The rain will surely win the race

[sovay]

1. I slept about four hours last night. Most of them were taken up with dreaming of children's books in a nonexistent library. I chalk this up to my recent Bellairs binge and a desire to seek out Frances Hardinge, who I believe has slightly more objective reality than the authors I dreamed about. The night before last, asleep for a rare twelve hours in the wake of the pre-Code marathon, I dreamed I was behind deadline on a Lovecraftian script treatment. I woke up and thought, "handful_ofdust . . . ?"

2. Yesterday's primary social engagement: meeting my new Strange Horizons co-editors, ajodasso and rinue, for cake and conversation at the Danish Pastry House. We talked about poetry. We also talked about the folklore of tomatoes and our feelings toward root vegetables of the UK. This thing where we all live within driving or public transit distance of one another is fascinating. We have plans.

3. Vonda McIntyre's The Moon and the Sun (1997) is finally being filmed. I repeat: PETER DINKLAGE PLEASE THANK YOU. (And hey, after Game of Thrones, maybe someone with a bankroll will even agree with me.)

It is pouring rain, steadily and undramatically; I do not foresee doing very much with the next twelve hours besides working and trying to recharge. I would like to be writing, but it's one of those days when I feel like someone erased the inside of my head. Have a Roman shipwreck. I like the shipwright's lost brush, the sailor who dropped his name into the sea. I'd missed the olive stone in Silchester.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I do eat haggis, ceremonially at Burns Nights, and I have had neeps and tatties. I've just never found myself thinking at any other time, "You know what this dish needs? Rutabaga."

This? Is perfectly correct thinking, viz it is exactly my own position. Once a year and in context is grand.

(Weirdly, I have nothing against kohlrabi.)

Again, this is a very proper position. Viz, neither do I.

I have never had celeriac slaw. I am picky about slaws—I really don't like mayonnaise—but conceptually it sounds terrific.

Finally, something to disagree on! I love a good mayonnaise. But I'm really not an evangelist, so hey.

Any soup, or have you recipes in mind?

Ooh. Not sure I ever had a recipe. Mostly I have boiled chunks of celeriac with a potato for smoothness, whizzed them up in the potwater and stock, possibly added cream, enlivened with bacon croutons... That sort of thing.

[sovay]

I love a good mayonnaise. But I'm really not an evangelist, so hey.

I have been known to like homemade mayonnaise. The kind you can buy in a jar disturbs me deeply.

Mostly I have boiled chunks of celeriac with a potato for smoothness, whizzed them up in the potwater and stock, possibly added cream, enlivened with bacon croutons... That sort of thing.

I wish it weren't raining so unpleasantly here. I'd go buy some cream and celeriac.

[edit] And have you tried chocolate beetroot cake?

Belatedly: no, although one of the topics of conversation yesterday was the original beet-colored red velvet cake, not the recent FD&C Red 40 article. What are the virtues of putting beetroot in chocolate?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

The virtues of beetroot in chocolate are an earthy quality, a depth of flavour, a maturity: this is grown-up chocolate cake. (And it doesn't taste of beets. At all.)

[sovay]

The virtues of beetroot in chocolate are an earthy quality, a depth of flavour, a maturity: this is grown-up chocolate cake. (And it doesn't taste of beets. At all.)

As someone who likes chocolate best when it's not sweet, I shall find a recipe.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Most recipes tell you to cook the beet first; personally I don't find this necessary, and grate raw beet into the mixture, a la carrot-cake.