided that canned pumpkin wouldn't have enough flavor at the end of the day, so I added a little pumpkin butter to the filling. That, and applying a cream cheese glaze instead of a regular milk icing (my husband would eat cream cheese frosting by the tub if permitted) made a fabulous final product. And best of all: these can be made the day ahead, enjoy their final rise in the fridge over night, and then be popped directly into the oven in the morning for a relatively brief baking time.
Enjoy!

Z.D.'s Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

Ingredients
For the Dough: 
1 medium Russet potato (1/2 lb), peeled and cut into 1.5 inch chunks
1 can pure pumpkin purée
1/2 Tablespoon kosher salt
1/2 Cup unsalted butter, room temp
3 large eggs
5 Cups AP flour, plus more for hands, divided
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 Cup warm water
2 scant Tablespoons yeast (about three envelopes)
2 Tablespoons sugar (I like vanilla sugar)

For the Filling:
1 Cup golden brown sugar, packed
2 Tablespoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
hefty pinch of ground cloves
7 Tablespoons unsalted butter (there's 8 in a stick, but you can use the spare to grease the bowl for the dough)
1/2 Cup pumpkin butter (Stonewall Kitchens makes a good one)

For the Icing:
4 oz cream cheese
4 Tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 Cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
For the Dough:
 - Place the potato chunks in a medium pot with a cup of water. Add the salt, and bring to a boil. Boil uncovered until the potato is very tender, and most of the water has evaporated away, about 15 minutes (give or take). While this is boiling, coat the inside of a large bowl with butter (see note about leftover butter in the filling ingredients), and line a large rimmed baking pan with parchment paper (I used a 10" x 14" Pyrex baking dish).

 - Remove from heat, and mash the potato in the pot with the remaining water. Add in the pumpkin and mash until well combined. Add the butter and mash until the butter is entirely melted. Vigorously whisk in the eggs (the whites like to get lost, so be thorough), then add in one cup of the flour and the nutmeg, and mash until very smooth. Set this aside to cool.

 - Meanwhile, add the 1/2 Cup warm water to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add both the yeast and the sugar to the water, stir just to mix, then allow to sit until the yeast becomes very foamy, about ten minutes.

Sorry, I forgot to take photos of the boiling potatoes & mashing process...but here's what your double-P mush looks like when you flop it into a bowl of foamy yeast liquid!

 - Scrape the pumpkin mixture into the mixer bowl, and beat on low speed until well mixed. Slowly add in three more cups of flour until well combined. Stop the mixer and change to a dough hook. Beat the dough on low speed as you add the remaining cup of flour, then up the speed and let the dough beat for about 4 - 5 more minutes. Dough still be sticky but elastic. (Alternatively to using the dough hook, you can dump about a half cup of flour onto a clean surface, scrape the dough onto it, and then knead with your hands. Keep adding the remaining flour as you go, for about 7 minutes, until the dough is thoroughly mixed--but I've always found this dough too sticky for that.)

Yeah, actually, I do NOT recommend kneading this by hand.

 - Turn the dough into your large, buttered bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel, and set aside in a warm, draft-free place to rise for an hour. The dough will more than double in size.

For the Filling:
 - In a small bowl, mash together the butter, sugar, and spices until thoroughly combined in a dark brown paste.

As long as your butter is room temp, a simple fork will bring this together fast & easy.

 - Turn out your risen dough onto a well floured surface. Using your hands, press and flatten out the dough into a large rectangle, about 16 by 24 inches. With a pastry brush, spread the whole pastry rectangle with the pumpkin butter (this will be a thin coating).

So orange.

 - Sprinkle the spice butter in tiny blobs across the dough. Then, starting from one long side, roll the dough into a long log.

For rolling, I recommend starting in the middle. Roll a couple inches, then move your hands outward, rolling all the way until the edges are all caught up. Back to the middle, roll another couple inches, repeat. This keeps the dough from stretching into a weird, uneven worm at the end.

 - With a sharp knife, slice the log into 12 equal pieces. Place these round side down in your parchment lined baking dish in a rectangle, three-by-four. IF BAKING THE NEXT DAY, cover and stick in the fridge over night. IF BAKING TODAY, cover and allow to rise in a warm, draft-free area for another hour. Either way, these are some fluffy rolls when they're ready to bake. (Note: My lovely Pyrex comes with lids, so I just put the lid on my pan and stick 'em in the oven this way. If you don't have a lid, or if you're using a regular baking sheet, you're going to have to use a lot of plastic wrap, and you may want to either butter it or dust the tops of your rolls with flour, so they don't stick.)

I forgot the parchment paper. Don't forget the parchment paper.

 - Position an oven rack in the middle of the oven, and pre-heat to 425º F. If you have been fridging* over night, remove from the fridge while the oven preheats, so the pan can warm up a little. Once the oven reaches the proper temperature, remove the cover from the rolls and pop 'em in. Bake until the tops have golden brown tints, about 22 minutes.

These were actually that poofy before I put them in the oven--the over-night rise expands them considerably. Then they bake & just develop that lovely golden brown top!

For the Icing:
 - Remove the rolls from the oven and allow to cool for 8 minutes. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl combine all the icing ingredients. Beat together thoroughly with a hand mixer (or you can use a rubber spatula if you want an arm workout). Once the rolls have cooled a bit, spread the icing thoroughly over the tops (I like to give the corner ones extra attention, because they tend to get the most crusty).

 - Enjoy immediately. If you have left overs, cover tightly and enjoy more the next day. And the next day. And the next day--these will stay moist that long!

Tender, warm, sweet--perfect with coffee, and it will keep you full until dinner time. Trust me.

      And there you have it, folks, a new way to enjoy pumpkin on Thanksgiving. Or any other holiday. Or just about any day, really, I mean breakfast really should happen on a daily basis.



*Ta-daaa! I made up another word for you!

      This last weekend I went to visit a very dear friend of mine in Madison, WI. We chatted, I helped her get ready for Thanksgiving company, we chatted, we went to my favorite restaurant in the world, we chatted, she made me a cake, we chatted, I taught her how to knit, we made pizza from scratch, and we chatted some more. And there may have been some crazy shenanigans free of malice, corruption, and danger, yet still of a marginally suspicious nature, which will not be discussed further. (Hey...that's what friends are for!)
      My friend feels a strong connection with the Greek Goddess Iris, whose messages from Olympus resulted in a rainbow trail across the sky. Therefore, she tends to make a lot of rainbow-themed desserts, including the scrumptious cake we enjoyed during my visit.

Now THAT'S a celebration cake!

She got the recipe online from rainbow dessert mistress YoyoMax, although we did make a couple small changes. For one thing, we separated and batter and dyed it before adding in the egg whites. We also added about double the lemon, and a couple teaspoons of vanilla to the batter as well.


For the filling, we added another teaspoon each of lemon juice and vanilla, and a hefty pinch of salt (salt always helps the sweetness stand out, trust me).

I do not have the skills to pipe this stuff, but my friend made it look easy.

It was a lovely, lightly lemony dessert, beautiful to look at and - honestly - tastier than I expected. As you can see, we slightly over-baked the cake, but the texture and flavor were still great--the only unhappy consequence was that the rainbow colors didn't stand out as much as they should have on the exterior.
      Also, I suspect the inside of my digestive tract will be color-coated for a few days.
      As you might imagine, my friend and I discussed (among other things) our Thanksgiving plans. She intends to make a pumpkin pie, and has already slow roasted and puréed a sugar pumpkin for this purpose. Which meant I was forced to make a confession which frequently shocks people, especially around the holidays: I don't like pumpkin pie.
      The problem is texture. I don't like sqwooshy* foods. I don't like pudding, I don't like porridge, and I can only eat yogurt with a lot of fruit and/or granola. I even make my mashed potatoes lumpy on purpose (I also leave the skins on--I call them "rustic"). The way I figure it, if I am fortunate enough to live to a ripe old age, either digestive problems or dental issues will likely result in a return to a diet not unlike that of an 8 month-old. As long as I have my health, my food will require chewing.
      There are three traditional alternatives to pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving time: pecan (which needs about triple the amount of pecans to not count as sqwooshy), mincemeat (yeah...don't go there), and apple. I considered trying some unusual pies, including a maple pecan bruelée pie which will probably find it's way onto my menu next year, but I finally decided on an apple pie. Which, to many of you, may seem like a cop out, because I've already done apple pie twice on this blog.
      To which I reply: yeah, but not THIS apple pie!!!
      I've already professed that if given the opportunity, I would readily shave my head and take a vow of poverty to become Alton Brown's disciple. But even I have had a few moments where I thought he'd lost his mind, and his Super Apple Pie was one of them. I mean, have you READ this recipe? It starts out seeming reasonable - adding applejack to the crust is like my vodka trick, and a mix of four apples could produce a great balance - but by the time you've sugared and drained the apples, then boiled down their liquid, then layered the slices just so, and then went out and bought a special baking dish you'll probably never use for anything else ever again in your life...well...frankly, it seems a bit overboard.
      However...
      ...there's his pantry pasta sauce, which calls for sweating vegetables before oven roasting, and it is so delicious I don't have the words.
      And then there's his coconut cake, which involves more uses for coconut than I believe is strictly legal in about thirteen states. Involved? Yes. Time consuming? Oh, yes. Worth it? Honey...if you ever want to impress the $#!% out of someone who likes coconut, this is the way to go. I dream of the day I have the time to make this cake again--I dream of it the way some women dream of their wedding.**
      So the evidence would suggest that this insane apple pie might actually be worth it. And since I was already buying the applejack for cocktails and I recently came into possession of some Grains of Paradise (oh yeah, did I mention AB doesn't use traditional cinnamon in this recipe? he uses something I'd never even heard of before, called Grains of Paradise), I decided - with a little prompting from my brother - that this was the year. I'll let you know how it turns out. And I want to hear about YOUR pie adventures this Thanksgiving! Did it go smoothly? Or did the power go out and leave you without an oven for pie or bird (happened to my family when I was in elementary school)? Or did you burn yourself putting the pie into the oven and throw it into the air as you jerked out hand back, coating your kitchen in orange goo (happened to my Mom when I was in middle school)? Or did you knock over the caramel sauce as it was cooking and lose half of it all over your stove top (happened to my brother just a couple years ago)? Holidays are how memories are made, my friends--don't think of them as disasters, think of them as glorious stories to be laughed about over future successes!

Happy Impending Turkey Day!



*It's a word now.

**If you ever decide to make this cake - and you should - yes, really do make your own coconut milk, coconut cream, and harvest your own coconut water and coconut flesh. Don't argue, just do it.

       This morning I awoke to see fast-falling tufts of snow. There was a thin carpet on the roofs and lawns, white lines hugging the telephone wires draped just across the street. I knew instantly, without even looking out the window, that it had been snowing, because of the special shade of burnt tangerine light that was visible between my curtains. Everyone who's seen snow in the city knows this: the crystals amplify the rust-colored glow of the street lamps, until the world is aglow with a special hue, ironically warm in color to compliment the chilly weather. As I prepared breakfast, I watched the windows as the sun began to rise. There was no way to see it past the thick cover of cloud, of course, but I knew it was happening because of the change in the light: the orange abruptly faded, giving way to a hundred variations of blue. Every contour, line, and shadow took on this shade on the opposite side of the color wheel. It's as though, during sunrise, snow plays out a love song to every lake, river, and sea that it has known. It dances blue through the world, then lets the color drain away to the white and grey tones of a snowy morning. Such commonplace magic.
      Most midwesterners I've met are so used to snow they fail to see the magic in it--and by the end of winter, I will share their sentiments. But then over the summer I'll forget again. The snow today especially made me happy because it closely resembles the snow we get back home, in the Portland/Seattle stretch of the west coast. Back there, snow is fluffy, wet, and clings, so that every barren twig and branch gets coasted in puffy whiteness. I was astonished last winter here in Ohio to find that we could get upwards of six inches of snow in 24 hours, and almost zero would cling to the trees. It blows around like cold sand; who knew that water could be so dry?
      Of course my husband immediately had to make an "Interstellar" reference.* There's an ice world in the film that does a great job of portraying how unforgiving "below freezing" can really be. It also does a wonderful job of showing how unforgiving the earth can be, under the right conditions. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I'm not spoiling anything when I mention that the very beginning has documentary-like clips of older people recalling terrible dust storms; in the film, these horrific dust storms are making earth increasingly uninhabitable. Well my husband discovered that those really ARE documentary clips! They're from Ken Burns' "The Dust Bowl,"** a four hour documentary about one of the most terrifying and dramatic examples of how human hubris can influence climate. So of course I decided to watch it.
      Previously, the whole of my understanding regarding this part of American History can be summed up in one sentence: during the Great Depression a whole section of the mid-west turned into dust, and nothing would grow, and John Steinbeck wrote a famous novel about it that I was forced to read in high school and didn't like at the time because it was long and depressing.
      Here's what I didn't know about the Dust Bowl: it lasted a decade. And it was primarily in a relatively concentrated part of the U.S., focusing around the Oklahoma panhandle. And it was caused by a startling combination of economic, agricultural, political, and environmental factors. And it was much, much worse than anything I had previously imagined (I kind of skimmed "Grapes of Wrath"--see my earlier comment about long and depressing). This documentary is fascinating to me for so many reasons, and I am so grateful to Christopher Nolan for using the Dust Bowl as his template for the "end of the world." Hollywood has done nuclear explosions, it's done meteor crashes, it's done pandemics, it's done war, it's done global warming, and it's done pollution. But here is a real catastrophe that we've already tasted, right on the edge of living memory. And it is so timely, to recall this now.

      As a writer, this piece of "Interstellar" really impressed me as how fiction can be such a powerful vehicle for reintroducing history. The human race is capable of learning from its past--but only if it remembers. I wish more artists would do this. It certainly has cemented my interest in keeping my stories - however far removed from reality - firmly rooted in well-researched history, whether it's the brand of tea being served or the building of the Panama canal.



*If you haven't seen the movie yet, do so. Like, today. You're online, so look up the movie times and see when it's playing. Then go. Seriously. It's really, really good. I can't think of a single person I know who wouldn't like this movie for one reason or another.

**You should watch this too. Break it up into four one-hour chunks, and make sure you have a glass of water with you--your mouth is going to feel dry.