Missed National Pancake Day?

Did you know yesterday was National Pancake Day? … or was it? If you look at my list of National Food Days… February 28th ...pancakes are mysteriously missing …but… thanks to the folks at IHOP… yesterday was National Pancake Day…. and to celebrate the day they gave away free pancakes!Gasp! … You missed it??? You didn’t go down to IHOP and get your free pancakes? Well… how about having your

Recipe: Red Raspberry and White Chocolate Cream Pastries

These Red Raspberry and White Chocolate Cream Pastries are made of flaky puff pastry dough with a filling of sweet white chocolate cream cheese and red raspberries….. deliciously indulgent… a wonderful dessert or as we had it.. as a breakfast pastry… with coffee.. a fabulous way to start the day!Pastry recipes seem difficult and they certainly can be… my Grandmother was so good at making light

Demerara Sugar

Ever notice that professional baked goods sometimes have a large granular sugar on top... it adds a sweet crunch to the crust of breads, muffins and pastries? Many home bakers sprinkle their baked goods with sugar… I am no exception…. but I wanted to get that crunch… so I did some research and found that Demerara sugar is used. It’s popular in the UK and is also available here in the

Recipe: Spanish Tortilla

A Spanish Tortilla is not what most people associate with tortillas… most Americans… when hearing the word tortilla immediately think of those thin flour or corn flatbreads that we wrap our tacos or burritos with…. not so with the Spanish Tortilla. The Spanish Tortilla is made up of eggs and potatoes… at least that much most will agree on.. however.. after you get past the eggs and potatoes …

Recipe: Cheesy Sausage Pie

This is a quick and easy recipe for a meat pie… a terrific meal for those nights when you’re short on time… cook the filling and pop it in the oven … then relax while it bakes.. Serve it with some biscuits and you have yourself a nice little meal with hardly any clean up.. now how great is that?This recipe is slightly adapted from a Pillsbury recipe. I changed very little… added more corn and

Recipe: Stuffed Cabbage

Stuffed Cabbage was a meal from both ..Warren and my childhood… we both can remember our Mother’s making it… and oddly enough … even with all the recipe variations out there.. our Mother’s made it virtually the same way.My Mother made it with a little Hungarian touch.. after all.. we had to add paprika and garlic in the meat mix.. but other than that… it was just about the same…. just delicious!

Recipe: Vegetable Beef Barley Soup

This hearty Vegetable Beef Barley Soup is chock full of vegetables… low fat and delicious…this is a crock pot recipe… everything goes in the crock pot and the crock pot does the work… my favorite kind of meal .. especially when I’m busy doing other things…TIPSI used a mix of fresh and frozen vegetables.. you can use all fresh or all frozen vegetables if you prefer.I sliced fresh baby carrots..

Mardi Gras Foods

It’s Mardi Gras time again!… and that means lots of great food… and with Fat Tuesday coming up.. time to indulge that sweet tooth!Here are some terrific recipes perfect for any Mardi Gras celebration!Quick Mardi Gras King Cake - a quick and easy recipe for this traditional Mardi Gras Cake... perfect for breakfast or a dessert.. after all.. why not? It is Fat Tuesday!Banana Foster Waffles Garlic

Recipe: Apple Caramel Cobbler

I should call this Perfect Apple Caramel Cobbler… because that’s just what it is.. every time… perfect! Made of tart Granny Smith Apples… and a sweet batter that makes the most delicious crust… oh and I can’t forget .. a drizzle all over of caramel syrup… now picture this .. a scoop of vanilla ice cream with it melting all over… a fabulous mix of flavors… for sure!This is adapted from a Peach

Recipe: Kielbasa and Potatoes

This recipe for Kielbasa and Potatoes combines oven roasting onions, potatoes and kielbasa with the dressing from a German Potato Salad recipe of mine. Another quick and easy recipe .. perfect for a weeknight.Best of all… this gets baked in the oven… line your baking pan with foil and clean-up is a snap!TIPSThe kielbasa I buy is not that fatty … but if yours is… and you want to cut the grease ..

Recipe: Grilled Pound Cake with Strawberry Cream

Buttery honey crusted pound cake… a dollop of Strawberry Cream… some fresh sliced strawberries… pure heaven!If you’ve never grilled or toasted pound cake… you definitely need to try it… think about it… sweet pound cake… brushed lightly with butter then a drizzle of honey…. You can either put it in a grill pan or lay it on a baking sheet and broil it quickly…. it gets a light golden sweet crust

Recipe: Strawberry Cream

This easy little recipe for Strawberry Cream is great as a topping for fruit or cake… a quick dessert…. for that last minute company.

TIPS

I almost always have heavy cream in the fridge … and I love Polaner All-Fruit… so if I don’t have fresh fruit in the house.. I have the Polaner.

To make this without the Polaner All-Fruit… just mash fresh strawberries with a fork and add them… and adjust

Recipe: Savory Beef and Brown Rice Skillet

Skillet meals are terrific for weeknights… they’re quick and easy and satisfying…. This recipe for Savory Beef and Brown Rice is no exception. I’ve made this skillet meal for years.. it was a favorite of my son’s when he was growing up.Warren and I joke about things our Mothers said when we were growing up… mind you.. as adults we can totally relate to her. Feeding a family .. day in and day

Recipe: Coeur à la Crème

Coeur à la Crème … perfect for a special occasion … Valentine’s Day or even an anniversary dinner… it’s so beautiful.. a show stopper... for sure!If you haven’t tried making Coeur à la Crème … you should… it is one of the easiest recipes to make and definitely makes an impressive presentation. The first time I ever saw nne of these desserts was on the cover of a food magazine… I’m pretty sure it

My Q & A over at Goodreads.com

I've got a lively little discussion going on over at Goodreads, where readers are asking me questions about all of my books, not to mention other people's books, the publishing industry, and topics of general interest. I don't think you have to join Goodreads in order to check out the page, you can just go to it by clicking here. However, you do need to be a member in order to ask a question or post a comment, but signing up is no big deal and takes about twenty seconds.

Of course, if you haven't joined Goodreads, you might want to consider it, and you can also do a quick search and become my friend. I'm not one to jump on every tech bandwagon that comes along, not to mention every social-networking hoo-hah, but I've been a member of Goodreads for a while now (like, a few years) and it's pretty great. It's pretty gratifying to have a site with 9 million members who are joined together by their love of reading and appreciation for books. Plus there are groups and discussions and things you can get into, which are fun.

Best of all, you get some pretty good book recommendations, not least of all from places like the Goodreads page for the always-lively Next Best Book Club...

Recipe: Romantic Brownie Sundaes

How can a Brownie Sundae be romantic? Well… with a heart shaped brownie for starters… add some vanilla ice cream… maybe a sliced strawberry on the side… oh wait!... must not forget the chocolate syrup and maybe a little whipped cream…. definitely a cherry on top…. and make it for TWO!So… are you following me now?.... ahhh… stuck at the “heart shaped brownie” thing…. well… there are a number of

Recipe: Mocha Mousse

Hmmmm … Mocha Mousse….. a deceptively rich and velvety dessert that tastes like pure indulgence … and isn’t!This recipe is a quick and easy recipe that will taste like you spent hours making it… only you and I will know it took under 10 minutes… yep… you read that right… under 10 minutes!TIPSYou can use Fat Free milk without sacrificing flavor or texture… honest!I have gotten in the habit of

The Green Flash!

So you know about The Green Flash? Sometimes, very rarely, at the moment that the sun slips behind the horizon, you can see this split-second moment of refracted light as the disc vanishes: a little burst of green light. It happens I think only at the seaside, and it’s this quasi-legendary thing that I never really believed in until a few years ago, when Uzee saw it in Malaysia. I was looking at her at the moment, so I saw the flash reflected in her glasses, no kidding.

I had never seen it directly for myself. But then last week, as we were driving home at sunset, we rounded a corner on the hill leading to our house and suddenly there was this vista of ocean and sunset, the sun already half-vanished behind the horizon, a perfect semicircle sitting perched at the edge of the world. So we stopped, right there in the middle of the road, and watched at it slid further down. Hoping no cars would come roaring around the bend behind us. Okay, not the smartest thing in the world, but the view was spectacular, even for Hawai'i, which has no shortage of spectacular views.

I had no camera, which was fine, but it does mean that the photo below is of a different sunset and is included only to give some vague sense of things:

And then just as the sun dipped out of sight and a car did in fact come around the bend and quickly stop before ramming us, what did we see? THE GREEN FLASH! No kidding. Ding!—there it was, and then it was gone, just that fast.

We were tremendously excited and turned up into our driveway and home.

Of such little moments are wonders made.

PopMatters music reviews roundup

A few of the more intriguing records I've reviewed lately for PopMatters.com:

Chicago bluesman Toronzo Cannon has recently release Leaving Mood, a strong album of straightforward blues tunes. Ranging from the rocking to the soulful to the angsty, Cannon delivers a polished set here. He doesn't exactly reinvent the form, but he does, maybe, reinvigorate it a bit. Besides, he plays a Gibson Flying V (cf. Lonnie Mack, Albert King, Dave Maine), so if nothing else he has impeccable taste in guitars.

JJ Grey is a Florida-based blues/soul/rock/whatever singer-songwriter whom I describe in my review as "a national treasure." I mean it too: if you're unfamiliar with his unique version of "swamp blues" or "Dixie soul" or whatever the heck you want to call it, you should check it out ASAP. His band, Mofro, is rock-solid too. "The Sweetest Thing" is pretty much my favorite song these days.

Power-pop doesn't get much love these days but SorryEverAfter might change all that. This 6-song EP marries energetic guitar squeal with liquid female vocals and attitude by the bushel. Pop it in the car CD player and drive somewhere fast. It's about as substantial as Cracker Jack, and twice as fun.

The Lijadu Sisters were (and are) a pair of Nigerian singers who were poised it break out worldwide in the 1970s and 80s with a string of slickly produced albums that incorporated elements of funk, soul and rock alongside more traditional West African sounds. An unfortunate accident struck down one of them and ended their career, but now the records are being re-released, beginning with their first, Danger. And what a terrific record it is! The beats are funky, the wah-wah is psychadelic, the harmony vocals will make you swoon. Even if you don't like "African music," this is worth a listen as being simply music that happens to come from Nigeria, not Motown.

Finally, here's a hip-hop record for people who hate hip-hop: No Bird Sing are a Minnesota-based trio who play live drums and guitar accompaniment to live rapping -- though the raps have more in common with tortured grunge introspection than stereotypical cars-and-bling braggadocio. The record isn't perfect, but at times it's terrifically compelling, and often it sounds like nothing else I've ever heard. For me, that counts for a lot.

Pats lost.

Moment of silence.










Thank you.

Another "David Maine" crops up in Romanian...

A while back I posted some French paperback covers from books written in the 1980s; apparently some guy used the pen name David Maine for such timeless works as Geurillas Galactiques and so forth. (The link to my post is here.) Well, now another cover has surfaced, courtesy of a thoughtful fellow named Cosimo who wrote to this blog and left a comment asking if I am the author of this extra-lurid Romanian version:

The answer is: No, I did not write that, but man I wish I had. I especially like the New England Patriot-type tricorn-hat wearing laser-gun carrying starship trooper in the middle. The vaguely hawk-like face on the flying mechanical Raptor of Doom is also a nice touch. And is that guy in back a streaker?

Hey Cosimo! Thanks a million for tipping me off to this!

In case you're wondering, here is the original French version. (I think it's French. Or is "guerillero" Spanish? That would account for the faintly Aztec-like temple structure in the background.) Please note: this is an example of Super-Fiction. If anyone can put me in the same room as these materpieces, or anything like them with my/our name on them, please give me a shout.

Pop Matters Slipped Discs 2011 - UPDATED

One of my favorite features on PopMatters.com is their annual Slipped Discs section, in which music writers take the time to advocate for great records that have somehow been overlooked, either by critics or listeners or both. This year's edition is split into three parts, which can be found here:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

So check 'em out. Part One contains a brief writeup that I did for The Builders and the Butchers, whose record Dead Reckoning was quite possibly my Album of the Year, and which has been heard by just about nobody else besides me and a couple of people in Portland. I refer to it as "criminally overlooked," and I stand by that.