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We had a lovely weekend attending the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductions, along with the Locus Awards. This year’s class of Hall of Fame inductees is:
Frank R. Paul
Michael Whelan
Connie Willis
Ed Ferman
Frank R. Paul was the first illustrator to make a living painting rocket ships and such — his images were the heart of the science fiction magazine look in the 20s and 30s. His daughters and grandson were in town for the induction – a delightful family, with lots of stories going way back into the history of the field. Here is Greg with the daughters, Patricia Paul Franzke and Joan C. Paul Engle.
The Locus Awards banquet features a lot of hilarity with a Hawaiian shirt theme — here is Greg with John Kessel, who had just finished teaching a week at Clarion West, and Connie Willis, who MCed the Locus Awards, post-banquet.
Connie, being a woman of exquisite taste and social responsibility, changed out of her rocket launch polyester Hawaiian shirt before the Hall of Fame induction. Greg, making it into the trivia contest because of his Lilo and Stitch Hawaiian shirt, blew away the competition by 1) knowing most of the answers and 2) having incredibily fast hand-raising reflexes. The prize was an autographed banana. This year, to have a permanent memento, there were two bananas, one real, one plastic.
The wardrobe creativity extended beyond Hawaiian shirts — there was a Hawaiian print kilt that I didn’t get a picture of, and Erica accessorized with a a wonderful mutant purse she made.
Part poodle, part bear, part monkey.
Perfect weather for the events, and yes, we kept watching the skies.
The real banana bravely met its inevitable fate, with a few raspberries from the garden for garnish.
Clearing out the odds and ends of unwritten blog posts from this month. Here, in no particular order, are the things I intended to write at greater length about but didn’t. And I’m all about the moving on, looking forward etc., so this probably all you are going to get.
Limoncello
Steeping
My dear friend Jurate went to Capri and brought me a back a lovely tea towel with a recipe for Limoncello on it. I love Limoncello, and decided to give it a try, using Meyer lemons, which just happened to be on special at the grocery. After four days of steeping, the infused vodka gets strained and mixed with simple syrup. So good! The Meyer lemon flavor definitely came through, a more perfumed sort of lemon.
Visitor
Cathy had most of a day to spare after Sock Camp, and we had made plans to go to EMP/SFM, then drop her off at the train station so she could catch the Empire Builder back to Wisconsin.
The EMP part worked fine:
Best purple/pink ever!
The “show off handknitted” socks part worked fine:
Where elite feet meet
Cathy’s dainty foot is in the sock she made from one of the yarns from my yarn club. My less dainty foot is in the sock I made from the Socks That Rock yarn that she gave me last year.
The find some lunch part worked fine:
What's coming next?
Here Cathy is looking (in vain) for tamago at Marinepolis Sushiland.
The get Cathy to the train station part seemed to work fine . . . until we got a call on the cell phone as we were heading to the freeway. She had misremembered the departure time, and missed the train. Oh no! We circled back, picked her up, and hoped we could make it to Everett in time to catch the train at the next stop. Zooming into the freeway, deftly moving through traffic, things were looking pretty good until the freeway came to a screeching halt. They were repaving large portions of the roadbed and three lanes were blocked for several miles. So we took her to our house, poured her a glass of wine, and let her settle in with some knitting.
At rest
Cathy managed to get a ticket for the next day’s Empire Builder, we had a spare bed for her, so it was all good.
Onwards to May!
- Some Merlot, please
The :Nota Bene 2006 wine release party was a fine event. This is third year we’ve gone, and this small winery located in a light industrial area of south Seattle continues to go from strength to strength. The grapes are sourced from eastern Washington, from the Columbia Valley, Yakima Valley, and Red Mountain appellations. We first became aware of them when co-owner Carol Bryant asked Greg to come to the party in 2007 to sign a book for her husband, co-owner Tim Narby, who is a big fan. She gave us some wine, we bought more, and have been coming back ever since.
- Carol, Tim, and Greg
Tim just happened to have a copy of City at the End of Time on hand, so got that signed this year, and we sipped our way through the new releases and chose a case to take home. They have a great Futures Club, where pre-ordering a case at the end of the year gets you a very nice discount on wine that you can taste, choose, and collect in March.
- No wine for the baby
Everyone had a lovely time, even if not everyone had wine.
New Year’s Day found me with a pot of Schi simmering on the stove, which I posted as my status on Facebook and got some questions about, of the “What’s Schi?” variety. Let me tell how I learned about it, and what it has become for our family.
Schi, simmering
Many, many years ago, Greg and I ran into our friends Rita and Julian Gilman at a movie theater one wintry night. After the show, they invited us for dinner. “We’ve got a pot of schi on the stove, there’s plenty!” So we went, and had steaming bowls of a remarkable soup, simple, hearty, warming, ample; everything a winter soup should be. Julian learned to make it from his Russian grandmother, and explained that the name Schi is a shorted version of Borschi, or Borscht. I’m not a Russian speaker, but I know that they like to make affectionate diminutives of names, and the word Schi strikes me as such a thing. I have great affection for this soup, and it’s become an annual ritual, making a large pot of it sometime after Christmas and sharing it with friends and family.
It’s not a beet borscht, but a cabbage one, and in this case the cabbage is in the form of sauerkraut. Do not fear the sauerkraut, all you sauerkraut-scaredy cats out there, because it is part of a harmonious whole, and does not make the soup taste of . . . y’know, sauerkraut.
Here’s the recipe — the method for measuring the spices strikes me as something very old, although the garlic powder must be a modern innovation.
SCHI
2-3 pounds chuck roast, cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes, excess fat removed
salt
black pepper
garlic powder
good quality sweet paprika
vegetable oil
2-3 large onions, peeled and cut into narrow wedges pole-to-pole
3-4 grated carrots
28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
1 package sauerkraut, drained and rinsed — If I can find it I prefer the kind that is in the refrigerated section, otherwise a good jarred sauerkraut will do
Make a pile of salt about 3/4 to 1 inch high. Cover with fresh ground pepper, then garlic powder, then paprika. Mix together, then sprinkle over the meat and pat it in evenly.
Brown the meat well in a large skillet in hot oil, cooking in 2 or 3 batches. Put meat into a large soup kettle — I use a 10 quart model. Deglaze the skillet with water and pour that into the kettle. Add remaining ingredients and cover generously with water. I bring the water up to about 2 inches from the top of my pot. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered for at least 3 hours.
Serve with sour cream and buttered caraway rye. Akvavit and herring is optional, but really takes it to the next level!
Schi with friends and family
For quite a few years now, our dear friends the Harrisons have joined us for Schi dinner. Jurate shares her Lithuanian holiday herring and bread bounty with us. It’s an evening we all look forward to, simple and satisfying.
Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, Kwanzaa, or just the general festive nature of this season, let me wish you a Merry, a Happy, and a Joyous.
The View From Here
May you find a patch of sunshine today, if only in your heart.
As I See It
