Just The Caffeine Talking

Today's Menu

This year's Thanksgiving feast was an epic one. Five adults, including one teenage boy, means we can paint on a large canvas. The menu:

Oyster Patties

Cremant d'Alsace

Shrimp and Oyster Gumbo with Rice

Turkey Breast Sous Vide with Herbs — Turkey Breast Sous Vide with Harissa

Cote de Roussillon 2014

Cornbread and Oyster Dressing — Gravy

Cranberry Relish — Jellied Cranberry Sauce en Boite

Stuffed Mirlitons — Green Beans Amandine — Roasted Brussels Sprouts

Shaved Carrot Salad

Pecan Pie — Apple Pie

Coffee

Assorted Cheeses

Port

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Ancient Recipes

Very interesting BBC Travel story about re-creating ancient Mesopotamian recipes. Read it here. They include a lamb stew which sounds worth trying. 

The only surprising thing, really, is that anyone should be surprised that people living nearly 4000 years ago ate much the same things their modern descendants do. Food is a bedrock of culture — it's transmitted by families, not governments or schools; it reflects not only the traditions of the people but the land and its products; and foods seldom become obsolete. (I say seldom because it does seem that a lot of people in the Old World cheerfully gave up on turnips once they got their hands on potatoes.) Few regimes in history have been so totalitarian as to attempt to control how their subjects cook (though sadly more than a few have managed to prevent their subjects from getting any food at all).

If I do get around to trying the recipe, I'll write up an after-action report. If anyone else cares to tackle it, please share your results!

Philcon 2019!

This weekend I'll be attending the venerable PhilCon convention, in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. That's near enough to Philadelphia that you can still get scrapple for breakfast, so I guess it qualifies. Here's my schedule. Stop by and say hi!

Fri 6:00 PM in Executive Suite 623: READINGS — PAUL LEVINSON, APRIL GREY, JAMES CAMBIAS

    I'll be reading a chapter from my forthcoming novel The Initiate.

Fri 7:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Promenade: AUTOGRAPHS — PAUL LEVINSON, APRIL GREY, JAMES CAMBIAS

Fri 8:00 PM in Plaza II: CREATING IDIOMS FOR FANTASY WORLDS

    [Robert C. Roman (mod), Alex Shvartsman, D.L. Carter, James Cambias, Ann Zeddies]

    What do you have your characters call a French braid in a world where France doesn't exist? How do you fill the descriptive lacunae created when you want to avoid language that's anacosmistic?

Fri 11:00 PM in Crystal Ballroom Three: EYE OF ARGON INTERACTIVE

    [Mark Singer (mod), Keith DeCandido, B. Lana Guggenheim, Michael Ventrella, James L. Cambias]

    Yes, I'm going back for another struggle to keep from cracking up as I read from the charmingly inept Conan knockoff The Eye of Argon. Pray for me.

Sat 11:00 AM in Plaza II: WRITING FOR ALIENS — FAMILY AND SOCIAL STRUCTURES

    [Sally Wiener Grotta (mod), Tom Purdom, Ann Zeddies, Chris Kreuter, James Cambias]

    What if a species had no concept of marriage, or placed no value on raising one's own offspring? How would you write a culture that valued other relationships over ones that are viewed as the most important to humans without them coming across as cold and uncaring?

Sat 2:00 PM in Plaza II: OBSOLETE SCIENCE

    [Earl Bennett (mod), Michael Swanwick, James L. Cambias, James Beall, B. Lana Guggenheim, Russell J. Handelman]

    Remember when spaceships went whizzing through the ether? Remember the hollow earth? What obsolete scientific ideas shaped SF, and which ones still persist in it?

Sat 5:00 PM in Plaza III: HOW TO SERVE OUR NEW ROBOT OVERLORDS

    [Simone Zelitch (mod), David Walton, Dr. Valerie Mikles, Bruce Dykes, James L. Cambias]

    What it says on the tin.

Sat 7:00 PM in Plaza II: THE EVOLUTION OF MARS

    [Darrell Schweitzer (mod), John Ashmead, Tom Purdom, James Cambias, Earl Bennett]

    How have depictions of Mars changed in SF from the imaginings of Burroughs and Bradbury to the Mars we know now from studying its surface?

Sat 8:00 PM in Plaza III: GREAT SCIENCE FICTION MCGUFFINS

    [Mary Spila (mod), Joe Siclari, Richard Stout, Christopher Hinz, James L. Cambias]

    Alfred Hitchcock defined the McGuffin as the 'object' everyone in the story is looking for. This can be anything from a secret formula to a magic amulet to a living being. Which have been the genre's most interesting ones?