Another batch of bappir, with more authentic ingredients. In most cases, when a cuneiform text says “honey” it’s referring to date honey. So I took 16 oz of dates, pitted them, and pureed them with 16 oz of water, making a delicious and aromatic spread. (Not quite a syrup.). Half of that went into this [...]
Teas have proliferated on my desk. In the back corner, I have Two kinds of yerba mate Good Earth Lipton Vanilla Caramel Truffle Dawson’s Raspberry Cream Caramel (not actually tea, mostly barley) Some packets of brown sugar ginger tea mix Other than that, I have Spry xylitol Berryblast Mints Entertainer’s Secret throat spray Vitamin C packets One [...]
So, I’m taking another crack at brewing a Sumerian beer. And the first step, is making a Sumerian bread called bappir. Here’s the recipe: 24oz organic barley flour 16oz warm water 8oz grape nuts cereal (flour, malted barley flour, salt, yeast) 8oz honey generous amount of freshly ground coriander generous amount of freshly ground cardamom [...]
Recently, we had an interesting discussion at our writing group. At what point in the writing process to you turn something over to a first reader? There’s a lot of variables, but in the end the answer amounts to “it depends on the reader and the author.” Some first readers thrive on offering broad, sweeping [...]
If you live in a large swath of northern Cali you can electronically check out books from the NCDL, most of which are Protected PDF, and read them on devices such as an iPad. It’s simple, just follow these 7 easy steps 0. Completely disregard anything the site says about software. In particular, don’t bother [...]
Now official; check it out. My story The Knuth Number has been published by On The Premises issue #14 with the theme “Numbers, numbers, numbers”. Editor Tarl Roger Kudrick was a breeze to work with, and I’m thrilled to have made my first sale in a fiction market. Tonight we celebrate (by writing more).
I publicly committed to a deadline of June 30 for my editing pass, and that deadline has wooshed past. That’s the problem with arbitrary deadlines–there’s no way to tell how realistic they are. It’s fair to say that before this point, I’ve never properly edited a novel before. Heck, it’s fair to say that even [...]