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Ray and Me

Stack of BooksI am setting aside work on my new novel.

If you have a problem with this, take it up with Ray Bradbury.

Some comments on a recent post of mine got me thinking, and I went to get my copy of Dandelion Wine. I hadn’t read it for a long, long (loooong) time; such a long time, in fact, that I’m really a completely different person, and I knew I’d enjoy it more. I’ve always liked Ray’s stories–he and Roger Zelazny were the major influences on my decision to attempt writing, myself–so, an indulgence. I opened the book and began to read.

I didn’t make it past the foreword. Continue Reading »

The Boston bombings brought out great emotions among my acquaintances, and understandably so. They brought out great emotions in me, as well. One thing I try to avoid, though, is letting my emotions cloud my judgment.

Occasionally, in regard to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, I hear people say, “We didn’t learn anything from him,” and “Great; now we have to pay for his room and board for the next 50 years,” and “We should have killed him on the spot.” Their rhetoric feeds their frenzy, bolstering their own anger. My calm and reasoned responses to these views are refuted by ad hominem attacks, calling me a hand-wringing bleeding-heart Liberal (and other, crispier descriptions, that I’m sure you can imagine). Continue Reading »

Another Mint?

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiI’ve made some additions to my household’s list of neologisms.

Newly remembered/added words are:

  • feep
  • gleep
  • slooby

I was going to add “squiffers,” a word meaning tipsy or drunk (intensified as “squiffer-doodles”) but I learned that “squiffy” is a word in current use, so it isn’t a true neologism. We obviously just bastardized it.

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Lion’s Tooth

Doc Maynard had a wife. Two of them, actually, and simultaneously, some say.

David S. “Doc” Maynard, one of Seattle’s more colorful founders, married Catherine Simmons Broshear Maynard, a widow he had met along the Oregon Trail. He married her almost immediately upon divorcing Lydia, his first wife, a decree granted via questionable–and later, contestable–conditions. (Doc may have implied that Lydia was…deceased….)

Catherine Maynard proved to be as legendary as her husband, helping thwart an attack on the settlers of Seattle, accepting for a time her husband’s first wife under her own roof, and traveling the state on horseback, riding from Seattle across the Cascades to Ellensburg, well into her 70s.

But she did one other thing which, 150 years later, affects every single Seattle homeowner.

Catherine Maynard brought the dandelion to Seattle. Continue Reading »

Buddy Buddy

We picked up two “buddy” films this weekend. One was a buddy/fish-out-of-water mashup, and the other was a classic buddy/caper film.

Both were a lot of fun. Continue Reading »

Simple Living

There has been a ton of interest for this recipe, and with good reason; it’s a great show and a good recipe. If you’ve landed here from a web-search, please, enjoy the recipe. Please also check out my books. You can read excerpts here, or find the books in the banner to the right and on my Author Page at Amazon.

Now, to the recipe:

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The other day I happened across an episode of “The Mind of a Chef.” (How did I miss this show before?) In this episode (“Simplicity”), host and chef David Chang finds places where the chefs have pared everything back to its most simplistic.

While the episode was great, at one point Chang frustrated me entirely. He gives instructions on how to make a simple chicken noodle soup, but blasts through the process with no detail. Example: at one point he instructs us to “boil the shit out of [the broth].” Not very helpful.

But, always on the lookout for good recipes, I spent some time this weekend reconstructing (or deconstructing) Chang’s method from the brief clip. One innovation is to cook the chicken and vegetables separately. A common problem with chicken broth is that the vegetables can overpower the chicken, but by separating the two, Chang makes it possible for us to adjust the mixture according to personal preference and to account for, say, a particularly strong onion or exceptionally sweet carrot.

The result was, in all humbleness, nothing short of excellent.

Continue Reading »

Kurt R.A. GiambastianiIt’s been a difficult week for us all, and continues to be so–nowhere more so this morning than in Boston. In reaction I’ve tried to “Keep calm and carry on” by doing normal things and moving forward with projects. I’ve been able to push the line forward a little in some areas: with this blog, with my gardens, and with the new novel. Continue Reading »