Guest Postage

You know, I do more than just write and cook and listen to podcasts.

I also write.

Hang on, did I say that already?

Ah well, I'm very excited to tell you that I've written my first ever Guest Blog Post, and you can read it over here at Jenni's Blog, Talula the second.

Without wanting to put too fine a point on it, it's about writing.

Please take a minute to go visit Jenni, have a read, and leave her a comment.

Thanks!

Last Look

Wherein I discuss the end of Podcast Reviews on Freshly Ground, and welcome into the world my new site (for just this very purpose), The Podagogue.

Thanks to everyone who voted. I'll leave the poll up for a few more days, so you can see how close it really was. Ultimately, the "Nah, keep posting them here" readers won, but by such a slim margin that I had to examine very closely exactly what I've been trying to achieve with Freshly Ground.

Freshly Ground is a blog about food, and cooking, and reflections on the good (and not so good) things in life. As I've said in my introductory post across the road, "I think I was confusing the foodies, and making the Sci-Fi fans hungry. If there are two things you don't want beating down your door, it's confused foodies and hungry geeks."

To succeed in this wild world we call the internet, it's important to give people what they expect. Those who were drawn here by the food have frowned in consternation at the sudden deluge of podcast reviews I've posted as this obsession has gripped me, and those who have flocked here to read those reviews then find their tummies rumbling at inconvenient times when they come by looking for more fiction reviews.

Therefore: Location, Location, Location.

My reviewing self has a new home, and all my reviews to date have been cross-posted there too. I'll post quick links here as I write important reviews over there, but the full bodies of the works will now reside at The Podagogue, along with links to what I'm listening to at any given point in time, and stuff I highly recommend.

Back here at Freshly Ground, we'll be getting back into the food. Oooh, I can't wait.

So I'll be catching you all very soon, be it here or there. And I'd like to know what you all think of the new site, and of the decision to make the move, so go ahead and leave a comment. Either here, or there.

Sound Bytes

I've been inundated with stuff to listen to and read lately, so here's a quick summary with my recommendations.

Firstly, I was very excited to get an advance review of Jack Kincaid's latest release, a short story called The Church Grim. This is a dark yet comedic horror story, masterfully crafted for both wit and chills. Kincaid uses the same stylistic techniques that worked so well for Hoad's Grim, including his creepy, dissociated narrator's voice and the voice talents of James Keller and Julie Hoverson. Once again, a fantastic piece of speculative fiction and an impressive audio production. Highly recommended, and at 40 minutes or so, a good way to get a feel for Kincaid if you haven't listened to Hoad's Grim already.

Another short podcast that I recently completed - and which also throughly entertained my staff, who have no choice but to listen to whatever I choose to play in the workshop - was The Takeover, by veteran podcaster Mur Lafferty. This zombie comedy clocks in at a little over 2 hours, and features a star-studded cast including Christiana Ellis and JC Hutchins. I can't say much about this without spoiling the story, but suffice to say that if you like zombies or just like to laugh at zombies, or just like to laugh, this is brilliant.

I've finished up several complete podcast novels in the past couple of weeks, and I'm not sure that I'll get to review all of them, so here's my quick star rating on those I've made it through:

The Call of the Herald, by Brian Rathbone: 4 Stars. Fantasy, first in a trilogy. Meticuloulsy constructed world, takes a little bit to get into the story but is satisfying for its buildup. Full review will follow.
Earthcore, by Scott Sigler: 4 1/2 Stars. Action/Sc-Fi. This is one of the world's very first exclusive podcast novels, now available as a print edition as well, and it set the standard for podcasts to follow. Excellent story and production values.
Nina Kimberley the Merciless, by Christiana Ellis: 4 Stars. Fantasy Comedy. NKTM is hilarious, it really is. Featuring an imbecilic king who thinks he's Don Juan, a pacifist dragon, and our eponymous hero who would rather be off questing than leading her people back to their former glory, NKTM is good, solid entertainment. My favourite line, as the bumbling King Francis tried to squeeze into his armour: "I must be light and uncucumbered!"

I'm currently listening to two more podcast novels, including the second book in JC Hutchins' Seventh Son trilogy, and the Failed Cities Monologues by Matt Wallace. I'm also hooked on JC Hutchins' new podcast novella, Personal Effects: Sword of Blood.

And I must throw a big shout of thanks out to all these authors, and to the crew at Podiobooks.com for all the hard work they put into bringing these books to greedy little me.

In terms of reading, I've been getting into the work of bizzaro fiction author Jeremy C Shipp over the past couple of weeks. You can check out some of his short stories online: Camp, Trout, and Dog. Not for the squeamish, however. You have been warned. I'm also reading his rather twisted but intriguing novel, Vacation, and I'll be posting a review of that shortly.

That's all for now. If you have a podcast or an audiobook that you'd like to direct me towards, please feel free to leave a note in the comments. Thanks.

Add One Year, Freshly Ground

They call it a Blogiversary.

Seriously.

Crazy, I know.

Nonetheless, whatever it might be termed, I have reached my first ... Blogiversary. (Officially it's tomorrow, the 18th, but I feel it's going to be a busy one so I'm posting this right now!)

I started this blog not because I thought anyone would have any interest in anything I had to say, but because I needed somewhere to keep my recipes. I have a habit of making stuff up as I go along in the kitchen, and then people would ask me how I made it, and I'd say "well..."

So thanks to the generosity of Google Blogger, Freshly Ground was born.

Apparently, some people have even gone on to cook the recipes I've posted. That's cool.

So, without any more inane chatter (which seems to make up the bulk of this blog, despite its pretenses to being about food) I'm going to rattle off a few statistics and high points.

After writing about legendary fantasy cult author Hugh Cook and his struggle with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, I had the honour of being asked by his family to write an obituary for him. I did this, and the obituary was published in the New Zealand Herald. Were it not for Freshly Ground, I would never have had the opportunity to do homage to this writer whom I greatly admired. To Hugh's family, my eternal gratitude and love.

Running a blog also introduced me to the whole world of the internet, which up until then had always been a blurry and occasionally useful thing, usually for looking up odd words or researching obscure points of history or science. Apart from everything I learned about the publishing world thanks to this post (kindly supplied by my good friend Morgue), I also discovered audiobooks and podcasts. The addition of posting audiobook/podcast reviews came pretty naturally. I was also rewarded with the buzz of making the acquaintance of the writers I had reviewed when they came and left comments, and of trading tweets with those writers on Twitter.

Yes, it led me to Twitter too. Now, I don't know how I survived without it before (I know, it's sad and desperate, but it's an addiction I simply must feed).

This has also led to my latest piece of cool news, which is that emuse-zine have invited me to submit reviews for publication in their quarterly ezine. That's pretty cool too, and I'm looking forward to making the most of the opportunity.

Last year also saw, at long last, the publication of a collaborative work of poetry and short stories that had been on the back burner for nine years. Its final, harrowing birth was brought about, in large part, by my getting into the online world and finding a long-lost friend. If you haven't checked out Urban Driftwood yet, head over to Lulu and take a look.

Now for the stats:

Total Unique Visitors: 5,838 (Average 16/Day)

Total Page Loads: 8,351 (Average 23/Day)

Busiest Month: April 2009 (804 Unique Visitors; Average 27/Day)

Busiest Day: April 5th 2009 - 65 Unique Visitors. This was the day I posted my review of the Audiobook Drama Hoad's Grim. Thanks to Jack Kincaid for putting it out there on Twitter and driving the visitors to me.

Most visited page: The Ultimate Homemade Beef Burger Recipe. Somehow, this page seems to have made its way onto just about every food search engine in the world, because I get visitors from all sorts of random places, making a beeline to FG to learn how they can make the Ultimate Beef Burger. Eat up, I say.

At time of publishing this post, I had 8 Followers (Hi, Followers!) and 15 Subscribers in Google Reader.

Freshly Ground is rated 814,775 on Technorati. Awesome. If you're a Technorati member and think I deserve some love there, please swing by and throw me a bone. I'll give you back all the love I can, I promise.

So thanks everyone, for taking the time to come by and validate my existence here. I hope I've been entertaining.

And that's about it. Throughout the year we've laughed, we've cried, I've ranted, I've raved, and here's to another of the same, only bigger and better. Hopefully you'll all join me on the way.

Podcast Review: "Eden" by Phil Rossi

A few weeks ago I wrote what I have decided, in hindsight, was an unnecessarily harsh review of the Sci-Fi/Horror epic podcast novel Crescent, by Phil Rossi. As I've said before, there is a huge difference between highly engineered audiobooks and works of individual labour, and having now thoroughly doused myself in hours of both, I can say with confidence that Crescent is a standout of the latter species.

On that note, anyone who has gone on to listen to Crescent, or anyone who may not be into audiobooks but loves to read a good bit of sci-fi, the book version of Crescent is going to be available on Amazon soon. Phil would like his fans who plan on buying a copy of the book to hold back until July 9th, and then to descend on Amazon like a swarm of angry hornets, pushing the book up the charts. I'll remind you all again closer to the time.

What I like about Rossi is how he has clung tight to everything about the internet that says "you can do it, if you stick with it." He's put everything out there for free, he's made himself accessible to his ever-growing fanbase, and he deserves to reap the rewards. It also proves that the cream really can rise to the top, and that there is no better weapon at a writer's disposal (good writing aside) than the art of self-promotion.
So, moving on. Eden is complete at 8 episodes and available free either on Rossi's website, or through iTunes, or at Podiobooks.com. It's free in all of these places, and Podiobooks.com provides a donation service, from which the majority of the money goes direct to the author.

I'm not sure what I was expecting when I started listening to Eden, but I figured out pretty much straight away that this was not going to be a rehash of Crescent, despite my initial impressions. Eden is also set on a space station, but there the similarities with Crescent begin and end. I was expecting another action story, but Eden with its dark mystery delivered a much richer experience, which had me hanging out for each new episode.

Where Crescent is visually evocative and a tour-de-force of action and horror, Eden advances at a more cerebral pace. From the outset, Rossi's writing has improved by several degrees, so much so that I felt like I was listening to a different writer. As the writing has matured, so too has the story. Focused intently on the first-person narrator, Malcolm, who is dispatched to a tiny space station near the planet Uranus, Eden is as much about the enormous, mysterious tree that has been found growing in the void of space as it is about Malcolm, his failings, his self-doubt, and his weaknesses.

Woven into this is Rossi's blend of science fiction and Lovecraftian horror, as the station spirals further from safety and sanity and into the consuming madness of Eden. The first-person perspective also keeps you relentlessly close to the action, which makes listening to this story a painfully emotional journey, in a way that all but the best sci-fi and fantasy fails to do.

Eden doesn't drag you through the chapters with blood pumping in your ears and air rasping in your throat like Crescent. Rather, you find yourself being led, trying to turn away, your stomach a hollow pit, afraid of where the next turn is going to lead you, and cursing Malcolm for his crippling self-pity.

I score Eden 4 1/2 stars out of 5, and I seriously rate the quality of Rossi's writing on this novella. It is a good length; any longer and it would have needed a faster pace, any shorter and it would have felt rushed. Overall, and given that it is not a studio production but an individual effort, Eden is a stunner. Give it a listen.

What I've Been Listening To

I'll be getting back to the food very shortly, I promise.

I'm being a bit of a net audio junkie right now, and I want to share around a bit of the love. Everything I've been listening to is free, just like the podcasts I've reviewed over the past months, so if any of it sounds like it might appeal, dive right in.

Top of the list right now is John Lithgow reading a big swag of previously unreleased Mark Twain. Witty, satirical, and thought-provoking, these unpublished letters and essays by one of literature's finest is brilliant stuff. Lithgow's reading is also a joy to listen to. I find myself alternately laughing and lost in thought as the talents of these two fine men blend together. Well worth the time.

I've just finished Derek Gilbert's Iron Dragons, a fantasy sci-fi book that kept me entertained from start to finish. From the immortal first line "Dragon pee really stinks", Iron Dragons promises to be full of dry wit and action, and it delivers well. Gilbert reads his own writing at an easy pace with little embellishment, so it feels like someone is really just reading you a good story. He drops his voice for some characters and plays with accents here and there, but only enough to get across the point of the different people in his world. Short and satisfying.

Also in the humour stakes (see, it's not all just horror and violence that I listen to!) is the laugh-out-loud audio-show "Lost Bearings", by Mr Jeb. This one is stream-only, but it is uproarious. Teddy Bears have come to life, and while most of them just want to fit in and drink beer and eat sandwiches, there are always a few who want to cause trouble and, you know, rule the world. Only four 15-min episodes at this stage, but if we flood Mr Jeb with hits, he might be more encouraged to record a few more. Top notch British humour.

And finally, I've moved on in the audiobook department to Nocturnal, by the original master of the podcast novel, Scott Sigler. Nocturnal is a horror story set in San Francisco. Since starting it two days ago, I can't stop listening. So far, so good. Cracking good humour, a scary-as-hell storyline, very competent performance, and impressive production values for a book that was a pioneer in its time. No star rating yet, but if you like horror, my impression thus far is that listening to this will be a stonking good time. My poor ipod is getting a hammering right now. I reckon it's shaking in its boots, now that I've left it alone in the dark.

I've also found myself reading again, more than I have in ages. Currently on a Dean Koontz novel, oddly, which as it turns out is a laugh-a-minute too, which I was not quite prepared for. While remaining dark and scary as one would expect from horror master Koontz, Life Expectancy is written with the author's tongue quite firmly in his cheek. (Sorry, that one's not free, unless you'd like to get it off me when I'm done.)

That's about all. Back into the foody goodness very shortly. Happy listening!

World Famous Risotto

Just a little skite here, to note that I got featured on the Key Ingredient food website for my Pumpkin and Ham Risotto, and there was a blog post all about it too.

I even get to put a little badge on my page.

That's pretty sweet.

AudioBook Review - "Hoad's Grim"

It's taken me a while to get back into the swing of things since we got back from holiday, so apologies to my faithful readers for the delay. Apart from the general malaise that settles after a sunny holiday when one must return to the grind, we had to get the boy to the doctor and in for x-rays after he jumped off the trampoline and landed on his knees, the cat had to go to the vet when she started peeing blood all over the house, and my car was out of its warrant of fitness and needed new tyres. Accordingly, it has been a long and expensive week that we didn't really need.

But here we are, back again. I'd like to get straight into my review of Hoad's Grim, but first I need to say a few words about the Audiobook market and my previous review of Phil Rossi's Crescent. Mainly, it needs to be said that there are two (at least) very different creatures out there; the audio drama, and the author-read audiobook. Both are performance art, but they exist in different parts of the creative sphere, and I was in error to compare Hoad's Grim to Crescent in the first place.

Crescent was read and produced by the author, and since finishing Crescent I have listened to many more author-read podcasts, most of which I couldn't make it right through the first chapter of, either because of the quality of the performance or the audio itself, or because the story didn't grab me like I thought it would. Of all those I've listened to, Crescent still rates at the top (followed closely now by Eden, Phil Rossi's new podcast novella.).

Hoad's Grim, on the other hand, is a highly polished, magnificently produced audio performance, incorporating fantastic layerings of dialogue, sound effects and music. There are also multiple professional voice talents involved in this production, including the author Jack Kincaid and vocal maestro James "Killer" Keller, as well as the not inconsiderable audio production skills that Kincaid brings to bear on the work. Like The Leviathan Chronicles, Hoad's Grim is a lavish professional production, and needs to be considered as such.


Before you ask, Hoad's Grim is a horror story, so if the genre doesn't appeal, then I imagine that the audiobook won't. Non-aficionados of the horror genre are excused, and for those who are fans and wish to continue reading, I promise there will be no spoilers.

Except to say that this is about a haunted fridge. Oh yeah. Now that is a scary premise, all unto itself. It may sound odd and a bit lame, but I guarantee you it's not. I will never look at an old fridge rusting in an empty lot the same way again.

Before I started listening to this, I was an Audiobook virgin, and Hoad's Grim most definitely popped my cherry, and left me wanting more. As soon as I started listening to the prologue, I was transported to another time and place, and even into another mind. It was nothing like what I had expected, and I immediately wanted to hear more. The story hooks the listener in right from the start, as the multiple layers of speech, music, atmos and effects draw you down deeper into the dark and frankly terrifying world that Kincaid builds.

There is never any confusion about who is speaking at any time, or where the characters might be - unless Kincaid doesn't want you to know. And that just makes it all the more scary. Like a good horror movie, the frights in HG come as much from what you can't see or hear but from what you might sense on the edges of perception; the creeping sense of dread that clings to every darkened doorway and silent television conjured through words and sounds alone.

What really made HG work was its completely immersive experience. I listen to my audiobooks in the car driving to and from work, and when I had HG on, I could drive untold kilometres and only remember being on the windy, weed-choked curb of Saybrook Way, watching Chad "The Hammerman" Hyman struggle with the demons in his mind, and lurking in the shadows of that haunted street. It was like reading a book but better, because the voices were there, and the wind curled around their words, and the chittering of the dark creations that grew out of the shadows actually chittered across the speakers, scraping and clawing as if they sought their own way into the world.

I sat up in bed one night, with most of the lights off, listening, because I was really hooked on the story. I only did that once. I like my sleep.

Based on the folklore of the tommyknockers, HG plays on everyone's fear of unseen things that go bump in the night, and on the fear of being left alone in the dark with those things. The listener is left chilled by what the mind is not just encouraged to imagine, as in a book, but by those conjured horrors which you are forced to see in the darkness behind your own eyes as the audio landscape drags you into Kincaid's twisted nightmare.

If you like a good scare, then this comes highly recommended. Hoad's Grim is complete at 24 chapters and available free from Kincaid's site. I have been unable to fault HG, and I will probably listen to it again. I was going to say that I thought the last chapter had left a few too many loose ends, but then I realised that there was one more that I hadn't downloaded, so that puts a lid on that.

Absolutely brilliant. Whether you're a fan of horror and want to hear just how good an audiodrama can be, or if you love good audiobooks and are willing to dare the terrors that lurk in the Grim, do yourself a favour and listen to this.

Five Stars.

For more interesting info, you can check out this interview with Jack Kincaid and James Keller, by John Joseph Adams of Tor.com (Part 1; Part 2). This was the article that got me interested enough to listen to a story about a haunted fridge. Yip, a haunted fridge. Brilliant stuff.

To My Valued American Readers

It has been brought to my attention that there are some very worrying things going on in the USA as regards the production of organic produce and small scale farming.

Please go and read this post by Moose, which is a brief sum up of the law being pushed through the US legislature right now which will basically destroy the rights of anyone who wants to grow their own food, AT ALL.

This is serious stuff, and being rammed through without any publicity or consultation. Moose has some good links, please have a read and take action to spread the word.

Come on Obama, how can you let this happen?

Don't let Monsanto bully you all into their machine. Every person has a right to grow food for themselves, and the fines of $1,000,000 per offence per day for growing food without pesticides or fertilizers is just insane.

Podcast Review: Phil Rossi's "Crescent"

Phil Rossi's Crescent is the second full-length podcast I've listened to, after the brilliant Hoad's Grim, which I'm still listening to as the episodes come down.

The quick review: Crescent was an enjoyable "read", keeping in mind that it is intended for a mature audience. It told a pacy and chilling tale of terror in deep space, carefully balancing horror with action. The characters were generally well-rounded and portrayed with a deft hand, and there are moments where the writing really shines. If you have the time to listen to the thirty-odd half-hour segments, and you can handle a bit of audio scare, then do yourself a favour and start downloading Crescent. It's free, BTW.

I've been playing them through my car radio on the way to work and home again. It's a great way to kill the commute.

In recent news regarding Crescent, it has apparently been picked up as both a book and a movie, which is fantastic news for the author, and further proof of how it can be really worthwhile to use the internet to build an audience by putting a product out there for free. I remember thinking to myself as I was listening how it might adapt well as a screenplay, so I wasn't actually surprised to hear this development.

Now, the longer review. Yes, I liked Crescent and I listened all the way to the end. I won't toss in any spoilers here, but I will just make mention of a few things I wasn't impressed by.

Admittedly, being hooked on Hoad's Grim - which is absolutely stunning as far as the story, writing, voice talent and audio production go - puts Crescent on a back foot from the word go. The Crescent podcast series utilises music from just one song throughout it's entire length, and this gets a bit repetitive. But it's a good song, so that's not a complaint. It's just that a bit of variety might have been better.

My main niggle with Crescent was that the author, Phil Rossi, made a decision to voice all the characters himself. OK, stop me please if this is common practice for podcasting and audiobooks, but I found it a bit frustrating. Particularly the women's voices all tended to sound the same. Like I've said, the vocal talent on Hoad's Grim leaves you in no doubt whatsoever who is talking at any point in time. I think that it might have been to the author's advantage to have drafted in some other voices for this job, just for the sake of clarity. However, this didn't make the story un-followable, it just made it obscure in places.

It was nice to hear, in the Notes from the Vault, which are a series of short fiction pieces written by the same author, that he did indeed bring in some other voice talent from time to time during their production. The Notes deserve a review too, but it won't be tonight.

As a writer, I felt that in places Rossi might have profited from having a keen editorial hand run over his work. There were occasional pieces of clunky dialogue and prose, and sections of writing which I can imagine working well on the page but which didn't translate to the soundwave very well. Still, this was a free work, a work of passion, and Rossi's writing seems to get better the more I listen to it, so that's a good sign.

I'm now listening to Eden (mp3 promo link), and I have yet to make a judgment. So far, it seems to be about a ... hmmm ... haunted space station ... with ... wait for it ...

No, no spoilers. Suffice to say that I'll be downloading the new chapter very shortly.

My last word on Crescent, after all that good stuff, is sadly one of just the mildest disappointment, not in the work itself, but in an epilogue that was released some time after the final chapter. Crescent ended with a hint of irresolution - of the temerity of the immortal, and the infinite hunger of the unknown, leaving the reader only with the comfort of knowing that our lead characters, whom we have grown to care for, will at least be free and clear of the horrors they have faced, even if those horrors do live on somehow. Then the epilogue unwound this comfort, which replaced that feeling of catharsis with one of frustration, as if we were suddenly back in the middle of a story that had yet to be told.

As underhanded openings to sequels go, this one really kicked sand in the listener's ears. I would rather not have listened to the epilogue. So if you decide to give Crescent the time it's worth, my one piece of advice is this: Don't download the Epilogue. It's a spoiler all of its own.

Apart from all that: 3 1/2 Stars from me.

Half-Life Indie Short gets my big Thumbs-Up!

Whether you're a fan of sci-fi movies or TV shows, or just great shoot-em-up computer games, or want to see just how great a no-budget indie film can really be if you work at it hard enough, you really have to check out this video.



On a budget of just $500 Canadian, the Purchase Brothers have stormed the scene with an unlicensed - but subsequently wholly embraced - short flick set in the Half-Life Computer game world. Great fun, and leaves us hanging for more.

May these guys go on to bigger and brighter things!

Also, check out this interview with the co-creator, David Purchase.

All that Webby Goodness

I've been putting aside all sorts of great stuff this year, but haven't got as far as sharing any of it, so here goes a little slice of web pie, from me to you.

First, a local plug for a local site: texture.co.nz is a Wellington website, covering the many fine offerings that our capital city has to offer locals and visitors alike, from galleries and events to food reviews and community links. Be sure to check out their Restaurant Reviews before you head out with a rumbly tummy.

On a more hands-on subject, the Ethicurean recently ran a brilliant article on making your own sausages from scratch. Combine that with the advice on loading up those casings with your scrummy homemade filling provided by Bob del Grosso at Hunger Artist, and you'll have no excuse left for buying those snarlers full of numbers from the supermarket ever again.

Bob del Grosso is one of my favourite bloggers, actually, a man who knows his organic food inside-out - quite literally. Well worth a look for anyone who wants an insight into the back end of the small farm, be it raising animals, making cheese, or preparing meat products, from butchery through to salami. Not something I think I'll ever be likely to get my hands into, but it's nice to know that there are still people out there who see food production as a craft, rather than a mass market.

He also has a brilliant article here, on the art and skill of cooking, and how it is as much a talent as it is a craft, but one that anyone can learn and perfect. Highly Recommended. Read it, any never let me hear you say you can't cook.

In non-foody related subjects, anyone who has ever been a fan of the fantasy genre and fantasy role-playing in particular, and enjoys having a great laugh at that genre's expense, will love this. Thanks to Mr 2-Trees for the link.

I'd also like to make a mention here of two audiobooks that I'm listening to right now. Hoad's Grim is a horror audiobook drama, very much R-18, and absolutely riveting. I'm drafting a complete review, but the story is presently up to Chapter 20 and I don't want to spoil the mood by getting all wordy on it's @ss. The audio production is superb, and I'm sitting on the edge of my seat waiting the next episodes to come down. BTW, it's a free download, so if you can handle a dose of the macabre that will seriously scare you silly if you listen to it alone in the dark, go start downloading. (Hat Tip: John Joseph Adams at Tor.com, with this interview [1, 2].) I have found a new reason to take my ipod in the car, and to turn the radio up.

The other one is called Crescent, and is also a horror story, though this one is set on a dilapidated and haunted space station on the fringes of the colonised galaxy. So, obviously, very sci-fi, and very VERY adult. Some of Crescent has made me squirm quite uncomfortably, so this one is not recommended for the tender-hearted. Unfortunately, the audio production is not as slick as Hoad's Grim, but this is mainly due to the author's decision to handle all of the voice talent himself, even the women. This makes following the dialogue confusing from time to time, but some of the writing is quite brilliant, and overall I haven't been able to stop listening yet.

Anyway, this was meant to be a quick post so I can get some more work done on my novel, so I must hit the post button. Byebye.

Who has a great Butter Chicken Recipe?

I love a good curry, but I can't cook one to save myself. I'm not talking about whipping up a bit of beef with curry powder and tomato soup and raisins, either; I mean something that might be thought to resemble a genuine dish of Subcontinental persuasion.

Of course, we run into a problem. Just like Chinese food, which any self-respecting Chinese person will tell you cannot be bought at any New Zealand fast food outlet that claims to be selling Chinese meals, the Indian food we can buy here sits somewhere between the genuine article and the sweetened, watered down versions dished up by such institutions as the Tulsi chain of restaurants.

And here I must make a confession. I think that I prefer the Kiwi imitations of Indian cuisine. Tulsi actually make a pretty nice curry, as far as I'm concerned. Supermarkets sell various brands of pre-prepared curry dishes, whose genuineness-to-flavour ratios are also suitably skewed, but you know how I feel about pre-packaged sauces. Some of the poorest people in the world can whip up delicious curry meals out of hardly anything, so why should we have to pay exorbitant prices for the branded stuff? Cooking from scratch, that's the thing.

I'll mention here, of course, that I'm sure those poor folk don't have access to as much meat, or as much dairy, or even the yoghurt and tomato paste and coconut cream that we have the luxury of picking up at the store, and for that I am a) greatly appreciative, and b) even more admiring of how fantastically they must be able to cook.

Please, noone raise the fact that Indians by and large eat very little meat, and that in comparison, the menu items offered in your average New Zealand Indian restaurant do not by any means reflect this. That's a whole can of worms I'd rather not open.

So we've established that what we call Indian food here is not what an Indian family would call dinner; in fact it might be what they would call junk food, and laugh at us, in the same way that we would laugh at someone who deepfried a kumera and called it a hangi. Nonetheless, it's a curry of this calibre that I would like to be able to cook up at home: something fragrant and sweet but not too spicy, because some of us here (though not I) have delicate palates. And besides, I like to taste the complexity of a dish as full of different tastes and textures as a curry, and too much heat can actually be counter-productive to the enjoyment of the meal. IMHO.

I'm currently looking at trying this one by Mallika (Image Copyright Quick Indian Cooking 2007), which strikes me as awfully authentic and might be a whole lot more curry than we're hoping for;

And this one, which is at the other end of the scale, coming from a TVNZ breakfast show, and is probably as tame as a tortoise in a torpor;

And finally this one, for the slow cooker, by the crazy woman who used her crockpot every single day of last year. (Image Copyright A Year Of Crockpotting 2008)

Can anyone recommend any more good curry recipes, be they Butter Chicken (our favourite), Tikka Masala, Korma, Rogan Josh, etc? Since I've just very recently discovered Jasmine rice, which goes beautifully with curry, I intend to make more curries this year, particularly when the days get shorter and the nights colder.

So please post your favourite curry recipes in the comments, either as a comment or as a link, and I'll get back to you when I've tried it out.

Thanks!

Twittering from the Rooftops

I've joined the warbling crowd in the Twittersphere.

You can find me here.

I can't say that I'll have anything useful to say; after all, 140 characters is barely enough time for me to get up to speed, much less get even the least bit witty or thoughtful.

But I will be using it to transmit some of the tastier morsels I find in my webby travels that don't make it as far as this blog, things that people might like to read or hear about that might otherwise slip them by.

I'm also using it to listen to the sounds of the internet breathing.

If you're already on, click through to me, and I'll come visit you too.

Altogether now.... TwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitterTwitter....

Now ssshhhh.

The Upside of the Economic Downturn

A lot has happened in the last week to keep me away from this blog. What with the election which I have commented on here and elsewhere, and important writing stuff and work stuff and the playhouses and the dog and all, it's been a busy one.

Writing-wise, I have been beavering away on what has probably been the most mature and important thing that I've ever written. After publishing a post on my favourite fantasy author, Hugh Cook, who had just been admitted to a hospice where he was expected to pass away after a long battle with non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, Cook's family asked that I write his obituary. I was deeply honoured by this request, and put all my energy into doing the absolute best that I could to do Hugh's memory justice.

Hugh passed away peacefully on Saturday morning and was cremated on Monday. The obituary will be printed in the NZ Herald on Saturday the 22nd of November.

Writing this piece has been one of the most mixed-emotion journeys of my life. While I never met Hugh personally, I always felt that I knew him in a way, as a reader can think he knows a writer. Hugh blogged for about 6 years, putting many of his thoughts and ambitions on the internet for his readers to digest, so perhaps it's not such a misplaced feeling. He always made an effort to reply to fans' emails and letters, even in his latter years when his eyesight was failing and writing and reading were both a significant strain for him.

I corresponded on an almost daily basis with Hugh's sister and brother over the past week, and in that time, while they shared details of Hugh's past with me to help flesh out the body of the obituary, I was rewarded with rare and touching insights into this very private man's life. More than once over the course of the week I was brought to the verge of tears by what these people, total strangers, were opening up and offering to me about a man I respect and admire but had never so much as met or even seen from a distance. My own grief for his loss was a strange and distant thing, but one which I will always value, because I was given a chance to give back to him something of the wonderful journeys of imagination that he shared with me and so many other total strangers in his lifetime. Catherine, thank you for giving me this chance. It means more to me than you can imagine.

The 400-word limit which I was given by the Herald was far too short to do Hugh the justice he deserved, so over the next week or two I will write a longer obituary to publish here, on his own blogspot, and wherever else on the net I can find a home for it. Please comment if you have a site and would be willing have a mini-bio for one of NZ's greatest writers published on it.

We got more of the playhouse done on the weekend, and I'll post a photo-journal when it's complete - or at least functional.

Oh, and we got a dog today. The SPCA ran an adoption day out here on the weekend and we dropped in for a look around. Now we are the proud owners of Lucy, a black labrador cross (not sure what with, but something smaller than a labrador anyway), which everyone is pretty happy about apart from the cat. But she'll come around. Lucy was very excited to see Finn, since she has spent her first 6 months in the SPCA home surrounded by other animals, whereas Finn has been queen of her house for several years now and doesn't take kindly to intruders. I'm sure they'll work it out between them.

Was there some relevance to the title? After all the doom and gloom of the economic meltdown and New Zealand's ill-conceived swing to the Right, can there be any good side? Well, yes. Mainly, my lovely Dessert Chef has rediscovered the wonderful world of baking.
As well as fresh bread, DC has been making muffins. Yum Yum Yum! I've already posted her Crunchy Lemon Muffins, and here are some Chocolate Muffins based on a recipe by Nigella Lawson. Apaprently she substituted butter for the oil in the recipe, otherwise it's the same. At a time when food prices are climbing and we really can't be sure what's in the stuff we're buying, it makes sense to be making it ourselves if we can. Hooray for home baking!

More reason not to trust the NZFSA

I'm trying very hard not to be political with all this election stuff going on here, but this really got my attention.

Frogblog has revealed yet another example of the New Zealand Food Safety Authority's failure to protect the public from toxic imported foods, this time from American agri-giant Monsanto.

The most concerning thing about it is that this is not a standalone product that we can choose to avoid by shopping wisely.

MON863 [is] one of Monsanto’s genetically modified varieties of maize. It struck controversy last year when an independent French study showed that, despite it being approved for human consumption in 2006, it caused signs of liver and kidney toxicity as well as hormonal changes in rats.The Food Safety Authority of New Zealand had approved the corn for use in Australia and New Zealand, in October 2003, based on evidence from Monsanto. FSANZ reports that MON863 is in used in high fructose corn syrup, corn starch, and corn flour. Such products are processed into breakfast cereals, baking products, extruded confectionery and corn chips. If you look on the back of most processed foods you will find high fructose corn syrup or corn starch. It’s a fairly common flavour enhancer. However, our labelling laws make it impossible to be certain which foods contain it and which don’t.

Once again, the Government's unwillingness to implement mandatory Country of Origin labelling on imported foods or foods prepared with imported ingredients means that we risk consuming potentialy harmful substances, usually without even knowing.

It gets worse:

Then today the Sustainability Council said of FSANZ:

New Zealand’s food safety regulator ’shopped’ for alternative advice when a report it had commissioned from ESR questioned the safety of a GM food.

The second report it got replaced an earlier commissioned one which said there were concerns about consumer safety from MON863:

The new document was produced by a different ESR division to the group Gallagher belonged to. However, instead of an “updated” report, NZFSA accepted a letter that carried no clear reference to the Gallagher Report or its scientific conclusions. In place of a formal peer-reviewed report that had answered NZFSA’s brief and was prepared by a scientist with the appropriate expertise, NZFSA accepted a letter that carried just four sentences in response to the original brief, and was signed off by a group that NZFSA knew had originally passed on the work after stating they lacked the appropriate expertise. The letter indicated there was no scientific evidence that MON863 is unsafe to eat.

(Also courtesy of Frogblog)

So, not only are they remiss in their duty, but they are engaged in an active campaign of misinformation. And we are supposed to trust these people with our safety and the health of our children? I am quite frankly appalled.

The Kiwi Tucker Test

In my travels on the foodie blog trail, I've frequently come across the Omnivore's Hundred, and recently spotted the British Hundred. The first is a list of things that every good omnivore should try to eat at least once in their life, while the second is in a similar vein but covers only British food. Doing these challenges, I felt somewhat diminished by how little of the stuff on those lists I've actually eaten. I'll be honest, I've hardly even heard of a lot of these things. And I've spent a reasonable amount of time in the UK, though admittedly I was on the bones of my @$$ and could barely afford to eat, much less engage in far-reaching gastronomical endeavours.

So here's my challenge to the Brits, and anyone else who would like to see how much good New Zealand food they've really eaten: Take the Kiwi Tucker Test (the New Zealand One Hundred, shall we say?) and see how much Puha, Hangi and Kina you've eaten! Also open to Kiwis, Ozzies, and anyone else willing to give it a try.

I came to realise something while writing this list. Since I tried to exclude recent multicultural influences that feature strongly in local cuisine (such as Turkish, Chinese, Indian, Thai and Japanese, for example) but made an effort to include Maori and Pacific foods and local regional delicacies, it became clear that our British and American (or in my case Canadian) influences tend to lean towards the staid and not terribly healthy unless there's a huge swathe of veges on the side of the plate. So it's jolly good that Chicken Chowmein, Lamb Korma, Sushi and Beef Kebabs have made their way into our tummies and livened up what must have been a pretty bland palate for our parents' generation. With that in mind, I've avoided including those influences on this list in an effort to represent the taste of New Zealand as I remember it as a kid, before things got so flash and tasty. Would I go back to only eating food that features on the Kiwi Tucker Test? HA! No way.

My rules (just like the others):
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Post a comment at http://freshly-ground.blogspot.com/ linking to your results.

1. Sausage sizzle
2. Puha
3. Watercress
4. Whitebait Fritters
5. Train Smash (luncheon and sauce rolled up together)
   
6. Kina
7. Marmite
8. Weetbix
9. L & P
10. Watties' Tomato Sauce
11. Muttonbird
12. Yams
13. Taro
14. Weta
15. Huhu grub
16. Roast Chicken
17. Pavlova
18. Mince & Cheese Pie
19. Fish & Chips
20. Hokey Pokey Ice Cream
21. Milo
22. Hokey Pokey Ice Cream with Milo
23. Terakihi
24. Manuka Honey
25. Gisborne Oranges
26. Potato Top Pie
27. Anzac Biscuits
28. Mr Hutton's Double Cheese Sizzlers
29. Pipis
30. Oysters fresh off the rocks
31. Weka
32. Spaghetti from a tin
33. Watermelon from a roadside stand
34. Kumera
35. Rewa Bread
36. Samosas
37. Rhubarb Crumble
    
38. Vegemite
39. 'Tasty' Cheese
40. South Island Apricots
41. Hawkes Bay Chardonnay
42. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc
43. Mac's Gold Beer
44. Bell Tea
45. Golden Syrup
46. Mixed Grill Breakfast (Sausages, Bacon, Eggs, Hashbrowns, Toast, Tomato)
47. Sausage Roll
48. Mince on Toast
49. Packet Macaroni Cheese
50. Chip Butties
51. Smoked Eel
52. Cookie Time Cookie
53. Watercress
54. Pork Boil-Up
55. Vogel's Bread
56. 2 Minute Noodles
57. Corned Silverside
58. Rabbit Stew
59. Blackberries picked from the side of the road in February
60. Homemade Plum Jam
61. Any Burger with a big slice of beetroot in it
62. Toffee Pops
    
63. Marinated Mussels
64. Hundreds & Thousands
65. Twisties
66. Wine Biscuits
67. Gingernuts
68. Foxton Fizz
69. Leed Lemonade (you'll have to be at least as old as me to remember that one)
70. Cream Donuts
71. Rasberry Buns
72. BBQ Steak AND Sausage AND Chops (all at once)
73. Coleslaw
74. Cold Potato Salad
75. Christmas Pudding
76. Sherry Trifle with fruit
77. Jaffas
78. Fresh Snowpeas eaten straight from the pod
79. Moro Bar
80. Tip Top Trumpet
81. Cheese, Pineapple & Onion Toasted Sandwiches
82. Coromandel Smoked Mussels
83. Fresh Coconut
84. Greggs' Instant Pudding
85. Crayfish
86. Summer Salad: Lettuce, Tomato, Cucumber, Beetroot, Cheese
87. Honeysuckle Nectar
88. Bluff Oysters
89. Raro
90. Chicken Roll
91. Cheerios (Not the cereal - little red sausages)
    
92. Mallowpuffs
93. Wild Pork
94. Red Lamington
95. Feijoas
96. Kiwifruit
97. Summer Strawberries
98. Chokos
99. Pineapple Lumps
    
100. Whittakers Peanut Slabs
     

And for anyone who's interested in how I did on the other two, read on:

The Omnivore's Hundred

Here are the rules if you would like to play along…
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Optional extra: Post a comment at www.verygoodtaste.co.uk linking to your results.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche (caramel)
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed
50. Sea urchin (Kina)
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone (Paua)
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

The British Hundred, at Food Stories

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Link back to Food Stories, if you would be so kind.

1. Grey squirrel
2. Steak and kidney pie
3. Bubble and squeak
4. Spotted dick
5. Hot cross buns
6. Laver Bread
7. Toad in the hole
8. Shepherds pie AND cottage pie
9. Scotch egg
10. Parkin
11. Welsh rarebit
12. Jellied eels
13. Stilton
14. Marmite
15. Ploughman’s lunch
16. Cucumber sandwiches
17. Coronation chicken
18. Gloucester old spot
19. Cornish pasty
20. Samphire
21. Mince pies
22. Winkles
23. Salad cream
24. Malt Loaf
25. Haggis
26. Beans on toast
27. Cornish clotted cream tea
28. Pickled egg
29. Pork scratchings
30. Pork pie
31. Black pudding
32. Patum Peperium or Gentleman’s relish
33. Earl grey tea
34. Elvers
35. HP Sauce
36. Potted shrimps
37. Stinking bishop
38. Elderflower cordial
39. Pea and ham soup
40. Aberdeen Angus Beef
41. Lemon posset
42. Guinness
43. Cumberland sausage
44. Native oysters (Well I've had native NZ oysters straight off the rocks - does that count?)
45. A ‘full English’
46. Cockles
47. Faggots
48. Eccles cake
49. Potted Cromer crab
50. Trifle
51. Stargazy Pie
52. English mustard
53. Christmas pudding
54. Cullen Skink
55. Liver and bacon with onions
56. Wood pigeon
57. Branston pickle
58. Oxtail soup
59. Picalilli
60. Sorrel
62. Chicken tikka masala
63. Deep fried Mars Bar
64. Fish, chips and mushy peas
65. Pie and mash with liquor
66. Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (with gravy)
67. Pickled onions
68. Cock-a-leekie Soup
69. Rabbit and Hare
70. Bread sauce
71. Cauliflower cheese
72. Crumpets
73. Rice pudding
74. Bread and butter pudding
75. Bakewell tart
76. Kendall mint cake
77. Summer pudding
78. Lancashire hot pot
79. Beef Wellington
80. Eton mess
81. Neeps and tatties
82. Pimms
83. Scampi
84. Mint sauce
85. English strawberries and cream (I've had strawberries and cream...)
86. Isle of Wight Garlic
87. Mutton
88. Deep fried whitebait
89. Angels on horseback
90. Omelette Arnold Bennett
91. Devilled kidneys
92. Partridge and pheasant
93. Stew and dumplings
94. Arbroath smokies
95. Oyster loaves
96. Sloe gin
97. Damson jam
98. Soda bread
99. Quince jelly
100. Afternoon tea at the Ritz

Now, about buying local...

I keep going on about this, but it seems that every day I find another reason to bang the drum about growing your own food and buying locally if you can. Apologies in advance to my offshore readers: this might hurt a bit.

I've already had my say about NZ Garlic vs Chinese. Now it seems that we have even more reason to be wary of food imported from China. The scandal involving Chinese dairy company San Lu - 47% owned by NZ dairy giant Fonterra - which has left four children dead of melamine poisoning and thousands more seriously ill, brings to light the differences in food production standards between NZ and China, with whom we are the first country in the world to have a Free Trade Agreement. (Apologies to the family connection - I promise that I only raise this issue to make an important point)

While the impotent NZ Food Safety Authority sits on its hands about the issue of Country of Origin food labelling (the basic gist being that if it's not obviously from another country, ie, "Made in Thailand", then the redundant "Made from local or imported ingredients" is all the information the consumer needs to make a decision, whether those ingredients are from Australia or China), we find that there is indeed a Chinese product on our market that has been confirmed to be tainted with melamine, the same contaminant that has killed four Chinese babies. While we don't buy White Rabbit Candy, obviously enough people do to make it worthwhile importing here. Nor, you might say, do we eat candy like babies drink infant formula. But the question has to be asked, if we found it in the candy, what else is going to turn up that we don't yet know about?

The rhetoric coming from Fonterra as this crisis has escalated largely concludes that due to the scale of the operation, ie, the Chinese marketplace, it's virtually impossible to rule out every source of poison or contamination in the supply chain and to guarantee the safety of the product generated thereof. And lucky old NZ is the first country in the world to allow a free flow of Chinese goods - foodstuffs included, under the half-lidded eyes of the FSA - over our borders.

So, should we be happier to hear that the US has now opened up negotiations with our Government regarding a Free Trade Agreement? The farmers sure are, just like they were happy to know that Fonterra wanted all that milk powder to send to China. Now, I have nothing against farmers of any kind, but would we all be so happy if our own market was suddenly flooded with cheap food from the US? I only ask this with dire hesitation because of a few things I've been following in the news lately.

One of those things is the concessions that the US is likely to expect us to make to enable this FTA. They take issue with:

• Restrictions on GM crops;
• Our current pathetically weak labelling scheme for GM products (informing consumers is a barrier to trade!);
• Import restrictions on potentially diseased food (stopping people from getting BSE is a barrier to trade!);
• Sane copyright law which recognises the rights of customers;
• Voluntary local content quotas for TV and radio (customer preferences are a barrier to trade!);
• The Overseas Investment Act (requiring that investment actually be beneficial is a barrier to trade!);
• Pharmac.

(Hat Tip: Idiot/Savant - quoted in full, even the non-food related stuff)

But it gets better. For the past few weeks I've been watching with growing disquiet the American FDA (Food and Drug Administration) pushing to have all salad greens and other veges that might carry bugs or other harmful living things like bacteria "pasteurised". As far as labelling that the food has been "pasteurised", they want to place only this innocuous symbol on the produce packaging:
What they don't want people to know is that "pasteurisation" is a synonym for "irradiation". Is that what this image suggests to you? Kirk James Murphy, MD, gives a concise scientific rundown of how NOT GOOD it would be to expose food to massive doses of radiation, while Jeff Fenske sums it up in a few short sentences. Butnerblogspot gives us a rundown on how the FDA plan to pull the wool over the American public's eyes regarding the "Irradiation/Pasteurisation" sham.

I shook my head and wondered where it was going to end when I first read these stories, but it wasn't something that I, all the way over here in clean green New Zealand, might ever have to worry about.

Until now. And so, as I was saying, there is no better time to think very hard about how much effort you might want to go to to know that the food you're buying isn't going to be poisoned or irradiated or whatever else might be happening to it out there before it gets to you.

At least my lettuce will only be irradiated if I microwave it.

Where's the Food?

I didn't get to post yesterday, mainly because our house is a shambles due to the ripping up of carpet and flooring in the kitchen and dining room. The process of putting the new stuff down has, for some reason, not happened as quickly as it came up. Why do you think that is?

We also watched a doco which deserves a mention, but I'll come back to that or I'll be here all night.

On the writing front, things are looking good. For a start, waiter has elucidated to me why it's so hard to write both a blog and a book at the same time. Here it is in a nutshell, for anyone who is trying to do just that and can't figure out why the two don't seem to go together:

Quite simply, blogging didn’t prepare me for the emotional ferocity of writing a book. It didn’t prepare me for the claustrophobia and fear, the exhausting concentration coupled with tedium, and the isolation compounded by occasionally crying like a little girl. (How embarrassing!) Psychologically speaking, writing a book is like getting into a knife fight with yourself in a phone booth.

As for my own projects, yesterday I officially passed the 3/4 mark in revising my novel. I'm presently up to the start of Chapter 35, on page 926 of 1229. I didn't even see the critical page 908 go by. But I'm seeing lots of scrawled pencil marks on the coming pages, so I might have a bit of slog ahead.

After 9 years of inception (detailed here), the first four proof copies of Urban Driftwood have been printed and shipped by Lulu.com. Very excited about that.

In other news, Freshly Ground has made an appearance on the Cooking Gadgets website, mainly by dint of me pushing them into it. Yip, those are really my hands.

Over at Culinate, it would seem I'm not the only one encouraging folk to really get the most out of a chicken.

On the Zero Waste topic, Barbara at winosandfoodies has some tips on not letting food go to waste, while Treehugger reports that a staggering 50% of all food produced worldwide is wasted, and that the same goes for water. Aside from water lost in irrigation systems and through leaking taps:

To produce the $48 billion in food that is wasted each year in the United States took ten trillion gallons of water.

That's a lot of water. It's hard to fathom how there can be a global food shortage if there's so much food and water being wasted across the planet. I've made this point before, and it's something we all need to take a bit more seriously.

And it seems that there are a lot of people out there taking this very seriously. As well as reducing, reusing and recycling, there is a growing trend (particularly in the States but I'd love to hear about any local efforts) towards the Urban Homstead. It seems that no matter how small a bit of land you have, be it rural or suburban or even urban, you can grow! The Dervaes in California are a shining example of just how successful growing in limited spaces can be.

The family harvests 6,000 pounds and more than 350 separate varieties of fruits, vegetables and edible flowers annually. They brew the biodiesel fuel that powers the family car. Solar panels on their roof reduce energy bills to as little as $12 a month. Goats, chickens, ducks and two rescued cats are in residence. Red wiggler worms turn the kitchen and garden waste into compost, which is then recycled back into the garden.

That's impressive.

So I really have no excuse not to have stuff on the grow out the back and down the front. Which brings me back to my original question: Where's the food?
Righto. It's Spring, its getting warmer, and this weekend, these bad boys (being sprouting potatoes) will be nestling down in a lovely pile of compost somewhere in the vicinity of the pumpkin seeds that I rather eagerly but probably quite prematurely planted way back in May. I still have faith that they'll sprout. Pumpkins seem to crop up everywhere I use compost whether I want them or not!

Trawling the Net

Just stopped by gallimaufree and read this post, which sums up really well many of the things I've been yammering on about over the past few months. Seems to be a site dedicated to the more benign elements of self-reliance and survivalism, with a focus on:

building a non-secret society of nice people who respond to disasters, catastrophes, and apocalypses with humanitarian aid, kick-ass tools, and extensive knowledge.

Maybe a bit more intense than my own attempts at a pumpkin patch (roll on Spring!), but full of good advice and a great attitude towards life and the planet.

Over at Adventures in Beanland, Anne explores making your own baby food. This is something we did when Isaac was starting solids. When we were in Canada last year, and Isaac was only 6 months old, we were stunned by the amount of sugar that goes into baby food over there. He ate a lot of banana and yoghurt in those three weeks. Beanland has a whole swag of Vego recipes, for those of us who are looking for new and interesting ways to reduce our meat intake.

And in a spot of good news from those nice folk in California, someone is finally doing something about Food Wastage, by spearheading a Food Rescue Program in San Francisco. There's also a bill before the California Senate that would allow purchasers of catered food to mandate that all leftovers be donated to a food charity, rather than discarded as so often happens.

Its good to see that the revolution of attitudes towards food and waste isn't limited to my backyard, and its encouraging to know that I'm not just one isolated voice, but one of a growing number of concerned global citizens determined to do whatever they can to make our planet a better place for our children.