So, when I saw recipes for pizza sauce and dough on Smitten that originally came from Mario Batali, I figured they were worth a shot. And Michael came home with two huge bunches of asparagus the other day (one white, one green), so I thought we’d try the asparagus pizza too. We recruited a couple friends to help with the baking and the eating, and… well, NOM. We were a little short on mozzarella, but we grated some white cheddar to fill in, and that made a great combination. For the sauce, I decided to start with canned peeled tomatoes, since it’s already getting hard to find good fresh ones. That worked; I just let it cook down while we waited for the dough to rise. I kept adding red pepper flakes to make the sauce spicier. (I wasn’t kidding about wanting a kick. Michael: “Who are you, and what have you done with my wife?”)

Our guests brought peaches that were a little underripe, so they fixed that by caramelizing them with butter and brown sugar, and we dumped them over the fresh batch of vanilla ice cream I’d just put in the freezer.

How rare is snow here? I’d never seen this glyph on the weather widget, let’s put it that way.

nolove,
Women

Ever wanted a keyboard drawer for your Mikael desk? If you happen to have an old set of Magiker bridge shelves lying around, you’re golden.

While I was documenting the hack, I decided to photograph the rest of my study. If you like to ogle other people’s bookshelves, or you just like brightly-colored workspaces, check out the Flickr set.

Hastings, south side

First stop, the Hastings closer to campus. I’m on my lunch break, and for once the book manager has already shelved all the new releases. (He’s often the only one working the book section, and if he gets a phone call, the shelving might not get done until dinnertime.) However, there’s no Iorich on the new release table or the SF shelf. I know what that means — Hastings and I have done this dance before — but I’m acquainted with the book manager, and when he says hi, I pause and ask him about the book. He looks it up, says “hmm,” and we learn that there’s one copy in transit and two more on backorder. When it does arrive, it will not be discounted, even though Jhegaala was heavily discounted in this store when it came out last year.

Now, there are two things you have to know about Hastings’ inventory system. The first is that “in transit” is a vague term. It’s not like a UPS package that gets tracked every time the truck stops. The book could arrive this afternoon or two weeks from now. There’s no way of knowing. The second is that Hastings, unlike every other bookseller I have ever encountered, assigns an internal release date rather than using the publishers’ — and it’s the last day of the month. Therefore I know — and you know, and anyone else who’s looked at Amazon or a publisher’s catalog knows — that Iorich is out today, but as far as Hastings’ computer is concerned, it will be released January 31. Even though the book is on the truck already. And even though all the really big bestsellers released today are indeed on the new release table, right on time.

I don’t get it either.

Barnes & Noble

They do have at least one copy — in a box in the back, buried under a number of other boxes, which they don’t plan to unpack today. (It’s about 5:45.) Would I like them to call me when they locate the book?

I would not. After all, maybe I’ll get lucky at the other Hastings…

Hastings, north side

Second verse, same as the first. At least the person at the book counter was friendly; for some reason, I usually get very grumpy people at this store.

Amazon

Discounted to $16.49 and shipping immediately. Even if I suck it up and pay the $3.99 for shipping rather than finding another random book to buy, I’m still saving $5 — and another trip to Barnes & Noble later this week.

I have an Amazon gift card burning a hole in my pocket, so I’ll give you three guesses what happened next.

To Sum Up

That’s why I stopped shopping locally in the first place. If I’m looking for a romance paperback, I can usually find it. Anything else, especially a new release, and it’s going to be a hassle: they don’t have it, or they don’t know whether they have it, and half the time I get a clerk who’s incapable of looking it up, even if I’ve spelled the author’s full name and provided an ISBN. Honestly!

Me? Well, I was sick for a while there. No, not hamthrax. Not even a virus, really; turns out the stuff I was on for back pain had some unlisted side effects. I’m better now. Except that my back hurts. Oh, and I’ve had a cold for two weeks.

Also, I was traveling a lot. I don’t know what I was thinking, but I wound up going to ArmadilloCon, FenCon, HighEdWeb, and World Fantasy all in quick succession, with side trips to San Antonio and Waco in between. One more big trip this weekend, to An Event Apart in San Francisco, and then I’m done.

And, you know, I’ve been busy. I’m frantically finishing up all my freelance projects because I have a book deal.

No, not for a novel. Don’t get too excited. Just a little excited.

I’m writing a book on WordPress! It’ll be out next summer from Apress, and I’m slanting it more toward CMS use than blogs, because, you know, WordPress is good for that sort of thing.

Look! It has a cover and it looks real and stuff! And it’s on Amazon and everything! That’s right: if you search for me on Amazon, you will find stuff.

OK, I’m a little excited.

So, you know, if you don’t see me around much for the next few months, I’m not dead… I’m just on a deadline.

I’ve been making a lot of ice cream lately. Thanks to my friend Shaima, I’ve become a fan of David Lebovitz’s blog, and when the weather turned hot I finally broke down and bought his ice cream cookbook.

Holy crap, y’all. This man knows how to make ice cream.

So far we’ve made vanilla, chocolate, chocolate peanut butter, and an experimental pomegranate sorbetto based on a different recipe from the book. That last one needs work, but the ones where we actually followed the recipe? Stellar. Next up: chocolate raspberry, and then either fig or green tea, depending on what I find at the farmer’s market on Saturday.

There are recipes for tons more flavors on the blog, including absinthe, agave-sweetened chocolate, no-machine-required chocolate and banana, and candied bacon (really).

Also of interest: how to make ice cream without a machine. And a tip from the book: if your ice cream freezes too hard, add a little alcohol to the mixture.

With the afternoon highs coming close to 100°F this week, it’s been great knowing that I have homemade ice cream waiting in my freezer, and that I can make another quart for less than the cost of a scoop at Ben & Jerry’s.