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Category: FOOOOOOD

Curvaceous

Published by Tim Pratt on May 14, 2012

The Impossible Dreams screening on Saturday was good! Pretty well attended for a mid-afternoon weekend non-kid-related library function (meaning that, counting me and the librarian, there was an attendance into the double digits — nothing like the dozens of attendees the typical children’s program event gets. I should’ve added some basic clowning or magic to my act!). I showed the movie and did a Q&A (a good crowd, with lots of good questions). Pretty fun. Afterward I got a beer with a couple of friends, then came home.

We’d anticipated nice weather, so Heather and I had a few people over for a cook out, but it turned out be cloudy and cool. (Curse you, weather shamans, and your flawed precognition!) Still: great mounds of grilled meat were prepared, and rare beers were consumed, and much conversation was held, lo deep into the evening.

Sunday was mother’s day, so River and I let Heather sleep in, and then gave her gifts, and took her out for lunch. Then I gave Heather the greatest mother’s day gift of all: freedom from being a mother. I took the kid on a train ride into San Francisco to fulfill one of his great dreams: to ride all the curved escalators at the Westfield mall. (I know. One of his favorite things lately is watching youtube videos of people riding the world’s longest escalators.) So we rode a great many escalators numerous times, bought some legos, and played some video games at the arcade. (By which I mean, he sat in front of a video game and pushed buttons and turned the steering wheel. He’s four. He doesn’t care if he’s really playing, at this point.)

A fun weekend… but I’m now even farther behind on my writing. Too much fun. I have to step things up this week. All play and no work makes for a blown deadline.

Twelve! Twelve!

Published by Tim Pratt on December 12, 2011

I turned 35 today, thus falling out of the coveted 18-34 demographic age bracket, which means my opinions are no longer of interest. I expect video games, film, and all other media to begin sliding away from my preferences immediately. Drat.

My wonderful wife took me out to Pizzaiolo, one of my favorite restaurants, on Friday night, and we feasted and made merry. And I drank bourbon. She made me a cherry pie last night, served with great heaping scoops of vanilla bean ice cream. Why pie? Because I looooove cherries, and I don’t really like cake. Carrot cake is okay, but mostly because of the cream cheese frosting. Cake is just… sweet bread. Eh. It’s not offensive or anything, but neither does it delight me. Generally speaking, creamy is my vice, not sweet — fat yay, sugar meh. So, yay for ice cream!

Tonight, my actual birthday, I’ll open some presents and eat a cheeseburger and probably watch a horror movie. I’m a simple man of simple hedonic tastes.

Saturday, while my wife and kid went to a party, I neglected fun in favor of work. I dove back into my half-written novel-in-progress, which stalled utterly while I was on vacation. (It was an intentional stall, but I found it difficult to get back on track.) I had, fortunately, figured out my plot while on vacation, though now I have to do some retrofitting to make that plot actually work out. I got to write an attempted murder scene, at least, so that was fun. And soon I get to write about tentacled river monsters. I’m still a bit panicked about getting it all done by the February 1 deadline, but I think it’ll work. I know where I’m going now, at least.

Sunday was more fun. I took the boy out for about five hours in the morning, just wandering around Berkeley, doing some Christmas shopping, going to the playground, eating cinnamon rolls at the coffee shop, eating ice cream cones in the cold wind, and so on. I love spending time with that little guy. I did some work on the novel, too, figuring out how to hack apart the structure to insert a new section early on. For the rest of the night… I pretty much watched TV and played Skyrim. It was awesome.

The Iron Wood

Published by Tim Pratt on October 5, 2011

Life is quiet and good.

As I may have mentioned, my wife and I recently had our sixth wedding anniversary! (On October 1.) I got her this necklace, and she got me a very cool natural lodestone. (The sixth anniversary gifts are, traditionally, iron, sugar, or wood. We usually do variations on the traditional themes, because we think it’s fun, and we figured “metal” and “magnet” were close enough.) The real gift is this weekend, though — we’ve got an overnight babysitter for the kid, so we’ll go out on Friday and have a wonderful dinner and an evening all to ourselves. Should be delightful.

We’ve been trying to eat better lately (that is: not order so much take out), and have made some really yummy meals lately. Wilted arugula with balsamic fried eggs; marinated ahi with roasted tomatoes; green salad with peaches, grilled chicken, almonds, and blue cheese; omelets with good bacon and fresh tomatoes; and so on. Simple, quick stuff we can make after work, mostly, but when you start throwing around phrases like “balsamic reduction” it feels nice and fancy.

Otherwise, I’ve just been writing, and reading, and watching TV. Books lately include some of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol comics, and The Death Ray by Daniel Clowes, Matt Ruff’s next novel The Mirage, and assorted short stories. We recently watched the first season of Boardwalk Empire, and now that fall is here, the Tivo is full of new things every night. (We have a 3-year-old; we mostly can’t go out at night; TV is our entertainment mode of choice, apart from books.) We’re watching Ringer, mostly out of residual affection for Sarah Michelle Gellar. Persons of Interest is potentially interesting. We have that dinosaur time travel show saved but haven’t watched it, and mostly we hear bad things, so I dunno if we will. And there are various returning shows we watch, too. I’m sad that House won’t be set entirely in a prison this season (so many potential bad puns! The Jail House! The Big House!) but you can’t have everything.