food

Baking With Flying Colours

/ Diane Henders / 14 Comments

When I look back at my earlier blog posts, a lot of them describe various ways I’ve embarrassed myself in public:  Butt sweat in plastic chairs, disintegrating shoes, food dangling from my hair, phantom glasses, shenanigans in the dentist’s chair… and the list goes on.

But not recently.  In fact, when I looked back at my blog archives, I discovered that it’s been nearly three whole years since I humiliated myself with a public striptease.

“Aha!” thought I.  “Maybe  I’m finally growing up.  Becoming suave and sophisticated and socially competen-” *record scratch*

Nope.  Apparently the only reason I haven’t embarrassed myself lately is that I haven’t gone out much.

A few weeks ago we were invited over to our friends’ place for dinner, and (congratulating myself on my grasp of social graces) I offered to bring dessert.  I was fairly sure I couldn’t screw it up – I’ve been successfully making chocolate cake since I was ten.

And I didn’t screw it up.  The cake was fine.  But…

I have never been a tidy cook.  And when rotating equipment is involved, things tend to get *ahem* a little sticky.  The blast radius for this cake was nothing out of the ordinary, though.   I assembled the cake, cleaned the kitchen, and then concluded the process with a personal wipe-down.  I was particularly proud of myself for noticing and removing a perfectly round chocolate “beauty spot” that actually looked quite natural on my cheek.

So later in the day we went out, had a delicious meal (including the raspberry chocolate cake) and a lovely evening; and I came home quietly patting myself on the back for not spilling anything or otherwise embarrassing myself.

Until I glanced in the mirror while I was brushing my teeth before bed.  (Wearing a different pair of glasses this time.)  And there it was:  A brilliant red dot of raspberry filling, centred between my brows like an edible bindi.

It must have been concealed by my glasses during my earlier cleanup.  And then I’d taken off the glasses and sallied forth, proudly wearing fruit filling on my forehead.

Nobody mentioned it all evening.  In fact, when I pointed it out to Hubby, he said he hadn’t even noticed it.  So either our friends are tactful people with iron self-control; or we’re all just getting too old to see properly without our glasses.  Either way, I’m calling it a win.

Has anybody else worn food as a fashion statement lately?  Please tell me I’m not the only one…

Book 18 update:  I’m on Chapter 25, and Aydan’s trying hard not to throttle her annoying new partner.  But he might know something critical about her past, so she’ll have to keep her irritation under control… at least for now.

Verbal Diarrhea

/ Diane Henders / 29 Comments

The other day I witnessed what was either one of the more inconsiderate behaviours I’ve seen in a while; or possibly a diabolically brilliant business strategy. I’m still not sure which it was, but either way I had to struggle to hold in my inappropriate laughter. (Because if I had let out the full-on-snorting belly-laugh the situation deserved, it would have made me just as rude as the original perpetrators. Life is complicated. But funny!)

Anyway:

Hubby and I had decided to try one of the local Chinese restaurants, and they offered a buffet. Buffets are my kryptonite, because they’re so expensive I feel as though I should eat enough to get my money’s worth. (Which is probably why they’re so expensive, but chicken/egg; whatever.) Anyhow, I resigned myself to the inevitable pain of an overfull belly, and threw myself at the food.

As I returned to our table with my first dish (a cup of yummy hot-and-sour soup), I tuned into the conversation at the table next to us. I’m not normally an eavesdropper; but even though I didn’t want to listen, I had to. And so did everybody else in our part of the restaurant. This couple didn’t seem to grasp the concept of volume control.

And what was the focus of their animated discussion, you ask? Well, what else: Their dog’s diarrhea. Thank you ever-so-much for that detailed description of mucus, blood, and shit.

I’ve been blessed with an ultra-high squeamishness threshold, so my appetite was unaffected. In fact, I had to clamp my lips together to prevent myself from snickering. (Which was a noble sacrifice: Hot-and-sour soup is hostile to sinuses.)

After stifling my initial snort of hilarity, I did my best to ignore the clueless pair. I figured that, like the unfortunate dog’s affliction, this too would pass.

But I was so wrong.

For the whole hour we were in the restaurant, their too-loud conversation never varied. It was funny initially, but then it just got weird. And as the weirdness registered with me, I started wondering why two people would discuss doggy diarrhea for an hour, ever; but especially while eating in public.

That’s when the giggles returned with a vengeance, because the only reason I could imagine was that they’d been hired by the restaurant owners to make buffet patrons lose their appetites. (I told you it was diabolical.)

I guess we’ll never know, but I’m tempted to go back on another Saturday night to see whether the poop-obsessed pair are there again.

But I’d better not. If they were performing again, I’d probably abandon what little maturity I possess and try to out-gross them. I’m pretty sure I could. At a long-ago party, I once recited a limerick so vile that grown men fled, leaving the beer keg behind. (I probably shouldn’t be proud of that.)

Anybody else overheard any *ahem* interesting conversations lately?

Book 18 update: So, you know how my laptop caught fire and I speculated that Book 18 was jinxed? Long story short: Yep, it’s jinxed. I’m still trying to get a new laptop set up.

Short story long:

After wasting an annoying amount of time shopping and deliberating, I bought a new laptop. I had it nearly set up and customized when I noticed heat building up in the case, right below where I rest my left hand when typing. A lot of heat. Too much heat to comfortably rest my hand there for more than a few minutes. Uh-oh. But I cautiously persisted… until the display started to vibrate and flash. DONE! Returned.

More shopping / deciding / ordering / unpacking / setting up the next candidate…

At which point Microsoft informed me that my MS Office had been activated too many times. Of course it had: The first laptop burned without giving me a chance to deactivate the software; and I was so annoyed with the overheating laptop that I didn’t think of deactivating the MS Office license before I wiped the machine and sent it back.

So now I have to decide whether to wrangle with Microsoft over license activations for ancient MS Office 2010 (a fool’s errand at best), risk file corruption by using a newer version of Office on my laptop while keeping the antique version on my PC, or spend an obscene amount of money for two licenses of the latest MS Office.

Or I could switch to LibreOffice, which is free but causes file corruption when saved repeatedly between MS Word and LO. (Sadly, I know this from personal experience.) So then I’d have to load LO on my PC, too; but I’d still need MS Office because I need Outlook to sync its calendar and contacts with my iPhone…

Argh!

More Kitchen Capers

/ Diane Henders / 31 Comments

I’m generally a competent cook and baker, but lately the culinary cockups have come thick and fast. As I noted in my previous post, it’s unclear whether my gastronomic gaffes are most frequently caused by:

  1. Following directions exactly;
  2. Not following directions exactly; or
  3. Completely ignoring the need for directions.

Example 1: Mozzarella cheese. I’ve never made cheese before, so I used my digital thermometer to keep the solution at precisely the correct temperature for exactly the times the recipe specified. And after several hours of hovering and stirring, submerging and manipulating as directed, my so-called “mozzarella” fell apart into little rubbery curds instead of stretching into the lovely elastic ball shown by the recipe. Clearly, the Cheese Gods weren’t smiling that day. (So I chucked the curds into a cheese mold and squished them together into a block. They tasted fine, but the texture was definitely not as advertised.)

Example 2: Soy Nuts. The recipe said to soak the soybeans overnight and then bake them at 350°F for twenty to forty minutes. At the forty-minute mark, I had a pan of hot squishy soybeans, not the crunchy brown goodies I wanted. After another hour in the oven, I had a weird mixture of crunchy brown goodies and pale leathery nuggets. They turned out okay after a stint in the dehydrator; but the recipe needed quite a bit of *ahem* adaptation.

Example 3: Raspberry Cream Cake. I admit it: There was no recipe. But it shouldn’t have been complicated: White cake, raspberry purée, buttercream frosting, whipped cream, and fresh raspberries. All I had to do was assemble it.

But my purée was a bit too thin, and the confectioner’s sugar that the internet recommended as a stabilizer actually liquified the whipped cream.

Hubby passed through the kitchen halfway through the doomed assembly process and recoiled at what was apparently the scene of a particularly messy murder. Crimson droplets seeped from the pale flesh of the decapitated cake-victim. Dismembered cake layers lay beside it, oozing raspberry blood. Globs of buttercream and splatters of runny whipped cream covered everything in the vicinity, including the floor and me.

Hubby hesitated. Then, diplomatic as always, he inquired, “Should I go out and buy more whipping cream?”

Ego-bruised but not beaten, I replied, “Nope. I have a plan!”

He shook his head with what I prefer to think of as respect (ha, ha) and wisely retreated.

Somewhat to my surprise, my plan actually worked. The cake turned out both pretty and delicious, although it was nothing like I had originally envisioned.

The final product. No crime-scene tape required.

And hey, despite my recent struggles, I have proof that the culinary gods do occasionally shower us with their grace. Remember my whining about Army-Surplus Smarties®? Well, either it’s sheer coincidence, or somebody was listening. I bought another batch of Smarties® and guess what?

They’ve fixed the colours! No more dismal army-surplus green, woohoo!

So I’m going to conveniently avoid the question of whether my latest escapades have been successes (they were tasty, after all) or failures (because nothing went as planned). Instead, I’ll simply classify the whole shebang as “miraculous”.

Any miracles in your world lately?

P.S. Sorry if the photos are gigantic. I set them to be medium-sized and WordPress complied. Then, about five minutes before I was ready to publish, it suddenly started displaying both photos full-sized, while still insisting they’re “medium”. *throws up hands*

Book 18 update: I’m on Chapter 8 and Aydan is chasing ghosts: One from the present and one from her past.

DoughNutcase

/ Diane Henders / 36 Comments

I adore food and I like trying new recipes, but I don’t have much patience for unnecessarily fiddly instructions and I frequently get creative with ingredients.  As you might guess, this creates a certain… tension, shall we say… between expectations and results.

So, yeah, I’ve had my share of culinary failures. But every now and then, I look up a new recipe and *gasp* actually follow the instructions!  Crazy, right?

Ironically, at least half of my misadventures have resulted from following somebody else’s recipe exactly.  Case in point:  The doughnuts I made last week.

I make all my own bread and buns, so I wasn’t daunted by the yeast doughnut recipe I found online.  I always mix and knead my dough by hand; but hey, this time I was following the recipe!  So I proofed my yeast and loaded everything into the bowl of my stand mixer as instructed.  “Mix for a whole 5 minutes to work the dough well,” the recipe said blithely.

Well.

My Mixmaster is only slightly younger than I, and it weighs almost as much.  Plus, it’s ridiculously overpowered — I could mix cement with that thing.  So after about a minute of mixing, the dough got smooth and elastic, as I’d expected.  What I didn’t expect was that the dough would rocket up the beaters with the speed of a scalded snake, force itself through the tiny gap around the beater shafts, and cram the drive head full.

I used up most of my sanity and my considerable arsenal of foul language in the twenty minutes that it took to dismantle the mixer and extract gluey dough from nooks and crannies that were never meant to be in contact with food.

Cleaning out this cavity with a dental pick: Do I know how to have a good time, or what?

But eventually I got the whole mess back into the bowl (or into the garbage, in the case of the crap I pulled out of the drive head).  I let the dough rise, then attempted to flatten it and cut out doughnut shapes as directed.  (Note the word “attempted” in the previous sentence.)

Ha.

More colourful language flowed while I fought the sticky uncooperative mass, and at last I wrangled some approximately doughnut-shaped blobs onto my pan to rise.

Hubby passed through the kitchen and eyed the result with a frown.  “Is this one of those Impressionist things?” he inquired.

I snorted.  “Surrealist, maybe.  Salvador Dali would love these.”

Maybe I’ll frame this photo and call it The Persistence of Doughnuts.

Fortunately those weird mutant blobs fried up into fluffy golden-brown mutant blobs that were ever-so-tasty when coated with cinnamon sugar.  So technically the doughnuts were a success; but the whole episode involved far more work, time, mess, and stress than it should have.

Next time, I’m going to do it my way. Then at least I’ll know who to blame for any problems.

Anybody have a well-tested yeast doughnut recipe? (Just asking…)

Army-Surplus Smarties®

/ Diane Henders / 32 Comments

Since I’ve been getting *ahem* older, I’ve been trying to avoid stereotypical ‘Oldster’ thought-patterns. It’s been an uphill battle, but I’m still holding my own.

(Digression: The expression ‘holding my own’ always makes me snicker. Holding my own what, exactly?)

(Wait, isn’t rambling a sign of Oldster Brain? Uh-oh.)

Anyhow, despite my best efforts, I caught myself in Oldster Mode last week when this phrase popped out of my mouth: “These were so much better in the good old days!”

My trigger? Smarties®.

I’ve loved Smarties® for decades. Who wouldn’t love tiny chocolate discs coated with bright shiny candy? They’re perfect whether you gobble the whole boxful in a glorious pig-out, or savour just a few for a calorie-conscious mini-treat. And they make great poker chips: Colour -coded and delicious!

I try not to eat candy too often, but the other day I saw Smarties® on sale and a warm wave of nostalgia rolled over me. I paid and hustled them home, looking forward to the cheery click-click-click of tiny candies hitting the bowl in a cascade of bright happy colours.

Instead, I got this:

Where are my bright happy colours? What’s this sad faded red; this wishy-washy brown; and worst of all, khaki green?!? Yes, the candy shell tastes the same regardless of its colour; but Army-Surplus-Green candy is just wrong.

After the initial shock wore off, my logic-seeking brain still wouldn’t let go of the question: Seriously, why would they choose such a dismal colour? The main marketing point for any edible product is its eye-appeal: The promise, via appearance alone, that eating it will be a delicious, nay, sensuous experience. Near-orgasmic, even; according to some of the TV ads I’ve seen.

But these olive-drab Smarties® look like lima beans. Any kid will tell you that nothing says ‘grim, sad, and yucky’ like lima beans. Most adults don’t associate anything good with lima-bean-green, either. Definitely not orgasms. (And if I’m wrong about that, please don’t enlighten me.)

So was this a dye malfunction that slipped through quality control? A vulgar joke? Malicious sabotage? Or is there actually somebody, somewhere in the Smarties® factory, who eyed those lima bean lookalikes and thought ‘Yum’?

I can’t figure it out. But I couldn’t bear to see that repulsive colour in the bowl of treats I intended to offer my dinner guests, so I picked out all the green ones and ate them. It was a terrible sacrifice, but my guests’ comfort and happiness comes first. (Yes, the green ones were just as yummy as the others; but don’t tell. I’m bucking for ‘noble martyr’ here.)

But I still want to know: Why?

Book 18 update: Wrote two chapters. Deleted two chapters. Rewrote two chapters… hmmm. Can anybody spot an unproductive pattern here? But at least I’ve figured out what went wrong with the story and I’ve fixed the problem, so it should be clear(er) sailing now!

P.S. Thank you to everyone who’s noticed my reduced blogging frequency and checked to see if I’m okay. Your concern and well wishes mean a lot to me! I’m still struggling with this *&#$! back injury, so I’ve reduced my blog posts to once a month to salvage more ‘actual book-writing’ time. I’m waiting to see a couple more specialists, so I’m still clinging to hope! 🙂

Snow Warning

/ Diane Henders / 35 Comments

I grew up in Manitoba, where twelve-foot snowbanks and frigid temperatures were considered nothing more than a worthy challenge. But here on Vancouver Island, businesses shut down and chaos reigns if a few snowflakes flutter down.

Last week my physiotherapy appointment was cancelled because of a few inches of snow. I was on the verge of complaining about the wimpiness of Island dwellers, but I suddenly recalled the sheer joy of those long-ago ‘snow days’ when I was a kid and school was cancelled.  My momentary pique vanished in a grin as I imagined full-grown adults peeking out their windows, happy-dancing and crowing, “Snow day!”

A ‘snow day’ in Manitoba in 1966.

I’ve complained about snow before and I probably will again; but the truth is, I kinda like the white stuff (now that I live in a place where it doesn’t stay around for six months at a time). Snow is pretty and sparkly; and it lights up our gloomy West Coast winters.

There are obvious disadvantages, of course.  Snow is cold, slippery, and dangerous to drivers, walkers, and shovellers; but today I’m here to warn you about its lesser-known and much more insidious downside: 

Snow is fattening!

You’d think fluffy frozen water would be calorie-free.  In fact, when you factor in the extra effort of clearing it and navigating through it, it should be a stellar weight-loss tool.

But not for me. Because when it’s snowing outside, I bake.  And when there are freshly-baked goodies, I eat.  And the longer the snow lasts, the more I bake and eat.

Yesterday my kitchen was gloriously perfumed by fresh cinnamon buns.  A couple of days ago there was a decadent chocolate cake.  Before that, peanut butter caramel squares.  And baklava.  And lemon pie.  That’s not even counting all the goodies stashed in our freezer ‘just in case’. And we’ve only had a week of snow.

I noted a few years ago that it’s dangerous to wear stretch pants on road trips. But it’s much worse than that: I’ve been schlepping around in stretch pants all winter, and I’ve just realized my comfy pants have been conspiring with the snow, too. Now I’m afraid to try on my jeans — I’m not sure I want to know what’s been going on behind my back(side).

Get out the forklift; I might need a boost up these stairs…

Book 18 progress: I’m partway through Chapter 1, and Aydan is finding out how hard Stemp’s job really was. But most of my recent time has been spent producing a book trailer for the series — and I’ve just finished it, woohoo! Watch for it in my next post and on my Facebook page!

Eating (With A) Crow

/ Diane Henders / 29 Comments

Last week I went through the MacDonald’s drive-through for a quick bite. Not wanting to be disturbed by passersby, I parked at the farthest corner of the lot, next to a tall hedge. With my window open to admit the sweetly scented breeze, I chowed down.

I hadn’t taken more than a couple of bites before a large crow flapped over and landed on top of the hedge. After inspecting me with bright black eyes, he flew down to perch on the curb. There he cocked his head and watched every movement of the burger to my mouth.

Recognizing a mooch, I shook my head and said, “Sorry, buddy. Bread isn’t good for birds.”

He hopped closer, still watching my burger like a hawk… or, more accurately, like a mooching crow.

I repeated, “Nope, nothing for you.”

Undeterred, he hopped closer and flirted some more.

When I finished my burger without sharing, he shot me a disgusted look and flew up to the top of the hedge again. But then I started eating my sundae.

Down he came to the curb again, turning his head coquettishly this way and that so I could admire his glossy ebony feathers. How could I possibly deny him a taste?

I chuckled and said, “Sorry, buddy. You’re a handsome guy, but I’m not giving you ice cream, either.”

As if he’d understood me, he puffed out his feathers and let out a barrage of angry caws. After he had thoroughly cussed me up one side and down the other, he departed in a snit.

Later, I was telling Hubby about my mercurial dinner companion. “I was a little worried that he might fly up into my window,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to tangle with that sharp beak.”

Hubby smirked. “Well, if he had, you could have hit him with your crowbar.”

It took me an instant, because I do actually carry a crowbar in my vehicle. But then the terrible/terrific pun exploded in my brain.

GROAN!

At least he didn’t suggest that I could have eaten my burger’s condiments with my pickle fork…

*

P.S. I just realized that you have to be a gearhead to get that last sentence. A ‘pickle fork’ is an automotive tool used to separate ball joints and tie rod ends.

P.P.S. I further just realized that if you’re not a gearhead, ‘ball joints’ and ‘tie rod ends’ are equally obscure. And now that I’ve completely over-explained it, maybe it would be better to just pretend I made a dirty joke about balls and rods. ’Nuff said.

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 51, and Aydan is in a desperate race against time to save someone she cares about. But is it already too late?

Cooking with Diane

/ Diane Henders / 30 Comments

I love creating new recipes, but experiments always carry a certain risk of failure. And sometimes my failures are *ahem* …notable. (Don’t worry, it’s still safe to eat at our place — I don’t experiment when I’ve invited company to dinner.)

Recently, I’ve been wrangling with brownies. I’ve used Hubby’s mum’s recipe for years, but one day Hubby said, “You know, these are great; but they’d be even better if they weren’t quite so sweet.”

“Easy,” said I in a burst of delusional optimism. “I’ll just reduce the sugar a bit.”

So I did. And instead of brownies, I got dense cake. It was tasty; but the texture was… meh. Over the next several weeks I churned out more variations, but none of them achieved the fabulously chewy texture of the original recipe.

By then we were (much to our own surprise) sick of eating brownies, so I shelved the project. But a few months ago I was researching ways to make my homemade ice cream softer, and I discovered maltodextrin. It’s used in myriad foods, but particularly in beer and ice cream to provide a good mouthfeel without adding a lot of sweetness.

Inspiration struck: Texture. Without sweetness. Aha! The brownie project was revived.

Our local winemaking store carried maltodextrin, so I got some and mixed up my ingredients in a burst of misplaced confidence. This would be the perfect batch of chewy, delicious, not-too-sweet brownies!

Except…

It turns out maltodextrin isn’t particularly soluble. It’ll dissolve in water, but the only moisture in this recipe is provided by eggs. Not the same thing at all.

Unaware of the impending disaster, I beat the butter and eggs, added the sugar and maltodextrin… and stared in horror as the mixture curdled into pea-sized lumps.

I cranked up the mixer to its highest setting, but the lumps had the texture of finely-grated leather mixed with half-solidified glue. I could break one apart if I rubbed it between my fingers, but I didn’t feel like doing that for hours. So I got out my blender and set it to Turbo.

No dice. The lumps were impervious.

But I hated to waste half a pound of butter, four eggs, and two cups of sugar. As I was staring at the pox-riddled batter, Hubby passed through the kitchen. After considerable discussion and some hilarity, we decided to strain out the lumps and carry on. I’ll spare you a description of the mess that resulted; but in the end we did get tasty chewy brownies.

The only problem is, I have no idea how much maltodextrin actually got mixed in; and a considerable amount of butter and eggs got subtracted during the straining process. So I had to reduce the flour to compensate and… well, let’s just say that I still haven’t perfected that brownie recipe. But if I ever need leather glue, I’m all set! (Sorry, couldn’t resist the pun.) 😉

Any other creative cooks out there? What’s your most notable culinary ‘oops’?

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 39 and Aydan’s evidence trail has just hit a dead end. But the killers keep coming, so she’d better figure it out soon!

Feeding My Inner Brat

/ Diane Henders / 28 Comments

I usually try to eat a healthy diet (except for a once-a-week indulgence in beer and deep-fried food on Friday evenings). But I adore all types of food, and I especially love that glorious full-tummy feeling after a big luxurious meal.

So my food intake has always been a balancing act. I’m lucky to have a forgiving metabolism, so I rarely gain more than a few pounds before realizing it’s time to (re)adjust. But I have a definite cycle:

  1. Healthy food in healthy portions
  2. Healthy food in portions that slowly increase until the plate looks comfortably full
  3. Generous portions of mostly-healthy food with frequent treats
  4. Big satisfying portions, with unlimited snacks and treats, woohoo!
  5. *sound of squealing brakes* …and back to healthy food in healthy portions

Unfortunately, there’s a big ‘culture shock’ between steps 4 and 5. When my portions are suddenly reduced to normal, the plate looks sadly empty; and it takes a while for my brain to adjust to how ‘normal’ looks.

Part of the problem is that I don’t actually want to adjust. My inner spoiled brat is perfectly happy with lots and lots of food and treats, so she constantly tries to undermine the efforts of my inner (and rarely-displayed) adult. Last week I thought I had everything under control, but then this happened:

My inner brat is definitely getting trickier, but I think I’ve got her subdued… this time. Please tell me I’m not the only one with an inner spoiled brat!

Book 17 update: I’m on Chapter 26 — over half finished the book, hooray! Bullets are flying, and the guy Aydan just saved might turn out to be an enemy. There’s always something…

Beware the Dough-Snake!

/ Diane Henders / 34 Comments

Sunday evening I was making myself a cup of herbal tea, with my brain completely fried after a grueling weekend spent putting on the conference I mentioned in my last post.  I steeped my tea in the pleasantly dim kitchen, then groped for the compost bucket to dump my tea leaves.

But instead of the expected plastic lid, my hand contacted the soft bulge of something.  A cool, moist, yielding something that moved under my hand like a sleepy snake.

I yelped and recoiled, only to burst out laughing when I discovered that the ‘snake’ was… pizza dough.

We’d made pizza for supper, but as I was pressing the dough into the pan I discovered tiny metal flakes in it.  (Yes, that flour went back to the store ASAP!)  So I remade our pizza crusts from a fresh bag of flour and chucked the contaminated dough into the compost bucket.

But it’s a small bucket.  And yeast rises.  So by the time I zombie-shuffled over there in the late evening, the dough had pushed up the lid of the bucket and escaped, clearly bent on world (or at least garbage-bin) domination.

After patting my thumping heart back into my chest and wiping away my tears of laughter, I dumped the compost bucket out into the recycling green-bin we keep in the garage.  It’s a big bin; but nevertheless, the next morning I opened the door to the garage with caution… just in case the dough-snake had devoured the tasty contents of the bin and grown into a giant man-eating serpent overnight.

Fortunately, it hadn’t; and on Monday the dough-snake went into the collection truck with the rest of the recycling.  So I think we’re safe from compost serpents for now… but I’m still chuckling over my momentary adrenaline burst.

Any surprises in your world this week?

Writing update: I’m (finally!) putting the last of the conference stuff to bed today, and then I’ll start plotting Book 17, woohoo! Soon, soon…