Well, it's been a crazy few months in the USA and inside my head. It's always crazy, but with our new "president" [political opinion redacted, but not exactly hard to figure out], I've been pretty much dragging through molasses ever since the election. And eating.
Now that Spring is Springing here in Inland California (brag...brag...watch out for flooding), I'm hoping to pull myself out of my writing slump and my editing slump and my exercise slump and my need-a-job slump and my everything slump.
The slumps are the hard parts. I have a history of depression and this time through hasn't been as rough as some, but it still left me in despair and reading a lot of comfort reads. (You should see my list of re-reads from the last 2 months!)
I'm about a month behind in the schedule I set for myself, so need to look at my goals again.
I'm almost through an editing pass of my Big Chill not-quite-a-romance-maybe-chick-lit book and my critique partners are reading it in sections as I finish editing. I'm going to be querying a bunch of agents who have said they're interested in New Adult and Chick Lit. I spent a few hours searching for them the other day and need to get my query letter in shape.
THEN I want to edit Françoise, which is book...uh... six? Yes. Book 6 of Châteaux and Shadows. The bones are there, but it's going to take some work.
ALSO, I should be getting my galleys and then planning my publicity for the Wild Rose Press release of Mélisande, whenever that happens.
I also want to edit Harriet (contemporary romance with a beta hero) to give her more conflict (sorry, Harriet, it's just too easy). That will probably be late March.
I'm going to be giving my critique partners a workout.
April is a Camp Nanowrimo and I really need to finish Dario (Book 7, Châteaux and Shadows), then put it on the back burner to percolate for a while.
And in all this, I REALLY NEED a job. With actual income. Right now, I'll take about anything full time, preferably paying more than minimum wage and preferably not on my feet the whole time, but something temporary so there is income while I'm looking for some other thing is fine.
The writing will take more time when I get a job, but at least I have goals.
And now that the fog of depression is lifting, I can probably do all these things. Let's get cracking!
Philippa Lodge, Author: Shapeshifter paranormal romance! Contemporary romance! Historical romance!
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Thursday, February 9, 2017
French Baguettes: a work in progress
Off and on over the past few years, I've been trying to figure out how to make a nice, authentic French baguette.
You know: with giant bubbles and a crunchy-chewy crust.
You know: almost completely unlike the "French" bread you can buy in most grocery stores.
Exception: the organic baguette from Trader Joe's does a darn good job of approaching perfection.
This year, I decided to get serious about it. What I've learned so far: most recipes I've seen for it have ended up with something that just doesn't really resemble French bread. It's not so much the recipe, which is basic: flour, water, salt, yeast. It's all in the instructions.
I've been working from this recipe from a French women's magazine. Lookit me all reading French and stuff!
I'm on attempt number 7 or so and have about 20 minutes until I can tell you the result of this latest trial, so here's what I know so far:
1) Use flour with LESS gluten, not more. That means cake flour, not bread flour, which seems counter-intuitive, which is why it's taken me so long to crack this. Today's attempt is half Softasilk cake flour and half all-purpose unbleached. I've tried whole wheat pastry flour and will definitely start working it back into my mix once I have white bread down.
2) Get the actual French baguette loaf pans that look like gutters, but with a jillion holes. This upped my game considerably. I got mine at Amazon, but they have them all over the place, like Bed Bath and Beyond and JC Penney's and so on. Some recipes I've seen, they use pizza stones. Which is fine if you don't mind the bottom of your loaf being all flat, which shouldn't affect the flavor.
Right: so here's the recipe:
6 cups flour (low-ish gluten, finely ground)
2.5-ish cups warm water
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp yeast
That's it. It's basic. That's also a lot of bread. I have five people in my family and two of those are teen boys, so we tend to finish it up by the next day. Last time, I gave a loaf to a sick friend, so we ran out really quickly. If you don't have loads of people with hollow legs, make only half that and get a pan with only two gutters instead of the four I have.
Mix the water, flour, and salt until it forms a ball (I use a KitchenAid stand mixer with a dough hook, which takes less than a minute).
3) Just barely mix it. Get the ingredients stuck together and then leave it alone. No kneading. No leaving the mixer running. Just get the flour mostly wet and let it do its thing.
Cover it and let it sit there for half an hour or so. Mix the yeast with a bit of water, then mix it in, maybe adding a little more flour if you have to. I find that having the dough a bit on the sticky side ends up with better results than having it too dry.
(I'm still deciding if I need to wait this extra time or if putting the yeast in right away is fine)
Roll the ball in oil (I add a bit of oil to the mixing bowl and run it for a couple seconds, then roll the ball over once I've scraped it off the hook) and cover. Let rise in a warm, dry place for an hour or two. You want your yeast replicating and flourishing and a good store of "yeast farts" in there and the ball of dough at least doubled in size.
Turn out on floured surface (I use a cloth) and knead just enough so the oil is kneaded in. You'll lose quite a bit of the air, but I'm always happiest when some of the bubbles are still in there, unpopped. Add a bit more flour if it's still super sticky.
For my pan, which is a bit over a foot long and has four slots, I cut the dough into four equal pieces, then roll and stretch and dangle and roll them until I have four worms. (yum!) Lay them in the bread pan.
Another two big hints:
4) Sharp, sharp knife to cut the slashes in them. Cut fairly deep, like deeper than you think you want to. This lets some of the steam in the loaves escape. I have this scary bread knife that we bought last year online because I couldn't find an actual bread knife with sharp teeth for slicing loaves without crushing them. It's scary-sharp and I've cut myself a few times with it, but its razor-sharp teeth allow me to make deep, clean slashes. And my darling husband gave it to me the day after Valentine's Day. *Cue music from Psycho*
5) Hot, hot, hot and steam, steam, steam. Preheat to 450 degrees (which Google tells me is 232.2222 C). I put a jelly roll pan on the lowest rack and pour a cup of water into it while the oven heats, then add another cup when I put the bread in to bake. Today, I also brushed the tops with water.
I leave my bread pan sitting on top of the oven while it heats to give it a head start.
When it's hot, open the oven and get a face full of steam. Add another cup of water to the pan, then put the bread in and close the oven door, refusing to open it for any reason for the next 25 to 30 minutes.
And that's it.
The best thing about it is that even when it's not quite right, you can eat the mistakes and they still taste good.
I'm still working on this. Maybe I need my oven hotter? I don't know how much hotter it goes and if it would explode or something. And maybe even more cake flour and less all-purpose? And like I mentioned above, I'd like to get some whole wheat flour into this.
I'm still trying to get it exactly right. And taking suggestions.
While you're waiting for your bread pan to be delivered, you can read about really old-time French people. Because I can't NOT tell you to buy my books.
You know: with giant bubbles and a crunchy-chewy crust.
You know: almost completely unlike the "French" bread you can buy in most grocery stores.
Exception: the organic baguette from Trader Joe's does a darn good job of approaching perfection.
This year, I decided to get serious about it. What I've learned so far: most recipes I've seen for it have ended up with something that just doesn't really resemble French bread. It's not so much the recipe, which is basic: flour, water, salt, yeast. It's all in the instructions.
I've been working from this recipe from a French women's magazine. Lookit me all reading French and stuff!
I'm on attempt number 7 or so and have about 20 minutes until I can tell you the result of this latest trial, so here's what I know so far:
1) Use flour with LESS gluten, not more. That means cake flour, not bread flour, which seems counter-intuitive, which is why it's taken me so long to crack this. Today's attempt is half Softasilk cake flour and half all-purpose unbleached. I've tried whole wheat pastry flour and will definitely start working it back into my mix once I have white bread down.
2) Get the actual French baguette loaf pans that look like gutters, but with a jillion holes. This upped my game considerably. I got mine at Amazon, but they have them all over the place, like Bed Bath and Beyond and JC Penney's and so on. Some recipes I've seen, they use pizza stones. Which is fine if you don't mind the bottom of your loaf being all flat, which shouldn't affect the flavor.
Right: so here's the recipe:
6 cups flour (low-ish gluten, finely ground)
2.5-ish cups warm water
1/2 tsp salt
4 tsp yeast
That's it. It's basic. That's also a lot of bread. I have five people in my family and two of those are teen boys, so we tend to finish it up by the next day. Last time, I gave a loaf to a sick friend, so we ran out really quickly. If you don't have loads of people with hollow legs, make only half that and get a pan with only two gutters instead of the four I have.
Mix the water, flour, and salt until it forms a ball (I use a KitchenAid stand mixer with a dough hook, which takes less than a minute).
3) Just barely mix it. Get the ingredients stuck together and then leave it alone. No kneading. No leaving the mixer running. Just get the flour mostly wet and let it do its thing.
Cover it and let it sit there for half an hour or so. Mix the yeast with a bit of water, then mix it in, maybe adding a little more flour if you have to. I find that having the dough a bit on the sticky side ends up with better results than having it too dry.
(I'm still deciding if I need to wait this extra time or if putting the yeast in right away is fine)
Roll the ball in oil (I add a bit of oil to the mixing bowl and run it for a couple seconds, then roll the ball over once I've scraped it off the hook) and cover. Let rise in a warm, dry place for an hour or two. You want your yeast replicating and flourishing and a good store of "yeast farts" in there and the ball of dough at least doubled in size.
Turn out on floured surface (I use a cloth) and knead just enough so the oil is kneaded in. You'll lose quite a bit of the air, but I'm always happiest when some of the bubbles are still in there, unpopped. Add a bit more flour if it's still super sticky.
For my pan, which is a bit over a foot long and has four slots, I cut the dough into four equal pieces, then roll and stretch and dangle and roll them until I have four worms. (yum!) Lay them in the bread pan.
Another two big hints:
4) Sharp, sharp knife to cut the slashes in them. Cut fairly deep, like deeper than you think you want to. This lets some of the steam in the loaves escape. I have this scary bread knife that we bought last year online because I couldn't find an actual bread knife with sharp teeth for slicing loaves without crushing them. It's scary-sharp and I've cut myself a few times with it, but its razor-sharp teeth allow me to make deep, clean slashes. And my darling husband gave it to me the day after Valentine's Day. *Cue music from Psycho*
5) Hot, hot, hot and steam, steam, steam. Preheat to 450 degrees (which Google tells me is 232.2222 C). I put a jelly roll pan on the lowest rack and pour a cup of water into it while the oven heats, then add another cup when I put the bread in to bake. Today, I also brushed the tops with water.
I leave my bread pan sitting on top of the oven while it heats to give it a head start.
When it's hot, open the oven and get a face full of steam. Add another cup of water to the pan, then put the bread in and close the oven door, refusing to open it for any reason for the next 25 to 30 minutes.
And that's it.
 |
| Today's loaves. Note the pan. Note the slashes. The ones on the left are upside down. |
 |
| STILL not quite fluffy enough. The batch two days ago was a bit better with more all-purpose flour. But it also rose for longer. Hmmm... |
I'm still working on this. Maybe I need my oven hotter? I don't know how much hotter it goes and if it would explode or something. And maybe even more cake flour and less all-purpose? And like I mentioned above, I'd like to get some whole wheat flour into this.
I'm still trying to get it exactly right. And taking suggestions.
While you're waiting for your bread pan to be delivered, you can read about really old-time French people. Because I can't NOT tell you to buy my books.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Monday Morning
I got all the kids to school this morning on time. It's rainy, so I even drove the high school boys. I'm not sure what they're going to do when I get a new day job and can't necessarily drive them. Of course, the oldest is 17 and doesn't have his driver's license yet, in spite of my gentle urging (nag? moi?).
I've been scoping out jobs on job sites since I got home and having a Messenger conversation with a friend who's getting medical stuff done today. And watching the goldfinches mob the feeder. Real high-level stuff.
So if you know of any office jobs in my area, let me know (that's Sacramento area, for those of you who don't know me).
I finished the edits for Book 5 of my Châteaux and Shadows series. It's titled Mélisande and is a tangent from the first four. The hero, Lucas de Granville played a minor role in The Chevalier, as a friend to Emmanuel. Manu and Catherine have minor roles in this book.
Mélisande is the daughter of a comte and of a palm reader, but didn't inherit any magical talent. The comte reformed from his misspent youth a long time ago and is now an extremely pious, rigid, and dictatorial man who uses religion as a means of power. It was inspired in part by Molière's Tartuffe, but the Comte d'Yquelon isn't quite as hypocritical. He does think all magic is the work of Satan, though.
Lucas is the comte's godson and was handed over to the comte by his parents who are all about the glamour and party times of King Louis XIV's court and not so much about earning money or caring for their seven sons. Lucas was raised strictly and tried to please his godfather, all while watching the godfather's actual son pretend to be pious and go out and be debauched. Lucas is learning to be a secretary and/or estate manager and hoped the comte would hire him. When he didn't (instead choosing the dark, intense Monsiour Arbois), he started thinking about working for someone else.
SO ANYWAY. Mélisande should be out in a few months. My editor has threatened me with galleys soon. I mean promised me galleys.
Off to edit my contemporary New Adult book in the meantime!
You have plenty of time to read the first four in the series before the next one!
Or at least The Chevalier!
It's my book with the prettiest cover (and the book inside is darn good, too). In fact, the cover's so pretty, I'd appreciate a vote in the Judge a Book by its Cover competition! Mine's the second one down. SO PRETTY.
You have plenty of time to read the first four in the series before the next one!
Or at least The Chevalier!
It's my book with the prettiest cover (and the book inside is darn good, too). In fact, the cover's so pretty, I'd appreciate a vote in the Judge a Book by its Cover competition! Mine's the second one down. SO PRETTY.
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
American Healthcare
It's been a crazy few days.
My husband had kidney stones at the end of December, then we had a month-long break of good health and tweaking eating habits. Then he had some more stones Sunday evening. Lots of pain for him and worry for me. Then MONDAY....He was passing another. Really nothing I can do to help except pat his head every now and then and try to get him to drink water and take an OTC pain pill. I went to pick up our daughter from school and about two minutes after I got home, the ambulance pulled up out front.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the hallway of the ER (There was a handwritten sign: "Hallway 18". Luckily it's a nice ER, but a room would have been nicer and everyone wouldn't have to walk past, ignoring us), him in severe pain for the first bit, then they finally gave him serious pain meds which slowly kicked in and the stone moved on. And we stayed there for another few hours....waiting for another blood test and the results and the prescriptions. And waiting. And waiting.
We're also on new insurance, but don't have our cards yet, so the billing is going to be a nightmare (We have a huge bill from the last trip to the walk-in ER, even with the old insurance). All that, and I went to fill his prescriptions yesterday and the major pain relief pills he was prescribed... we can't get because the hospital doctor did the prescription wrong and it's a controlled substance. That's the pain pills he will need if/when he has another stone. The pain pills that might keep him from calling the expensive ambulance again. And because it's a controlled substance, I just know that calling around, trying to get that fixed is going to make us look like addicts. We're not. I promise. I sometimes take ibuprofen for headaches and fevers. My husband doesn't even do that.
I've been pretty distracted.
A fellow author, Vicki Batman, did me a solid on Monday and has my post up on her blog as part of her handbags and books feature. Do me (and her) a favor and stop by to comment!
Also do me a favor and buy Henri et Marcel!
My husband had kidney stones at the end of December, then we had a month-long break of good health and tweaking eating habits. Then he had some more stones Sunday evening. Lots of pain for him and worry for me. Then MONDAY....He was passing another. Really nothing I can do to help except pat his head every now and then and try to get him to drink water and take an OTC pain pill. I went to pick up our daughter from school and about two minutes after I got home, the ambulance pulled up out front.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the hallway of the ER (There was a handwritten sign: "Hallway 18". Luckily it's a nice ER, but a room would have been nicer and everyone wouldn't have to walk past, ignoring us), him in severe pain for the first bit, then they finally gave him serious pain meds which slowly kicked in and the stone moved on. And we stayed there for another few hours....waiting for another blood test and the results and the prescriptions. And waiting. And waiting.
We're also on new insurance, but don't have our cards yet, so the billing is going to be a nightmare (We have a huge bill from the last trip to the walk-in ER, even with the old insurance). All that, and I went to fill his prescriptions yesterday and the major pain relief pills he was prescribed... we can't get because the hospital doctor did the prescription wrong and it's a controlled substance. That's the pain pills he will need if/when he has another stone. The pain pills that might keep him from calling the expensive ambulance again. And because it's a controlled substance, I just know that calling around, trying to get that fixed is going to make us look like addicts. We're not. I promise. I sometimes take ibuprofen for headaches and fevers. My husband doesn't even do that.
I've been pretty distracted.
A fellow author, Vicki Batman, did me a solid on Monday and has my post up on her blog as part of her handbags and books feature. Do me (and her) a favor and stop by to comment!
Also do me a favor and buy Henri et Marcel!
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