Dishes to Bring to the Party

This week at SFFSeven, we're talking about things to bring to a party.  As it happens, I'm going to one tonight, for Austin SFF Writer Amanda Downum.  So, what am I bringing?  I'm making a cochinita pibil.  It's a slow cooked pork in an achiote marinade.  It's SO good.
Here's how you make the achiote marinade:

achiote paste
8 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 cup of white vinegar
1 cup of orange juice
¼ cup of water
all spice (8 to 10 balls)
black pepper to taste
pinch of cumin

Blend all that into a thick marinade.  Marinate pork, cut into one-inch chunks, with that good stuff overnight.  Then slow cook it in a low temperature (the hardcore way is to wrap it in banana leaves), or in a sous vide.    Meanwhile, also make pickled purple onions:

3 purple onions
vinegar
Salt
Pepper

Put a pot of water to boil. Slice the onions into thin slices and blanch in the boiling water for 3 minutes. Move to another container, cover with vinegar, and add salt and water to taste.
This makes for delicious tacos, or served with black beans and rice. 

Don't let me near a stove. Or grill. Or microwave.

Good morning, blogland! Today people here in the U.S. are building up steam to grill food, wear obnoxious red-white-n-blue clothing, and blow stuff up. Little tiny stuff, for the most part -- fireworks -- but still, boom. This is how my country celebrates its independence.

Remember what I said about food and the cooking of it? People do that! And they do it well.

I am not one of those people.

I don't have a go-to cookout recipe to share. If called upon in such a situation, I typically bring a six-pack of the unofficial beer of Texas, Shiner Bock. (Best American beer. Fight me.)

If I really like the party I'll bring a plastic bowl of pre-cubed watermelon. (Mmmmm, watermelon.)

If I really really like the party -- and it will probably include kids -- I'll bring something like this:

Happy day, folks, no matter what you're celebrating (yeah, sorry about that rebellion thing, England, but a case can be made for you lot celebrating the heck out of today, too). Stay cool!

Party Recipe: Salmon & Green Bean Salad

Everybody ready for the 4th? Menus planned? Last-minute grocery run ordered online for pick up on the way home?  Book and wine slushies prepped?

If you're having or attending a party, here's a pretty simple yet not overly common dish to throw together:

Salmon & Green Bean Salad

Ingredients:

• 1 6oz Salmon Filet Baked & Flaked
• (if you don't like fish, substitute chopped ham or corned beef sliced into ribbons, or omit entirely)
• 1 Steamer Bag of Green Beans, cut into bite sizes
• (chopped, haricot verts, wax beans, any type is fine, it's the texture that matters so skip the canned beans) 
• 4oz Dry or 2 cups cooked of Favorite Pasta, Cooked & Drained
• (Orzo, bowtie, fusilli, dinosaurs, semolina, wheat, veggie, rice, whatever makes you happy)
• 1/2 cup dried (pitted) cherries
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1/4 cup (ish) of your favorite vinaigrette
• Shaved asiago or parmesan for topping (optional)

Directions:

Mix in large bowl. Top with shaved cheese. Can be served chilled or warm.

Favorite Recipes to bring to a party

Our theme for the week is favorite recipes to bring to a party. I have two for you. first a simple one and second a recipe that's a bit more complex.


So a friend of mine introduced me to one of the best ever party dips He and his beloved call it "crack Dip," because once you've had it, you'll be addicted.

They aren't really wrong.

Crack Dip is amazingly easy. 1 part cream cheese. 1 part your favorite salsa.

Allow cream cheese to reach room temperature, mix with sals. until thoroughly blended. Serve with your favorite chips, though I always had it with Fritos corn chips.

The other, slightly more complex offering is stuffed jalepenos

Stuffing: cream cheese, cheddar cheese, garlic powder, black pepper, Old Bay seafood seasoning and panko bread crumps with either a) real or fake crab meat or b) salad shrimp.

Mix all of the stuffing ingredients together. 1 part cream cheese, 1 part cheddar cheese, seasonings to taste and a half cup of panko bread crumbs to help stick everything together. Once again the cream cheese should be room temperature to make it easier to mix. Add in the seafood of your choice.

Let the mixture sit in the refrigerator while you take a good dozen or so jalepenos and cut them in half. Take the time to scrape out at least the majority of the white flesh and the seeds, as those hold all of the heat. Even with them removed, you'll get a lot of flavor and some peppery bite.

Once the peppers have been cleaned, wash your hands thoroughly with warm soap water, thus allowing you to uses your hands without risking rubbing your eye unconsciously and wishing that your eye would stop catching on fire.

Now that we have THAT out of the way, spoon the stuffing into the jalepenos and once agains et them in he refrigerator for around fifteen minutes to let them set up.

preheat the oven to 350 degrees, set the peppers on a nonstick surface and bake for 20 minutes. Serve when ready.

There. That's two for ya.

Keep smiling and have a great 4th of July.

New Orleans Picnic Sandwich for the Cooler

Our topic this week at the SFF Seven is a "recipe for your favorite dish to bring to a party/cookout." Which is a pretty easy topic - and I would've had mine up sooner if we hadn't been out at the lake all day!

I've had this recipe forever. Like, it's still the yellowed column I tore out of the newspaper something like 20 years ago. But it's a great sandwich that feeds six people easily, and it's even better for marinating in the cooler for a few hours.

Here 'tis!

Muffuletta-Style Picnic Loak

Ingredients

One 16-inch loaf French bread
2 c thinly sliced zucchini or yellow summer squash
Italian salad dressing
8 oz sliced salami, cut into strips
6 oz sliced provolone or mozzarella cheese
3 T sliced pitted ripe olives
1/2 alfalfa sprouts
2 med tomatoes, thinly sliced

Slice bread in half horizontally. Hollow out bottom half and give what you dig out to the birds and squirrels. Brush both halves with Italian salad dressing. Put zucchini/squash in a bowl and toss with 1/3 c Italian salad dressing and let sit. Place salami strips on bottom half of bread. Top with cheese, zucchini/squash, olives, sprouts and tomatoes. Drizzle with Italian salad dressing and top with other half of loaf. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in cooler. Slice to serve.

Let me know what you all think!

Persuade Dissuade Lemonade

I’m in the independently published camp all the way, but that’s  because I’m me and this method of publishing suits my needs. There’s no one right answer for everyone so I’m not going to try to persuade, dissuade or make lemonade here today.

When I decided to work toward being a published author in 2010, I was focused on traditional publishing because that was really all I’d ever heard of. I wasn’t tied into the author community – it wasn’t as easy as it is nowadays with Facebook author groups and author loops and twitter and etc. So I submitted a story to Carina Press (a Harlequin imprint) over the transom as they used to say, in response to an open call on their part for ancient world romance. I wrote a paranormal romance set in 1550 BCE Egypt and the rest is (a modest footnote to) history. Published author here, as of 2012!

I learned so much from my experience with Carina and really enjoyed the association. They gave me a beautiful to die for cover from Frauke of Croco Designs, I loved my editor and she really ‘got’ the book, I lucked into a wonderful community of Carina authors (which is where I met Jeffe) and things seemed good. As a long time romance reader, I was thrilled to be part of the extended Harlequin family as an author.

Carina acquired the second book in the Egyptian series. Although everyone was again lovely to me and professional to work with, I got to see a different side of traditional publishing – the cover by someone other than Frauke was not my favorite, shall we say. My editor left and while I was quickly assigned to a new editor, they didn’t really seem to resonate with my story or me. I couldn’t believe how much time was elapsing between book one’s release and book two’s release. Which to be clear wasn’t an inordinate amount of time at all for a trad published book (although Carina was primarily ebook at the time and my two titles never made it into print with them), but for impatient me, it was an eternity!

One of my "woke up in the morning
 with this plot" books

 I discovered I didn’t like working to a contract, in terms of what book to write next. My Muse is a flighty being and likes to work on what appeals to her most. Looming schedules make her tense. Some mornings I wake up with an entire book plot in my head, out of nowhere, and if I don’t write that book right now, forsaking all others for a while, I’m making a serious mistake. My biggest sellers have been those books. They certainly weren’t anywhere on even the gauzy schedules I keep for myself.

Oh and did I mention Carina decided to leave the ancient world romance genre at that time (they may have gone back into it since for all I know) and didn’t show any interest in acquiring my scifi romance, although they were venturing into SFR then. I’m extremely glad they passed now of course. So I couldn’t have continued with them, not writing the only two types of novels I wanted to write. They were open to me experimenting with other genres but my Muse and I were not.

My first self pubbed SFR
"Titanic in space..."

Conveniently, I had also self-published my first scifi romance two months after the initial Carina book released. I LOVED everything about self-publishing. I picked the cover, the price, the distribution channels, whether to make certain edits or not, the schedule, the promo…the royalties came straight to me me me with no extra % taken out for a publisher in between me and the seller’s platform…

I’ve written my entire life and been seriously pursuing publishing since 2010. I had a long career in the business side of the house at NASA/JPL so once I was able to become a fulltime author (which didn’t happen right away – took three years) I was ready to step right into the multitudinous tasks of being a small business, publishing and managing my own books. And I’ve been a happy clam ever since.

I admire authors who can be hybrid and work within the traditional publishing framework and self-publish as well. I think there can be advantages to having a big, successful publisher behind you. I can’t envision it for myself at this time, but I wouldn’t necessarily say no if the right offer came along. I would negotiate the heck out of the contract to keep my intellectual property rights and to make sure there were no issues or constraints on my continuing to also self-publish.

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

DepositPhoto

My latest indie published titles!

What She Said

So for my post, can I just link to Jeffe's post and nod vigorously? No? Rats. Okay. Let's come at this another way, then.

Sometimes, mes amis, the world of publishing leaves you very few options. When what you write isn't necessarily the flavor du jour, most trad publishing houses won't look at you cross eyed. If they do, but your sales don't hit a particular benchmark, you may rapidly find yourself unpublished by traditional houses. If that happens, and if you have the self-confidence and spite to pick up your stories, you can go home and learn to become your own publisher.

Or say you've been writing one genre and you want to dip your toes into another - one you aren't necessarily certain you want to immerse yourself into. You write that book and rather than subbing it to agents and editors, you put it up yourself as an experiment. To test the genre waters, so to speak.

Or, maybe, after an eternity of waiting, you recover the rights to a group of stories that were orphaned when your cherished editor left the business (get used to that one, cupcake, it happens on a daily) you finally have the opportunity to finish out the series and relaunch the whole thing at what you consider a much friendlier price point - or with the cover of your dreams. Whatever your entre into DIYing it is.

Just know this. Everything about self-publishing is learnable. Scads of people have been through this wilderness and will gladly point the way. Some people will charge admittance. Many more won't. Author loops are crazy generous with how-to information, software suggestions, cover designer, editor, and copy editor referrals, too. Most of them will discuss the nuanced differences between launching wide versus targeted, too. Here. Let me pass you an aspirin. Author loops are a fire hose. You might need the pain killer.

All of this said, there's no right or wrong answer to the question of going indie or trad or both. There's only what's right for you and your work. If you're a security seeker, go trad. If you're a risk taker and a control freak, go indie. If you see the merits of both, then do all the things. There's really no math to do that will make clear which path is 'best'. It's all judgement call and what sounds like the most fun. Sure. You need a career strategy at some point. Tons of people will coach you through that, too, but as far as I can tell, you end up with a mirror of THEIR strategy rather than one of your own. So you may as well be guided by your own sense of what sounds easy versus hard. If having to format your own book sounds like the third circle of hell because you're a technophobe, you can hire someone to do that work, or you can choose to stick with the trad houses. They'll handle all that fiddly stuff, at the price, however, of having complete control over how your book is presented to the world.

So. Yeah. What Jeffe said. It's all about tradeoffs. You get to choose which ones you'll accept.

Quiz: Should I go indie or trad?

I'm brand new to this publishing thing--I only have two books out right now, and both went the traditional publishing route. So it's not like I have a whole bunch of wisdom to drop on this topic of whether folks should keep keep banging manuscripts against the query wall or take the also terrifying leap off the indie cliff.

Here's what seems clear, though: not everyone is going to succeed in the same path. I suspect that choosing what's right for you comes down to your personality and what you want from this writing adventure.

Also, I've made a quiz. Because I love quizzes. Jot your answers on a separate sheet (or write them on your forearm in Sharpie; not judging). Here goes:

1. Having a cover that looks exactly like the character and setting from the story is

A. Not as important as having a cover that conveys tone and genre, so readers aren't surprised.

B. Nice but not really my focus. I'm about writing the stories.

C. The most important thing.

2. If you absolutely had to reduce costs in the production of your book, you'd skip

A. Starbucks for a month. Or gym membership. All's I know is nothing about this book is gonna get skipped. This baby is gonna shine.

B. Editing. I know how to use commas and write clean. Plus I ran this thing through Autocrit, so it's good enough.

C. Celebratory vino for release day. Possibly the Amazon ad.

3. A line edit is

A. Close enough to a copy edit that one contractor could probably do both.

B. A what-what?

C. In my budget, and I have a great service scheduled to do it.

4. My primary goal for my writing career is to

A. Make enough money at writing to quit the day job.

B. Earn accolades, awards, and starry trade reviews.

C. Turn out the best-quality story I can, every time.

5. I consider myself a risk-taker

A. Heck yeah and bring on the sky-diving.

B. No. And I think I'm getting sick just at the thought.

C. Um, is that thing safe? If it is, sure, why not just one jump.

6. It's release day for your very first book. What's the worst thing that can happen today?

A. Seller's web site doesn't have the buy links active until after noon, meaning I'm on the phone and annoyed and losing money, but we WILL get this sorted.

B. No one even knows the book is out. No one sees it. No one reviews it or mentions it on social media. No one buys it. Holy wibblefest, am I even a real writer?!

C. Just...today? Like, one day? Man, I'm in this for the long haul. Tell me the numbers in six weeks or so, and then we'll see if we need to panic or change things up. Today, I'm just going to sip some celebratory vino and plot out my next opus.

For items 1 - 3, count 1 point for As, 2 points for Bs, and 0 points for Cs. For items 4-6, tally 0 points for As, 3 points for Bs, and 1 point for Cs. Total your points.

If you got...

0-5 -- You got this and would probably rock the indie path.
6-10 -- Consider branching out and building a career as a hybrid author. Indie first or trad first: do what works best for you, just realize that you can have the best of both worlds.
11-15 -- Keep querying. You will probably be most comfortable with a publisher at your back, at least at the beginning.

So, how'd you do? Is the quiz bunk? All your thoughts, I'm ready to hear 'em.