Saturday night thoughts

[bironic]

pickles

I had a hankering last weekend for pickled red onions and tried a recipe with white vinegar, water, sugar, salt and peppercorns, and they came out terrible. I should have predicted that my disgust for white vinegar above all vinegars would make it impossible to eat vegetables soaked in it. Next time, will try cider vinegar or maybe rice vinegar. Don't suppose any of you have favorite quick pickle/refrigerator pickle recipes?

texts

I'm writing that Porn Battle ficlet, yay. Crossover between The Golem and the Jinni and Inkheart: two men with fire inside them. It is basically for me, but I still hope it finds an audience. Never mind that it's 700 words of conversation and no sex yet.

Friend C. lent me Frankenstein Underground by the guy who did Hellboy and it was great! Really pretty. The color and lighting especially. Actually I liked the art more than the story, but the story had plenty of items of interest: Frankenstein's creature + tentacles + statues of Mesoamerican-style gods + below-ground steampunk Egypt-worshiping secret societies battling dinosaurs + stuff. Here, NY Mag has a PDF of the first part. Reminds me that there were too many sound effects for my taste as well.

Meanwhile, Take Your Fandom to Work Day is staging a comeback. I'm trying to figure out whether to attempt a story. Once upon a time I thought about doing an SGA AU, but (a) there was no plot and (b) I'm really not sure I'd be comfortable "revealing" my job in fandom, no matter how often I remind myself not to flatter myself that anyone would care enough to "out" me. The fun thing about doing SGA is that a handful of the characters could more or less keep their jobs.

tv

Who knew? The SyFy series The Expanse continues to be pretty great. Complex social/class politics, many major characters who are not white men (though not the two ostensible leads), interesting dialects. The dialogue isn't torture to listen to like Defiance's is/was. Lots of different kinds of ships. I like that they're doing creative things with depicting gravity, even minor-seeming moments that show how characters live everyday in low- and zero-g environments. The world feels lived in. I'm sure the fact that the show was adapted from a book series explains a lot. Three episodes to go.

peeps

Not the Easter kind, although: Have a good Easter, those of you who observe. I went to Boston fannish brunch today for the first time in a while and sat with some people I haven't had much chance to converse with, and it was lovely, even when we didn't all share particular fandoms. As they'd say on Twitter: Hay, new fronds!

Comments

[lilysea]

I really liked Naomi Nagata.

and Chrisjen Avasarala (The Deputy Undersecretary for the United Nations.)

They may not have been able to afford him, but wouldn't John Cho have been AMAZING as the James Holden character?

[bironic]

Ooh, yes, that would have been interesting! As it is, I mentally refer to him as Not Robb Stark (from Game of Thrones).

Naomi is possibly my favorite, and the actress who plays Avasarala has the most gorgeous voice. Which the show clearly knows and uses to its fullest extent. :)

[seascribble]

My Nonna makes this thing with cider vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, sometimes dill, and slices of cucumber, onion, and kalamata olives (and tomatoes, but those are gross) that she lets sit in a fridge overnight that is not really pickles, but is very yummy and acidic.

[bironic]

Sounds like pickles to me! :) I'm not a big fan of olives (I'm not in olive fandom?), but the rest sounds tasty. One day I hope to have a basic brine I like so I can throw in lots of different combinations of things as the mood strikes, perhaps like the above.

I had these amazing Japanese pickled carrot sticks and cauliflower florets at a restaurant in Vancouver and have been wanting something like those again lately, so probably rice vinegar is the place to start. Found this to give a try; Cooks Illustrated is probably not going to be terrible: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/articles/160-how-to-make-quick-homemade-pickles

[laurashapiro]

Good to hear this, about The Expanse. We started watching the pilot, but then something came up and we never went back to it. You make me think I should give it another try.

[bironic]

Ha - do you know, the same thing happened to me in December. I made it through the teaser and dropped out for reasons unremembered. Definitely worth the second try!

[laurashapiro]

Excellent! I will put it on the list.

[bironic]

Will be interested in your thoughts! (On further reflection, I made it through the teaser & also the first scene on Ceres Station, then pooped out. The "lead" character who is in a noir show adjacent to everyone else's SF show is not really my favorite. Despite his distinctive hair, heh.)

Um also I just caught up on the goings-on at the Auction page and !!. I did not know things would be this exciting. I want to know what everybody's vid desires are so I can make them ALL. You know, in the parallel universe where one has that kind of time.

[laurashapiro]

Yes. I actually noped out of the first book in the series due to the character you mention. He's every bit as ridiculous and tropey in print.

If I don't win you, I want to at least talk to you about my idea. I don't even have a song for it, it's just that this vid NEEDS to exist.

[bironic]

*intriiiiigued*

[seascribble]

Oh man, a Mexican restaurant in my hometown had pickled carrots that they did and they were LIFE CHANGING, but I've never been able to find them again.


...now I want pickles.

[bironic]

Welcome to my life. *high five*

[franzeska]

Oh, look, I'm on DW for my five seconds a month. ;)


Red onions are super easy to pickle. Slice to desired shape and size, put them in a ziplock bag, add enough red wine vinegar to cover them, and seal the bag so all onion parts are touching vinegar. Leave them for a couple of hours. If you leave them too long, they get gross, and you can rinse them before you use them if you don't like them too vinegar-y. I wouldn't use white wine vinegar or any of that other stuff.

Pickled shallots (done the same way) can be milder if you're looking for that.

[bironic]

Red wine vinegar sounds like a good way to go - I like that one plain on salad to begin with, whereas white vinegar makes me want to pinch my nose shut. :) Thanks for the tip.

[bironic]

By coincidence, Leviathan Wakes is coming up on our book club list so I started reading it. Am a little more than halfway through now and have to say it is improved by having watched the series. The decisions the showrunners made are interesting - stronger characterizations in general, better treatment of women, characters are smarter at some points but slower in others, and some of the plots got rearranged, expanded or condensed, usually to greater dramatic effect. Also, there are major-character Earth & Mars politicians in the show who haven't appeared in this book at all.

The last episode or two, BTW, which I only recently finished up, were weak like the pilot, but the rest was great.

[laurashapiro]

Thanks for the update! I'm glad to know the series is good. I might give it another try. I can't say I'm tempted to go back to the book, though. (:

[bironic]

Ha, I understand. Thanks for listening - you were the only one I knew who had tried the book and might be interested in hearing how it's been going!