Posts for category ‘food & drink’

This weekend I got to see a dear friend rip into many exciting bridal shower gifts, spent quality time with writer friends Sara Ryan and Alan Gratz, and ate eggs Benedict at a new restaurant in town that all you locals should try out—Pago, in the 9th and 9th neighborhood. Their motto is “Artisan, Local, Farm Fresh.” The eggs benny were perfect, and the chef took my word for it when I said no runny yolk (they don’t always). The accompanying potatoes could have been crisper, but they were good, too. There’s an open kitchen and seating divided into a couple of areas so it’s not too noisy. I’m just happy there’s a new lunch place near my office!

As if all that socializing and food happiness were not enough, when I got to my computer this morning I found out that Once Was Lost received its first official review, and it’s a goodie from Publishers Weekly, with a star. As my editor and I were emailing this morning, we assured each other that we would be proud of the book no matter what the reviews said but, in conclusion, the star is good for our fragile egos. And it helps make up for all the crying in January and February during final revisions! Here’s my favorite little bit:

“Beyond delivering a gripping story, Zarr has a knack for exposing human weakness in the ordinary.”

If you’d like to read the whole thing, it may be found here. Or, if you’re like me and prefer to know as little as possible about a book before reading it, never mind! It is safe to click though—PW did a good job being thorough with their review without plot spoilers, for which I’m grateful.

But, life goes on. I’ve got a clogged sink and a list of errands and another book to write. Have a great day!

Until about an hour ago, I had an Internet-free weekend—yay! But I have the kind of week ahead that made me want to get some emailing and bloggy stuff out of the way before tomorrow so here we are.

- Here’s an interview with me over at Moonlight, Lace & Mayhem. In it, I talk a little bit about what I like about writing for anthologies. Anthologies such as…

- Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd, which is apparently in a store near you! Oh, so you have the ARC? Well guess what, my story isn’t in the ARC! Mwwaaahahahah! (Through circumstances totally not in my control, I swear.) It is a great collection including contributions from so many of your favorite YA writers. So many!  Like Lisa Yee, Barry Lyga, Wendy Mass, John Green, Scott Westerfeld, MT Anderson and MORE. (If you’ve ever traveled to meet in person someone that you only knew online, Kelly Link’s wonderful story will make you squirm in the best way.)

Shop Indie Bookstores

At BEA, some of us supergeeks got together to celebrate the book through a random act of bowling. I took it very seriously.

Maybe I got swine flu from that bowling ball, or from Andrew Smith of Little, Brown, the fabulous publisher of Geektastic.

- Have you seen any or all of Michael Apted’s “Up” series? I have seen all of them. ALL OF THEM. On a recent episode of the fantastic radio show To the Best of Our Knowledge, one of the subjects of the “Up” films talks about how he got picked for it in the first place, and why he still participates even though he has some issues with Apted and the way the series is edited. As a fan of the series, I was fascinated to hear a participant talk outside of the context of it. You can listen to the segment here.

- Are you getting CSA this summer? Not sure what to do with all your veggies? I have invented something I like to call CSA Slaw, and it requires no cooking. Grate anything you got that’s grate-able: carrots, zucchini, raw beets. Chop finely whatever is choppable and edible raw: fresh corn, green beans, garlic. Toss it in a bowl. (I like to add cabbage, too, from the regular store since it’s not coming from CSA yet.) Make a dressing out of: equal parts plan yogurt and peanut butter, then add lime juice, salt and pepper and hot sauce to taste. I sometimes add good curry powder and possibly more garlic. You could use tahini instead of peanut butter if you like it and have it on hand. Mix all! Serve with something you grilled, or just throw in a can of garbanzo beans to make it a complete veggie meal for a hot night.

That ought to tide you over for awhile. And then some. (I need to learn how to write shorter blog posts, methinks.)

The web site should be working for everyone, and by “everyone” I mean those using Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Internet Explorer 8.x. In older versions of IE the images may look crappy. Or, they may not. Who’s to say? Okay, I do believe we can move on!

I’m doing CSA for the first time this summer, aka community supported agriculture, meaning every week I get a box of seasonal organic produce from a local farm. The best thing so far: last week’s bing cherries. Best cherries I’ve ever had in my life. This week there are yellow cherries, and they are good, but a little on the sweet side for my taste. But what I want to ask you about are shell peas. Which I guess are the same as pea peas. Just regular green peas, they are? Apparently I can eat them raw, in salads, add to stir-fries, make soup, whatever I want! What would you do? Maybe I should do something with shell peas plus the fresh garlic that also came in CSA…

Is it Wednesday already? Lordie. I’ve been super absorbed in my office project, and some other stuff. Like shopping. (PSA: Ladies, you are going to want to go to the Gap soonish before they are all out of their summer-weight cardigans, which come in the best colors I’ve seen in many-a-season. Also, adorable tank dresses with ballerina skirts AND POCKETS.)

I’m not sure how I even stumbled upon this Real Food Wednesdays thing, but I did, and since my brain is overly taxed by my slow-but-steady process of throwing crap away, I will take the writing prompt and post about fantastic whole wheat cinnamon waffles. I found the recipe on a cooking blog I like, long before The Diabetes. I love dense, whole-grainy, low sugar things like that, and got in the habit of always having a batch in the freezer, and used them (by the half – very filling) for peanut butter toast, as a snack with cheese, even under tuna salad. Oh, and also the regular waffle way.

When I was diagnosed, one of my first thoughts was, “I can’t have my waffles any more!”  The fact that I was worried about that rather than going blind or my feet falling off tells you something about what food means to me. But guess what? These waffles are so brilliant, they do not give my blood sugar a spike. I nearly wept when I discovered this. Of course I can’t eat them with syrup anymore, but love them with pb or butter and fruit-only jam along with a couple of eggs. They are full of stuff that is good for you, and very sustaining. Also, there’s lots of cinnamon in them, which allegedly does nice things for blood sugar.

Here is the recipe.

(I usually use 1 3/4 cup buttermilk rather than the yogurt + milk combo.)

Like a lot of food-lovers, I harbor many kitchen fantasies about fresh-baked bread. Fresh bread is pretty much the ultimate definition of home and hearth, and the person who bakes her own bread is also the person whose house is the go-to place for neighborhood kids, who makes the stranger feel welcome, who has exactly the right advice for every friend with a problem, who has long glossy hair she usually wears in a bun, who composts, hangs laundry to dry in the sun, and never has a cranky day.  

Or maybe she just has a copy of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Zoë Francois and Jeff Hertzberg. I acquired this book after a taste of the bread from their master recipe at my friend Ann Dee’s house about a month ago, and since then have baked six tasty loaves my very own self. It really is an amazingly fast and easy technique, and now I want to evangelize to everyone I know who cooks.  

While reading the acknowledgments for the book I discovered that Jeff and Zoë and I are all represented by the same literary agency, so of course I immediately exploited the connection to get them over here for a Q&A as part of my Shop Local Holiday Gift-Guying Guide. It makes a terrific gift for the cooks in your life, and you may as well get a copy for yourself while you’re at it. The basic ingredients for homemade bread are so cheap, this really pays for itself after the first four-loaf batch of dough. If you don’t see it on the shelf at your local indie store, ask! They can order it for you and have it in quickly. 

And now, let’s hear what the authors have to say… 

SZ: Congratulations on the success of Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I’ve bought a lot of bread books in my time, and this is the first one that actually delivers on its promise of do-ability! What do you think it is about the prospect of bread making that strikes fear in the hearts of the average home cook? Read more »

We’re going to rise before dawn tomorrow, roll out of bed, try to get everything into the car and hit the road. And then G. puts his big brain to work earning his degree and I…well, you know how there’s this phase of writing a novel when you’re trying this and fiddling with that and pondering and mapping and discovering and you’re thinking hey, no rush here, it’s all about the process? Then the day comes when you seriously have to get down to work and produce a book. It’s time for that full-on NO FEAR attack. I’m scared. Oh wait, I said no fear.

So just as G. goes into “study” as his default setting during grad school summers, I’m going into “book” as mine. I might go to more photo blogging and less text for the next couple of months, or something. We’ll see. I did dig out my old Canon T-70 and have it loaded with actual film, old school, and I’m taking my zoom lens and tripod. Hopefully I remember how to use all that stuff.

It’s also time for summer vegetarianism! It started on Sunday. Last summer we were all vegetarian when eating in, but I did sometimes eat meat and stuff when out. This summer I’m going to try to be a bit more thorough. Even though I promised I wouldn’t buy any more cookbooks, I got one more teeny tiny (okay, it’s massive) one as my sole reference for the summer.

I love Mark Bittman. I have two of his other giant books, and really I could get rid of the rest of my collection and with his three I’d be well covered for life. I love his approach to food and cooking because he’s a home cook. He’s not like a restaurateur or a B&B proprietor a Food Network star. In his books, every recipe has variations in case you don’t have all the ingredients, or you have different ingredients. It’s all very approachable, but at the same time he knows his world cuisines and he doesn’t shy away from or discourage home cooks to do dishes that are a bit more complex or unusual or time-consuming, and he only uses real food. His cookbooks don’t just make me want to eat, they make me want to cook. Which is the point.

See you in a couple of days, live from New Mexico!