This treat was inspired by my wife. She had mentioned making it some time and, in my usual manner, I took it somewhere different.

This treat is not for foodies. If you are that much of a food snob that you MUST roast your own tomatoes, cook and cut your own artichoke hearts…then go ahead and do it. While you are still waiting the rest of us will be eating.

As a note: I rarely measure anything. I eye it 99% of the time. I will give some instructions and weights/measurements as I go, but don’t expect an usual recipe here.

Your Implements of Destruction:

Knife, knife, can opener.

You will need a good, sharp knife for cutting. You will also need a bread knife, for cutting. A good can opener is also very handy for this. A cutting board is essential.

Baking tray

You will also want a very good baking tray, something that is easily cleaned afterwards and can accept heats up to 500º.

Bowl and Brush

A small bowl and a brush of some sort. I would suggest a silicon brush for this instead of a hair brush.

Another knife and a SPOOOOOOON

This knife is a cheese knife (otherwise known as a lettuce knife) and a regular tablespoon. You don’t really need the cheese knife but it makes life easier.

Grate it, just grate it...make into tiny bits and heat it

A grater is important. You could always be lazy and use a food processor, but then you are lazy.

The one other item you will need is a good strainer. This isn’t pictured by itself but will make an appearance later on in this post.

How to make Da Bomb

Here are the ingredients you are going to need. You can substitute as you see fit but I don’t suggest it.

Generic is just as good

A good take & bake ciabatta can be purchased at your local bakery. A block of mozzarella can be purchased at your grocer or butcher shop. Basil you should have on hand.

Uncanny

Extra Virgin Olive Oil (debatable these days), small artichoke hearts, and diced fire roasted tomatoes (the Hunt’s ones are fantastic). The most expensive portion of this is the artichoke hearts (around $4.00) while the tomatoes are $1.00 or less. For ultimate taste make sure they are of the roasted variety. You can also get the tomatoes with garlic added, but I like controlling the amount of garlic put into my food.

Popeye would be proud

Fresh spinach will be needed. If you use frozen spinach the ghost of Bluto will come and rape your Olive Oil, then it won’t be extra virgin anymore.

Preparation

Here is where you start putting all of those toys and foods together into a cacophony.

First, preheat your oven to 375º, otherwise you will be waiting around staring at it.

Next use your big bread knife to cut the ciabatta in half lengthwise. I had pictures of this but accidentally deleted them, and just now noticed I deleted them.

Doughy Circumcision

^^^That will be the end result of cutting the ciabatta in half. I do suggest putting the cut halves onto the baking tray and assembling the goodness there; it cuts down on messes and makes it oven ready when done.

oiiiilllll.....OIIIIILLLL

Pour a small amount of olive oil into the small bowl. The amount above is just about the perfect amount. (Did I mention that clicking on the pictures will allow you to see larger versions of them?)

Stick it in

Make sure to wet the brush properly with the olive oil. If you do not you will not be able to spread it properly on the ciabatta.

Steeee-roke

Steeeeeeee-roke

As you can see, the ciabatta insides are porous. You will need to make sure that the olive oil covers the raised portions as well as some of the deeper portions of the caverns inherent to the bread. Make sure you brush across both pieces evenly. DO NOT soak the bread in olive oil, else it will not crisp properly.

Who cut the cheese?

Remember that cool cheese knife? Now is the time to use it. The cheese block above is a 2lb block. If you are using a 1lb block you will want about half of it, 1/3 for the 2lb.

Shredding is more than something you do on a skateboard

Using the grater, shred that shit. I use the bigger shred as it is easier to gauge coverage of the ciabatta than using the small shred. Make sure to shred the whole block and eat the last portion; you look like you could use a little dairy in your diet.

I need cover here....COVER!

Make sure to cover the ciabatta well. The above is before it was done, but you want to make sure that the cheese will melt nicely to cover the bread.

Drain your heart(s) of fluid

Here is the missing strainer. This is a nice small (tiny even) slot hand strainer that fits perfectly to hover over our sink. Don’t be afraid to dump the whole can in the strainer and let them sit for a bit for excess juice to leave the hearts.

What else would you use a can opener for?

Open the can of fire roasted tomatoes. DO NOT STRAIN THEM. You want the juices from this.

Campbell's isn't even this MMMmmm good

I know I could just skip these last two pictures and get to the point, but these tomatoes are too good to not show off. Best canned tomatoes ever.

SPOOOOON REDUX

Use that tablespoon and put the tomatoes on top of the mozzarella. Try to get even coverage, and don’t be afraid to use that juice in the can; it will seep down into the holes of the bread where the olive oil is and create a nice taste pocket.

Arrrr.....me hearties

Once you have covered both halves of the ciabatta with wonderful fire roasted tomatoes, bring your time strained artichoke hearts over to your cutting board.  See how nice they look? Go ahead and eat one; you have more than enough for the ciabatta.

Piercing me hearties

Slice four of those bad boys up. I cut them like I cut a tomato and use my fingers to separate them for the ciabatta. Works better for me that way. Preserve the rest in a Ziploc bag or eat them.

Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?

Using the image above as a guide you can see the layout of the tomatoes and the artichoke hearts you killed. Four small artichoke hearts will give you a great amount of coverage on the bread halves, any more and I would say it would be overpowering.

Bluto's Revenge

After washing the fresh spinach thoroughly, place it on your cutting board and chop the shit out of it. I usually hold with one hand and cut vertically, then switch and hit the horizontal. Gets a nice criss-cross action going on.

Does anyone have the name Basil anymore? Someone should name their kid that.

I also lost the picture of placing the spinach but I am sure you know how to do that. After you place the spinach, bring out the basil and sprinkle it on top of everything. Not too much or it will overpower the taste of everything. A light sprinkle across both halves will suffice.

Kill It With Fire

Kill it with (fake) fire

Place that bitch on the center rack. If you don’t have a center rack, move one of your racks to the center. You might want to use an oven glove, seeing as how your oven should be heated to 375º by now. If it isn’t; you don’t follow directions well, do you?

You will be baking this for about 10 minutes. If you are using a propane oven, not only am I jealous, but you should adjust your cooking time accordingly. Don’t forget to set a timer to remember to take it out.

The finished product

Doesn’t that look tasty? THAT is what an orgasm in your mouth looks like when you look at food porn. Here, have a close up:

Got the shot, Mr. DeMille?

Get your hands off of the screen! Not only are you dirtying your screen but you can’t eat it through the screen.

Next and final step is to cut and plate the thing. Remember that big ass wonderful bread knife from earlier? Hope you didn’t put it in the dishwasher cause that is perfect for cutting these things.

Move a half onto the cutting board and cut into four pieces with the knife. These four pieces will feed two average Americans and 20 Ethiopians. The whole amount will feed four average Americans and end poverty in a third world country.

TA and DA. You now have learned how to make a great, tasty snack that can double as a dinner or a brunch. They also preserve well in airtight containers for next day nom-noming at work.

To close, have some more food porn shots. Your tongue will thank you to for the foodgasm.

Plated

Plated close-up

Plated angle

Let me know what changes you make to it, if any. I also wouldn’t mind feedback in the comments or on Twitter. Your food porn would be appreciated as well.

Throughout my day things come to my brain that make me think to myself, “THAT’S BRILLIANT!!!”

The problem is that I have no way of making them come true and someone else will think of them long before I get a chance. Therefore I am instituting a “whenever the need arises” post on this here blog for random bits of thought that I need to put down and share with the world.

1. Stephen Moyer from True Blood needs to be on Saturday Night Live. Some cast member needs to play Snookie from Jersey Shore, and a skit must be made as if Snookie was Sookie just so that the pun of how “Bill” says her name can be made with Snookie.

You can't tell me a five minute sketch of this wouldn't be hilarious.

2. HBO is great at TV and mini-series. Hollywood and ABC are generally sucky when it comes to adapting Stephen King novels. Therefore there needs to be at least a five season series titled “Tales from Maine” that centers around the books and short stories King has written about the towns of Derry and Castle Rock, Maine.

This way we as fans can enjoy correctly done versions of the stories with all the blood, gore, cussing, and horror that is included in the works themselves without the need for network or MPAA censors. Since the towns of Derry and Castle Rock are close to each other in King’s world, and many of the characters from each town know and visit each other, this would be a grand series to behold.

We could finally get a version of IT that doesn’t cut out the backstories of the children and we could finally see an adaptation of Insomnia.

Stephen King himself has put Castle Rock and Derry closer together than they are to Jerusalem’s Lot on his official map:

Map of Maine According to Stephen King

There are a lot of stories from these two towns that have either never been told in cinematic form or have been told horribly. Add in the continuity in actors and actresses we would get with a show and King’s universe would really come alive this time around.

3. An HBO series made based on Piers Anthony’s Incarnation of Immortality series. Again, this is a set of books that has a lot of sex, magic, murder, and deals with themes that networks and films won’t dare touch without serious censoring. (HBO really is the best place for these type of projects.)

Excising Under A Velvet Cloak from the series (that was really a weak book compared to the rest) would make the finality of it all come together perfectly in a seven season series. The interweaving of the stories told in this series of novels would lend an interesting choice in casting, as throughout the whole series the Incarnations stay the same but the people in the office change.

If you have never read the series here is an example:

Incarnation of Time: the incarnation is there throughout, but the person inhabiting the office changes within their lifespan.
Incarnation of Fate: three women inhabit the body at once, and they change out when a situation on Earth is too irresistible for themselves.

The play on this, throughout a long series, would see an ensemble cast that changes from season to season that fits within the scope of the narrative. When certain events unfold in the latter seasons those who played the aspects early on would be brought back into those roles.

Here’s nine more pages for you to peruse.

CAUTION: SPOILERS!!!!

Yeah, some of this might ruin the story. Well, not the whole thing, but a somewhat big event in the manuscript. It won’t ruin how it happened, but it will ruin what happened and to whom. So read at your own risk.

PDF: 63kb

No ePub this time. The formatting on it was horrid last time…

As promised last night, before I got a massive migraine that wouldn’t stop until I had twenty hours of sleep, here is a bit of a surprise for those who follow the hashtag #omgnameinprint on Twitter.

ePub Format: 8kb

PDF format: 44kb

I am not sure if the ePub format will work as this is my first time using it. It should work on any device that supports the ePub format such as the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. Other devices such as the Nook support ePub. Kindle, at this time, does not support ePub from what I have been able to research.

Barring all of that, enjoy the short taste I have put up. It is still rough stages in that section but it is the only section I have that is spoilerish without giving away the big reveal.

Thoughts and comments are accepted through here and on Twitter.

I enjoy Asian Cuisine. Really don’t know anybody who doesn’t.

I enjoy the stuff that passes in this country as well as the real stuff made in China, Japan, and other various countries that we as Americans can’t begin to pronounce correctly. I have eaten large dinners at the homes of various Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean families made by those who have been making that food their entire lives. Nothing beats the real stuff. Ever.

Except……

….you don’t get the fortune cookies with that food. Those delectable little pieces of crisp cookie that were introduced by the Japanese, popularized by the Chinese, but ultimately are consumed by Americans. We as Americans have come to expect fortune cookies with any Oriental meal we devour. We laugh when reading the fortunes inside, adding “between the sheets” at the end of each one as it is read, and leave the restaurant without tipping properly because we know “Tipping” isn’t a city in China.

Throughout my life, and the many hundreds of fortunes I have read, I have had two fortunes that have been quite apropos to either the current situation or a future situation I hope to be in.

The first took place when I still lived within the confines of the State of Oregon. I was a board member of the SMUG (Salem Macintosh Users Group) and we met once a month at a Chinese restaurant to hold our board meeting. I had just finished a stint at The Mac Store as a CSR/Service Tech and was quite known throughout both Salem and the Mac community as “the man” who had the answers.

The meeting drew to a close, at which time we normally paid our checks and jaunted across town to attend the larger group meeting, when we were presented with those yummy wrapped morsels of truth. We all decided to check our fortunes and read them aloud; I elected to go last.

As my turn came I cracked that cookie and released the strip of paper. Upon it were printed these words:

At first the group was silent, then erupted in smiles and applause. They, too, knew the irony of that message.

Imagine the surprise today when I had not eaten any Asian Cuisine at all, but went to the bank. The wife and I had decided life would be a bit easier if I was a joint holder on her bank account, so we went about to make it so.

We approached the teller and told her of our intent, at which time she went forth upon the task we had set. Standing there talking to my wife and the teller I happened to gaze upon the floor. I noticed a small strip of paper in front of my feet and recognized it as a fortune from those cookies.

I have better than 20/20 eyesight so I was able to read it from that distance easily, but I had to share in the discovery and decided to pick it up and return to my home with it.

I have always been, among jobs that I take as I require money to pay for bills, a writer. From poetry to short stories, from articles in newspapers and magazines to novels as yet to be published. I have written just about anything that could or can be written in just about any medium that it can be seen in. Sometimes I get paid, sometimes I do it as a favor, but all times I do it because I love it. It is my true calling in life and I have known this since around the third grade.

Imagine the surprise, the elation even, when I spied this fortune upon the ground as if it were waiting for myself to find it:

I will never delude myself into thinking I will be the greatest writer in the world or even the State I live in now, but that type of fortune came at just the right time to make me smile. To reassure me, even if it wasn’t directly meant for me, that I can finally get these novels out to the world and at least some people will enjoy them. That my feeling from those long gone years is correct.

I am a writer; I’m not the best and I’m not the worst but I am what I want to be.

According to the internets, of which we are all a part if you are reading this, there is a revolution coming to the world of publishing.

“The Kindle and iPad are going to change the way people consume literature while making it easier for authors to publish their forever rejected manuscripts” is pretty much the self-aggrandizing shit that is coming out of the mouth of the blogosphere and the respected sources that discuss literary merit.

Even a cursory look at a few of this year’s self-publishing themed articles would give an aspiring author pause. Over at Salon you have one of the founders telling people that they are going to become the new, unpaid interns that shuffle through the slush pile, the difference being that instead of it being mountains of paper it is going to be mountains of printed-on-demand bound paper. On Fark.com you have a thread linking to an article about a journalist who self-published, albeit with a known scam POD service, and the comments in the thread are enough to dash a person’s hopes.

(To be fair, I am a Farker, have been for years. The site itself is setup for the ultimate in snark coming from those who post comments there so one has to take things with a grain of salt. Make that a shaker of salt. Yet, Fark is also a close knit community in ways and people there tend to value the opinions of the others posting. While some of the comments in that thread are outright wrong in their perception there is also enough coming from the book snobs and published authors who frequent the site and seem to hate the idea of self-publishing on principal itself.)

Then there are the articles that tout how one person rose from obscurity and had their dreams realized by self-publishing, yet are written in such a way that you can’t help but not feel for the person. It feels like they are talking down to you because even though they were beat within an inch of their lives by the publisher’s gatekeepers they made their way through the desolate terrain and managed to find success, which in their tone would seem an impossible task for anyone but them.

Zetta Elliot’s two articles on Huffington Post (here and here) are a perfect study in contrast. In the first one she espouses the last paragraph up there, how she (and I don’t deny this as I don’t know her) worked so damned hard to get things published that when she went the self-publishing route it was a revelation, yet you get the feeling that she couldn’t care less whether you actually accomplish this feat.

Her second article seems to have come from the realization that she might have come off as too strong of a “not give a shit” in her first article and offers tips to self-publishers. Those tips include “self-published books have a stigma”, “set up a blog” (cause who doesn’t have one of those these days?), “be professional”, and “network”. The last few on the list are pretty much redundant.

She makes good points in her second article (which a buddy of mine wrote so much better on his blog) but also some things that should be common sense. You can’t sell anything if you are not professional, and if you are selling an unproven product you need to network your ass off unless you are working retail. The biggest point she makes is that self-published books do come with a stigma, a somewhat “common knowledge” that they are shit and don’t amount to anything because they didn’t come from a big publisher.

While that it is true to a point the other edge of that sword is that the big publishers are pushing this idea. I doubt they created it but why would they not use it as a weapon against a changing era of publishing? You can almost see a comical representation of a publishing house editor sitting in his leather chair, leaning back as he ponders the Fabergé egg on his judge’s desk, telling a reporter “Our shit goes through such rigorous demands that all of it is good. Self-published? Bah, anyone can do that, and they do. We are quality, they are quantity.”

The problem with this stigma is that it is bullshit, at least in the way it is presented to the book buying public. Beatrix Potter wrote Peter Rabbit as a get well letter to a five year old and by the time she was done had a full on book that she had submitted to publishers, and was rejected by each one of them. It wasn’t until she self-published the book that the publisher’s took notice, got her on contract, and the rest is history.

If you think that was a fluke check these out; Mark Twain self-published Huck Finn, Edgar Allen Poe self-published Tamerlane and Other Poems, and Tolstoy (tl;dr) self-published War and Peace. What do all of those have in common? They are considered literary masterpieces yet each of them were either rejected by publishers or in the case of Twain rejected before the publisher got it. (Twain was fed up with the shit his publisher had been pulling on his manuscripts and decided to tell them to pound sand.)

The book buying public has been fed a load of shit for so long about self-published books when some of the greatest literary accomplishments in history started that way. Even to this day many of the books you have likely purchased from a big publisher started life as a self-published book. Shadowmancer by Graham Taylor was a self-published book that was eventually bought by a big publisher and then he sold the movie rights for over $4 million. Does that sound like something for the slush pile of self-published books?

I am not naive in any way, shape or form. I know that there is more dreck out there than there is gold. When a book series like Twilight can be published by a big publisher and turned into a multi-million dollar franchise it makes you realize just how awful a lot of the manuscripts in the world really are, and yet one can’t help but think that there are a lot of great manuscripts out there that haven’t been discovered.

Writing is not easy, especially when you are writing a manuscript. Whether it be non-fiction or fiction, autobiographical or technical, writing a manuscript is a pain in the ass. There are long hours just to get the story out, then even longer hours going through each word and sentence to edit it into a crafted tale. From there you will have one or two more editing sessions before you even get to the point of hiring a copy editor who will suggest even more edits. (Hire a copy editor, no matter how good of a technical writer you are, as they will save your soul.) From there you have cover design, ISBN purchasing and so much more. It is not a task for someone who doesn’t have the drive to stick to the task as it is going to take over your life.

Along with so much of the world telling a person to not bother writing anything because they are going to be shot down, to not bother publishing it themselves because they aren’t going to make any money or garner an audience, it is a wonder that any books are now published at all. It takes the ones who I like to think I am a part of; the ones who won’t accept “no” as an answer, who when rejected say “fuck you” and go back to editing to make the manuscript even better. The ones who no matter what have a dream or an idea that they must see come to fruition. The ones that no matter the vitriol thrown at them will stand firm and say, “your opinion is valid, but it only makes me a better writer in the end.”

While the road to self-publishing is full of assholes who want nothing more than to exploit you, to bring you down, to prevent you from doing that which your heart desires, just remember them as you pass on by as they are the ones standing outside of the gates clamoring to be let in while you are enjoying the fruits of your labors. They are the ones who will deride the next dreamer to come down that road, trying to derail their path, while you will be a light beckoning that traveler to stay their course and head straight for the promised land.

I have been tinkering again, which is usually never a good sign, but sometimes cool things happen.

The following are two more possible designs for the cover of the manuscript. I know you aren’t even supposed to think of the cover until the end but a person can’t delve deep into this without thinking about it, and they also can’t help but take a break from pounding keys all day to give their mouse a workout.

Check these out and leave feedback either here or on Twitter. All feedback is appreciated.

(There is a tiny hint to what is going on in that tagline down there.)

Mommy! The Gacy girl is touching me...

Seriously, I will kill you...

Decided against putting this on TwitPic, too many unscrupulous people out there. No need for them to be assholes when I am an asshole myself.

Here is a much better look at the design concept. Not all elements have been placed as of yet, but you can get the general idea.

Please don't touch me, Ms. Gacy

Any and all feedback is welcome either in the comments or on Twitter.

There comes a time in every writer’s life when they have to make a decision. The decision becomes harder due to what the reader wants versus artistic expression.

With that said which would you rather have: a series of novellas or one long novel?

Before you get to the poll for voting allow a bit of explanation.

Scenario: a writer has a novel length manuscript. The manuscript has a steady stream of flashbacks that require steady reading and understanding, as the main elements of the story are told in flashbacks until a certain point. You have to remember certain elements from 100-200 pages back so that 400-600 pages in you know what is going on.

The manuscript is also set in such a way to have three acts with various amounts of chapters in each act. Each act is self-contained but may involve or recall events from previous acts.

With that somewhat vague description added please vote below. This will change the outcome of a work in progress.

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If you have an great idea for another option in the poll let me know and I will add it.

A person once said something to me.

You are such a creative person. The stuff you write is so vivid, so alive.

They then asked me a question, followed by a statement.

Why don’t you draw? You would make a great artist.

I stopped what I was doing. I drew my head upward, looked at this person straight in their eyes, and said:

You wouldn’t like what would come out of my mind. If you saw what my mind’s eye can see, what the words I put to paper tell, you would think me crazy.

They wanted to see what would happen, so over the course of an hour I took pen to paper. The following slideshow/gallery is what the result was.

A few notes: These were all done in pen, not pencil, on lined college rule paper. That means I had to get these done right the first time, as there were no second chances. The only Photoshop that was done to these was to get rid of as much rule as possible without spending hours on each image.

I have left some of the original writing on some of these. Those who have seen my handwriting these days: told you I had damned good handwriting.

I CANNOT draw for shit. This is known and continues to be. I found these tonight and decided to show the world that I am not bullshitting when I say I can’t draw.

These were all drawn when I was in high school, over 15 years ago.

There are two thumbnails that didn’t generate correctly for this slideshow. I am working on fixing it, but the images still work when you click on the “ERROR” thumbnail. As well, if you go into “FS” (fullscreen) mode you can see higher res versions of each of these.

As you can see, some of these were a bit on the dark side. After the person saw these, they asked me to stick to the written word because they didn’t want to know what else resides in my head.

I think that is some of the best advice I ever received in my life.