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Ode to a rice cooker. . .

O WILD Spanish Rice, thou curse of mine recipe drafts
Thou over whose clumping tackiness Chats frowns
Are whipped into shape by Japanese kitchen-crafts,

Basmati, and jasmine, and white, and husky brown,
Stickyness-stricken multitudes! O thou
Who stovetopest to their soggy veggie Korma mound

The paddy's bounty, when they lie overcooked and dried,
Each like a corpse within its husk, until
Mine gleaming Zojirushi of Nippon arrived

Her clarion o'er the crowded kitchen, and fill
(Driving sweet aromas like flocks to feed in air)
In tasty grains and delicate textures I thrill;

Good appliance, which art storable everywhere;
Cooker and warmer; hear, O hear!

(apologies to Percy Bysshe Shelley)

I haven't blogged about cookery in a while, mostly because I've made no discoveries lately.

Honestly, I can't cook rice to save my life. Since Chats is a vegetarian, that's a bit of a problem because rice is a companion to a lot of Asian and Indian dishes. I finally threw my hands up in disgust and decided to get a rice cooker. A man's got to know his limitations, as Dirty Harry says, and one of mine is that I just can't make decent stovetop rice.

After a lot of research and weighing of costs and benefits, I ended up with a Zojirushi. It's more expensive than the run-of-the-mill cookers you see at Target, but I'm thrilled with it, for the following reasons:

• Tasty flavor bring happiness to my mouth!


• It's got fuzzy logic.


• It's compact, so it plays nice in our cramped kitchen. The cord retracts and there's a handle, so when not in use it's up on a shelf.


• The steam that comes out of it makes the kitchen smell wonderful.


• Cooking times only vary by a few minutes. It starts a digital display countdown at about 12 minutes until the rice is ready, so I can stage other stuff.


• It quite happily makes oatmeal and breakfasty-type cereals.


• You can cook rice along with veggies and such for making Jambalaya-type one-pot dishes if you want, the fuzzy logic somehow figures it all out.


• There's a timer, so I can set it to have hot oatmeal when I get up, or rice ready when I get home.


• If I'm delayed for whatever reason, it just switches into a keep-warm mode.


• It plays cheery tunes when it starts cooking (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star), and when the rice is ready.

The only disadvantage I can think of is that the digital clock is in twenty four hour mode, so non-military types and their spouses will be doing simple mental math in the evening.

I'd call the Chicago Tribune Printer's Row Book Fair a success.

First off the weather was lovely. I threw a selection of E.E. Knight titles in my biggest backpack and hopped on the el and headed for the near south side, just a couple blocks south of the Loop proper. Twilight Tales shared a biggish tent in a pretty good spot, just a bit south from Barnes & Noble's tent, in an easy dash to the porta-potties. I met some VE/AoF readers, some who brought volumes for me to sign, others who just said "Hey, E.E. Knight!" That doesn't happen much outside of cons for me, so I was buzzed for the rest of the day. Also sold pretty much my whole backpack of books, including my volumes of EXILE, and went home with only one lonely copy of Tale of the Thunderbolt. Don't worry, I took it out for ice cream afterward and it felt much better.

I hope my Barnes & Noble appearance this Wednesday goes half as well.

Also found out that the Spanish edition of La zarpa del Gato (Choice of the Cat) has been published:

• press release from publisher


• practice your Spanish with a sample from the first chapter!

Odd thing is, I can't for the life of me remember signing a contract for this. And I'm sure I didn't get any money. But I've learned that this publisher pays rather on the late side. As in you get your advance about a year after the book is published. Could be I signed away the rights as an option when they bought Wolf. My Spanish isn't up to penetrating the contract.

At the risk of sounding like a rah-rah little McDonald's booster (full disclosure: I own stock and used to be an employee) these new adult happy meal things with the Asian chicken salad are delicious. Thanks to the vegetable assortment you have some variety of texture (something much of McD food lacks) and the Newman's Own® Low Fat Sesame Ginger Dressing dressing makes it quite tasty.

Nutritional info (grilled chicken, with dressing)
Calories 380
From fat 115
Total fat 12.5g
Carbs 37g
Fiber 6g
Protein 32g

I think they need to make a vegetarian version with extra edamame.

Okay, Painting with Cats is a bad idea, unless you're selling a coffee table book.

Luna was the ideal companinon for painting. She sprawled on the couch and watched, listening to me piss and moan. Roo hid. But Spooker, who hates liquids, decided it would be interesting to stand in the paint tray.

Do the math:

4 cat feet
X (number of paces in mad "get this shit offa me" dash toward the kitchen)
= the number of cat tracks I had to clean up

Spooker also now looks kind of like a reverse dalmation. I keep waiting for Pepe Le Pew to show up and decide that he's tres chic in the latest black-and-white spring runway line.

I've devoted today to a couple of long-neglected book-related projects:

1) Updating the VE site so it's featuring VALENTINE'S EXILE

2) Doing the map for DRAGON AVENGER.

I splurged and had artist friend Thomas Manning draw all the art for the map. He's got a better hand than I do, charges what I consider ridiculously low rates, and it turned out great. I'm just putting in the legend and lettering and so on.

Sounds like the last of the verbal stuff is over with the new contracts. John said he'd close the deal today, barring surprises.

Weekend wasn't much, I ran up to Wisconsin to pick up Chats who was visiting with grandfather in hospital. Her sister packerpooh was in town on business and drove up from my old stomping grounds in the Northwest suburbs to join the hospital party and sample some Wisconsin sausage, and of course their mother is still helping out with her grandmother in Kenosha. We all went out to eat at that old I-94 standby, Little Europe (I got the Old Prague style schnitzel and Bohemian sausage). Sunday I finished off wood restoration project by cleaning everything up. On to painting the trim!

My heart aches and a drowsy numbness pains my senses,
as though an anteater I'd seen...

So Chats is heading up to Wisconsin to be with her grandmother while her grandfather is in the hospital. I'll join her over the weekend, but first the Pursuit Special has to come out of the dealer shop (they did a Level II inspection while it was in and found a couple of items that need fixing). Anyway, I can put up with not having a car, or my wife being away, but both at the same time just bites.

Saying goodbye to Chats this morning was sad; I love her so much sometimes it hurts, and watching her carry her tiny suitcase up the el platform was painful (which I assuaged in the worst possible way -- I went over to the grocery and got a bismark the size of a horseshoe). This is something of a critical week (I'll blog about that soon) career-wise and she's a great Author Whisperer when my nerves get all spooled up over the books.

Class on Saturday went well enough, though teaching for seven straight hours was a bit of a drag (varied it by letting them work their plots, discuss, and finally analyze a movie: Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion) then a race up to Madison for the evening's con activities. Panels until late Saturday, then on Sunday, and back home to hungry cats. Picked up some cool books and stuff in the dealer's room that I may exhibit later...

For now I'm wiped out.

Spooker, our ginormous ex-stray housecat-black panther mix (going by fangs and size) has this thing about leaving his droppings unburied in the cat box to show he's top animal. But I hate him stinkin' up the joint, so as soon as he does his business I rake and flush (I love flushable cat litter as much as a man can love a substance designed to absorb urine).

Problem is, Spooker takes that as a insult, or maybe a challenge, so as soon as I'm off doing something else he immediately goes back into the box and pinches out another one, thus restarting the Cycle of Stinkyness. After my second flushing this morning I'm passing through the kitchen to answer the tea kettle, and I hear movement in the cat box, and sure enough a few minutes later (he must have really strained for it) he left me another gift.

Where does he get it all? you might well wonder. We leave dry food out all day and he noshes to keep the photon torpedo bay manned and in action, so to speak. Anyone who says animals don't have personalities has never lived with one.

So the battery in the Mac Powerbook isn't giving me much life anymore. To take care of the problem, I took the most stupid and counter-intuitive action possible: I dropped by the Mac store in Woodfield Mall looking to buy a new one.

One of the store windows, pardon the expression, had a floor to ceiling decal on it to make it look like a car windshield that's just had a brick flung through it. I don't know if the marketing gimmick was meant to hint that Mac users were so eager to get the new MacBook Pro they were looting the place or what, but I walked past the minimalist store window display and up to a pair of minimalist sales staff, both of whom had minimally rumpled clothing, as it wouldn't do to look too rumpled, you know? I figured the two associates talking had nothing to do, so I asked one about acquiring a new battery for my Powerbook, which I'd brought to make sure I got the right kind.

One moved a distance that could easily be measured in millimeters before the other snapped out (lest she waste another half calorie of muscular energy) "we don't stock those." Sales associate who had moved to help me froze in terror.

"Oh," I said, getting a hostile glare in response that made me think I should have apologized for wasting his time. When I offered no apology, he told me that I'd have to go online to a reseller, evidently my 17" Powerbook is just soooo 2004. I think I might have been lowering the young, khaki, hip, multitasking atmosphere of the store, in my jeans, aged bomber jacket, and battered old Iditarod baseball cap. No iPod ear buds or anything.

Okay, thick-rimmed Apple Pro, excuse me for not buying a new computer every six months in order to word process and get internet access or watch a DVD when I travel. I like my Powerbook because I can have two docs side-by-side and I've got no particular need to upgrade now.

I slunk out of the store, like the wretched low-ticket dog I was.

It's odd, but the most distinct memory I've carried back from chats_noirs grandmother's funeral (other than my father-in-law signing during the communion with robes a-flutter) is the memory of one very old woman.

She was the older sister of the Grandmother F's best friend from girlhood, aged 98 I believe, quite elderly but not in the least decrepit. She walked with a cane, but she sent it forward every other step with a jaunty air, like a English country gentleman out enjoying his constitutional. Her eyes were merry and alive with interest. I was told she still pretty much lives on her own and drives her girlfriends around--she was recently organizing a trip to one of Wisconsin's Indian Casinos.

I talked to her to pass the time at the back of the visitation and I asked her what her secret was, expecting an answer along the lines of "it's in the Good Lord's plan" or "never smoked or touched a drop" but what she said wasn't anything conventional.

"I'm always ready to learn something new," she said. "Teach me."

She repeated the last. "Just teach me." I asked her what she'd been learning lately, feeling vaguely like some morning television host doing an interview with an old Hollywood rip, and she rattled off a couple of subjects -- the only one that stuck in my head was origami. I've been reading up a little on brain function since then and there's something to her philosophy, new neural pathways, muscular coordination etc. but I think her wisdom goes deeper than that. Most of us quit being students at some point and become professors; I've heard my share of long winded wisdom and wrapped myself in the cloak of Polonius plenty of times. This woman has decided to go through life as a student.

Yesterday was pretty sweet. A good deal more fun than last year's birthday, but then Chats wasn't down with death flu this time around.

I indulged myself: brief workout followed by long morning soaking at the gym's spa, wandering from steamroom to dry sauna to whirlpool to lap pool as mood and biological necessity struck, left feeling like a piece of macaroni made by an overenthusiastic 12 year old who thinks al dente is when all the water has boiled away...

Did no work whatsoever.

Chats got me some expensive boutique teas from a place on Michigan Avenue or thereabouts, the King Kong collectors DVD* (I think I'll call it the Fay Wray version, since she is the center of the film in a way that Naomi couldn't quite pull off), and The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, a doco that combines two of my favorite things -- parrots and San Francisco. I look forward to having another "Great Movies of San Francisco" DVD for my collection (Vertigo, Dirty Harry, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), So I Married An Axe Murderer and the guilty pleasures Star Trek IV and Bedazzled (2000) are some of them. In Harm's Way has footage of San Francisco...I wonder if that counts?).

We went out for dinner and wine at the Indian place where we had our first date, then back to the condo for cake and ice cream. It was great.

*Which has Jackson's re-creation of the famous "spider pit" sequence in the supplemental features. The gruesome scene was edited at the last moment after test audiences wigged, Jackson re-makes it so well (all he had to go on were some stills) you'd swear it's all original footage.

The funeral went well. My father-in-law performed the service (he's a deacon so he can do weddings, funerals, baptisms, Bar Mitzvahs -- just kidding!) and gave a very moving eulogy. He wrote it but didn't rehearse it, which is his method with homilies. I'm surprised he kept it together as well as he did with his mother in a casket a few feet away. It's the first time we've seen him all robed up and in action with the modern holy water sprinkler -- which looks a little like an unactivated lightsaber, come to think of it. He also backed up the priest and signed as the priest gave communion. We were right up front, and he was doing very exaggerated crowd-style sign language, so it looked like an interpretive dance as the Father blessed the host. I stifled a totally inappropriate giggle. Then, of course, there was massive burning of incense as the body was readied for transportation.

Say what you want about the Catholics; the rituals are comforting.

There was a typical post-funeral meal at the church familiar to Upper-Midwest types -- lots of jello and sandwiches and gallon jugs of milk standing around. No hotdish though, so I knew I wasn't in Minnesota.

Had a pleasant weekend, mostly thanks to chats_noirs presence. Saw a couple good movies (AMELIE and WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN) Saturday night and bad ones (SPIDERS, SPIDERS 2 courtesy of scifi channel) Sunday.

I'm probably t-minus two weeks from having VALENTINE'S EXILE in shape where I can show it to people. We'll see. Due on the editor's desk October 1. I'm at the stage where I'm really sick of it, which is a good time to edit. Not so good for rewriting though.

Teaching three (count 'em, boys and girls) classes this fall. If I get students, that is. Two are brand new EEK productions so we'll see how they go over. I always pity my first batch of students, and wonder at what point they figure out they're guinea pigs.