First off, I want to thank all of you who turned out for last Saturday’s signing for Curiosities. We filled every chair and most of the aisles, ate all the cookies, and, I think, had a very good time all around.
Me and Mike M’s shoulder at Page One
Looking for a chance to visit more informally? Next Saturday (11/28/15), I’ll be back at Page One Books at 1:00 pm to help out with their Small Business Saturday promotion. I attended last year and had a great time talking about books with the people who dropped by. Look for me wandering the aisles near SF/F, children’s books, and YA. Small Business Saturday is a great way to get a jump on your Christmas shopping without dealing with crowded malls and over- stressed, newly-hired sales clerks, who know nothing about what they’re selling.
I’m looking forward to the long weekend for other reasons as well. I’ll write, of course, because I’m addicted to the weird project I’m working on now. Otherwise, I plan to enjoy having Jim home. We already have some fun things planned. Both of us want to continue our current craft projects. I’m working on another beaded bracelet, this one featuring a dragon. Jim has been hankering to make arrowheads. He also wants to dig the first of our numerous compost trenches.
Thursday, I’m making pecan pie to take when we join the extended Estell/Mumma clan for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s my own recipe, the result of baking numerous pecan pies from a wide variety of recipes. Funny thing… The recipe that came with the pecans actually used too many pecans. (Yes. This is possible.) Another created too much filling. Another was far too sweet. However, by experimentation that subjected poor Jim to testing numerous pies, I arrived at what, for me, is the perfect balance between buttery sweetness and ample helpings of lightly toasted nuts.
Yum!
Friday, we refuse to have anything to do with all the Black Friday chaos. Our intention is to stay home, work on the yard if the weather cooperates, and then make homemade sausage. Last time we made sausage, we made Italian, following my maternal side of the family’s recipe. This time we’re going to make a Polish sausage that comes to us via my Russian “Baba,” as I called my paternal great-grandmother. It’s spiced with caraway seeds, garlic, white pepper, and a dash of dill seed. Unlike the smoked kielbasa that one usually gets, this is not in the least salty, instead being both robust and savory.
To go with Baba’s sausage, we’ll make homemade whole-wheat fettucine noodles. Both recipes make enough for multiple meals – especially in our two-person household – so we can anticipate enjoying the end results for weeks to come.
Saturday we’re off to Page One but, both before and after, we hope to stop at some other small businesses and support them by doing some of our Christmas shopping there. We were sad to learn that Weem’s Art Fest, our favorite place to find odd and interesting gifts, is no longer being held, but we’ll stop by the gallery and see what we can find.
Sunday we’ll probably force ourselves to be at least a little practical. (Even writers need to grocery shop and housekeep.) In the evening , we’ll continue our on-going roleplaying game. Last week took an interesting turn and I (as the one running the game) am very much looking forward to seeing what my players come up with.
After a heated aerial battle on pegasus back, during which the Fides discovered that they really have improved a great deal since they first arrived in the court of the Faceless Tyrant, they face a challenge none of them had anticipated – the possibility that they might actually get everything they’ve been striving towards.
I can hardly wait to see what they’ll do!
Any of you have a long weekend coming up? What do you do to make Thanksgiving special? I hope that, whatever it is, you end the weekend with much to feel thankful about!
Jane Lindskold: Wednesday Wanderings 
November 25, 2015 at 2:44 am |
Like many people I always thought of kielbasa as a specific kind of sausage…until I moved to Poland and discovered that keewbasa (to give it its Polish pronunciation) comes in enough varieties to warrant its own section in the meat aisle of the grocery store – seafood, beef, pork, poultry, and kielbasa.
November 27, 2015 at 9:12 am |
That’s really interesting… I knew there were different version, but I had no idea that it was a category. Do you know what the word means?
November 27, 2015 at 7:55 pm
It translates as “sausage”. Like “cheese” different types will have an adjective applied (afterwards, because Polish puts the noun first). Kielbasa krakowska and kielbasa slaskie would be Krakow-style and Silesian-style sausages respectively, kielbasa wiejska is “country-style” sausage (usually heavily smoked, and seasoned with marjoram and garlic), kielbasa biala (“white sausage”) is made with raw pork and beef (and often a lot of lard). There are a lot of others, that’s just what I recall off-hand 🙂
Your grandmother’s recipe sounds like kielbasa kabanosy (“boar sausage”), which is a pork sausage seasoned with pepper and caraway (and usually air-dried if it’s intended for long-term storage, rather than smoked).
November 25, 2015 at 6:55 am |
Yep, our plans are to visit with some family members (or, rather, they will be visiting us) and to avoid Black Friday.
November 25, 2015 at 7:41 am |
Nothing here until X’mas – but I actually do get a 3-day weekend this time around.
Do write up that game for us – I can’t wait either! I was going to suggest turning it into a book, even. But then memories of The Man of Gold surfaced: good writing, interesting story, but you could hear the dice rattle every time you turned the page…
November 28, 2015 at 8:47 am |
Writing up the game… Oh, dear! I’ve been running this one almost weekly for something like three years??? I’d need to check a calendar.
Anyhow, for this adventure to make sense, I’d need to write at least two novels first. I don’t think you’d hear dice rolling in this one. We rely heavily on “storytelling” and use dice to moderate situations like combat.
My players are bright and, best of all, good friends, so they really are in a good comfort zone with play.
November 30, 2015 at 7:39 am
Sounds like you’ve got quite a writing program ahead of you 😉