Giving burgers a new do!

Okay, folks, time for another blog! I am going to say this without any shame: I am a burger master.

Okay, maybe not a master by Bobby Flay's standards or anything, but I've learned in the last few months that I have some weird, burger ESP or something to know exactly how much to season them, and exactly how long to cook them. The trick to beef, burgers, speaking of which, is to cook them in a non stick pan (or a regular pan with a small amount of oil) on medium high heat for two minutes, flip them and cook them for another one minute on medium high heat, then turn down the heat to low, cover it and cook it for another two minutes. It will be a perfect medium. Seriously. If you prefer well done, cook it under the lid for another minute or so.

But getting to the point.
The real point of this post isn't to talk about how long to cook burgers, but about what goes with burgers. Traditionally, burgers are made of beef and served with some kind of french fries. But I'm going to let you all in on a couple of crazy, insane, almost radical ideas. Here's the first one:
Burgers do not need to be paired with french fries.

I'm going to repeat that, just in case you all fell on the floor when you read it.
Burgers DO NOT need to be paired with french fries. Get creative! More importantly, get healthy! And by creative and healthy, I don't mean one of those sad looking lettuce and tomato salads that's paired with burgers in some diners (which really are only thrown on when the person ordering is pretending to be healthy, cause I can guarantee that that thousand island dressing is not healthy). I'm talking about something delicious and fun, too! I'm talking about soup. Butternut squash soup, in my case, but really any soup will do. It's like a twist on the soup and sandwich idea, just with a burger. YOU WILL LIKE IT. And you'll be surprised at how much better you feel after eating that than eating french fries. Plus you get to sneak in those veggies in such a way that your burger brain won't mind them. And we all know what I mean by burger brain. We all get it. It's the "I need a burger RIGHT NOW" kind of carnal urge that everyone, including vegetarians (which I do know about) get once in a blue moon.

Tonight for dinner I made Mollie Katzen's butternut squash apple soup recipe from her book Get Cooking. Plus a couple choice herbs that I think added a bit of flavor (rosemary and cinnamon), since I can never leave a recipe alone. The point I'm trying to make is that you don't really need the french fries. Just make a side portion of soup. Go on, give it a try. Before you whine to me about missing your fries, just try it. You won't miss them, and you'll find yourselves so much more full than if you ate french fries.

Here's the second crazy, insane, radical idea:
Turkey burgers CAN taste good.

I'll repeat that one too. Turkey burgers can taste good! Just try putting some chopped red onion, salt, and pepper in it and hold it together in the ground turkey with a bit of egg. Then cook it on medium heat for four minutes, flip, and cook it for four more minutes. The big trick here, which most people seem to have trouble with, is to just NOT TOUCH IT. Just let it go! Don't peek under it over and over, don't press down on it with the spatula (that will release juices that you need in order to make it not horrible and dry). Just let it cook! The combination of that and the onions make it very moist and delicious, and you won't miss the beef. I promise.

My modified turkey burger with butternut squash apple soup on the side

I know I'm expecting people to trust me on this quite a bit, but do give it a try! Try the soup thing first. You'll like it, then try pairing it with a turkey burger. You'll feel healthy, full, and even get in a few veggies here and there. Good luck!

And now, NEXT ON KATE'S BLOG: the next post is going to be about roasted garlic, I think, but I was wondering if anyone's interested in seeing a sample of my writing as well. Garlic and writing...why not. I should also post some of my crazy Grad School, Culinary School, work saga. It's quite the conundrum.

New Thoughts, New Ideas, and Farina

Okay, so since I've been doing such a clearly horrible job keeping up with this blog, I've decided to change it to the food/writer blog...the...fighter blog? That doesn't seem right.

Anyway, I'm just going to start posting things about food, about writing, or about both put together. Basically, whatever tickles my fancy and excites my soul. Because I realized much too late that I should be documenting the recipes that I make, and all the changes I make to them (I can never seem to get myself to use just a recipe on its own. I always have to change it, somehow). So might as well start now!

Today I'm going to talk about cream of wheat. Yes, that is what I said. Cream of wheat, aka farina. Some people love it, and some people really hate it. The only reason I purchased it myself, recently, is because I'm sick and am having difficulty swallowing anything properly. But then I woke up this morning, completely bored with the idea of having your typical cream of wheat with brown sugar. I wanted something with more oomph, a bit more protein and excitement...so I grabbed the eggs.

Yes, the eggs. I'll explain why this thought crossed my mind in a minute.

I made basic cream of wheat, using half milk, half water, then cracked an egg right into the pot as it was cooking. I made sure it was on very low (don't want to cook the egg too fast) then folded it into my cream of wheat. To make it even more exciting, I shredded some sharp cheddar, and mixed that in as well. When I took it off the heat, I also added a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese and a little bit of maple syrup. The result was a delightfully light and fluffy sweet/savory cream of wheat, which almost resembled custard. The reason I went for the eggs in the first place, aside from being a protein boost, was because milk, sugar and eggs are a typical custard base. I assumed that if all went well, and I folded the eggs into the cream of wheat properly, it would actually make it fluffier rather than denser.

Cream of Wheat Custard

Kate's Easy Cream of Wheat Custard
makes 1 serving

1/2 a cup of water
1/2 a cup of milk
3 tbs of cream of wheat (farina)
1 egg
1/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese (or any kind of cheese you want) <--optional
1 tsp parmasan cheese <--optional
1 tbs maple syrup <--optional

Heat milk and water together in a sauce pan, and let it come to a boil. Add the cream of wheat, and reduce the heat to low, letting it simmer for two to three minutes, until it gets thicker (you can choose how thick you want your breakfast to be, but remember that it will get thicker as it cools too. Crack the egg directly into the pot, and break the yolk. Fold it carefully into the cream of wheat (if you just mix like a crazy person, it will get lumpy and gross with tiny bits of lumpy cooked egg in it. Yuck!). Cook for another minute or so, making sure you see no clear egg white left. Take off the heat, and pour in the cheddar cheese, mixing it in and letting it melt into the hot custard. Put in the parmasan and syrup, and serve. You've got yourself a much tastier, more interesting cream of wheat. You're welcome to use any toppings you want, of course, but the combination of the sweet to the savory is delicious.

NOTE: If you find you're having trouble with cooking the egg too quickly, the next time you make it you can beat the egg ahead of time and mix just a little of the hot cream of wheat mixture to the egg, beating rapidly. This will bring the egg to the right temperature and get it used to the hot without cooking it. Then add it to the cream of wheat. I find that this step isn't always necessary, since the cream of wheat itself isn't super hot, but if are having trouble give it a shot.

The next step for this recipe is to make it into a kind of quick bread. Farina makes a delightful, slightly less dense alternative to cornmeal.

This isn't a very complex or exciting recipe, but it's a start. Think I should move on to soups (which I make all the time) or easy pastas next. Or maybe what I did with that large bag of lemons Rachel's mom gave me and I didn't know what to do with at first.

Why can't stories just be about people?

Well, it's been ages since I last posted. Since then I've gone through summer classes, full time work, the start of my senior year of college, and grad school applications. Basically, I've been a bit busy. But I'll try to keep updating again, regularly.

Alright. Here we go.

I was recently introduced to the movie Imagine Me & You. Yes, I realize that I'm a little slow, since it came out in 2005, but give me a break.
Needless to say, I absolutely love it. It's now my favorite romantic comedy ever. And it's not even just a romantic comedy...it's a wonderful love story, that's also quite heartwarming (is everyone sick from my sweetness yet? I am. I can't help it; I have a new obsession!). Anyway, the point I'm trying to make, is that everyone should see this movie.
No, that's not really it. It's that Lena Headey and Piper Perabo make great (and quite attractive *cough*) lesbians. Seriously. They both played lesbians before, actually, Piper in Lost and Delirious and Lena in the BBC series Band of Gold about a bunch of women in the red light district.
But this is all beside the point.
Apart from the fact that I think everyone should watch Imagine Me & You (and not just lesbians, really), I think part of the reason I'm so drawn to it is because no one died.
Yes, I did say that right. No one died. In every other lesbian movie I've seen, one of the girls died, or decided she was suddenly straight, or any other number of horrible things. Plus, it's always about being gay. It's the same with almost every book (certainly young adult books). It's all about coming out, or being gay and misunderstood.
This plot is completely fine, but where are all of the other books, with regular plot lines, and gay characters? That's what the movie is about. It's just a love story, that ends up having a relationship between two women. It's not about being gay, and it's just a normal plot with gay people in it. That's part of what interested me, since some of my writing is like that, too. I feel as though there aren't enough books and movies with just gay characters. Particularly love stories. I like having love stories that are normal love stories that just happen to have two women. Or two men. Or anything else. Almost. But the point, is that it doesn't *have* to be about being gay! It can just be about being people. =). And watch that movie!

P.S. One other thing I noticed about the characters in that movie is that Rachel, Piper's character doesn't suddenly get all into "being gay" after she discovers Luce. She's just herself! And both characters are quite feminine, which is really just refreshing to me because I usually don't see that in media. Not that there's anything wrong with more masculine lesbians (I sure as hell know a lot of them), but this is far more applicable to my life, and my story, since that's how my girlfriend and I both are.

Also, would anyone be interested in reading my writing? Parts of my actual writing that I would post up here? Let me know!

That is, if anyone reads this...

The "will it get published?" rant.

It's been too long since my last post, courtesy of GRE prep, work, and summer school. What's been on my mind lately in my writing is the topics in young adult novels. That is, what's appropriate to write about? What's not? Or, more accurately, what's publishable?
Young adult novels are definitely getting darker and, true to history, breaking the barriers. There's been a crazy amount of "dead teenager" books put out in the last couple of years, what with If I Stay, Thirteen Reasons Why and various other books. Not to mention Hunger Games.

Last summer, I picked up the book Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson. Upon reading it, I couldn't decide wasn't sure whether I was pleased or not to find that the first accurate representation of anorexia I've ever read as a teenage novel. Is it right to write about (no pun intended. Okay, maybe a little one)? There are pros and cons to both. When I read it, for example, I found myself thinking about how amazing it would have been when I was going through an eating disorder to have read the book, had someone to relate to. On the other hand, I was really glad I hadn't been able to read the book, because just reading such a relatable story and being able to get into the main characters mind stirred up all my old anorexic thoughts, which I'd been able to squelch before. Then again, that's just my reaction. It's a tricky business.
Basically, regardless of all the heavy teenage books being published, there are still some rules to cover. Is it okay to write books with underage smoking? Drinking? Drugs? Is it okay to write about death, sexual abuse, eating disorders, sex? Mostly sex. What are the rules about sex with teenagers? What if the problem isn't the focus of the story, but just something that happens in it? Most of all, will it get published? Current day evidence says yes, but I just don't know. I'm concerned, and I know it's come up in conversation about writing with my girlfriend. But if it isn't okay, then what about books like Because I am Furnature or even older ones like Speak? I write what I write because it's a good story, because I feel it's important. And because I had to turn something in to my advanced fiction class. Not to mention the fact that one of my main characters visited me in my sleep.
Unwritten rules are so complicated.
On the bright side, if these things are allowable, I'm in the right niche.

Next up: it's high time for a preview. A sample of my writing!

Officially getting GRE'd...before taking it.

Let's talk for a minute about Grad School. Or, more importantly, what I'm doing to get into Grad School. I've been reading through a GRE exam book, and slowly having confirmed what I've suspected all along:

• The GRE is not a good indication of how well you will do in Grad School.
• The GRE is not fair.
• The GRE is not a good test of your knowledge.

Most importantly, figuring out these facts have lead me to one simple conclusion:

• The GRE is a test of how well you can take the GRE.

This is why I'm spending my traveling hours on public transportation reading a GRE book that teaches me not new material, but specific techniques to be able to answer the questions.

I've been reading voraciously (a GRE word?) since I was a little thing, and I'd like to think I have a pretty large vocabulary (even if it's not always projected in this blog. Hey, a writer has to have some place to vent sometimes, right?). But reading through the vocabulary "Hit List" as my book calls it, there's absolutely no way I know all the definitions for those words.

Another big problem with the GRE is that it's computer adaptive. If you speak like a normal person and have no idea what this means, it means that the computer you take the GRE exam on is mean, and far too smart. It assumes you have the average score for a particular section, and, depending on whether you answer a question right or wrong, asks you a harder or easier question next. Let's put this into perspective.
Let's say you're taking the verbal section, and the average score is 450. Let's just pretend. This means the first question the computer gives you is an "average" question for that section. If you get that question right, it raises you score some percent, and gives you a harder question. If you get it wrong, it lowers your score, and gives you an easier question, most likely of the same type you got wrong so that it can pound your misery into you over and over again. Anyway. This type of testing means the questions not only get harder, but the percent by which it raises or lowers your score also gets smaller. This means that the first questions are worth more than the last.
And that's my long-winded rant about the GRE exam.

Does it make me less of an author because I keep getting lower scores on the Verbal part of my practice tests than the Math section? Or does it just mean that I don't know the third listed definition of "catholic" in the dictionary?

p.s. More Grad School posts to come that actually have to do with the schools. But the next blog will be once again about writing.

p.p.s I do not own that comic. It's property of the website posted at the bottom of it.

In which I notice that my writing is quite similar to Sara Ryan's

The first subject is that I've discovered that my writing is oddly like Sara Ryan's in a lot of ways. It's also not in a lot of ways, but the characters she has in Empress of the World hold just the right amount of wit, insight, sarcasm and, of course, dorkiness to be delightfully cutting. When I first read the book, years ago, I wasn't sure I liked it. But as I've gotten older and reread it, I find that I like it more and more as time goes on. I'm not sure yet how I feel about her second novel, The Rules for Hearts, but the first one is enjoyable. It's possible that part of this is due to the fact that it's one of the first books involving gay teenagers that I've read that isn't about being gay. That is, it's not a coming out novel. It's a "coming of age novel" if I must put a name to it, that happens to have a gay main character. I don't see very many novels like that, and it's refreshing. So many gay novels are just about coming out. More on that later, as I think the subject deserves its own blog post.
Anyway, if you have time, you should read it, and let me know what you think! It's fairly short. I'm starting to think I should do more book/author plugs in this blog as well as my own, boring personal life.

Also, prepare for it, you guys. The next blog I write is going to be on...*insert ominous music here* GRAD SCHOOL.

Getting involved.

Today, I realized that I get very involved in my characters lives. I'm like a nagging mother or something. I don't stop until I find out absolutely everything about them, their lives, their favorite food, the shoes they wear normally, and what they were doing last night, young lady. I also discovered that I can't really help it, they interest me. I've also somehow convinced myself that if I figure out more about my characters, I'll write them better. This might very well be true, but it's mostly caused me to fill my notebook with random notes here and there, interspersed with my school notes: "Luc Tuymans painted his first painting in ...I bet Ari would wear flat black leather boots."

A very good example of this idea came to life today in Ikea. Having just moved into a new apartment, my girlfriend and I have been looking for furniture. We were looking at our new chairs, and realizing that since they're plain wood, we could paint or stain them. My immediate thought, then, was "Oh, what was painted on the chairs of my characters' kitchen?"

On the bright side, one exercise I had myself do was to write vignettes about my characters lives when they were younger, prior to the book. These have been working out so well, I might be able to publish those instead. We'll have to see.

WARNING: LOST SPOILER ALERT! (if you don't want to know, don't read this next paragraph): Now, on a slightly unrelated note: the ending of Lost was so disappointing. I actually almost cried from disappointment. It seem like such a cop out ending, which I never would have gotten published had I proposed it. I did like to see everyone reunited, that was cool. But the everyone being dead thing? Just seems like cheating.

Getting back to the point. Am I the only one who gets so deeply involved in my characters lives? Do you prefer to get involved, or just write 'em and leave 'em?