Tuesday Salad
Last night’s dinner was a HUGE success. I slow-cooked some boneless pork ribs, baked and mashed some potatoes, and put together a Caprese salad. Everything came off more-or-less perfectly, and it was really, really easy to do. The trick is to put the potatoes in the oven (on metal shishkabob skewers, then wrapped in foil) two hours before you want to eat. Then, an hour before, put your Caprese together and cover it with plastic wrap, throw it on the table. You should end up with about half an hour to blaze through a bit of kitchen cleanup before you yank the spuds out, chop them up, throw them in a mixer with some butter, milk, salt, and garlic, and voila! Dinner, she is served.
I’m a big fan both of easy recipes and of cleaning while I cook. Since I end up doing most of the cleanup unless I twist someone’s arm, I tend to clean at the same time I cook, just to keep the kitchen from exploding under the weight of sheer chaos. YMMV.
All right, let’s get on to the salad–link salad, that is.
* From the Vintage Crime LJ community, here’s some rules about detective fiction: one set from S. S. Van Dine, the creator of Philo Vance; and one set from Msgr. Ronald Knox.
I find these interesting for two reasons. One, I like seeing genre rules laid out, and I like to see how successful authors talk about their audience. Two, I like seeing these sorts of rules because they are a direct invitation to understand them so one can effectively play with them and break them.
Breaking the rules being, you know, three-quarters of the fun.
* Speaking of breaking the rules, I noticed a theme between these two sets of rules–the absolute set-in-stone denial of any paranormal or supernatural event. Being who I am, I suppose that’s why I’m not writing crime fiction. Well, I am writing a SORT of crime fiction, but it is kind of like the redheaded stepchild of crime fiction.
* OH JOHN RINGO NO T-shirts! They’re for a good cause. Proceeds are donated to the Helen Bamber Foundation.
* And if you’re wondering what the cry “OH JOHN RINGO NO!” means, this blog entry might help. I will warn you, it is Not Safe For Work. It contains words and themes you might find objectionable. If you have problems with pulpy men’s adventure fiction or analysis of pulpy men’s adventure fiction, DO NOT CLICK. And don’t go over there, read half the entry, and fire off some halfass comment about how you’re offended. Just don’t, okay?
There’s a line between exploitative fiction and what I call “purple fiction”–that guilty pleasure reading we all indulge in. While purple fiction probably deals with morally reprehensible subject matter, I feel it is ethically sound in intent. Exploitative fiction is like a snuff film–you know it when you see it, and you’re sickened by the very idea, and it’s pretty obvious that the creator isn’t having tongue-in-cheek fun with themes or cultural notions of sexuality. Exploitative fic is just a joyless, offensive grind, on more than one level.
As with any definition I give here, YMMV. This subject really deserves its own blog post, but I am so not in the mood for that kind of critical analysis right now. I leave it to wiser heads than the one mine is turning out to be this morning.
* I am, instead, in the mood for Cheezburger.
more cat pictures
I should probably watch Labyrinth again. Sometimes a girl just needs a “David Bowie in tight pants” fix.
* Last but not least, I was laying in bed last night reading, and it struck me…goddamn, I’m weird. Because this is my bedtime reading, and I was enjoying the hell out of it. When did literary criticism become ENJOYABLE? How the hell did that happen?
I’m mystified, and I’m even more mystified by my urge, when reading these sorts of things, to get little plastic dinosaurs and act out the book’s assertions with them.
Yes, utterly mystified. But hey, if you can’t have fun with dinosaurs while reading theses, what would be the point of existence?
Over and out.
