No price tag = free.

[mrissa]

In my family, we had an old joke, one that was no longer funny (if in fact it had ever been funny). Whenever something lacked a price tag, we all chirp happily that it must be free. Only today at Byerly's, it happened. The sour cabbage had no price tag on it, and the clerk sent the bagger running around the store looking for a tag, and when he was unable to find one, the store manager determined that it was entirely too long to keep a customer waiting and gave it to me for free. Wheee!

And hey, a sour cabbage! timprov has been sad for at least two years now (and possibly up to seven) about his inability to find sour cabbages to make cabbage rolls with, and now here it is, and if he's not feeling up to it, I will make him cabbage rolls with our free cabbage, and they will have tomato sauce and sour cream, and they will be a happy, happy thing, and we may even do plum buns and palacsinta that same night just to make it a theme. It's a good theme, I think. Any of you Twin Cities area people who like E. European foods, they have sour cabbage at the Eagan Byerly's this week. They may even have it at your Byerly's/Lund's. There's an easy way to find out.

I'm excited about cooking again. For awhile I was in something of a cooking dolrums, and I don't like that. Now I'm making fun things, shish kabobs tonight and stuffed salmon tomorrow (with fresh dill and yellow tomato wedges) and who knows what else, and that's just the cooking, not even counting the baking. I'm in an exuberant mood today. Food is not all of it, but it's a good chunk.

I started going through Midnight Sun Rising this morning. MSR is the third book in the series with Thermionic Night and Sampo. It may stand on its own. It may not. It will certainly be enriched by the presence of the other two books, but I have strong suspicions that it can do without them. It is not finished yet, not even drafted. And the bits that are written were written on the theory that it would be part three of a rather larger book, meaning that I couldn't develop some things and didn't have to explain others. Now I have to do both, get to do both, whichever. So as I'm reading through, I'm putting notes in: "mention Karl previous trip to Finland," "how did Avery meet Riina?", that kind of thing. I'm not sure it'll be the book I finish next, but it's been interesting to poke it with a sufficiently long stick and see how it goes, and I'm going to keep poking for awhile. It might have worked out the way I was trying to write it before, as a portion of a book, but I think it'll work much, much better as its very own book with a little more elbow room. More interesting things will happen. Also I will have to decide how overt I want to be about at least two touchy issues. I think it will mostly be a question of how much they will illuminate or detract from major plot points and ideas. I can't tell yet. Maybe I won't be able to tell for awhile now. We'll see.

After supper I will make cherry chocolate scones. I will scowl thoughtfully at present possibilities for Father's Day and my dad's birthday. I will mend my shirt, as that is the one thing from yesterday's list that did not happen yesterday. This seems reasonable. Until then, the poking.

Comments

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Poking anything in particular, or just at random?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Midnight Sun Rising.

I would poke markgritter, but he is miserable enough from allergies without a poking from me.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Yes. The power of poking is an awesome responsibility and must be exercise with discretion.

From what I've been able to gather, your books sound pretty interesting. I hope I can read them sometime.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You can have DBM to read now in manuscript form if you like. I'll be asking for crits on the next draft of Thermionic Night in not too long.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Sweet. I forewarn that I'm not a terribly effective critic/alpha reader, but I will do my best.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I would also love to read one.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I was in something of a cooking dolrums...

Oh, that's what I've been in for twenty years!

(I love reading about your writing.)

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

Mmm, sour cabbage! I can get all the sauerkraut I want, but it's shredded, no use to make cabbage rolls with. (So my cabbage rolls are with fresh cabbage: cabbage rolls with minced pork, or vegan cabbage rolls with chestnut and potato filling, yum!)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Did you want DBM (YA fantasy), or did you want to wait for TN?

You would be a beta reader at this point. The alpha readers should have pointed out whether huge gaping sections of plot make no sense whatsoever, that sort of thing. Your critiques would still be welcome, but I hope to have any huge problems worked out by the time you see it.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Just for fun, or do you want to wait until I'm seeking crits?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Hee.

And thank you.

Respectively.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, shredded sauerkraut is readily available here, too, and just not of any use to us. Sigh.

Chestnut and potato. My goodness! I never would have thought of that. How do you prepare it?

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

Either or. I will always tell you what I find cool and shiny about a book, but I'm less inclined to nitpick unless specifically asked.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Okay. Do you want me to send you DBM? If so, e-mail me at marissalingen at-sign gmail dot com and tell me where to send it and in what format.

[songwind.livejournal.com]

Considering how much reading I have on my plate now, I'll wait for TN. :)

[ellameena.livejournal.com]

Huh. I have never heard of sour cabbage, and I *am* eastern european. Sounds like it's the cabbage pickled. We use regular cabbage, either parboiled or frozen to wilt it, then put sauerkraut in with the rolls and tomato sauce.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

I occasionnaly try to make sour cabbage myself, and occasionnaly I am successful in it. There much randomosity in it for me - I like it, but it takes me a long time to have another try and see how it ends up.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That sounds like the American approximation, yep. Although the recipe we have is Hungarian, so it might just be a variation within the region.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

timprov has not been feeling well enough to try that himself, and I'm not enthusiastic enough. So this was a happy thing indeed.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

A recipe would be much appreciated.

[avrelia.livejournal.com]

Sure, but since I will have to locate that recipe and translate it into English, it will take me couple of days, okay?

[timprov.livejournal.com]

Certainly. Many thanks.

[pariyal.livejournal.com]

Cooked chestnuts (either do it yourself or get them from a jar or can, our organic supplier has excellent chestnuts-in-a-jar but they're expensive) mashed roughly; equal amount of mashed potato; salt, generous amount of black pepper, optionally sweet spices like cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, cloves. Some raisins are nice. A tablespoonful of sour cream, if you don't specifically want it vegan. You should have a stiffish 'dough'; if the potatoes are too watery correct it with a little flour or cornflour.

Take a spoonful at a time and roll it into a cabbage leaf the usual way.

Fit them into a dish where they just fit in one layer, cover with strong vegetable broth (tomato sauce doesn't compliment the chestnuts) and put it in the oven until it seems done.

You don't really need bread with it because of the nuts and potatoes, but it's nice; some kind of salad (with radishes!) is also nice.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[carbonel]

Interesting. My Hungarian grandmother (and her daughter, my mother) make stuffed cabbage with fresh wilted cabbage, not sour cabbage. (At least, I'm pretty sure that's true. I just left a phone message to check for sure.)

I never really liked stuffed cabbage all that much, so I'm only vaguely aware of how to make it. I think my youngest brother likes it (he cooks less now that he's disabled, but still has a lively interest in family recipes), so the recipe won't get lost.

On the other hand, I love my grandmother's paprikash. And rugelach. And cucumbers and onions. And palacsinta, though she always just called them "pancakes." I'd never heard the term "palacsinta" until we had a dinner at The Bakery in Chicago (now gone, alas) that finished with a special dessert of layered palacsinta cut into slices.

I'm just finishing the editing and layout for a family cookbook (in honor of my parents' 50th wedding anniversary), and while we probably shouldn't add any more recipes at this point, it occurs to me that the stuffed cabbage recipe should probably have been included.

On the other hand, we do have cabbage borsht, sweet and sour cabbage soup, noodles and cabbage (kaposhta kochko), and hot red slaw.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

That's such a lovely idea, a family cookbook. When you're the only child of an only child, there aren't so many recipes to pass around, since that's two copies of Grandma's Favorites at most. But I sometimes miss markgritter's grandmother's brown bread so much.

Our Hungarian cookbook blithely assumes that you can just go buy a sour cabbage and goes from there. Sigh. I didn't like any of the E. European food we had as a kid (my great-aunt married a Czech-American, and I grew up in Omaha), but Hungarian food makes it all work for me. I made the owner of Bistro E. Europe in San Francisco clap her hands in delight when I had a bite of the sauce on her polenta and beef and half-moaned, "Oh, this is how the French wished they cooked." She went around repeating, "The French wish!" and laughing.

We also have some dispute as to whether the other owner informed us that the food had to be spicy to kill the germs or the Germans.

[carbonel]

It's definitely an extended family cookbook. There are recipes from aunts, cousins, cousins-in-law, machatunim (does this need translating?), and so on. My mother contributed maybe 20 recipes, and the book is pushing 170 pages. If you'd like a PDF when it's done, I expect that could be arranged.

By the way, my mother returned my phone call, and not only does her stuffed cabbage recipe not call for sour cabbage, she's never even heard of sour cabbage. What makes cabbage sour?

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It's pickled. You put it in with vinegar and spices and that, and then you go away, and when you come back you have sour cabbage.