Cooking creativity

I've been doing a lot of sewing and cooking, lately, domestic creativity as opposed to writing, although I'm finally getting back to doing that as well. In the kitchen, for the most part I've been following recipes for things I haven't done before: fruit leather, fish stew, and various vegetarian dishes as I've been trying to work through the lovely veggies we're getting in our CSA box.

Last week, though, I tried an experiment; totally off the cuff with flavors and scents that just sounded good.  

I took a thick pork loin, cut it into small cubes and marinated it for about half an hour in a bit of liquid from soaking dried chilies, some chopped fresh mint, and about 1 Tbsp. MILD harissa. 

Now, those who love harissa will scoff at this. Harissa appears to be a paste of reconstituted dried hot peppers mixed with garlic, caraway, cumin and coriander to either distract from or enhance the burn. I can't do the burn, so I mostly used the latter four.

Browned meat and then simmered it in more soaking juice (could substitute a 1/2 cup of red wine or broth) for 20 minutes. Added potatoes, celery, carrots, and corn (and scrapings) from two fresh ears. Minced a clove of garlic, add it and salt, pepper, 1/2 cinnamon stick and some ground cumin -- I probably used 1/2 tsp. 

Added just enough stock to simmer -- less than a cup -- and cooked on low until veggies were tender, about an hour.  Removed cinnamon stick before serving.

Mmmm. Tasty. I can do that again.

SF from 1989

Been working my way through The 1989 Annual World's Best SF, "Presented" by Donald A. Wollheim. In the intro, Isaac Asimov explains that DAW books was created by Mr. Wollheim, those letters being his initials. The things I still need to learn. 

Speaking of which, I'm aiming for learning one thing from each story I've read so far.

(edited)

I've read 

"The Giving Plague" by David Brin

  -- Changing expectations, so that the goalpost we think we're headed for is constantly moving. Interesting use of "you" -- protagonist addresses his adversary, a virus.

"Peaches for Mad Molly" by Steven Gould

   -- minimal setting details, but essential ones, create the tension here. That and the clear assumption of what the protagonist is doing without being told. Nice information feed without handholding.

"Shaman" by John Shirley

   -- Loved the antihero here, fascinated and repulsed by the bizarro world. Nothing made sense, so I'm having trouble pulling a learning bit out of this other than... not all stories have to make sense? No, actually, the use of details that evoked images I already had, dropped into this unfamiliar world made my brain cling to the things I understood or thought I did, and gave me visuals enough to carry me through. That said, I bumped against facetious names (the Fridge for a prison) because even though it made sense for locals to call it that, it jarred with the tone of the story. The prison-on-an-island concept threw me because all I could see was an Arthurian castle.

"Schrödinger's Kitten," by George Alec Effinger, (the reason Aaron loaned me the book in the first place -- I'd done a flash piece that attempted to show a person interacting/reacting to his alternate realities, and Effinger's much longer story is a brilliant exploration of that theme.) 

  -- Rich, textured setting does not have to be intimately tied to the *theme* of the story, although perhaps the Islamic setting and POV here, in 1989, was otherworldly for the average reader.

"The Flies of Memory" by Ian Watson

      - Fascinating use of POV and interesting exploration of memory as reality. We don't actually realize whose POV we're in until near the end of the story, nor do we even meet this person until we're a third or halfway through. Can't imagine anybody letting me get away with that, nor with the leisurely pace. Probably the story that makes clearest the changing expectations in literature in the ensuing 25 years. 

  

"Skin Deep" by Kristine Katheryn/Katherine? Rusch

  -- Good example of a quick-paced, high-stakes story. Isn't a four-paragraph sequence that goes by without heightening stakes or tension shifts of some sort.

"A Madonna of the Machine" by Tanith Lee
 -- Omniscient POV works here. Story reminds me of Ayn Rand, sadly, but Lee manages to write a story about a perfectly grey, bland, emotion-robbed world in which a machine, apparently, triggers a religious experience for its (human) tools. Arc is complete for one character; disruption in "utopia" (or hell, depending on your view) is implied but not carried out.  I wanted more.

"Waiting for the Olympians" by Frederik Pohl
 -- Self-referential alternative history can work. Exploration of alternative history used as a way for the author to make a statement -- The fall of Rome and the rise of Christianity is responsible for a fractured Europe, multiple wars and the end of slavery. The fact that that feels like a statement and not a mere theory of the protagonist results, I think, from the characters' unnecessary mental density. 

"Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog" by B.W. Clough
 -- Tacky kitsch as a common binding factor of  humanity strikes me as a novel concept to explore in a sci fi story.  Story is well grounded in reality and the actual sci fi part is limited to one or two essential paragraphs; nicely handled.

Still to be read:

"Adrift among the Ghosts" by Jack Chalker

Ripples in the Dirac Sea by Geoffrey A Landis

With luck I'll get it finished before tonight.

Still have to read and crit Tuesday nights' stories.