Category: cooking the books

A Taste of Light: Cooking the Books with Jeannette Ng

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A Taste of Light: Cooking the Books with Jeannette Ng

Cooking the Books is back! Today my co-host Fran Wilde and I sit down with author Jeannette Ng and her book Under the Pendulum Sun, a claustrophobic tale of Faelands, Victorian missionaries and a house where nothing is as it seems…

We talked classics and rewriting them–check this out here as well as the extra material at the Booksmugglers cooking extension!

And you may get Jeannette’s book here: Amazon UK | Amazon US | Book Depository | Angry Robot.

In addition to Jeanette’s brownie recipe below, she also answered two reader questions from twitter – those of Joseph Brassey and Tade Thompson.

This month’s Cooking the Books Podcast, #039: A Taste of Light: Cooking the Books with Jeannette Ng contains:

  • creepy food
  • the unseen
  • a disconcerting bowl of blood
  • sun physics
  • frozen grapes
  • alternate allegories
  • how one approaches condiments
  • forbidden foods
  • nursery rhyme research
  • a shoutout to Emma Newman’s Split Worlds series and the Split Worlds Ball.
  • And much more.

Ready? Subscribe to the Podcast here! Or on iTunes! Or click play below:
(and consider supporting us on Patreon!)

Visit additional Cooking the Books content over on the The Booksmugglers!

(thanks as always to our friend Paul Weimer, who helps out with the kitchen cleaning–this time it was many many smears of chocolate!)

Cooking the Books Podcast, #039: A Taste of Light: Cooking the Books with Jeannette Ng


Answers to questions from twitter:

Joseph Brassey: “Jeannette has previously mentioned the idea of getting outside of feeling beholden to conventional wisdoms of writing, realizing that specific methods are designed for specific ands and might not apply to what you’re trying to do in a given book. Can she unpack this a bit?”

So, a lot of general writing advice presupposes that one wants to write an airport novel, something thrilling, relatively easy to digest and brisk to read. The aversion to exposition and filter words are rooted in that. And if one wants to write in that style, the advice can be incredibly useful, but if one is attempting something a bit more folkloric, it can be incredibly unhelpful as it pulls you in a different direction.

A lot of sff writing advice is rooted in the preferences of John W Campbell, who is both an awful person and also spearheaded the golden age of science fiction with his very specific tastes. Many things we take for granted in the genre aren’t mandates from above, they are relics from their creation. The definition of “hard scifi” revolving mostly around physics and chemistry, for example, is rooted in Campbell’s preferences. He just didn’t think much of biology, geography or even the social sciences, thus he didn’t consider them important when recreating a science fiction that was scientific.

And to me, knowing all of this helps me challenge the norms of genre writing, because these conventions are not written in stone and passed down to us from time immemorial. It makes the defiance feel smaller. It also helps to read the myriad exceptions to these rules, many of which are themselves are revered classics. Though even more are forgotten and erased.

But of course the question remains what best serves the story one is trying to tell and that is always the trickiest to answer. It may indeed fit well into the beats of a plot-heavy thriller riddled with cliffhangers. It may be best told as a deep dive into the mindset of a single character or sprawled across multiple voices. Everyone has their preferences both as a reader and as a writer (some people hate reading present tense, for example, others find first person uncomfortable), but those preferences are just that.

 

Tade Thompson: “Durian! What’s the best way to consume it?”

I confess not to be the biggest fan of the fruit raw. It was a deeply divisive fruit in my household when I was younger and my mother would always bring up how she had triumphantly converted my father, a longtime hater of the fruit, to the cause. How he had went from buying a fruit he doesn’t eat for her out of love to hoarding it all for himself.

Being my stubborn self, I refused to be swayed. Reminiscences aside, I’m quite partial to it in cake of various sorts. Especially the pancake rolls that Honeymoon Dessert in Hong Kong do with them, all bundled with squirty cream.


Brownies recipe

Recipe preamble: This recipe is built around the idea that I want as little leftover ingredients as possible as I used to cook it in a shared kitchen at boarding school. I usually double it and thus use all of a 500g bag of sugar and half a dozen eggs. Sadly butter comes in 250g pats, which was a perpetual source of frustration to me and the reason why I started making cookies.

200g dark chocolate (or rather, one packet of Tesco plain chocolate)
200g white or milk chocolate (one packet Tesco milk chocolate)
200g butter
250g granulated sugar
3 eggs
a few drops vanilla extract
100g all-purpose flour
Melt 200g of dark chocolate and 200g of butter in non stick saucepan, using the lowest setting of the electric hob. Stir to make sure it doesn’t burn.
Take off the heat and allow butter/chocolate mixture to cool. Smash up the remaining chocolate into chunks with gleeful violence and/or catch two minutes of tv in the common room.
Some people transfer the butter/chocolate mixture into a mixing bowl, but I am profoundly lazy and thus don’t. Add sugar to butter/chocolate and mix with wooden spoon.
Add eggs and mix into the mixture one at a time.
Fold in the flour in a sort of figure-of-eight motion.
Pour into buttered tin, stud the chocolate chunks into the brownie mixture and bake at 180C for 25-30mins until crispy on the outside and toothpick comes out clean.


Jeannette Ng is originally from Hong Kong but now lives in Durham, UK. Her MA in Medieval and Renaissance Studies fed into an interest in medieval and missionary theology, which in turn spawned her love for writing gothic fantasy with a theological twist. She runs live roleplay games and is active within the costuming community, running a popular blog. Jeannette has been nominated for the John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer for her novel Under the Pendulum Sun.


Cooking the Books is a mostly-monthly podcast hosted by Fran Wilde and Aliette de Bodard.

Check out our archives.

How to Feed Magic: Cooking the Books with Chelsea Polk

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How to Feed Magic: Cooking the Books with Chelsea Polk

I read and *loved* Chelsea Polk‘s glorious debut novel, Witchmark, from Tor.com Publishing and Tor Books (I blurbed it, in fact!). Set in an alternate post-War world, it’s got magic, family, politics, the sweetest gay romance, and bicycle chases! Still time to preorder, by the way: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Macmillan.

It’s also filled with food — apples in particular, but other foods as well.

Fran Wilde and I sat down (metaphorically) with Chelsea to talk about the book and more. She also answered questions for our partners in crime The Booksmugglers!

Chelsea will be at 4th Street Fantasy in June, and celebrating the launch of Witchmark soon after, but you can hear her here first!

It’s all for Cooking the Books this month, both here and at the extension kitchen over at The Booksmugglers! (check out Chelsea’s Booksmugglers Bonus answers!).

This month’s Cooking the Books Podcast, #037: How to Feed Magic – Cooking the Books with Chelsea Polk contains:

  • Energy-replenishment Guidelines After Magic Use
  • The food you eat with friends
  • LGBT Romance Recs (along with some adult recs)
  • Improper substitution of fountain pens for food by Aliette Pen Bodard
  • The best way to cook steak and pasta
  • A few thoughts about post-war PTSD
  • Cookies
  • And much more.

Ready? Subscribe to the Podcast here! Or on iTunes! Or click play below:
(and consider supporting us on Patreon!)

Visit additional Cooking the Books content over on the The Booksmugglers!

(thanks as always to our friend Paul Weimer, who helps out with the kitchen cleaning–this time it was thick trail mix!)

Podcast #037: How to Feed Magic – Cooking the Books with Chelsea Polk


Chelsea’s Recipe: Trail Mix Oatmeal Cookies

I love oatmeal cookies. I’ll even eat them with raisins. but I greatly prefer the version I developed a few years ago, with dried cranberries, chocolate chips, and pecan pieces. this recipe is a relatively small batch of cookies, by my gluttonous standards – I make a dozen, and freeze the other half to make more later.
To make these cookies, you need:

    • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
    • 125g (about 2/3 cup) brown sugar
    • 1 large egg
    • 1/2 tsp vanilla
    • 1/2 tsp baking soda
    • 1 tsp cardamom (cinnamon is a fine substitute)
    • 1/2 tsp salt
    • 95g (about 2/3 cup) all-purpose flour
    • 120g (about 2/3 cup) rolled oats
    • 1/2 cup dried cranberries
    • 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
    • 1/2 cup pecan pieces

Order of Operations:
In a medium sized mixing bowl, cream butter and brown sugar together, adding egg, vanilla, baking soda, cardamom, and salt. Stir in flour; mix in rolled oats in gradual doses, and then add cranberries, chocolate chips, and pecan pieces. mix well.
Refrigerate for a minimum of 30 minutes, maximum 24 hours.
Preheat oven to 350. Drop 1.5″ balls of dough on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 10 minutes; leave on the sheet to continue cooking for 5 minutes.
Store in an airtight container to preserve the chewy texture. They will probably last in the refrigerator for several days, but I don’t have that kind of willpower.


C.L. Polk writes fiction and spots butterflies in Southern Alberta. She has an unreasonable fondness for knitting, single estate coffee, and the history of fashion. Her debut series beginning with the novel Witchmark is available from Tor.com Publishing.


Cooking the Books is a mostly-monthly podcast hosted by Fran Wilde and Aliette de Bodard.

Check out our archives.

Cooking the books with Malka Older

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Our fabulous friend Malka Older found time between busy moments at BEA to talk with co-host Fran Wilde and me about her relief work in Japan after Fukushima, writing the data-driven, sf stunners Infomocracy and Null States (out soon from Tor.Com Publishing!) and telling us what foods go away first in an infomocracy universe. It’s all  for Cooking the Books this month, both here and at the extension kitchen over at The Booksmugglers! (check out Malka’s Booksmugglers Bonus answers!).

Haven’t read Infomocracy yet? Now’s the time — so you can get caught up for Null States! (and read Malka’s earlier Book Bite over here too)

This month’s Cooking the Books Podcast, #031:  Lines of Supply – Cooking the Books with Malka Older contains:

  • One half dash, procrastination
  • Three heaping spoonfuls of prognostication
  • A possible pigeon
  • A handful of social programming
  • A touch of poetry
  • Only the best picadillo


Ready? Subscribe to the Podcast here! Or on iTunes! Or click play below:
(and consider supporting us on Patreon, hmm?)

(thanks as always to our friend Paul Weimer who helps clean up the CtB kitchen after we destroy it…)

Podcast #031: Lines of Supply – Cooking the Books with Malka Older

 

Recipe: Picadillo

  • Ingredients:
  • ground beef,
  • onion,
  • pepper (any kind),
  • garlic,
  • cumin,
  • oregano,
  • tomato sauce,
  • raisins,
  • olives,
  • olive oil
Sautée the onion and pepper in the oil. Add the ground beef and break it up to brown thoroughly. Add the garlic, minced or crushed.
Add a lot of oregano (I am not kidding, a lot) and some cumin.
Add tomato sauce and bring to a boil. Add raisins and olives, turn heat down and cover, simmer for 30-45 minutes.
If it gets dry add liquid: water, beer, stock, etc.

Malka Older is a writer, aid worker, and PhD candidate. Her writing can be found at Leveler, Tor.com, Bengal Lights, Sundog Lit, Capricious, Reservoir, Inkscrawl, Rogue Agent, in the poetry anthology My Cruel Invention, and in Chasing Misery, an anthology of writing by female aid workers. Her science fiction political thriller Infomocracy is the first full-length novel from Tor.com, and the sequel Null States will be published in 2017.

She was nominated for the 2016 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Named Senior Fellow for Technology and Risk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs for 2015, she has more than a decade of experience in humanitarian aid and development. Her doctoral work on the sociology of organizations at the Institut d’Études Politques de Paris (Sciences Po) explores the dynamics of multi-level governance and disaster response using the cases of Hurricane Katrina and the Japan tsunami of 2011.  You can find her on Twitter, Facebook, and at malkaolder.wordpress.com.

 

A Taste of Salt: Cooking the Books with Ruthanna Emrys

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You might have missed the announcement on this, but I’m now Fran Wilde‘s co-host for Cooking the Books, the podcast about SF and food. This month we sat down with Ruthanna Emrys, the author of the newly released Winter Tide from Tor.com Publishing, a novel about re-imagined Deep Ones.

Read excerpts at tor.com| Buy at Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Indiebound

We talk about how Ruthanna uses food to evoke memory in her book. What we didn’t realize is that we would also be talking about revising the Lovecraftian recipe, and exploring monster digestion.

This podcast contains so much salt. Also a heads up about Ruthanna’s book party with her blog co-host Anne M. Pillsworth at Wiscon in a few weeks! Are you going? Pick up a Honeyed Salt Cake for us. Or try the recipe yourself, below…

This month’s Cooking the Books Podcast, #030: A Taste of Salt – Cooking the Books with Ruthanna Emrys contains:

  • Deep Ones comfort food
  • What one would feed H.P. Lovecraft (a Book Smugglers question!)
  • Truffle salt, fleur-de-sel harvested from marshes, smoked salt…
  • CSA joys
  • Avocados
  • Holiday Fish Stew
  • Did We Mention Ruthanna’s Book Party at WISCON
  • A mention of “The Litany of Earth”, the short story that started it all.
  • Snarky aliens

Ready? Subscribe to the Podcast here! Or on iTunes! Or click play below.
(and consider supporting us on Patreon please?)

And visit additional Ruthanna Emrys content over on the The Booksmugglers!

Podcast #030: A Taste of Salt – Cooking the Books with Ruthanna Emrys


Direct MP3 Link

Recipe: Honeyed Saltcakes

(Recipe by Nora Temkin)
Makes: 21 cookies

Ingredients:

  • ¼ C sugar
  • 1.5C + 1T flour
  • 1.5T fine-ground salt (People of the air who think there’s such a thing as “too much salt” may want to make this 1.5 teaspoons.)
  • ½ C honey
  • 1 stick butter, softened
  • 1 egg
  • ½ t baking soda
  • Additional honey + course ground fleur de sel for glaze, to taste

To Cook:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Cream butter, sugar, and honey until smooth.
Add egg and mix.
Combine remaining dry ingredients in a separate bowl.
Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix well.
Drop spoonfuls of batter onto a greased cookie sheet, leaving room for cakes to spread to about 2 inches wide.
Bake 9-12 minutes until lightly browned.
Remove from oven—immediately brush with warm honey and sprinkle with sea salt. Serve warm.


Ruthanna Emrys is the author of Winter Tide, the first book in the Innsmouth Legacy series. She is also co-blogger on Tor.com’s Lovecraft Reread, and writes short stories about religion and aliens and psycholinguistics. She lives in a mysterious manor house on the outskirts of Washington, DC with her wife and their large, strange family. She makes home-made vanilla, obsesses about game design, gives unsolicited advice, and occasionally attempts to save the world. You can find her on Twitter, livejournal, her website, and at Tor.com.


Cooking the Books is a mostly-monthly podcast hosted
by Fran Wilde and Aliette de Bodard.

Check out our archives.