It's Dog!

When my twenty-year-old son Timothy, now studying culinary arts, was a baby, he hated meat. However, he did like dogs--as pets--so we could induce him to eat a slice of chicken or a small, toddler-sized hamburger, if we told him it was dog.

When Melissa, Bryony's main character, travels back to the Victorian age, she is less dismayed by the vampires she encounters than the unfamilar food that appears on her plate: pickled beef tongue, turtle, boiled calves head, mashed turnips, goose giblet soup, and tea with egg in it.

Perhaps she should might have been more open-minded if she hadn't known what she was eating, if John had, perhaps, renamed certain foods to make them more palatable to modern, adolescent tastes. Then again, it was probably impossible to fool her into believing that mushroom ketchup was exactly the same as tomato ketchup.

Are you adventurous about eating? How do you react to new and strange foods?

How Victorian Cooks Judged Oven Temperature

Yesterday, my son replaced the electric starter on my fifteeen-year-old gas stove. The oven had been broken several days, so going without it was a real trial, especially since I'm so accustomed to baking anything with the push of a button. If I had been a cook in Bryony's time, I would have followed these instructions:

From Miss Beecher's domestic receiptbook: designed as a supplement to her Treatise on domestic economy.

The book states the cook must first prepare the oven for properly conducting heat.

* After the arch is formed, four or five bushels of ashes are spread over it, and then a covering of charcoal over that, then another layer of bricks over all.
* Have oven wood prepared of sticks of equal size and length.
* The fire made be made the back side of the oven.
* The oven must be heated so hot as to allow it to be used cosed fifteen minutes after clearing, before the heat is reduced enough to close it. This is called soaking.
* If it is burnt down entirely to ashes, the oven may be used as soon as cleared.

An experienced cook, the book states, can determine the right heat without guidelines. The novice, however, needs a few tips:

* If the black spots in the oven are not burnt off, it is not hot, as the bricks must all look red.
* If you sprinkle flour on the bottom and it burns off quickly, it is too hot.
* If you cannot hold your hand in longer than to count to twenty moderately, it is hot enough.
* If you can count to thirty moderatly, it is not hot enough for bread.

Whew! Bring on the microwave!

Getting There...

WHEW! What a crazy month!

Trying to work, homeschool, and run a household full of people and cats when ill and undergoing medical testing is difficult enough (more lab work this past weekend and PET scan today), but trying to make time for Bryony’s third round of edits was nearly impossible. I picked off the minor fixes first, then slowly began re-working the prologue and first four chapters. I felt overwhelmed. How would I get it done?

Then I was hospitalized for a few days. My twenty year old son Timothy hung out there with me. He had packed his college materials and both our laptops. I was stunned. No reason for him to slack off, but did he really think I felt like working?

On the other hand, I felt no sicker than I had at home, and I couldn’t use lack of time for an excuse. I had no deadlines to meet from the hospital. The going was slow, but I finished up those chapters.

There is only one component that my editor wants reworked, and I honestly didn’t know how to change anything without seriously compromising the character she likes (The reason why I saved this bit for last). Thankfully, had an idea for it this weekend, which I hope my editor likes. Hopefully, though, once I’m past this point, Bryony will be very close to publication.

I can’t wait!!!

Denise M. Baran-Unland

Laugh

I never realized how much we laughed, until I had recently had hernia surgery.

My twenty-year-old son Timothy, especially, can find humor in everyday situations, to the extent that I often had to send him out of the room because laughing post-surgery really hurt.

I am convinced, though, that part of our family's ability to survive grim events is because we poke hilarious fun at our circumstances, whatever they may be. Some of our jokes are very strange, so I won't quote anything here, but...

Everyone finds something funny. If you haven't had a good laugh in awhile and life is looking a little gray, maybe you're long overdue. Resources abound, especially online, so give yourself permission for a hearty laugh today.

Brian's Toast

A minor "truth is stranger than fiction" element in Bryony is the way Melissa's younger brother makes toast. First, he methodically trims off the crusts around the perimeter of the bread, and then he carefully butters both sides. Brian, Melissa had said, could eat an entire loaf of bread this way, one piece at a time.

I remember the evening I wrote this passage, nearly two decades ago. My now twenty-year-old son was crawling around the floor; the three, older children were "remodeling" the backyard clubhouse with the kids across the street. An old, electric typewriter sat on a small, bedside table. I knelt before it and typed out this scene while trying to keep an eye on the baby.

Ten years and two children later, my then seven year old son began making toast in a similar fashion. No one had ever read this passge; indeed, no one in the family even knew the manuscript, in pieces and stages, existed. I had never met anyone who prepared toast this way.. As far as I knew, my mind invented it. Yet, like Brian, Daniel could eat an entire loaf of bread this way, one piece at a time.

Daniel, now fifteen, is less messy, but he still makes the best toast of anyone I know.