I am drinking iced tea instead of hot tea. That way it can’t get cold. And if it hits room temperature, well, it’s a heck of a lot easier to drop an ice cube into it than to boil a new pot of water.
Category Archives: Food
Summer Food
This recipe came to me via an herbal e-list I’m on, and it sounded so delicious I wanted to share it.
Lemon Thyme Pesto:
1/4 cup lemon thyme leaves
2/3 cup parsley
1/3 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
1 clove fresh garlic
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Blend all ingredients in a food processor or blender, making into a paste. Use on pasta, blend into softened butter to use on grilled chicken or fish, cooked carrots, as a bread spread, or mixed into rice. Store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
(Originally published in the April 2002 edition of The Herbin’ Thymes, the newsletter of The Evening Herb Society of the Palm Beaches.)
*blink* *blink*
I’ve just finished editing the first two chapters of my manuscript.
They’re good. In fact, they’re much better than I remember them. My line editor is a genius at suggesting the occasional alternate word, and moving a word to a different position in a sentence in order to make it just that much smoother. To my immense glee, there aren’t many edits at all, and lots of positive comments and queries for further personal interest. She described it as clean, solid, and the best New Age text that she has ever read. And get this — the manuscript is running “a bit long.” Muah-hah-hah! Better to cut here and there to tighten things up than to produce masses of new material!
Chapter Two, the chapter on history, is definitely better than I remember. This is the chapter I wanted to cut completely when I submitted the manuscript, remember? But upon a fresh re-read it’s solid, and it’s important to give the reader a sense of where it all came from, and what the major influences have been.
And, true to form, my tea is now cold. All is right with the world. Except for the fact that I have to make more tea.
The Best-Laid Plans of Mice and Authors
I finished my new ritual dress last night, and, naturally, I’m unhappy with it. The lack of sleeve/bodice stretch is a bit inhibiting, and the errors hidden inside it are driving me mad. If I stand, I look good, but if I have to move around or lift my arms, I’m sunk. And the fabric I chose is nice and light, yes, but it’s so light that it doesn’t hang correctly. So, as the original fabric only cost me fifty cents a meter (I love sales!), and the construction only took about ten hours, I decided I’d head up to the fabric district on St Hubert street today, and get some black linen to do it over again with all the pitfalls firmly in mind and plans in place to pass them without disaster. And maybe I would stop by L’Esplumoir‘s new location (conveniently located in the fabric district!) and poke around. (You can dye natural-colour linen black, you know. Yes indeed. Actually, you can dye any pale colour to black. And dark colors too, but there will be a slight tint of the original colour to the final black, which is kind of neat. And if you factor in the cost of fabric, notions, and time spent on the project, well, personal energy invested in the ritual vestment aside, the cost is often equivalent.) Besides, there’s a package I have to go pick up at the little postal outlet in Monkland village that I could get on the way home.
I went on-line to check the new address of the shop before I left, and I thought I’d check my e-mail too. And thus, the best-laid plans…
The first half of my manuscript was sent back to me this morning for edits and rewrites, with a return deadline of noon on Friday.
It’s not the end of the world; so far there’s a lot of good encouraging stuff in feedback, and the edits are easy and far fewer than the other manuscripts I’ve edited. I have just over forty-eight hours to do two hundred pages. I should be fine — more than fine, actually. If I get enough done, I might go out to the fabric district tomorrow morning. And it’s a good thing I checked, otherwise I’d be in a bad position for editing it on time.
So I’ve put the first Moulin Rouge CD on, made myself a strongish cup of Cherry Vanilla tea, and to work I go. I think Mission: Impossible 2 is next. And likely The Hours will make an appearance later on.
Well, damn
Dittany of Crete is simply marjoram tops.
I love what I do, but you know, sometimes research takes the mystery out of things a little too completely.
Spoiled
I’m currently craving fresh bread, balsamic vinegar, and that lovely Italian olive oil my mum hand-imported for me from Tuscany. Thank all the gods that HRH left me his keys today so that I can go out for the vinegar and the bread, otherwise there would be a very nasty Autumn waiting for him when he got home…
See what happens? I go home for twelve days, and my food standards have shot way the hey above what I normally eat. Ruined, I tell you — ruined. Although the ten sliced yellow and orange peppers from the farmers’ market (eighty cents each!) currently freezing on baking sheets in my freezer, along with the raspberries, will go a long way towards soothing my gastronomic snobbery in the coming days.
Buried in Books
I’ve just finished my fifth book since arriving here. I feel like I’m catching up on reading fun stuff. I enjoy research, of course, but it’s truly relaxing to read a book for pure pleasure, without a pencil in my hand and a notebook by my side.
I read a third of Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson on the plane, then finished it here Thursday night. Not as solid as I’d hoped it would be; I guess the reviews denoting it as a summer beach book were more accurate than the ones touting the comedic value. It felt like a giant set-up, as it ends on an obvious tune-in-next-time note.
Once here, I had access to my mother’s mystery library, so I read the third Indigo Tea Shop mystery by Laura Childs, Shades of Earl Grey. I like the author’s characters, and the setting of Charleston, so I still read them, despite the author’s heavy-handed habit of obviously teaching the reader about something new every book. Educational tea references embedded in the text are fine, as that’s what the series revolves around. But the fourth book, The English Breakfast Murders, opens with volunteers baysitting a turtle hatching on the beach, and the author Educates You About Turtles. Apart from this habit which makes me roll my eyes, the copy-editing drives me mad. Two books in a row had a character taking a “peak” at something, one of the spelling errors that drives me mad. (The other really bad one is ladies wearing “broaches.” You broach a wall or a subject. Ladies wear brooches. A successful computer spellcheck does not mean that you’re using the correct spelling for the context of the word.)
Last night in bed I read Joanne Dobson’s The Maltese Manuscript from cover to cover. This is the latest in a literature-themed series based in a fictional New England college, around an English professor. It’s been about two years since the last book in this series, and I’d forgotten how truly above-average Dobson’s work is. I almost wish I’d never read her before so that I’d have the pleasure of reading all five now.
And half an hour ago I finsihed Victoria Thompson’s latest in the Gaslight series, Murder on Mulberry Bend. Set in Victorian New York, this series foucuses on a midwife and a police officer as they uncover murder in both the lower and upper classes. They’re nothing to write home about, but I’d read one recently, and I needed something new to read, so I pulled it out of the bookcase.
Next is a fictional story of Elizabeth I, another of my mum’s favourite topics. But now, it’s dinner, which I think is grilled German sausages. And I think I’ll have a cider.