As I’ve often mentioned, I do not like single-taskers in my kitchen. In order for a single-tasker to remain in my kitchen it must:
Today, I’ve got two of them. One was a gift from this past holiday season, and one is an old stand-by that has proven itself time and again. Continue Reading »
Posted in Food, Low Tech | Tagged bean Frencher, chefs planet, clip and drain, cooking, food prep, French-cut beans, kitchen gadgets, low-tech solutions | Leave a Comment »
Think Seattle. Think rain? Think again.
For the past fortnight, Seattle has been wrapped, swathed, and swaddled with fog. It’s been like living in a cloud. Foghorns call across the Sound, echoed by ghostly ferries out on the cold waters. Hillsides disappear, the Space Needle is missing its top half, and the sun has been replaced by a vague drear that illuminates the mist but provides no aid to vision. Heading up to the park-and-ride this morning, visibility ended a block up the street. Streetlamps, stop lights, and brake lights defined the roadway with glowing balls of light.
Overnight, temps drop into the 20s and the fog freezes as it touches down, creating slick, invisible ice and limning everything with hoar. During the day, the mercury barely gets its head above freezing, and the frost persists near houses and fencelines, wherever the weak sunlight cannot reach.
Drive up to the mountains, though, and you’ll break through the inversion layer. At 1000 feet, the sunlight coalesces into an orange ball above. At 1500 feet, you break through into open air and a cloudless sky. Temperatures soar, and you remove your gloves, your scarf, your coat, and walk in shirtsleeves through the warm sunshine. Below you is a sea of fog, bright white stretching from mountain to mountain, from the Cascades to the Olympics.
Tomorrow, Seattle will be reprieved. Tomorrow, a storm comes.
Think of Seattle. Think rain. Tomorrow.
Posted in Seattle | Tagged fog, foghorns, inversion layer, Seattle, seattle weather, weather | 2 Comments »
There’s a new television series, coming from Britain to the U.S., courtesy of BBC America. It’s called “Ripper Street” and we watched the pilot last night.
British TV has a reputation for creating series (well, some anyway) that don’t talk down to the audience. They have a reputation for high-quality productions. They have a reputation of fine actors playing complicated characters.
This show is all of those things.
What immediately makes this show unique is that it is set in London circa 1889, in the months immediately after Jack the Ripper’s killing spree. The policemen, the criminals, and the populace all have those gruesome crimes fresh in mind.
Posted in Television | Tagged BBC America, Ripper Street Matthew McFadyen, television, tv review series review, tv series | 3 Comments »
It’s virtually unavoidable, this one. Seriously, virtually unavoidable, just like the old show/tell chestnut. It takes a mountain of diligence, discipline, and work for me to avoid it. And in the end, if I am successful in removing its stain from my story, the result might not be any better. So, as with that old “Show, don’t tell” adage, this one is largely a matter of degree. Too much, and my prose is comical. Too little, and…what’s that? You don’t know what I’m talking about? You mean I didn’t explain something to you?
And there’s the rub. If you haven’t from the title or the above gleaned my drift, let me spell it out for you. I’m talking about the dreaded expository block. Yes, that clunk-fest where the author steps right into the story, takes you (poor Reader) in hand, and gently explains to you what’s really going on. It’s that section which, when put into the mouth of a character, usually starts with a phrase like, “As you know, Bob…” It’s when Steven Spielberg paints a little girl’s coat red in an otherwise black-and-white film, just to make sure that you and he are on the same page.
But exposition is often necessary. My readers aren’t psychic, and just as I can’t “show” every last detail and nuance, neither should I take my story back to the beginning of, well, Everything, in order to expose my reader to all the backstory and context that imbues my heartbreaking work of utter genius. So, it’s another balancing act, another vague artist’s equation wherein phrases like a lot and too much prominently figure.
Some examples after the jump:
Posted in Writing | Tagged as you know bob, creative writing, editing, exposition, expository block, novel writing, self-publishing, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips | 1 Comment »
An interesting article crossed my desk yesterday, detailing a dozen “letters” that just didn’t make the cut for our modern Roman alphabet. Well, okay, it’s not that cut and dried. It’s not like there was a Council of Nicaea meeting on the alphabet. Most of these “lost letters” were in wide use at one time, but just fell out of favor.
You know some of them already. The friendly Ampersand (&) is the best known, and anyone who’s read a facsimile of our Declaration of Independence has snickered over the phrase “Purfuit of Happinefs,” wherein we find both the old “long s” and its surviving relation, the “short s.” (And now you know what to call that “effy” S-thing.) Continue Reading »
Posted in Culture, Writing | Tagged alphabet, eth, lost letters, Roman alphabet, thorn, typography, unknown letters, Writing, wynn, ye olde shoppe, yogh | 2 Comments »
Part of me always feels guilty.
The writer in me is always watching, always observing, always taking notes. One year, a friend presented me with a t-shirt that said: Careful or You’ll End Up in My Novel. She thought it was funny. I know that it’s true.
There is a vast supply of information out there, presented to us everyday, free of charge–on the bus, in the grocery, on the freeway, in the workplace–and all we writerly-types have to do is watch, observe, note.
So, part of me always feels guilty. Especially at times when my inner amanuensis probably wouldn’t be welcome.
Posted in Writing | Tagged creative writing, novel writing, Writing, writing techniques, writing tips | 2 Comments »
Ages ago, in a place and time long forgot, I acquired an old-school cheese lyre. It was, essentially, a Y-shaped piece of steel with a stiff wire across the opening. It did not have one of those roller bars that dictate the thickness of your slice of cheese; the makers assumed you were an adult, and could decide for yourself how thick you wanted your cheese, from wafer-thin to inch-thick hunk. It was a marvel of low-technology—a bent piece of steel with a wire—and it lasted nigh on twenty years.
Two years ago, it broke. Since then, I’ve been looking for another one, but it’s impossible. Continue Reading »
Posted in Food, Low Tech | Tagged cheese, cheese knife, cheese lyre, cheese slicer, cheese wire, cooking, Food, inexpensive tool, kitchen gadgets, slice of cheese | 2 Comments »
