With the closing of Drollerie Press in 2011, I’ve shelved Darklaw. I create for pleasure not a paycheck, and there is little pleasure in the process of choosing and securing a publisher. I know this series will see publication down the road, but for those of you who don’t write, let me share this: getting published is a full-time enterprise, and I don’t mean self-publishing which is its own special hell. I mean the process of selecting a publisher that accepts your genre, that you trust, and that will actually accept you is so time-consuming and emotionally draining that it sucks the creative joy right out of you. Or at least me. So, along with a few other stories (like the historical “Stilicho’s Son”), Darklaw will have to await the birth of my work-in-process before it goes anywhere else.

Meanwhile, my work-in-progress, Darklord, is coming to life. Since I love graphic novels, I thought of going that way, but after a year of trying, I realize this series is too complex for such a presentation. But you likely get that comic feel from my illustrations. Also, I poked around with different media for the final pieces, including pencil, pen & ink, and coloring in Photoshop, but have returned to my first love, charcoal.

Charcoal is the media from my childhood. It’s inexpensive (relatively) and lets me get as intense as I want. I prefer form and line to color. It’s pure and powerful. My favorite comic book is still Savage Sword of Conan. I learned a lot from Ernie Chan and John Buscema. I plan an illustration with each chapter, which provides a wonderful rhythm to my coming year: creating the world in words and then in shades of black.

The first illustration from Darklord is on my Sketchbook page. It was a joy to do, over about 6 weeks.

* A note about comments: I’ve turned off comments on this blog because the amount of spam I need to filter is ridiculous. I appreciate comments and questions very much, so go ahead and email me or visit me on Facebook. author@teresawymore.com

Simple Breakfast Hash

Cut your favorite root vegetables into small cubes, saute (high heat, frequent stirring) in olive oil or grass-fed butter along with onion, garlic, and cumin. Get it good and brown, and if you use cast iron, the taste is better (and you get extra iron). I buy Kerrygold Unsalted Butter at a regular grocery store, but not in the health food section. It was actually next to the regular butter, likely because it’s not “organic”. This is a terrific meal–filling, comforting, nutritious, and grain-free! I use whatever I have: beets, potatoes, yams, carrots, turnips. I usually throw a few eggs on top.

Crockpot Cinnamon Lamb Shank

Lamb is fatty and sweet. My kids hate it, which means more for me. I’ve made Shepherd’s Pie with whatever vegetables I have around for the filling, plus ground lamb and potatoes. The browned potatoes get the kids to eat the whole thing.

But my favorite dish with lamb is an easy crockpot cooker. Salt and pepper a lamb shank or two. Throw them into a slow cooker. Add 1 cup dried apricots, 1 cup prunes. Mix together: 1 cup water, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves and pour over the lamb and fruit. Cook it all day! I added in a sirloin into the mix halfway through the day for the kids, and they loved it.

To the left is the lamb shank dinner, which includes Cabbage and Apples and Mashed Potatoes.

Cabbage and Apples

This is one of those foods I can eat every day, as a main dish (with sausage thrown in) or a side dish. Even my kids like it. I prefer red cabbage but here I used green. Chop up two or three large slices of cabbage and two apples. No peeling necessary. Cook them in a little water–just a cup or so–for about 30 minutes. I usually season with a teaspoon of caraway seed.

Mashed Potatoes

White potatoes are one of those empty foods–all calories, little nutrition. But having grown up on them, I find them one of my comfort foods. I gave them up for a long time, but have brought them back to our table because my kids love them. I’ve made them more nutritious by mixing in lots of grass-fed butter and unprocessed sea salt.

The grass-fed butter adds fat to the food, which is important for filling you up and slowing down the carbohydrate dump into your blood. The sea salt gives you minerals that you are NOT getting, which table salt does NOT have. Throw your Morton’s in the trash and buy the unprocessed gray or rose-colored stuff that clumps together. Then salt everything, because you are no longer getting enough salt if you eat like me. This is why the ancients used salt as money.

Peel, boil, mash the potatoes. Add 3-4 TBL grass-fed butter and 1-2 tsp sea salt.

Arrowroot Pizza Crust

Love thin crust pizza. I haven’t missed bread, pasta, cookies, cakes since I gave up grain, but I miss pizza.

I’ve tried a number of crusts using buckwheat, bean flours, and nut flours. I like them all but perfected my crust with: 1 cup arrowroot flour, 1 cup garbanzo bean flour, 1/2 cup almond flour, 1 egg, 2/3 cup unsweetened coconut milk, sea salt, 1 TBL garlic chopped, 1 TBL basil, 1/4 tsp red pepper, 2 TBL olive oil or lard. Mix it all and bake at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes on well-oiled pizza stone. Then add ingredients and cook for another 10 minutes on 350. This is not a dough you’re used to working with. VERY wet and sticky. It’s hard to spread and it can create large bubbles when baking, but it comes out crispy and light.

My ingredients usually include fresh spinach, onions, carrots, broccoli, peppers; pepperoni, ham, or bacon. If I use cheese, it’s mozarella and sparing. My sauce is made from tomato paste, sea salt, oregano, garlic, parsley and cayenne if I’m wanting it spicy.

Why Grain-Free?

As I read and research more about food in America, I find myself evaluating what is nutrient-rich, what is nutrient-depleting, and what is nutrient empty.

You’ll find lots of resources online: not just personal blogs like mine, but clinical journals sharing the latest research.

“Grain-free” is how I started, but you’ll find the same ideas discussed as “paleo” or “primal”. The trend in real food eating is the result of decades of research that tell us fats and proteins aren’t the cause of heart disease, diabetes, or obesity. High carbohydate diets, whether refined or whole grain, and contributed to by all the “vegetable” oils in everything processed, ARE the cause of obesity and malnutrition. Not to mention the rise in autoimmune diseases and possibly psychological illnesses like ADHD and Alzheimers. These oils (corn, soybean, canola, safflower, etc) are NOT vegetables. They are grains or seeds. These are grain oils and they are in every processed thing you eat from a box or restaurant and create a drastic imbalance in the omega fats (6 vs 3) you consume.

Dense nutrition comes from meat, vegetables, nuts, and fruits. Dairy is borderline. It doesn’t carry much nutrition (you do NOT need the calcium in dairy), but fermented dairy provides probiotics and saturated fat is good for you. (Read the scientific  literature and forget the 1950′s “conventional wisdom” about fat and cholesterol.) And then there is grain. Grain is only a filler, empty of nutrition and meant to substitute calories for the meat poor people could not traditionally afford, which is why manufacturer’s add B vitamins into flour. But grains are even detrimental: they block the absorption of important minerals (quit grain and your body will be absorbing all the calcium it needs).  The only use for grains, in my opinion, is fermented. As in beer!

At the same time, this change in nutrition means I’m going to the store more frequently to buy fresh. It also means nearly every meal is built from scratch. I’m finding that less of a problem as I get used to cooking this way. I’m finding more ways to prepare and combine foods, and always looking to keep it simple. We joined a CSA, and I’m getting meat once-a-month now, so having a large freezer is a good idea.

I eat more vegetables now than when I was a vegetarian. Likely, I eat more vegetabes than any vegetarian you know, because most vegetarians replace meat with grains rather than vegetables. I eat meat, fish, or eggs with every meal. At the same time, I’m always full and rarely snacky (and when I am, I snack on fast food: nuts).

I’ve lost the remaining fat I put on after having children and am still ticking off the pounds slowly, although I’m no longer trying. This is not primarily a weight loss effort. That’s one thing–maybe the ONLY thing–the government food groups, pyramids, pies, and plates have right: losing excess weight is paramount to good health. The rest of their guidelines are capitulations to lobbyists. They don’t have your best health in mind.

No measuring. No calorie counting. No detoxes. No rotation plans. No special shakes or pills. Grain-free makes it simple.

Having cooked a whole fryer last week, I had a bounty of meat, skin, bone, fat. The meat lasted us all week, from stir fry to sandwiches to barbeque. The fat I’m still using for flavoring. What to do with the skins?

I found a recipe to fry the skin just like bacon (salt and fry over medium heat until crispy). I was eager to try. And I was disappointed at the result.

Maybe it was a cultivated aversion acquired from years of (wrong-headed) warnings about eating fat and skin. Taste was likely affected by  the unappetizing appearance, and whether crispy or chewy afterward, it was just too, well, “chickeny”.

I used this recipe for Chicken Skin Tacos over at Simply Recipes but ended up seasoning the chicken meat for our meal with chili powder, cumin, garlic, salt, pepper.

My daughter loves fried chicken skin, but I’m sure it’s the fried breading she loves more than the actual skin. Hence, the dessert of Pringles.

For some discussion about lean meat and the limitations of that thinking, take a look at the discussion at Mark’s Daily Apple. Here’s a snippet:

My recommendations of “lean” presupposes that most of my readers do not have access to grassfed grass-finished meats (which are lower in Omega6 and higher in Omega3 and whose fat reserves do not act as repositories for all the chemical shortcuts factory farmers take…

Amaranth Crackers & Split Pea Soup

I’ve been finding that what I learned as bread maker does not follow when using non grain flours. The main one is that non grain flours will always be sticky, not just tacky or dry, and I never get a ball of dough. No kneading, no rolling, just pressing and spreading with fingertips or spatula.

Amaranth is a seed, not a grain, and these crackers are SIMPLE to make and very tasty.

Recipe: Amaranth Crackers

I picked up some amaranth seed at my co-op and boiled it 2 parts water to 1 part seed. Cook over low heat until thickened, say 15 minutes. It comes out looking like cream-of-wheat. The important thing is to let it cool and dry. The less water you work with, the less sticky and better these crackers bake.

After several batches, I found I had to let the “cereal” sit for a couple of hours. Then, I scooped small balls and flattened on a paper-lined baking sheet. They were still sticky, so I had to use a spatula and poke at them, rather than roll them out under another sheet of paper as some recipes suggest. I sprinkled lightly with salt and baked in a 325 degree for about 15 minutes (my oven tends to be cool). They were not overpowering or bland and made an excellent accompaniment to my Split Pea and Veggie Soup.

Recipe: Split Pea and Veggie Soup

My friend Suke used to make this and serve with some of the Co-op’s awesome bread when I visited her in Iowa City, lo’ those many years ago. I’ve been making it ever since.

Boil split peas in water 3-to-1 until tender, about 30-45 minutes. To thicken or enrich the soup, you can add any veggies. I avoid potatoes, which I rarely eat, and add whatever left-overs I have on hand. Nothing seems to overpower the taste of the peas, which is great because these peas are like nature’s candy! Lots of carrots give it a tartness and orangey color I like, and a little ham is heavenly. Season with salt, pepper, sage or garlic, onion.

After everything is boiled to softness, throw it in a blender and puree it until smooth. Serve with the amaranth crackers for a rockin’ grain-free meal.

BREAKFAST

Vegetable & Turkey Frittata, Apple, Grapes, Peanut Butter, Coffee, and a Good Book

Breakfast usually consists of coffee, eggs & veggies or bacon, fruit. My favorite breakfast/brunch has always been quiche. Now I eat it almost everyday, but without the crust. This is called a frittata.

This morning, I had breakfast with Steven Forrest

RECIPE: Vegetable & Turkey Frittata

Next, pour into the pan a mixture of four eggs that have been blended with pepper, a little parmesan or red wine if you like a richer flavor, and parsley and basil. Stir the mixture, then leave it to heat for about 5 minutes undisturbed until the bottom of the mixture is set.

Finally, slide the pan (be sure to use cast iron or something that can be put in the oven!) under your broiler for about 5 minutes to set the rest and brown the top. It’ll be done when it’s firm, brown, and fluffy. It keeps well, and I often make two or three meals out of one pan.

LUNCH & SNACKS

Romaine Sandwich (Romaine, Hummus, Spinach, Turkey), Cottage Cheese, and a Good Book

Life in the Fifth Century A.D.

An adult alive at the beginning of the fifth century would remember when the arms of Rome demolished pagan temples. They would remember the splitting of the empire between Theodosius’s sons, the unprecedented rise of the barbarian Stilicho, the last gladiatorial games, the end of the Olympic Games, relocation of the capitol from Rome to Ravenna, a handful of army revolts, imperial defeats, provincial usurpations, and a series of invasions by Alaric and his terrifying Visigothic Confederacy, which would culminate in the sacking of Rome for what many would know as the first time ever–beyond the mythic tales of Hannibal.

The resettlement of migrating tribes in the West had turned into a barbarian invasion, and since men sought to avoid military service through exemption or deception, the army dug deep to fill its ranks, even enlisting barbarian tribes to guard frontiers they had been ravaging the year before. The empire ceased to grow, its armies no longer paying for themselves with new lands and booty, leaving the poor and the merchants with the burden of financing an empire.

Demanded whenever money was needed, taxes had tripled in living memory, but the rich land-owners were often sheltered by exemptions. Many families began to sell what they had and attach themselves to working a farm, where they remained virtual slaves for generations. Those who failed to meet their tax debt could sell their children, and a thriving yearly market developed in southern Italy. A man could even sell himself into slavery, which was officially illegal, but like everything in Late Rome, the law served those who could afford to enforce it. There were no police.

A citizen could be flogged. He could be tortured. He could be extorted by corrupt officials. He ate porridge, drank watered-down wine, worked the land, enjoyed chariot races, and engaged in riots spurred by religious controversy. If he lived in a city, he used a public bathhouse and public latrine, a bench he shared with as many as twenty others at a time. He belonged to a guild that obliged him to serve in the fire brigade or dredge rivers or some other unpaid service.

A man would not likely live beyond the age of forty and die from an infectious disease. A woman would not live beyond thirty and die from a disease or in childbirth. A slave would not live beyond twenty, and he could be beaten, raped, or killed with impunity.

The senatorial aristocracy turned away from traditional duties, such as funding repairs, building aqueducts, or providing shows, and funneled their money into the growing Catholic Church, which replaced the declining civil government by establishing its own courts, care of the poor, land cultivation, and administrative hierarchies. Bishops became emperors of their domains, with slaves working Episcopal lands and a treasury spent at their discretion.

Catholic Christians worked to get other Christian sects declared heresy by imperial decree. Constantine had ended the persecutions of Christians generations before, but it was Theodosius who stripped off the symbols of worldly power and knelt before Ambrose, the stern little bishop who excommunicated an emperor. Theodosius begged forgiveness and the relationship between imperial Rome and the once-persecuted Church would never be the same.

As a dark age of orthodoxy descended on Rome, heretics were fined, beaten, deported, barred from civil and military service, not allowed to inherit, their property confiscated, their worship prohibited, and occasionally, they were even executed. There were no atheists. There were no pagans. And soon there were no heretics.

Welcome to Christian Rome.

1. Please give a three to five sentence blurb describing yourself.

Mostly, I’m a reaction. Everything about me is fluid, so who I am is wrapped up less in what I do, how I do it, and who I do it with than in my inability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. The blessing of age is that less of my existence depends on knowing that difference.

2. How do you define steampunk?

I define steampunk by its contradictions: gleaming gears of progress produced by parochial minds; a spirit of adventure set free by a culture that legitimizes colonialism; scientific discovery given meaning by a dogmatic religion. Although steampunk stories often focus on utopian dreams, I find the nightmares more compelling, because the price of progress is always human suffering. And how is inequity made acceptable? The 19th century answered that question with abominations like phrenology and social Darwinism, while today, we have pseudosciences like evolutionary psychology. Steampunk is a perfect genre for exploring such questions, whatever your world.

3. What was the inspiration behind your story?

My inspiration was The Island of Dr Moreau (HG Wells) and its interest in human exceptionalism: what makes us different from animals is an awareness of, and striving for, an ideal. The shadow side of idealism is that we cleanse ourselves of baser desires by projecting them onto others. Humans have a terrible capacity and unquenchable thirst for sensation and power. In “Under the Dome”, the shark-grafted Alice is disenfranchised and lives for the moment rather than for a future she doesn’t believe she has. Her passion, her power, is destructive rather than constructive, and her violence has nothing to do with the animal inside her. She doesn’t absolve her humanity by blaming the beast inside. What makes her most privileged makes her most guilty. In that way, with that honesty, she’s a hero, but the rest of the world holds fast to a “natural” stratification of races, classes, and species.

4. Do you have any previous experience writing LBGT fiction?

I’ve written primarily lesbian erotica and speculative fiction for anthologies and novels. As a writer, I love soaking the reader in sensual experiences that reveal private, irrational truths. As a reader, I’m often frustrated with stories that grant me access to every other arena but slam shut the door to the bedroom. After all, how much of who we are is expressed through sex and desire? My hope is that, one day, erotica will no longer be segregated as a genre, so the final public/private literary boundary will vanish.

5. What was the greatest challenge in writing this particular story?

The most difficult part of this story was limiting the sex! Despite how erotic content is often dismissed as distraction or sensationalism, sex is usually vital to telling my character’s story. Steampowered was not primarily an erotica project, but steampunk is a highly-textured aesthetic with its more organic and less industrial world. There was so much opportunity to expand the sensuality, especially with an impulsive character like Alice who experienced herself most fully through sensuality and sexual power.

6. Where do you see steampunk fiction going?

Steampunk is going everywhere, from plot-focused romps to political fantasies to studied social explorations. Steampunk has a grand future. Visually, it’s intriguing with its stylized organo-metallic aesthetic. Technology without industrialization, science acting like a religion, and culture battling conscience offer the writer complex cultures and deep human drama.

7. Where else can readers find your work?

I’ve been published in anthologies with Bella Books, Thunders Mouth Press, Cleis Press, Torquere Press, and Drollerie Press. I have several novels coming out from Drollerie, including Darklaw (the first of an erotic fantasy trilogy) and Stilicho’s Son (historical about Late Rome). I have a number of shorts and illustrations on my website http://teresawymore.com.

What did Emma know already at fourteen, when her insect-enhanced vision began to find such minute distortions in glass that telescopes around the world preferred her perfect lenses? Did she imagine herself at twenty-eight and understand that happiness would elude her, especially if she had everything she thought she wanted?

The disappointment of success was merely collateral damage from the impotence. I thought success would sustain me through the hollow moments, but every time I met Rip’s burning eyes from across the factory floor, I knew that was a lie. Duty can’t salve the wounds of my orphaned desire. Duty can’t overcome the craving that eats at my skin. In a world more archaic, when people had souls, I might have had a chance at disclosure, but nothing so unruly as desire can be honored where duty’s hegemony eclipses every impulse.

If I could talk to Emma, I would tell her you don’t live in the long view, eyeing the years as if they’re the culmination of a well-drafted plan. You live in the ink spills, and whatever you need to make each moment significant is what you use, because the only substitute for significance is suicide. And I have nine-hundred engines to go before Sunday.

I watched Rip working a wrench on the factory floor. All I wanted was to touch her magnificent shoulders. Her arm pivoted as she tightened a bolt. With each plunge of the wrench, shadows cut into her flesh as muscle tightened under pressure. An eruption of lines and veins flowed down the smooth skin of her arm, followed by sweat.

I thought I knew her before she ever spoke to me, before she breathed into my mouth or spread her legs. Her body’s reckless current once made me think she served the same compulsion, but she was a different breed. I spent nights between her legs and hated the lies, but the lust of those moments was never an aberration to be confessed or resisted. She was the hope of pulse and breath and life.

Rip paused to tip her cap back and spied me. She winked. I smiled. Then I stiffened. I smelled the Overseer before I heard him. He was standing behind me, his consumptive breath crackling. He coughed and leaned down to speak into my ear. “You failin’ your quantity, Alice.”

My station was at the end of the line, checking completed engines. Rip worked on the auxiliaries, which included the water pump and feedwater heaters. The Overseer was an observant man. He recognized my distraction. This wasn’t the first time he had come upon me watching Rip.

He leaned close, his stubbled beard scratching my ear. “The Master’ll strap you for each an’vry loss. Eight’s how I reckon it. Eight behind. Eight straps.” He laughed as he straightened, taking his diseased heat with him.

“Yessir,” I muttered.

“I’ll be there watchin’. I’ll be there.”

“No straps,” I said, trying to sound calm. “I’ll make it up.”

As he moved on, his broken laugh faded behind the metallic grinding.

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