aka Time Enough To Read Even The Puppy Nominees
Today roundup hors d’ouerve includes Tim Hall, Adam-Troy Castro, Vox Day, Patrick McCulley and Jon Zeigler. (Title credit goes out to File 770 contributing editors of the day Will Reichard and Daniel Dern.)
Tim Hall on Where Worlds Collide
“Geeks, Mops and Sociopaths” – July 4
There’s an interesting post by David Chapman about the life-cycle of subcultures. He identifies three types of people who enter a subculture at different stages. First there are the “Geeks”, the creators and hardcore supporters. The come “Mops”, the more casual supporters whose numbers are necessary for a scene to grow big enough to be economically viable. Finally there are the “Sociopaths”, who want to exploit everything for profit without caring about the subculture itself, taking a short-term slash-and-burn approach that destroys the thing in the process…..
I certainly don’t agree with him on the necessity of gatekeepers to preserve the purity of a subculture; that smacks too much of elitism, and gatekeeping is one of those things that can so easily turn toxic. This is especially true when you have what amounts to a turf war between competing subcultures over a disputed space; the whole Sad Puppies/Hugo thing, and the ongoing Gamergate culture war are prime examples.
Adam-Troy Castro on Facebook – July 4
Wright is outraged that I would imply anti-Semitism in this language, and wants us to know that he loves the Jewish people and indeed angrily bans any holocaust deniers who show up on his blog. Well, bully for him. So what we really need to take from this is that he wasn’t targeting Jews, with those words, but simply and clumsily doubling down on his previously stated hatred for homosexuals. That’s much different.
Vox Day on Vox Popoli
“Hugo Recommendations: Best Editor” – July 4
This is how I am voting in the Best Editor categories. Of course, I merely offer this information regarding my individual ballot for no particular reason at all, and the fact that I have done so should not be confused in any way, shape, or form with a slate or a bloc vote, much less a direct order by the Supreme Dark Lord of the Evil Legion of Evil to his 388 Vile Faceless Minions or anyone else.
Best Editor, Short Form
- Vox Day
- Jennifer Broznek
- Bryan Thomas Schmidt
- Mike Resnick
Best Editor, Long Form
- Toni Weisskopf
- Anne Sowards
- Jim Minz
- Vox Day
- Sheila Gilbert
Jon Zeigler on Sharrukin’s Palace
“My 2015 Hugo Ballot” – July 4
My sole motivation here is to read and appreciate genre fiction from (almost) any source. The dispute certainly motivated me to become involved with the process for the first time, but I’ve done my good-faith best to evaluate nominees as if the dispute was not taking place. In particular, for individual writers or editors I’ve deliberately avoided reading blog pages or social media, concentrating instead on neutral sources and the body of work.
[Lists everything on his Hugo ballot.]
https://twitter.com/panther_modern/status/617352254409043968
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But before I go: before I self-diagnosed as lactose intolerant, my favorite cake was cheesecake. Now, I’m much more of a pie person than a cake person. I don’t really have a favorite – the pie that I made for this afternoon was a peach pie that came out very well. Others in the favorite range are maple pumpkin pecan pie (recipe from Usenet, many years ago), the “cranberry window pie” from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s The Pie and Pastry Bible, and a good basic American apple pie. Last month, I made a very well-received apple pie with curry spices; it took two tries to get the spice level where I wanted it.
*cheats wildly*
Favourite cake: Red Velvet, unless I’m baking it because my banana cake is much better than my red velvet, or my mother is baking it because her lemon cake is amazing.
Favourite dessert: Pizza Express used to do these ice cream bombs with strawberry outside and marsala inside which I still consider the best ice cream I’ve ever had even though they haven’t been on the menu in years, OR sticky toffee pudding, OR Jamie Oliver’s lemon and lime tart because that thing has a really reliable recipe and tastes delicious (I’ve been taking it to every single bring and share for years).
Don’t matter the time,
The place, the date, the season.
Sad Puppies will be.
Flourless (or low-flour) chocolate cake. With darkest chocolate ganache on top.
I am perfectly happy with most cakes, but Do Not Want German Chocolate cake. Or at least the frosting that traditionally infests it. Give me a nice buttercream, or ganache, or even fondant if you must, but none of that horrible pecan caramel frosting.
If I had to choose, some variation of Death By Chocolate would be right up near the top.
@Amina
To be honest, I try to avoid reading any of Mr. Beale’s or Mr. Wright’s nonfiction, as bad for my blood pressure, but I’ve had that experience too. I once got another well-educated conservative Catholic angry at me, and had the interesting experience of having him call me a Gnostic for no obvious reason. I’ll admit to leaning toward the mystic end of things in my religious thinking, but I’ve never been even remotely tempted to dabble in Gnosticism, so the accusation puzzled me greatly.
Intrigued, I did some digging, and discovered that it’s a fairly common conservative-intellectual talking point to call political liberals the new Gnostics, and to make lots of references to Eric Voegelin. Still struck me as very odd.
I hadn’t even considered favorite cake, as dependent on cook. My best recipe is my sticky date pudding, although it only comes out perfect one time in two.
@Morris Keesan
Aww, I was going to save pie for the next awkward subject distraction. 😀
(Pecan always pecan PECAN ALL THE WAY which is unfortunate because its not easy to get here. Cherry is also acceptable, and I would like to try your peach pie, but apple pie is, in my opinion, just a way to ruin perfectly good apples that could be used for something else.)
@Cally
I had to go look that up because that did not sound like a German cake at all. Turns out, just a (USAmerican) guy with the surname German – phew, my instincts were correct!
Hi Jim, I was away. Thanks for your response. The ambiguity would be: who is doing that? Which is why I asked, earlier:
@ Meredith: apple pie is, in my opinion, just a way to ruin perfectly good apples that could be used for something else
That’s because you’ve never tasted my husband’s apple pie — which is to die for.
Favorite dessert: Probably lemon meringue pie, which I make seldom (and only have a middling success rate with — I think I’m at least 50% likely to get lemon meringue soup; but when it does turn out …). Favorite cake: Either Mom’s red velvet cake (with a heretical white frosting rather than cream cheese) or the tres leche cake I make when I have company.
Re: cake and desserts and pie
If anyone wanted to share a recipe I would not object to that at all.
@Sweet
I’m sure its amazing. 🙂
@Brian Z
McCarthyism: A handful of assorted Puppy supporters on a handful of occasions, according to google. They’re fairly easy to find (note: google doesn’t search the comments here, so bear that in mind when estimating frequency). I didn’t check for witch hunt but I expect its a similar deal.
No pecans. Never pecans. They’re not as deadly as peanuts or almonds, but the still mean a trip to the hospital.
Give me chocolate. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. Then more chocolate.
Or two-crust lemon pie.
Ricotta pie is good; cheesecake is a lesser but still good alternative.
Lemon squares. Mustn’t forget lemon squares.
Desserts – Pumpkin pie is my favorite, not too sweet and with plenty of spice. I’m also very fond of home-baked cookies. Um, it’s kind of hard to stop when it comes to dessert.
(Lurker – I really enjoy reading these but have difficulty keeping up.)
“Honestly not sure why this is getting irritable?”
^^ I’ve wondered this many a day.
Will R., pie is usually too sweet for my taste. But I love cheesecake, especially when you can find one without too much sugar in it.
@Brian Z I love a good cheesecake too. But a cherry pie and ice cream a la Twin Peaks has never hurt.
Tintinaus :
Don’t matter the time,
The place, the date, the season.
Sad Puppies will be.
Shorter Tintinaus : The Duds abide…
Stevie seems to hit irritable about this time of day. I’ve noticed it before. Fortunately, it’s usually just the one post and the rest are fine.
Lemon squares.
Very chocolate cake with peppermint ice cream.
Sugar plum spice cake (prune cake with spices, but no one will eat it if I call it that).
Cheesecake
Pumpkin custard
Bread pudding with rose water and cardemom
Sweet! A dessert thread.
I made a damn good German chocolate cake back in the day. And it is not an actual German recipe.
My mom makes the best lemon meringue pie in the galacticverse.
Nowadays we are on a diabetic diet that but have a fantastic book of diabetic desserts which includes pecan chews, brownies, chocolate chip cookies and a heavenly sweet potato pie. We also found that a half cup of a local chain’s light ice cream counts the same as a yogurt.
I love all kinds of cakes and pies. (As a result, I am overweight and diabetic.) But I still love best the basic yellow cake with chocolate frosting. I call this “chocolate cake,” because that’s what my grandmother and great-grandmother called it. It’s an old usage, but it sent one friend into an absolute rage when I said it and stood by it. (I was not going to let her say that my Nana was wrong!)
Despite my near-total lack of knowledge about food and cooking, I did figure out the kinship of devil’s food cake and red velvet cake on my own. My wife makes an excellent devil’s food, but I never have gotten used to seeing the cup of milk sitting out on the counter on a hot summer day, waiting to spoil before it can be used.
Jon F. Zeigler on July 5, 2015 at 8:10 pm said:
This seems rather in line with the Alinsky thing — right wing talking points that become so common in their own echo chambers that they forget people in the larger world might have no idea what they’re talking about.
Incidentally, my dad used to do something kind of like that to me while growing up. He would reference SF&F classics as if naturally I had read them all, even when I was quite young and had read very few of them.
It did get me to read a lot of them.
Applepie, blueberrypie and cheesecake. And then princess cake, a swedish speciality you can find at IKEA.
@Hampus Is princess cake the one with the cardamom in it? Good stuff.
Not puppy related, but did we do “The Girl with the Sasquan Tattoo”?
@Hampus Eckerman: “And then princess cake, a swedish speciality you can find at IKEA.”
Do they make you cook it yourself? 😉
There are Chinese (sometimes Vietnamese) bakeries which make my favorite “traditional cake”; it’s a two layer white sponge cake with white frosting, and lots of fresh strawberries within the frosting. It’s like the most perfect birthday cake ever. (I went looking for recipes and you’ll get a few if you search for “Chinese Strawberry Cake” though I’m not sure of the origin of the cake name).
However, flourless chocolate cake, apple cobbler (with extra crumble) and just about any espresso flavored ice cream are other favorites. Oh, and crème brûlée is dessert perfection. If you give me a choice between all of the above, and a crème brûlée, I’d probably pick the latter.
Now I’m peckish.
The best pie is a good pecan pie, though a crumb-top apple pie with raisins is a close second.
The best cake is a chocolate layer cake with chocolate frosting, so long as the cake is properly rich and moist, not dry.
Rev. Bob:
More like thaw it yourself. 😉
I have very fond memories of IKEA and this cake. In 2007 I had been travelling the world for maybe 8 months when I found an IKEA in Hong Kong. So this cake became lunch that day. Together with swedish candy and crisps that you can’t find anywhere else.
IKEA, the home away from home. ^^
Hampus: we’re about to get an IKEA opening locally. I am awaiting it eagerly, because I will once again be able to eat pepparkakor whenever I want!
Ooh, I forgot cobbler. Peach cobbler made with pastry and plenty of cinnamon. Yum!
@Morris K
Well, for what it’s worth, I enjoyed your comment and followed the link off to learn about the Noachide Commandments. My new fact for the day! Thanks.
Steak and Kidney. Fully enclosed by pastry, gravy, chips, veg. In no case accept stew with a puff pastry lid.
Whitlock’s in central Leeds does a very fine one.
Chocolate bundt cake topped with a light dusting of confectioners’ sugar. The secret is adding mayonnaise for the moisture and richness.
The other secret is telling the un-enlightened that the cake has mayo in it, so that even when you offer to share, they say no.
My grandmother also made a delicious “icebox cake” that my wife learned from her, and that was popular with our friends. It used raw eggs, though, and we stopped making it 25 or so years ago. You can buy safe eggs now, but we haven’t taken the opportunity to resurrect the recipe.
I am a sucker for pretty much anything lemon or citrus: pie, tart, custard, brulee, pastry.
However, I despise meringue (and, not surprisingly, pavlova). If I’m going to consume calories in that quantity, it had by the gods better have some flavor other than “sugar”.
Also, I find a creme brulee pretty much impossible to resist (though I crack off the topping and give it away or set it aside, because again, no flavor other than “sugar”). My ex and I once spent a week in Paris having creme brulee in every restaurant which we could find serving it. I had some very amazing creme brulees.
@nickpheas
Glad to hear I’m not alone in my stew with a lid aversion. There are a few of us. Also for my money the best snake and pygmy pie doesn’t have puff pastry at all – shortcrust is my preferred pastry type.
Nothing without a bottom crust is pie.
So-called “chicken pot pie” that has a top crust (puff pastry or otherwise) but no bottom crust is, at least to my mind, chicken-vegetable cobbler.
I completely forgot creme brulee! Shameful.
And and and, like, because we’re progressives-types and science fiction types they’ll probably start calling us… PROGNOSTICATORS.
Bet none of you saw that coming.
I’d like some pie now.
Nigel: I knew you’d say that. I had direct experience of it, with a certainty that cannot be conveyed to one trapped in the dark iron prison of physicality.
Bruce: so long as you have a television and some books and receive counselling to help you cope with whatever personal or social problems led to your imprisonment in the dark iron prison of physicality, then I foresee a group hug and a round of kumbaya.
And pie? Outlook unclear. Possibly not before the sun is past the yardarm.
That’s an ancient tradition. Bards singing songs back and forth, or satirizing them, goes way back.
Even in this day and age of copyrights, which have rather stifled the *literary* version of the tradition which gave us the medieval canon of Robin Hood and King Arthur stories, the *musical* tradition persists, and not just in filk. Neil Young’s mournful civil rights threnody “Southern Man” was famously and directly answered by Lynyrd Skynyrd’s raucously defiant “Sweet Home Alabama” (which has apparently become a favorite of white supremacists).
(As an important irony, it would appear that “Sweet Home Alabama” was originally intended as a sort of #NotAllSouthernMen. It is frequently the case that when well-meaning people ignore injustice in order to protest the *tone* of the *criticism* of injustice, they are often used as a cover for and celebration of that injustice.)
We grow our own cherries for pie. I am also fond of pumpkin pie. We have a rich recipe for chicken pot pie — always with two crusts, all butter (hate hydrogenated fats and never was able to get reliable lard). Family members make amaaaazing apple pies, chocolate mousse pies, and lemon-raspberry mousse pies.
And yes, I fear that after all these years I still stay up far too late, and then become indistinguishable from the average five year old who has also stayed up far too late.
I’m hoping that I’ll grow out of it…
@ Kyra & Matthew – I swear, some days the only reason I don’t throw my hands in the air and stomp away from the whole mess forever is that where else would I get people making Jacobin jokes?
Favorite pie: it’s the tail-end of cherry season here in NJ, so I’ve finished freezing a year’s worth of fresh sour cherries, to be turned into delicious delicious pie in future months. We pick our cherries at a local orchard, which had a *fantastic* harvest this year — branches bowed down with the weight of the fruit. Last year there were no cherries at all, because there was a cold wave during blossom week.
My other favorite pies are my own lime chiffon (tip: include lime pulp for limier flavor) and pecan. And apple. And pumpkin chiffon. Basically, PIE.
For cake, either the flourless (and kosher for Pesach!) chocolate torte my friend J makes, with thick raspberry sauce, or Julia Child’s Los Gatos Gateau, which I make for New Year’s Eve.
Favorite desserts: Peach pie and lemon cupcakes.
Very true. A song that intends to say “hey, now, we’re not all like that, and it’s still our home” easily becomes “it’s okay that we’re like that, because it’s our way, and who are you to tell us different?”
It always makes me a bit sad that “Sweet Home Alabama” is so much more ubiquitous on classic rock radio than Neil Young’s song.
JJ said:
Wouldn’t that sort of preclude being Catholic? Or Christian? I thought that was one of the requirements.