(8/12/23)

What else to call such an odd medley update? Let’s start with a product review, shall we?

Behold—the CR-0351F three cup rice cooker by Cuckoo!

My wife and I had been using an old Aroma model for years. Boy, had we been in the dark ages… When our Aroma gave up the ghost (and it wasn’t ever really that great), we thought to finally pounce on a fine Japanese model. After all, most Japanese products are nonpareil (Panasonic as one fine example). Well, they’re also commensurately expensive in many cases, but quality isn’t something usually up for compromise.

But what if you didn’t have to compromise?

When all was said and done, it came down to the above or one from Zojirushi (Japan). Hehe, there was one from Panasonic as well, but that sucker cost as much as a car. We opted for the cute Cuckoo which came in at half the price and well under $100. Now, Cuckoo is a Korean company, and that did initially give me pause. I thought LG was the only brand from Korea that hadn’t at one point or another given me trouble, until I found out that they used to be Goldstar (don’t get me started on Goldstar—a tale of woe for another day). But then I thought, surely a proud (Aroma ain’t that) East Asian company wouldn’t mess about with rice!

To quote Tainaka Ritsu from K-On, a literal nominal expert on the subject: “No rice, no life.”

I was right. This CR-0351F model astounds. It’s easy to clean, utterly high-end, and packed with features. Just go to their website for further details, but what we love about it most is how perfect the rice is. It comes out like a cloud and never gummy. The basin cleans easily and is well marked for even half portions. Our old Aroma model forced us to make a minimum of 2 cups. Depending upon what you’re eating, that can be quite a lot for two people. This one makes from 1-3 with half cups in between. We found the cook time to be about the same, but this one also has a turbo feature. We haven’t had occasion to try that, but if I do I’ll update you. You can even customize cook times and temperatures to whatever you could possibly desire. I’m assuming that’s for real connoisseurs who want to walk into perfectly cooking rare varieties or blends of different rice.

All I can say is my favorite Korean word gleaned from all my K-drama watching: “Yah!”

I know it’s rude to yell “Hey!” at people, but if you don’t own one of these Cuckoos, you need to wake up! Run! And go get one!

What’s that? Oh? You’ve never owned a rice cooker? Once you do, you’ll never be without one.

And now for something completely different…

This week I finished my alpha 1.0 manuscript of my third big project—a very short novel or large novella set again in the 19^th century. I like it—the story—if not yet the prose. As usual with one of my first drafts, it’s ruff, ruff, ruff. Hopefully it won’t take me too long to finish preliminary edits, but I’ve also got to make all kinds of passes from historical to character voices. It’s at least another year away, probably even more, and because of that I can’t really say much more than that its word count is almost exactly 40,000. I checked a similar book in my library and see that I’m a bit long, but when you finally see the kind of book that it is, perhaps you’ll understand.

In yet other news:

More libraries! Yes! The counties of Southwest Georgia are adding my latest book! That’s three more libraries, as before, along with a Bookmobile!

Yes, thanks to Director Whittle and all the librarians and staff of The Southwest Georgia Regional Library System, you will soon be able to check out A Southern Fried Fantasy Adventure Story from the Decatur County Public Library, the Miller County Public Library, the Seminole Public Library, and at any stop of the cute little Southwest Georgia Regional Library Bookmobile!

Click HERE for Georgia’s state PINES Library Catalogue

It was a pleasure meeting you guys in Bainbridge a few months back. I hope your patrons enjoy my book.

And finally, in news of the weird:

I recently received my largest royalty yet on my first book out of nowhere. Someone somewhere bought a big ole batch of ‘em, and for that I thank you. It wasn’t through Amazon, nor was it even BB direct. The order apparently went through one of the wholesale partners, so I don’t have much visibility. Anyway, if you enjoy it, please tell someone or show them, and remember to provide any unused copies to your nearest library. Whatever you do, just don’t let the books sit idle. Books are meant to be read.

Actually, I do have one last little note:

I’m within weeks of a decision whether to scrap the unlimited plan locking my second eBook to Amazon. Expect another post here relatively soon if I decided to open it up. The good news is that if I do, it will make the eBook available all over including via Hoopla; the bad news would be for those with unlimited who’d then have to either buy me or check me out digitally from their local library. There’s a downside for me as well, since currently this is my only means of running promotions on Amazon. They won’t let me when it becomes more widely available, so it would be goodbye to any future “countdown sales”.

I don’t know if I am the original inventor of this annual treat or just another in a long line of leftover fans who’ve stumbled upon it, but either way it’s delicious.

My wife and I made it again last night, and I would’ve taken a picture if my camera battery hadn’t been dead. What you really need though is the “recipe,” so here it is:

Ingredients

Fresh or leftover, cooked, long grain white rice (we typically use Basmati)

Cubed leftover Thanksgiving turkey (we got a delicious moist roasted and glazed breast from the Honey Baked store this year)

1 medium carrot, diced

½ medium onion, diced

1 decent-sized celery stalk, you guessed it—diced!

2 good well-mounded serving spoons of leftover traditional cornbread dressing. This should already have the preceding vegetables in it, as well as maybe another type of bread (in our case, cubed and dried baguette), but you need more.

Cranberry sauce to taste (we use at least two heaping spoonful’s)

Stir Fry sauce to taste

Soy sauce to taste

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

Fresh flat leaf parsley, chopped

Sesame seeds

Red pepper flake (optional)

Procedure  

Heat a few tablespoons of vegetable oil on HIGH in a large wok (enough to easily cover the bottom) and stir in the beaten egg. In no more than 15 seconds or so it should turn into a yellow cloud. Fish this out immediately with a spider and place it on a paper plate lined with kitchen paper. Have your beautiful assistant dice this cooked egg crosswise with a butter knife and set it aside.

Now assess your oil. You don’t want too much in there but, because of the dressing, you’ll be needing more than if you were making a traditional fried rice. You want enough to maybe just barely cover your next ingredients: the onions, carrots, and celery. Toss these in and stir fry with a wooden spoon or paddle until the onions become translucent (no more than a couple minutes in the sizzling oil).

Next, add your dressing. Keep this moving at all times to avoid burning. As I said, this is going to soak up most of that oil, but the goal here is to get a little bit of crispy fry on those bread cubes—really wake them up, give the ole mash some texture.

Everything proceeds quickly from here, where you are to add your turkey and cranberry sauce at the same time, tossing only enough to reheat. Watch that bottom! Don’t let anything stick!

Then add the rice, all at once, topping it with the stir fry sauce (we use a couple tablespoons or so), soy sauce (a few good dashes), butter, a sprinkling of sesame seeds, and the red pepper flake (if, like me, you like the heat).

Get this all moving like a Taiwanese chef, ensuring everything is well distributed and has its turn on that hot bottom.

When heated throughout, keep stirring as your assistant tosses in the egg and chopped parsley.  You’re now done!

The finished product should look pretty fancy thanks to the pretty cranberries, fluffy egg bits, and chopped parsley. And it should taste pretty much like Thanksgiving in a bowl if you monitored your sauce carefully. You don’t want it to taste like takeout; the soy sauce and thicker stir fry sauce are supposed to be back notes.

When you have this mastered you can move on to another favorite of mine: BBQ Fried Rice! hehe

For that you should use diced BBQ pork from the rib that was slow cooked in any good Mid-southern sticky-sweet sauce, and substitute that same BBQ sauce for the stir fry sauce (though you still use the soy). Another sub is chopped cilantro for the parsley; that, and while there won’t be any dressing, obviously, you might still have some plain cornbread lying around. And if there were some old smoked bacon-wrapped jalapenos too, you could even chop them up and toss ‘em in there. You’re only limited by your imagination.

***

In other news, I am very happy to announce that my book is now available in Levy County, Florida! My hardcover can be checked out from both the Bronson Public Library and the Luther Callaway Public Library in Chiefland.

Thank you very much to the librarians of these fine institutions for your support of this local author!

And that’s not all; if WorldCat is any indication, my hardcover is coming soon to Illinois. Keep an eye out up in historic Woodstock where my book is apparently being added to their public library this December! This is amazing to me because, with everything going on this year, I had had to all but suspend my #awitchineverystate campaign.

Thank you very much to all the librarians out there helping me expand my readership!

P.S. ANNOUNCEMENT: I’ve tried everything in my power, including contacting my publisher, but have yet to resolve a niggling issue that has plagued me for over a year now. About a month or two after my book was released Amazon and a few other places insisted on adding a “(1)” behind the title of my hardcover. They don’t do this to the eBook, just the hardcover, and Amazon isn’t the only one doing this. Some of them have even expanded upon it, to what that “one” implies, mis-titling my book “A Witch’s Burden, Volume 1.” Stand alones aren’t supposed to have these ones, only series.

This is super annoying. Please, if you have been, do not be misled by this false label. A Witch’s Burden is a self-contained novel. There will be no sequel, and it is not the beginning of some series. If, by some chance, this has put you off buying it—fearing that it will later be offered for free in some promotion for “book two”—then you needn’t worry. As I’ve mentioned before, I am working on another project, but one that couldn’t be more different: a lighter toned character-based fantasy adventure, if I can ever finish it!

Anyway…  That’s enough out of me.

If the Spirit moves you, please join me in praying for a better end to what has been a very challenging year.

D.W.