procrastination – Page 8 – Word Inventions

To quote the author: “From age twenty-four to thirty-two, Resistance kicked my ass from East Coast to West and back again thirteen times and I never even knew it existed.”

So, knowing it exists, aim to win today and worry about tomorrow, well, tomorrow.

I’ll close with perhaps my favorite quote from the book:

“Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

***

Once again, a sincere note of appreciation to Tara Rodden Robinson for not just introducing me to this book, but actually gifting me with it, way back in 2006.

Further proof that she really wanted to change the lives of her students.

No commissions here. Just another book I believe in.

Writers Horoscope November 19: Today, you step out in faith.

cat step out in faith

You reach for your pen and, to ‘make it happen’, you ‘write it down’.

This is the key message of Henriette Anne Klauser’s Write It Down, Make It Happen.

It is a go-to book that reminds you to put your whole life–not just your writing life–on the front burner.

Many thanks to Tara Rodden Robinson for introducing me to WID,MIH back in 2006.

No commissions here. Just a book I believe in.

Writers Horoscope for November 18: Your latest project? Bigger than you’d planned.

big project huge polar bear.jpg

So you’ve shrugged off criticism.

And writer’s guilt? Gone for now!

But someone approaches you with a profitable offer and, freed of fear and doubt, you say, “Yes.”

Uh-ohhhh.

Here are a few tips on tackling a big writing job…[Note: this is geared toward academia, but the guidelines still apply.]

On the fiction side, try some prewriting strategies.

Writers Horoscope for November 16: You couldn’t help yourself.

Writing projects…coming at you from all sides.

coming at your from all sides

Most of them half-completed. [if you’re lucky].

Let’s hope you’re taking yesterday’s dealing with guilt advice to heart.

But there’s still work to do.

Sort out the three or four ‘loudest’, most insistent projects.

And get back to scheduling.

Give each of them at least 15 minutes.

[You and I both know those sessions will stretch to 25 or 30 minutes.]

You will see real progress and, even more important, you can sleep soundly knowing these projects are no longer collecting psychic dust.

Writers Horoscope for November 15: Failure’s evil sidekick shows up today.

ball-and-chain-2624325_1280

Guilt.

How to rise above it…

Writers Horoscope for November 14: You will encounter something scarier than failure.

boy-covering-face-regret

Regret.

The TV show can wait.

The dishes can wait.

The laundry can wait.

Your creative life can’t.

I should have been writing. Instead…apple cake.

You know how it is.

You find out that the distance between you and YouTube is just a voice command and a few clicks on the TV remote and there really is no reason to leave the recliner.

Okay, maybe you don’t know how it is. [i.e. you are not a slothful low-life.]

Anywaaay, this recipe from joyofbaking.com was the first to show up on the big screen. Stephanie Jaworski’s demonstration was clear and concise. My version matched the one in the video. Always reassuring. The baking time was within the +/- 5 minutes margin-of-oven-performance estimation. Taste and moistness and ingredient ratios–spot on. Final grade: 91%. [Bravo, Stephanie!]

Ready for baking:

More than a few notes:

One of the best parts of baking–Wife comes in the front door, breathes in, and announces to the world: “Someone’s been baaaaking!”
Liked Stephanie’s idea of making an apricot jam glaze. I went with raspberry. Yep, I’d do it again. Always one to hedge my bets, I glazed only half the cake.
I add tons more cinnamon than is called for and included allspice as well.
I mixed brown with white sugar.
No raisins in the house [my preferred dried fruit]. I went with dried cranberries, which I nuked in water for about 45 seconds to tenderize them a bit. Wouldn’t have hurt if I subbed in brandy or creme de cassis for the water.
I’m sure this has been suggested elsewhere in the world, but…the microwave’s ‘defrost’ setting works great for melting butter. Ditto for gently reheating certain delicate leftovers like shrimp.
Type of apple used: Winter banana [from our weekly community-supported agriculture box. A shout-out to Denison Farms, by the way.]
I cook/bake better when a towel is draped over my shoulder. Go figure. I’m not an Emeril Lagasse fan-boy, but he rocks that same shoulder accessory.
Yes, I will continue my socially marginal habit of consuming cake by the manually mangled hunk.
Where did today’s inspiration come from? A. Those winter banana apples weren’t going to cook themselves. B. The apple festival-winning cake in last night’s Hallmark movie. [Hey, call me a wuss, but our current crop of semi-journalistically responsible ‘BREAKING NEWS!!!!’ channels are just plain bad for our health. If I’m going to engage in harmful behaviors, they’ll include flour, sugar, butter and a message to someone that I care about them.]
If I had more time, I would have revisited Maida Heatter’s apple cake recipe .
Lest you think my life is perfection on a plate, consider this:

Our toothpicks are scattered throughout the pot holder drawer. Really…rounding them up and replacing them in a too-small box, from which they will no doubt roll out within minutes…unfathomable torture.

I miss having a dog lurking nearby watching my every move.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Thanks for visiting. Give this recipe a try. It has ‘comfort on a fall Sunday afternoon’ written all over it.

I should have been writing. Instead…Stovetop Chocolate Cake.

File_001 Yes, stovetop. A challenge worth pursuing.

This recipe came from Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street website.

And I have to say, as with Cook’s Country/America’s Test Kitchen [C. Kimball’s most recent endeavor], the accompanying video segments were extremely helpful.

***

As the cake steams–yep, steams– toward completion, some questions and notions:

This will be my default ‘baking’ method during the heat of summer.
A while back, I mentioned my tendency to do weird, lame stuff in the kitchen, such as mixing or chopping at the very edge of the counter. Wull-gee, what are the odds something’s going to end up on the floor? I do eventually learn from repeated bungling, however. So this time, the floor was spared the usual cascade of ingredients. Bravo.
Buuuut, did that keep me from having my laptop hanging precariously over counter’s edge as I began typing this post? Uhhh, no. Seems like once I hit my threshold of competency, all bets are off. Hide the knives, check the burners, and pray. [Doesn’t matter which god you choose, by the way. They all understand kitchen hazards. And at some point in the process, I become the poster child.]
I should have hired a first-grader to cut my circle of parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan.
With this stovetop strategy, will we still be treated to the warm, enveloping aroma of a baked chocolate cake? Answer: No.
I’m not supposed to lift that lid till the prescribed 23 minutes has lapsed. I actually resisted. Decision: It needed an extra five to seven minutes. On the upside, unless the water has evaporated, the risk of burning the cake is minimal. In other words, steam bath: forgiving…oven heat: cruel and merciless.
When it comes to chocolate desserts, our mantra: Dark = better. Darker = more better.
Always remember: Eating cake by the hunk enhances flavor by 23%. [Margin of error: +/- 5%]
My wife rolls her eyes at my Philistine ways, bBut I say, ‘If I bake it, I break it.’ And it’s oh-so-good that way. Besides, she gets to even out the ragged edges.

Final verdict: This recipe is a keeper. The cake came out dark and dense and moist. What more could you want?

File_000(1)

The steaming takes place inside a Dutch oven–actually any pot with a tight-fitting lid and deep/wide enough to fit an eight or nine-inch cake pan. The coil of aluminum foil simply keeps the cake above the heated water.

File_000