zia_narratora

I was in the grocery store, waiting in line for the self-scanner, carrying my basket and a large bag from another store. One of the employees reached for my basket without asking, and said “Let me help you with that, honey.”

As usual, I bristled.  I know that for some people, this is considered a standard friendly way to greet a woman, but I’m used to it being used in one of two ways: catcalling and other verbal harassment, or to condescend, especially to a younger woman, in a “oh you can’t carry that heavy basket, honey.”

Now, I was fine managing my basket, but since he was an employee, I was also appreciative that he was attentive enough to offer help.  I wasn’t appreciative of the “honey” part of the statement.

I told him not to call me “honey.”

Now, usually, this is the part where a guy will put his hands up and say he was only trying to compliment you, or “whoa, back off,” as if you were the one getting in his business, or whatnot.  Some guys will get actively hostile.

He didn’t.  He said, “I’m really sorry.   Please don’t crucify me?  What would you like to be called?  Should I call you ma’am?”

I was a little annoyed by the ‘please don’t crucify me’ part, but sort of surprised that he apologized so sincerely.  I said, “I don’t mind what you call me, as long as it is not a diminutive or affectionate term.”

“I won’t use it again.  I really didn’t mean it that way,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said. “And I’m not trying to crucify you either.  It just really frustrates me.”

“I know,” he said.  “That was a bad choice of words on my part.”  It was pretty clear he was referring to the ‘crucify’ part, here.  “I’ve been helping elderly women all day, and they like being called ‘honey,’ so it was on the tip of my tongue.  I see you in the store a lot, and I  want you to feel comfortable here.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “I know you didn’t mean it to be offensive.  But a lot of guys it just to be condescending.”

“Yeah, I know that,” he said.  “I won’t say it again.”

“Thank you for apologizing,” I said.

“Thank you for understanding,” he said. “I hope we’ll see you again soon.  Have a good night.”

This is obviously not exactly verbatim, but it is as closely paraphrased as I can make it.  At no point did this man raise his voice, or act frustrated with me at all.  Even though I am not sure I buy the part about him only calling me ‘honey’ because he’d been helping old ladies, he seemed to understand exactly why it bothered me, once I said something about it.  And he expressed that he wanted to respect my boundaries.  Part of it, I’m sure, was because he was an employee and I was a customer, but I’ve had other interactions with store employees over similar complaints that did not go as well, so part of it is also the individual.

I’m writing this down because I talk a lot about negative interactions with men over gendered language, and I wanted to point out that there are men who get it, and as respectful of women who communicate their boundaries.  Even strange men, who aren’t our friends.  Thanks, guys, to all those of you who DO.

Of course, I walked out of the store and got followed down the block by a guy who shouted “hey, baby!” at me (he stopped when I turned around and shouted, “don’t do that!” back at him), but, you know.  Baby steps.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

“I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can't stop them. They leave me and I love them more.” --Maurice Sendak

So my pals at Industry City Distillery are making some awesome crazy beet sugar vodka:

It’s now on the shelves in NYC, and as of last night, I got to take home some samples which I am very excited to play with next week.

With stills they’ve built from the ground up, the distillery is like some kind of adult Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory; they’ve taken fractional distillation to a level that I’ve never seen before, where they can isolate each unique flavor note in the final product before blending them together. It’s really fascinating and awesome to watch these guys work– and a little like being on an episode of LOST, with a buzzer that rings and demands someone’s attention every twenty-two minutes on the button. Dave, the chief-mad-scientist of the operation, showed me pieces of the new still they’re building and a bunch of other exciting bubbly mysterious stuff.

I headed over there with a sampling of my flavored marshmallows (the Fernet ones seem to be the favorite) and a mission: to make a cocktail using a chanterelle-infused vodka the ICD guys had put up for an event.

I’d played with chanterelles before, in a sugar syrup, but the night before, I played around with several simple vodka cocktails, not having actually tasted the chanterelle infusion. When I got over to the distillery, I was presented with a bottle of high-proof liquor that had been steeped with mushrooms.

Dave & I diluted the chanterelle-infused vodka in tiny proportions to get the flavor and texture we liked best– the flavor was so mild, but the mushrooms imparted a meaty texture to the vodka that was nice– and once we’d settled on a solution for the vodka-to-water ratio, I got to mix drinks…

WITH PIPETTES.

Getting into the mad scientist spirit of the thing, this is the first time I have mixed a drink with pipettes. In fact, up until the moment I did it, I had NEVER CONSIDERED SUCH A THING.

It makes sense; it’s how people add bitters to alcohol. But this was a first. Using the pipettes created such amazing precision that I was able to add very specific and delicate notes to the drink; which was good because the flavors in the mushroom vodka were so subtle. After various experiments, with Dave and Peter being my tasting guinea pigs, we settled on a drink that involved vodka, the chanterelle-infused vodka, Dolin’s blanco vermouth, Cocchi Americano, black pepper syrup, and champagne vinegar. I was working in such tiny proportions that some ingredients found their way in in amounts that could be recorded in drops.

It was pretty awesome, because normally when I make drinks, I’m working in proportions that are first off, not nearly as precise– I mean, how many cocktail recipes call for a “dash” of something? But also, I usually think in 1/4 oz increments. Breaking things down even more was super fascinating and changed the way I was thinking about what I was mixing…in a way that was utterly appropriate, given the product and the locale.

I got sent home with samples that I got to pick from specific, unique cuts of the vodka– that is, bottles of undiluted individual isolated flavor notes, which means there will definitely be some playing going on.

If you are in New York, you should check out Industry City’s vodka. Here’s a map of locations where you can buy the real thing. These guys are awesome and I can’t wait to have more to tell you all.

Mirrored from Nommable!.

On Saturday, Eugene (whose book you should read) and I were sitting in Madison Square, drinking tea lattes from Argo and chatting about lots of random stuff.

“That couple has been standing in the same place for twenty minutes,” Eugene said to me, pointing to a couple behind me. They were tall, well-dressed, with small overnight-bag-sized suitcases. They were hugging each other very tightly. And they looked sad.

Very sad.

They weren’t just standing in the same place: they were barely moving.

“Maybe something terrible happened. Maybe their dog just died,” I suggested.

We spiraled out into a world of potentials. Maybe they were trying for the World Record. I had been at Hershey Park the day that someone was trying for the World Record for kissing. Eugene had known someone who once held a world record for…something. I don’t remember what. Threads led to other threads, as conversations do.

But now we were watching them. Surreptitiously, in stolen glances. Our attention kept returning to them.

Five minutes later, they still hadn’t moved.

We noticed they were standing on a painted red X, the kind left by construction or road or sewer crews, to mark something.

I don’t remember which of us suggested it, but we started talking about the spot itself. Maybe it was a special spot. Maybe they had chosen that spot deliberately. Maybe something was supposed to happen if they hugged long enough. Maybe the spot had a powerful magnetic or gravitational force, and people walking by got stuck to it.

Maybe it drew people together. Maybe they were strangers before one of them stepped on the red X, and then the other was drawn in, too, and they fell in love, standing there on that patch of concrete. Maybe the only way to leave the red X was for them to energize the space by hugging until it let them go.

We kept talking. They kept standing. We talked about special places, places of power. I brought up a picture of the old Toynbee Tiles , we discussed graffitti that meant things.

And then, slowly, the couple disentangle themselves. They picked up their suitcases. They walked away.

Maybe, we said, they’d energized the X. Maybe they’d given it enough of themselves.

We saw another man, walking toward the X. We stopped, watching in silence, waiting for the moment his foot would hit the spot. There was one of those electrical frissons of fate in the air, the kind where the very expectation of something leaves a charge.

He walked right past it, untouched by the power of the X.

Maybe, we said, maybe it had been charged for now. Maybe it only took in two people a day. Maybe two people had to hit the X at the same time.

More people walked over it, by it, stepped on the cross-center of the X. Nothing happened.

But we kept looking.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

Lately, I’ve developed a fondness for homemade marshmallows. I’ve been making marshmallows on and off for a few years now, but never really started experimenting with them, although I Had Ideas.

Let me start with a secret: making marshmallows is easy. It is so ridiculously easy, and fairly reasonably-priced, and the results are so good, that if you have forty minutes to make them and don’t mind waiting overnight to have marshmallows, you might never buy store-bought marshmallows again.

I’m serious.

Basically, marshmallows are simple: you boil a mixture of 1 cup sugar, 1 cup corn syrup, 1/2 cup water, until it reaches about 250 degrees Fahrenheit on a candy thermometer. You pour the sugar solution into a blender where you have .75 oz of gelatin in another 1/2 cup water. The solution will foam up; you will turn the mixer on to its highest speed and mix for ten to fifteen minutes, at which point you will feel like Bartholomew Cubbins fighting off the Oobleck. You will coat a rubber spatula in margarine, which will make the Oobleck miraculously slide off the spatula, as you scrape it into a greased baking sheet lined with a mixture of 1/2 cornstarch, 1/2 confectioners’ sugar. You will let it sit overnight. In the morning, there are marshmallows. You can cut them apart with scissors, and then toss them in more sugar-cornstarch.

The basic trick to marshmallows is just to have a really good mixer. I destroyed two hand mixers making marshmallows, which had a lot to do with why I didn’t make them very often– but then, for Christmas this year, my parents gave me a standing mixer. And it makes a huge difference in the marshmallow-making process.

The thing with marshmallows is that they required heavy whipping for an extended period of time. So if you have a hand mixer, you had better have a book in the other hand or a television in the same room as your mixer. Or something. This is why having the standing mixer makes such a difference.

So once I got the mixer, I really started spending a lot of time playing with flavors. I started logically– infusing herbs in the sugar syrup, peppermint once, and lavender and tarragon another time. Then I moved on, realizing I could substitute some of the unflavored gelatin for Jell-o, and get day-glo marshmallows with delicious artificial candy flavors. Lately, I’ve been playing with boozemallows, and I’ve done three flavors that are all quite good: Angostura, Fernet-Branca, and Sazerac.

The Sazerac marshmallows were the first ones I made that actually approximate a cocktail instead of just having a bit of a specific ingredient flavoring the marshmallow. They’re very mild, but if you eat them alone, you can taste all the subtle flavors you expect from a Sazerac: whiskey, absinthe, and Peychaud’s, and they even have the tiniest tinge of pink to them (though it doesn’t come across much in the photo).

To the recipe I related above, I added about 1/4 cup Catoctin Creek Roundstone Rye, about 1/8 cup Tenneyson Absinthe, and about ten dashes of Peychaud’s bitters– I added these right at the beginning of the whipping process, into the mixer. Use a splash guard for your mixer if you have one. You can taste the marshmallow to see if you want more or less of any ingredient, and it’s easy to add a little bit more later on– as long as it’s not too much, it mixes in well.

Of course, once the marshmallows are done, I recommend popping a couple of them into a glass of whiskey.

Mirrored from Nommable!.

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It’s raining, after a day where we “pastured” the chickens (read: let them roam around the yard), and I fooled around making contest entries for hogwarts_elite most of the day.

I had fun working this blog post for work (about an exciting thing coming to our subscription service) along with Clare, who wrote the text for it, and who is awesome. (I took the photos and did the photoshopping).

I’ve had bad allergies this week, which means I’ve been drinking a lot of Coke, which I would prefer not to do, but helps immensely. I’ve also found that gin seems to help a lot, moreso than other liquors.

Right now, I’m drinking a cocktail from my great-grandfather’s book, circa 1935, called a “Boulevard.” It’s gin, red and white vermouth, a dash of grapefruit juice, and I added some bitters (Cocktail Kingdom Wormwood and Urban Moonshine Citrus). If you look a “Boulevard” up online, you’ll find many, many cocktails by this name, which is always interesting. For example, Difford’s and almost every other cocktail repository on the internet has a Manhattan-like whiskey drink, while Cocktail DB has a slightly similar gin and orange juice recipe. This is one of the things I love so much about using recipes from the 1930s.

I also made tarragon-lavender marshmallows last week that were absolutely stunning. I love making marshmallows and it’s so incredibly easy– it takes less than an hour. I really wonder how many people would make marshmallows if they knew how simple it was. Oddly, I keep hearing things about there being a “marshmallow craze” right now, but to be honest, I haven’t actually seen homemade marshmallows anywhere I go, so I’m a little perplexed. I’d love to try other people’s marshmallows, but I suspect this craze is more in theory than in practice.

I’ve been very busy, socially. I keep getting to a week and not having a single evening free. And sometimes I have to miss something or choose between things. I’m not used to this!!! I like it but sometimes I want to sit at home and just make myself a cocktail and watch TV. I’ve actually had to consciously cut back on my TV watching and choose shows not to watch for the first time in my life. I decided to put off watching Person of Interest. I enjoy it, but it’s not as engaging as several of the other new shows this year– Alcatraz, which I hear is getting cancelled (too bad), Touch, and Awake. It just seems like in spite of the science fiction aspect, it’s much more of a typical police procedural, and while I love Michael Emerson and want to watch everything he does, I’m just not as engaged as I am with the other shows. Plus, it sounds like PoI is getting picked up for another season, so I will wait and see if it fits in better next year after the new-show-culling…and some shows I already have on my docket will be gone next year, like House.

I’ve been writing a lot. A lot of my writing is in direct response to some discussions that I’ve read lately, where I’ve seen people talking about why X-story isn’t being told, or why stories with certain types of characters aren’t out there. And I was reading these things and thinking, wait, that’s one of my stories. And knowing that these are things people are looking for and not finding kind of inspired me to work harder on them. I need to just pick one and stick with it, though, since right now I have four novels in progress. Who does that. Well, I have one finished but it needs a lot of editing, and I had a major breakthrough in terms of storytelling and a character change that will fix the storytelling problem in a way that embarrasses me that I hadn’t thought of it before, because it seems so obvious.

I have one book that has a scene that so perfectly mirrors the fan response to Amandla Stenberg’s performance as Rue that it was very surreal for me. (It’s a fantasy novel about fandom, so.) But that book is the one that needs the most work in terms of revising the outline (it’s at that stage, yes). I’ve been working a lot on my fairytale adaptation story, which is coalescing nicely, but I have this other newer story that is kind of demanding it be told and I don’t know what to do with it.

I really really can’t wait for the chip in the brain that will transfer what I am thinking to paper.

Also! As of tomorrow, my cleaning system will have (mostly) worked for two months. I’m really proud of the fact that I have a clean apartment and it’s been that way for two months. I have a living space where I would not be embarrassed to ask a friend over on the spur of the moment! I know where things are, and nothing looks sloppy (except my kitchen, a little). I’m thrilled with myself.

Since last month, I bought myself new furniture, I’m trying to decide what to do to congratulate myself this month. I’m thinking about other things I can do that will both be gifts to myself but that will also improve my overall lifestyle. Wall art is one thing I’m thinking about. A carbonator thingy is another, as is a nice tea kettle. Any thoughts?

I think that is all for now. This is a sort of discombobulated post of thoughts, but sometimes that is okay.

Mirrored from Antagonia.net.

The Getting To Know You Meme is still going on! Go! Post! Yay!!!

People! hogwarts_elite is hosting a "Getting to Know You" meme that you do not to be a member to participate in. God that was an atrocious sentence. Anyway! Come participate!!

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MEME IS HERE I KNOW YOU WANT TO