What do superheroes eat? An Open Book Blog Hop post

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What does the food your characters eat reveal about their personality?

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Food comes up surprisingly often in the Menopausal Superheroes novels. Maybe this is just because I lean towards being a foodie myself, or maybe it's because I like to show my heroes in domestic settings and food is a part of that. 

But let's take this hero by hero. 

Jessica "Flygirl" Roark: Even before she became a superhero, Jessica had no interest in cooking. 

Her bestie, Leonel, despairs of the beautiful kitchen in her fancy house "going to waste." 

In her first marriage, she and her husband bought a lot of pre-prepared foods or picked up takeout when they were out. During her cancer treatments, they used a meal service. 

In her single-mom years, she tried to do a little better, but it was hard to develop kitchen skills and save the city in her new role as Flygirl, so her boys had their favorite pizza place on speed dial. 

Things are looking up now that she's remarried. Walter is a scientist, and cooking is a science of sorts. He's got a penchant for pancakes and other carb-heavy meals, but superhero work requires a fair number of calories, so it's working out well!

Leonel "Fuerte" Alvarez: The foodie of the group. 

Before the mad-science changes that gave him super-strength and changed his gender, Leonel was abuelita to several grandchildren, spoiling them with tamales, biscochitos, conchitas, enchiladas, posole, and countless other Mexican-American masterpieces. 

That hasn't changed, though the fancy meal prep happens a little less often now that he's on call to rescue the citizens of Springfield when the need arises. 

He still loves to spend the morning in the kitchen and the evening watching everyone he loves enjoy his creations. 

His husband, David, has learned that sometimes a tres leches cake means there's bad news coming, but it doesn't stop him from digging in. Bonus! Their house nearly always smells of coffee and cinnamon.

Patricia "Lizard Woman" O'Neill: Patricia likes the finer things in life. Designer bags, expensive travel, theater tickets, visits to the spa, and fine dining. 

Overcoming her humble beginnings as the eldest daughter of an often-married and just as often divorced mother, she worked hard and made personal sacrifices to get to a position where she could afford to indulge. 

She is proud of making her way up to Vice President even though she started her career in the later 1970s, when the glass ceiling was definitely still firmly in place. 

Her condo is provisioned with the basics and she can whip up an omelet like nobody's business, but after spending her younger years flipping burgers and slinging milkshakes, she thinks her time is better spent on something other than cooking. 

Sometimes she and Suzie, her girlfriend and sometimes sidekick, like to stay home and get takeout Chinese, but they're definitely first in line when a new restaurant opens in Springfield, ready to find out if the fuss is worth it. 

The other characters in the series have some opinions about food, too, but I'll save them for another day. Does food play a big role in books you write or like to read? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments! 

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Cooking Disasters: An Open Book Blog Hop Post

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Have you or any of your characters experienced cooking disasters?

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Among my Menopausal Superheroes, there's a variety of cooking prowess.

Patricia "The Lizard Woman" O'Neill doesn't cook. She totally could, but she doesn't. It's takeout and restaurants for her and she's proud to have gotten to a point where she can afford that. 

Helen "Flamethrower" Braeburn burnt down her apartment in book one, and has been incarcerated here lately, so she hasn't had much opportunity to cook. She was never enamored of the culinary arts, but she was competent, once upon a time. 

Linda/Leonel "Fuerte" Alvarez is a wizard in the kitchen, and feeding people is their love language. I so want to be able to have dinner with the Alvarez family! Their tamales are divine and their tres leches cake can soothe a savage beast. 

Jessica "Flygirl" Roark, on the other hand, never learned to cook, though she has a gorgeous, fancy kitchen. In book two, she tries to impress her new boyfriend, Walter, by cooking for him. I don't know if I'd call it a real disaster, but they did end up going out for pizza. 

As for the author? Well, I have a mixed kitchen history. I've always loved baking, but didn't have much interest in cooking as a young woman. My first husband, starting when he was my boyfriend, did all the cooking for us and I happily let him. I baked bread and sweets, but not the day to day foods. 

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There was only one memorable disaster from that phase of my life: the time I made garlic bread without understanding the difference between "clove" and "head" of garlic. Let's just say we were safe from vampires. 

After we divorced, I moved back in with Mom and Dad for a while, and I quickly got frustrated with their boxes-and-cans style of cooking, so I picked up my mom's old Better Home and Gardens cookbook and started teaching myself to cook. 

It's a good learners' cookbook--straightforward, well-explained, and with the steps in logical order. After a few months, I considered myself pretty kitchen-competent. 

My then-boyfriend, now-husband was a more adventurous eater, so when I started cooking with and for him, I stretched to try new things. 

The most memorable cooking disaster from that phase of my life involved not understanding the difference between different kinds of peppers at the grocery store. My dad doesn't eat peppers in any form, so I didn't have any cooking experience with them. 

I picked habañeros because they were pretty and nearly melted both our mouths off with an otherwise pretty good curry. Sweetman gamely kept going until he was visibly sweating, poor boy. I couldn't convince him it was okay not to eat it. 

I've gotten better, and learned to do my research since then. (Jalepeños would have been more appropriate for that recipe). 

All my other disasters have been less dramatic--things like undercooked chicken because the recipe estimate for cook time was too short, or cutting myself when I tried to chop too quickly, bread that didn't rise properly, etc. 

How about you? Any memorable cooking disasters in your life or in any books you've written or read? I'd love to hear about them in the comments! 

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My Apocalypse Kitchen: Eating Well Helps

Food is one of my love languages, so here in our time of crisis, I've turned to my kitchen to prepare comforts for myself and my family. Even though I didn't learn to cook until I was in my thirties, I've become a pretty decent and adventurous home cook in the intervening years. I never would have expected to take so much pleasure in preparing food for my family, but I really really do.

I don't always get to cook the way I want to. We're busy people, and often have to plan a meal based more on speed of preparation and facility of reheating than on taste or nutritional value. Since I teach for a living, the amount of standing time is usually a factor, too--I can't handle something that requires too much on-my-feet-time when I've just been on my feet for eight hours already. I'm getting old, y'all. The feet can't take it!

But without commutes and evening commitments, we have more time. Teaching from home is *way* easier on my poor little feet, too.

I've collected a fair amount of ambitious kitchen equipment that doesn't usually sees much use in the hurly burly of my lightspeed life. Standing mixer, fancy blender, food processor, insta pot, etc. Now I finally have time to play with all my kitchen toys!

We also have a good collection of spices and herbs, bought a jar at a time over the past few years as we tried out culinary experiments. And we managed to get our deep freeze and pantry stocked with meats and other useful things before the crisis hit.

All this together means that we're eating well during the Corona Crisis!

Here's what we've been having:

Week One: The Dinner Plan: We comforted ourselves with current favorites, mostly from The Dinner Plan cookbook by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion. I've been a devotee of this cookbook for a year or so, ever since taking a class with one of the authors at A Southern Season (a fancy kitchen store near us that recently closed). 

It's a great recipe book for a busy household. Recipes are categorized and tagged with helpful headers like "staggered" (for meals that can be served in shifts without loss of taste), "make ahead" (for when you can't cook tomorrow, but you still want to eat), "one dish" (when mess matters as much as taste), and "extra fast" (when speed is your top priority).

We also love this one because the dishes are diverse and interesting enough to please my husband and me, but not so fancy or alien that the picky twelve-year-old won't eat them.

Sheet-Pan Fajitas, Japanese-Style Fried Chicken, Turkey Meatballs with Yogurt Sauce, Crunchy Pork Cutlets, and Beef Stew in a Hurry found their way to our dinner table in the first week of school from home and work from home.

Each can be prepared in a half hour or so (though it always takes me longer the first time I make a new recipe). Even after a year, there are still some wonderful sounding meals in these pages that I haven't yet tried making, and we've only had one or two that didn't have the family excited.

Week Two: Curry and Experiments:  When we moved into the second week, I pulled out 660 curries by Raghavan Iyer, a cookbook I bought shortly after I married my husband and found out that he loves Indian food. Even though that's "been a minute" now, I haven't made even a third of the recipes in this book yet. 

Our youngest, as mentioned, is picky. So, in the past, we've mostly made curries on "just us two"

nights--which didn't happen all that often. I made Yogurt-Almond Chicken, something I make a couple of times of year and never fails to please us. We were prepared to give the kiddo a frozen pizza or something if she didn't like it, but she surprised us by enjoying it, too.

A plus side of making curry is how wonderful it makes the whole house smell. It's high prep, requiring grinding of spices and blending of marinades, but well worth it!

I have come to enjoy making something more complicated. On top of pleasing our palates, it gives me a feeling of accomplishment and pride in my kitchen skills. Indian dishes often have me reaching for seldom used kitchen equipment as well, which is like getting to play with new toys.

Because trying new things is part of how I stay interested in cooking, I pulled out Keepers by Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion, the same authors who put together The Dinner Plan. I bought it at the same time, but hadn't yet used any of the recipes inside. They always looked just a little too fancy for the youngest Bryant, or too long in prep time for a week night.

But my parameters have changed! So, we've now tried the Chicken Pot Pie recipe (delish!), Miso-Lime Chicken Lettuce Wraps (tasty, if less wow-ing), Asian Pork Sliders with Magic Miso-Mayo (the kiddo LOVED these), and Sausage and White Bean Gratin (a new favorite for the adults).

We have plans to try Chicken and Rice with Ginger-Scallion Sauce and Japanese Style "Meat and Potatoes" in the next few days, assuming our next foraging trip to the grocery store can fill in a few ingredients.

A lot of things are hard about staying at home, even for a group of introverts like us.

I'm so grateful to have this way of taking care of myself and my family. When the house smells of cooking spices, we know that happiness follows.

What are you eating during this time at home? Were you already a cook? Are you learning? Do you lean toward easy comforts or daring experiments when you need comfort and distraction?

I'd love to hear about your apocalypse kitchen in the comments!

Sometimes I feel I've got to run away: Writer's Retreat!

I love my family and my teaching life, but sometimes they feel like they're going to squash me. At the worst of times, it's like people are grabbing chunks of me and carting them off, and at the end of the day, all that remains is a pile of vibrating nerves that no one else wanted.

All my life, writing has been where I run away to when there's too much. It's solitary, but creative and productive: at the end of it, I've created something. It's personal and self-expressive even when it's fiction. It satisfies something deep within me that can't be soothed by any other means. It's why my daily writing time matters so very much. Even when my writing feels stymied, it's still a selfish little moment that is only about what I want to create. It really is a mental health release valve for me, even more than walking (and walking helps me immensely, too).

This past weekend I was lucky enough to get run away from my regular life for three days for a writer's retreat. I spent those days in a lovely mountain house with six other writers, writing, talking, walking, reading. I didn't make a meal, wash a dish, wash anything, or give ANY of my time to something that wasn't about my writing life.

I'm discovering that short bursts of focused time like this are essential to my writing life. I can't always take a trip and surround myself with like-minded folks, but at least during summer vacation, I'm fortunate that I can arrange a few days during which I am only a writer, during which I can bring the full force of my considerable concentration to my current creation and push the rest aside, just for a little while.

I send the youngest to camp or to visit Grandma. I tell my family that I'm off the grid. I cash in all those gift cards I received for teacher appreciation day on take out meals. I prep ahead with snacks and tea so I don't have to go anywhere. I don't answer the phone.

I don't think I'd fare well if this was my life all the time. I am a writer, but I'm also a teacher, a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, and various other kinds of human and even though I run towards introverted, I'm not willing to give up all my other loves JUST for writing. Even Emily Dickinson had people visit and wrote letters, after all. I do need and want people. I'm not really a hermit, even though the idea is tempting sometimes.

But as a respite, it's wonderful to run away from everything else for a little while and give myself over completely to my life of words. May you all find a respite like this when you need it, an oasis that lets you refill your well and gives you the wherewithal you need for harder times.

Making My Peace with the Kitchen

I didn't cook when I was a young woman. In my first marriage, my husband did most of our day to day meal preparation.

I used to brag about that.

I think I thought it proved something about my feminism, that our house hadn't fallen into that particular traditional gender role. (Even though we fell into plenty of other typical patterns).

I definitely didn't want to be the little wifey, slaving away in the kitchen. No way, no how.

I only cooked if we were having a party or trying something I thought was ambitious or fun. That started to change when we had a child since there was a greater need for a variety of food preparation, but when we divorced, he was still the main cook in our house.

So, there I was, thirty-two years old, temporarily back in my parents house with a preschooler. My mom and dad are wonderful people, who really came through for me when I needed it. But I wasn't enjoying eating with them.

They weren't very adventurous eaters (I am), and my mom was pretty burnt out on meal preparation. She'd been making meals for one kind of family or another since she was nine years old, after all. Most meals involved a lot of boxes and cans, and I found them pretty darn dull.

So, I started cooking.

I was looking for a way to contribute to the household, since I was draining their resources, and unable to contribute any dollars (even an amicable divorce is expensive), so I could contribute my labor. I'm not very good at accepting help (especially if I can't reciprocate), and my parents were thrilled to have someone else take over cooking for a while, so it was a good arrangement.

I learned something other cooks have known for a long time: preparing food for people is an expression of love and care.

Like I've always done when I wanted to learn something new, I looked for helpful books, and found the wonderful world of cookbooks. My mom had a lovely basic cookbook on the shelves at her house. I think it was a Better Homes and Garden offering. The good thing about it was its specificity. It didn't assume that you knew the terminology or would automatically know how to tell if the carrots were done cooking. It was explicit and complete, and so useful for a novice cook!

Soon, I had mastered some good basics and started expanding. After a couple of years, I was a basically competent cook. I wasn't angsty about cooking or anything. It was a new and exciting skill; it meant I got to eat better; and it let me pay back my parents for the huge favor of taking me and my daughter in, when they should have been enjoying their empty nest.

And then I married again.

And it was time to negotiate.

In our courtship, Sweetman and I had each cooked for each other. There was that time that we learned I didn't understand peppers yet and nearly killed him with habañero peppers, and he still loved me afterwards. There was the time we had to order takeout because his meal plan took longer than he thought it would and my blood sugar tanked.

We really didn't know how we were going to handle food in our new shared life. We didn't walk into our first home knowing who would handle what household job.

I was superstitious in a lot of ways about this second chance at love and marriage. I wanted to do everything differently.

Since I didn't have a wedding the first time, we had a wedding. Since I didn't change my name the first time, this time I did. But I was not sure about taking on the cooking. I didn't want to shackle myself to the kitchen just because I was a wife again.

It's hard to remember now how it went at first. I think we tried taking turns. But it quickly became clear that my day job as a teacher got me home a LOT earlier than his job as a UX guy (like 2-3 hours!), and that we could have dinner a lot earlier if I cooked it. That was better for the flow of day, getting the kid (and later plural kids) to bed timely and getting enough rest. 

Luckily, Sweetman has always been great to cook for. He's willing to try things and shares the labor: helping choose menus, grocery shop, and prepare the food when he can get home in time. Most importantly, he's genuinely appreciative of the effort it takes each and every time. Ask anyone who cooks: an appreciative audience makes a difference.

So, now I've been the primary cook in our family for the twelve years we've been married. He cooks from time to time (usually once or twice a week). It's not about an unwillingness: it's just about time. On holidays and vacations, he often takes on more because he can. And now that I've been doing it a while, the kitchen is more my space. I don't always like to share it.

This summer, though, I hit a wall. I've hit a few of them over the years: just these periods when I can't get invested in the process, when I don't care what we have for dinner or even if we eat. I just want to be done.

It's a kind of burnout. Usually my burnout periods are short. This one was longer. About two months long. I definitely blew the take-out budget. I'd feel deflated just thinking about spending time in the kitchen. There were so many other things I wanted to do instead.

But, we needed to eat, so I had to find a way around my own roadblock.

So, what worked?

The same thing that always works on me: I tried something new.

I was bored as much as I was burnt out. It had been a while since I upped the ante by pushing myself with a new kitchen skill or new recipe. So, I broke out another cookbook and started trying the things in it we hadn't made yet.

It's kind of funny that I didn't think of it. I mean, that's what I do when I'm teaching or writing and things start to feel stale and uninteresting. You'd think I would know.

This week we had five things I'd never made before.

Sure enough, the family was re-engaged because the meals were interesting, and so was I. I guess the kitchen have made our peace again (until next time!).

Thanksgiving at la casa Bryant

A traditional Thanksgiving is a lot of work. (I know: #firstworldproblems) Even in families that divide the cooking and hosting labor, there are still many many tasks on that to-do list to do it up "right." We don't live near our extended families, so that's not possible for us.

As much as I love Thanksgiving foods and having a lovely meal with my loved ones, I don't love the work. Especially not at the end of November, when middle school teachers like me feel like they might drown in the to-do list at school, if the drama doesn't kill us first.

It definitely doesn't feel like a holiday to me to take the primary cook (me) and make her cook more. So, a few years ago, when I was overextended and making myself crazy, we agreed to take it down a notch. We order Thanksgiving from Weaver Street Market. The food is good. It's still beautiful and festive, but the time and stress is cut in half or maybe even less. I've never regretted that decision (and if my family does, they are kind enough not to say so).

Now, when I sit down at the table, I don't fall asleep in the mashed potatoes. Instead, I have energy for making hand turkeys with the kids (yes, we make the teenager do it, too), and watching really cheesy fun movies and playing board games. I get to jump in the leaf piles because I'm not hovering over something delicate in the kitchen.

That's some giving (in the give and take sense) and I am thankful yet again for my family. May this holiday (if you celebrate) bring you joy and relaxation as well as yummy treats.

Grocery Lust

Holidays always give me grocery lust. I have to stay out of places like A Southern Season, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods. Even Weaver Street Market, our local co-op market,  isn't safe.  They are all full of wonderful things to eat that I have never tried and wonderful exotic ingredients for things I have never made. 

If I walk in to one of these stores, I could bankrupt us.  Once grocery lust takes me over, I could end up buying kitchen tools I don't know how to use and ingredients I don't know how to prepare.  Like it goes most of the time when you give in to sheer lust, it doesn't end well.  You gorge yourself. You don't feel well. You get fatter. You hate yourself afterwards.

It's not limited to the stores either. There are ads, cooking magazines, podcasts, emails from foodie websites. It's kind of funny, because I'm pretty immune to advertising. If I wasn't already thinking about buying something, it takes more than a clever commercial to make me want it.  You can send me ads for electronics, cars, toys, books, garden items, etc. all day and never get any of my money.  But food.  That's different.

I think it goes back to spending my 20's in Alaska.  It was my big adventure post-bachelor's degree.  My then-husband and I packed our bags and moved to Alaska. We ended up staying just shy of ten years.  It was a place that demanded much and gave much. There was so much to love about life there--the people, the landscape, the feeling of accomplishment that just living there gave me. 

But not the groceries.

Alaska, especially small-town rural Alaska, is not a foodie paradise.  Going to the grocery store is a study in lowered expectations.  Depending on the weather, even simple staple items like milk and bread may not be in stock.  You cannot rely on fresh ingredients, and every meal involves a backup plan full of cans and boxed items. People hunt and berry-pick, and it's not just a hobby.  It's a way to have something fresh in your palate.

When I would visit my family or travel in the 48, I would go food crazy. I would eat out for as many meals as I could afford, the more exotic the meal, the better.  I would go to the grocery and spend $50 in the produce section alone, then go spread it out on my mom's table and just smell it, hold it, feel it in my hands, giggle over it with my then-little daughter. When I moved to Kansas, my first home in the 48 after Alaska, I hit every farmer's market within an hour's drive.  There were whole days when I didn't actually eat meals, just a string of produce items.

It's the kind of appreciation that can only derive from deprivation.

Even now that I've lived in the 48 for another ten years after leaving Alaska, I still get that kind of grocery lust, that sensual pleasure in good food. 

My now-and-always-husband likes to take me out to eat at least in part because of how much I obviously enjoy my food. I'm that person who is bouncing in her chair and making yummy noises and gets really excited over something new on the plate. I'm asking the wait staff about the ingredients, what kind of tea is in my iced tea and what that new green is in my salad. I can't help myself. At least it makes him smile.

So, I made it through, and only bought a few things this year.  Weaver Street stollen bread for breakfast today.  Tomorrow, it might be safe to go into the grocery store again.  I know I'll never fully control my grocery lust, but I can manage it, by letting it out here and there, for the really good stuff.