While I keep very close track of the traditional holidays, I tend to ignore the civil holidays, so when someone says something about “the holiday” or “the long weekend” around Labor Day or Memorial Day or whatever, I often have to ask “What holiday?” because I honestly don’t remember. So when Chekhov texted me late last week proposing he and Yellowbird come by on Sunday to spend the afternoon and grill some burgers, it did not at first occur to me that there was a holiday adjacent to that. Not that it really mattered one way or the other; one nice thing about everyone in our little circle being retired is that we needn’t wait for permission to have a cookout. I had two pie crusts left from making a batch of crust last week, so it was simplicity itself to walk outside, pick a bowl of plums, wash them, pit them, combine 5 cups of them them with 3/4 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 tsp allspice and 1/4 cup of apple cider, mix all that up and put it in the crust, and bake it at 375o for 50 minutes. And boom, plum pie; there’s something extra-satisfying about a pie when the fruit was still on the tree 15 minutes before it went into the oven. As I’ve said before, presentation isn’t my strong point; I probably put just a little too much fruit in, and the crust broke where it boiled out. But what it lacked in looks, it made up for in taste.
Posts Tagged ‘recipes’
Diary #792
Posted in Diary, tagged recipes, Sunset on September 2, 2025| Leave a Comment »
Diary #782
Posted in Diary, Fiction, Philosophy, tagged Grace, imaginative fiction, Lost Angels, psychology, recipes, Sunset, Who in Review on June 24, 2025| 1 Comment »
We had another unusually-chilly spring this year, so I didn’t trust my tomato plants outside until this past weekend; if they can’t survive in the first week of summer, I’ll just have to throw up my hands in despair. But though the temperatures haven’t been quite summery, even by Olympic peninsula standards, the days are as long as they’re going to get, and that means my seasonal anxiety is back. As I’ve noted in the past, it isn’t nearly as bad since I moved to Sunset as it was in Seattle, probably because the quiet of the countryside counteracts some of it, while the noise and commotion of the city aggravates it. But this year, it sneaked up on me because I’ve been attributing my emotional stress to grief. It wasn’t until a week or so ago that I asked myself why that should be worse now than it was immediately after Grace’s death, or in the first few months afterward; I only just realized that as is typical for me, the anxiety runs under the surface and breaks out at weak points. Expressed another way, the anxiety is acting as fuel for my grief, making it just as intense as it was in January and February, and more intense than it was in March and April. But now that I’m done with Who in Review (and have even set up my store to sell autographed copies), I have time and space in my life to do some creative writing again. I’ve already written two new stories for Lost Angels, with a third probably coming this week; it’s percolating through my brain, going through the alchemy by which grief, loss, and pain are transmuted into art, much like a compost heap transmutes organic garbage into humus for growing new plants. When the tomatoes are ready, I’ll use some of them to make salsa from the recipe Grace and I developed late last summer. And when Lost Angels is published, the pain I’m enduring now will have given rise to beauty I can share with the world.
Diary #747
Posted in Diary, tagged recipes, Sunset on October 22, 2024| Leave a Comment »
There aren’t many apples this year, but I’m sure I can get a few pounds of them. So I gathered all the remaining (mostly green) cherry tomatoes and small tomatoes from my plants, and was just able to get two pounds of those as well. I was able to make serviceable mince meat last year, but only by fiddling and adjusting so much I couldn’t actually get a finalized recipe to write down. So this year it’s back to the drawing board, trying to reverse engineer the recipe again, because the combined fruit volume shrunk by much more than I expected last time. This time I’m going to go by weight rather than volume; I expect that won’t change as dramatically, because even though some water will boil off, I’ll also be adding sugar. Even though I did make six pints of salsa this year, it feels wrong to not have enough fruit for even two pies; here’s hoping I can get the proportions finalized this time, so next year it’ll be a breeze. Unless we don’t have any fruit again, of course, but I hope it’s unlikely that will happen two years in a row.
Treats and Tricks
Posted in History, Links, Miscellaneous, tagged adolescence, advertising, Antarctica, Arizona, artificial stupidity, California, China, comics, cops, disease, Florida, Georgia, holidays, Hollywood, illegal aliens, imaginative fiction, libraries, Missouri, Nevada, New York, psychology, recipes, robots, South Carolina, United Kingdom on October 21, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I’ve always been dedicated to the idea of this as the time of year for spooky fun. So every year I collect all the spooky, creepy or scary content from the previous year into one place just before Halloween. If you’ve come to my blog in the past year, or don’t remember previous editions, they are “Trick or Treat”, “More Trick or Treat“, “Tricks and Treats“, “This Trick’s a Treat”, “Tricky Treats“, “A Trickle of Treats”, “Tricking and Treating“, “Tricks for the Treat“, “Tricked Out Treats“, “Tricks and Treats and Such Small Deer“, and “Trick Treatment“. Horror, death or Halloween-themed columns of the past year included Day of the Dead 2023, Diary #697, and “Why Zombies?” There are creepy or spooky-fun videos in Links #695, #698, #721, #722, #739, #745, and #746, and a collection of seasonal links appears below.
- Sounds legit.
- Nightmare of the week.
- Lovecraftian algorithms.
- Alien: The Short Version.
- Horror movie locale map.
- This is a really scary story.
- I hate it when this happens.
- At the Mountains of Madness.
- Lovecraftian romance comics.
- I’m also not very fond of this.
- The Onion, on a seasonal roll.
- Recipes from Aleister Crowley.
- I hate when this happens, too.
- Black humor is the best humor.
- The Onion has a gift for horror.
- Another nightmare of the week.
- The Terrible Secret of Tom Bombadil.
- The legend of the black-eyed children.
- I don’t use the word “ghoulish” lightly.
- Mummy cheese from the Leng Plateau.
- On Corman’s Masque of the Red Death.
- The US only thinks it has immigration issues.
- Cop shoots up a grade-school Halloween party.
- This happens more often than you might think.
- Strange immigrants in small New England town.
- “I am not that daemon swineherd in the twilit grotto!“
- It’s almost like scientists never watch science fiction shows.
- “Haskell tried to pass the body parts off as Halloween props.“
- “There is always this urge to use [new technology] to contact the dead“.
Diary #743
Posted in Diary, tagged recipes, Sunset on September 25, 2024| Leave a Comment »
Apparently, the weird weather we had at Sunset this year favored tomatoes, because we had quite a few. I’ve made fried green tomatoes 3 times and will probably make more; I also have some green cherry tomatoes that I’ll be using for mincemeat if the apple trees cooperate. But we had far more ripe cherry tomatoes than we could use for salad (because I don’t eat salad), so I decided to make salsa (which is a staple in this house thanks to Grace). What you see in the picture below is two pounds of cherry tomatoes; I chopped them up pretty thoroughly in my ninja, then finely chopped half a medium-sized onion, half a bell pepper and four cloves of garlic, and sauteed them for a few minutes in two tablespoons of olive oil. I mixed that with the tomatoes and added the following: 1 small can (4 oz) of diced, roasted green chiles; two tbsp each of vinegar, cilantro, and chili powder; and 1/2 tsp each of salt, granulated garlic, extra-hot (Indian) chili powder, cayenne, and MSG. Now, I didn’t just dream up those proportions; I started with half the tomatoes and none of the spices, and Grace and I repeatedly taste-tested the salsa, adding or increasing ingredients as we went, until about two hours later we had something we were both happy with. It made enough for two pints and a bit left over, and the full jars are in the canner right now as I type this. I’ll let you know how it comes out, but I think we may have a winner!
Diary #733
Posted in Diary, tagged recipes, Sunset, Washington (state) on July 16, 2024| 1 Comment »
The heat wave hung on until a week ago today, and though it wasn’t as bad as some of the heat waves we’ve had in recent years, it was bad enough (especially since I still haven’t managed to shake that allergy yet). Most summer days we’re in the low 20s Celsius, with occasional surges to the high 20s and plenty of sunshine and no rain at all. It looks like it’s pretty good for my tomatoes, as long as I keep watering them every day; I also need to fill troughs for for the animals nearly every day because the evaporation rate is pretty high this time of year (in sharp contrast to the ten months of the year that aren’t named after Roman emperors). All in all the summers here are much more annoying to me due to excessive light than to excessive heat, but when we do get the occasional heat wave in a house without air conditioning, icebox cake is a lovely cooler.
Crumpets
Posted in Diary, Miscellaneous, tagged recipes, United Kingdom on July 12, 2024| Leave a Comment »
I hadn’t made crumpets in a while, and was craving them recently so I made a batch. Several people on Twitter & BlueSky expressed interest, so I decided to share my recipe. You can’t make them without crumpet rings; when I got mine they were fairly difficult to find, but I imagine finding them on the internet would be no big deal. Since crumpets are eaten toasted anyhow, it’s best to make these earlier in the day or even the day before you actually want them. I’m assuming most of my UK readers who cook already have a recipe, so I’ll just use standard US cooking measurements here.
2 1/4 cups flour
1 packet yeast (I like the quick-rise kind)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp warm water
1) Mix milk, 1 1/2 cups warm water, salt & sugar in a small saucepan and heat until warm (not hot). Mix flour and yeast; add liquid and beat with electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, then high for 3 minutes. Cover with a towel and let stand in a warm place for 1 hour.
2) Mix baking soda into the 2 tbsp warm water; add to the batter and mix well. I usually just let my stand mixer set up during the wait time so I don’t have to dirty another beater. Let stand covered in a warm place for 10 minutes; meanwhile, grease crumpets rings, place them on a griddle or large skillet, and preheat over medium heat.
3) Ladle the batter into each ring, filling about 3/4 of the way up. Cook for 5-7 minutes or until the tops are mostly dry (the middles will usually be still wet). Remove rings with kitchen tongs and set aside; flip each crumpet with a spatula and cook for another minute. Remove to a cooling rack.
TIPS: Keep your eye on the griddle temperature; I use a cast-iron skillet so I usually need to nudge the heat down after the first batch to avoid burning the bottoms. Also, since you want to regrease the rings for each batch, I find cooking spray is the fastest & easiest way to go.
SERVING: Toast the crumpets when you’re ready to eat them; I find it’s best to do them just a notch lower than you would sliced bread (unless you’re one of those barbarians who like your toast burnt, in which case do them several notches lower). They’re great with butter, clotted cream, jam or marmalade, lemon curd, anything like that. One of my readers said he likes them with Marmite, which I have not tried but sounds interesting. This recipe will make roughly a dozen or just under, so put any you’re not going to eat that day in a sealed Tupperware-type container. Anyway, that’s all there is to it; the thing I love best about them is their texture, much more like a proper waffle or pancake than an English muffin. Enjoy!
Links #726
Posted in Current Events, History, Links, Miscellaneous, Music, Obituary, Tyranny, tagged animals, artificial stupidity, California, cops, drugs, Google, hysteria, I’m Sure You Feel Safer Now, illegal aliens, internet, Italy, Japan, Never Call the Cops, pizza!, propaganda, psychology, recipes, Things We Choose To Do Together, United Kingdom, video on June 3, 2024| Leave a Comment »
In…40 years…I have never seen that level of deliberate cruelty by the police. – Jerry Steering
I have never understood why many of the same critics who love the Sherman Brothers’ work for Disney dislike their comparable work in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is why I feature a video from the latter every chance I get. The links above it were provided by Dan Savage, Jesse Walker, Popehat (x2), Mike Masnick, Kevin Wilson, and Mistress Matisse, in that order.
- R.I.P. Richard Sherman.
- Much obituary. Very sadness.
- Artificial stupidity in the kitchen.
- I’m sure you feel much safer now.
- The funniest thing I’ve read this year.
- The US only thinks it has immigration issues.
- Government is just a word for the things we choose to do together.
From the Archives
- Prohibition turns bodies into “crime scenes” which cops can violate at will.
- Sleeping with a cop is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do.
- Laws like this have already been ruled unconstitutional by the 4th Circuit.
- Cops will never stop doing this until the state stops giving them pretexts.
- Politicians don’t even try to make their new laws Constitutional anymore.
- The hotel industry is really going to regret its collaboration with fanatics.
- It’s good to see a government hoist with its own “sex trafficking” petard.
- I was fated to be threatened with state violence regardless of my career.
- Psychopathy is typical in politicians, but these laws are wholly deranged.
- I’m sure they helpfully yelled “Stop faking!” at this little girl as she died.
- Denying meds to caged people is silently yelling “Stop faking!” at them.
- They make this sound like the bureaucrat was doing his victims a favor.
- The Dutch scheme to Disnify De Wallen is no longer merely a scheme.
- Laws enabling nuisance lawsuits will grow until ruled unconstitutional.
- When will the federal government finally read the writing on the wall?
- One would think that the title “youth pastor” would be a big red flag.
- The best way to accomplish prohibitionist goals is to buy politicians.
- Cops will continue to do this until there are criminal penalties for it.
- The 5th Circuit sucked Louisiana politicians’ dicks on this in 2018.
- June 2nd is a day for sexual outlaws, not well-behaved “workers”.
- “Sex predators” are mostly men with authority over their targets.
- Cops, antimatter, Tina Turner, George Maharis, and much more.
- The censors are growing bold enough to admit their real goals.
- Occasionally, cops’ lies are too outrageous even for politicians.
- Prohibitionists’ real goal is to completely ban online sex work.
- If this doesn’t horrify you, you haven’t been paying attention.
- Over half of Americans now live in states with legal cannabis.
- Letting government dictate what constitutes “disinformation”.
- The 2nd installment of a multi-part review of the Buffyverse.
- The problem isn’t religion; it’s blind submission to authority.
- Looks like the judge didn’t buy his “porn addiction” excuse.
- Just another of those nonexistent false rape accusations.
- Retrospectives of my blogging from May 2012 and 2013.
- French law provides some defense vs religious activism.
- Indian sex workers have awaited this ruling for years.
- A collection of essays for International Whores’ Day.
- Whores’ Day is not an occasion for sanitized words.
- Cops, dentists, mutant hamsters, and much more.
- Cops, kinks, robots, Eric Carle, and much more.
- Fake client texts from an unscrupulous ad site.
- Opening up my new paddock extension.
- I wonder when Hollywood will catch up?
- Instagram and TikTok users, take note.
- Fixing the wiring problems at Sunset.
- Nearly finished with the atrium roof.
- Sows hoist with their own petard.
- Rapist/murderer cop of the week.
- And it can find you just as easily.
- Rapist cop of the week.
- Building a new stable.
- Stop faking!
I find paywalls distasteful, and so many people find this blog valuable as a resource I just can’t bring myself to install one. Furthermore, I find ad delivery services (whose content I have no say over) even more distasteful. But as I’m now semi-retired from sex work, I can’t self-sponsor this blog by myself any longer. So if you value my writing enough that you would pay to see it if it were paywalled, please consider subscribing; there are four different levels to fit all budgets. Or if that doesn’t work for you, please consider showing your generosity with a one-time donation; you can Paypal to maggiemcneill@earthlink.net or else email me at the same address to make other arrangements. Thanks so much!
Patterns
Posted in Biography, Miscellaneous, Music, tagged animals, holidays, psychology, recipes, video on May 27, 2024| Leave a Comment »
One of the main manifestations of my OCD is that I have a system for nearly everything I do. My readers can see it in my blog: a new post every day, always at the same time, with certain kinds of columns appearing on certain days of the week and/or month in a strictly-managed format. There’s even a lot of deep structure in the blog that few of y’all probably even notice, but which in my mind is an integral part of the blog’s structure. And beneath that is another layer of organization completely invisible to y’all: I write certain kinds of columns on certain days, and to a lesser extent certain times of day. For example, I’m typing this on the evening of Tuesday, May 21st, because (unless life forces me to do it another time) I write Monday columns on the preceding Tuesday (after two of the news items for the next Saturday’s news column). I pore over Twitter with my breakfast, collecting news items, commenting on what I find, and promoting things I’ve already written; I’m generally done about noonish and then move on to my morning ablutions, followed by my chores. Afternoons vary by the day; I usually wash clothes on Monday and Friday, and also do my groceries on Monday. Other days are for appointments or weekly chores like vacuuming the floor or burning the garbage, and some days I actually manage to sneak in some other task I want to accomplish like baking cookies or tackling some kind of odious paperwork. I cook dinner nearly every day, and there are patterns there too: red beans & rice on Mondays, soup & sandwich on Tuesdays, pasta on Thursdays, meatless Fridays, Tex-Mex Saturdays. My cooking patterns aren’t merely daily and weekly, either; I usually make waffles on the first Friday of every month because we only eat a few, and the rest go into the fridge so Grace can rewarm them in the toaster oven for breakfast. And similar patterns apply to other day/month combinations, which are of course subject to interruption by seasonal events; on top of that the times I cook, turn the lights on, feed the animals, and other such tasks follow a set schedule which varies by season. Overwhelmed? I’m not, because that’s how my brain works. And directing my OCD toward scheduling chores and planning meals keeps me from obsessing too much about far more distracting minutiae, even though I also have the counting to 16 thing.
Yes, They’re Still Tweets
Posted in Biography, Fiction, Miscellaneous, Philosophy, Tyranny, Words, tagged abortion, Alabama, animals, artificial stupidity, asset seizure, blogging, Bluesky, censorship, consensual crime, cops, drugs, fascism, Idaho, imaginative fiction, internet, language, law, lawheads, left-right myth, marriage, politicians, pragmatism, prisons, propaganda, psychology, recipes, restaurants, robots, social purity, STEM, Twitter, violence vs. sex workers, yellow journalism, yin and yang on May 24, 2024| Leave a Comment »
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