Category: Musings

Crockpot Lemon Chicken

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I posted this recipe back in December, but since then I started adding fresh lemon thyme and Italian oregano at the end (be careful this oregano has a lovely bite to it). The leftovers make a fabulous chicken salad, all that infused lemon.  So quick and easy.

Start by placing a package of chicken breasts (1 – 1 1/2 lbs) or in my case, chicken thighs–I hate white meat–in a Ziploc bag. Add the zest and juice of one lemon, 1 tsp. garlic, 1 Tbsp. olive oil, salt and pepper. Marinate the chicken for at least 24 hours. I wouldn’t recommend less than eight hours to make sure all the lemon gets absorbed into the chicken.

When you’re ready, throw the bag of chicken mixture into the Crock Pot along with about 1/4 cup of chicken broth. Water is okay too; just something to keep the chicken from drying out while it cooks. Cook on low for about 6 – 8 hours, until the chicken shreds.

Serve the lemon chicken with tzatziki sauce piled into a warmed pita or a piece of Middle Eastern flatbread along with chopped tomato and onion as well as chopped oregano and thyme in a separate little bowl. A Greek salad works well with this dish.

A Herb Discovery

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I bought a curry seedling at the Tree Hugger’s Ball on Saturday because I love anything to do with curry. Right now, it’s a scrawny little thing, looks like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree for gnomes. Actually, it looks like a cross between lavender and rosemary with soft, gray-green foliage. Upon Googling the curry plant, I found out that it does well in crappy soil, is a good sport about water, doesn’t require mulching and bugs avoid it. Truly my kind of plant. Oh, and it grows to a height of about 30 inches or so. Hmm? In my little yard?

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But here’s the bad part. It doesn’t taste curry-like at all. Its name derives from its scent, which can smell like curry. Mine doesn’t. Maybe later. But as I learned from The Herb Gardener, there are a lot of uses for the curry plant: chopped fine it complements mild dishes and ingredients like eggs, yogurt, mild cheeses and even fish. It enhances vinegar blends and makes a nice garnish, too. Oh, and if my little plant survives and takes over my yard I can make herb wreaths and potpourri and maybe sell them along Laguna Canyon Road. Can’t you just see it?

Tree Hugger’s Ball

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Last night my friend Laural and I went to a fundraiser for the Santa Ana Mountains, the “Tree Hugger’s Ball & Sustainability Fair.” After parking up a dusty canyon straight out of a cowboy movie, we cruised the booths, mostly about sustainable living, all of them with a delightful homemade look. We got some wine in  lovely wineglasses, not plastic, and chatted with a woman in oversize sunglasses dressed as a bee (she’d created the stripes around her legs with black duct tape). There was also a grown-up fairy flitting around, okay, not exactly flitting, that came later on the dance floor.

John Muir’s Great-Great-Grandson gave a speech on conservation along with slides; he was followed by a group of Acjahemen Indian women who spoke and sang about the land they’d revered and tended for centuries. As the lead woman ended her impassioned speech, two raptors appeared in the space between the trees above the stage, hovered for a moment and then wheeled away with a screech. Goosebumps.

Then came an obnoxious performer from New Zealand, Rusty Balls–really, that’s his name–who did magic tricks. Finally. The dancing. There were two different bands, one a bluesy rock, the other a flashrock, reggae, ska group. Laural and I danced our butts off!! For two solid hours. There was this one teenager who really got into it, not embarrassingly so, and he wasn’t trying to be cool, he was just enjoying bopping around on a crowded dance floor with a mash-up of what were were mostly women of all ages (along with a bee and fairy).

And then we got lost coming home. And I wasn’t even driving. Even that was fun. I got to see Blackstar Canyon.

WordCount Blogathon 2013

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Okay, so I signed up to blog for the entire month of June! No Sundays off like I got for the A-Z Challenge. Thirty blogs in a row! Seriously. But you know what, I really need to do this. I need to sharpen my focus. I need to have that little nagging voice telling me to hurry it up, to run with that idea . . . and that one . . . and the one I want to dismiss. I need a sense of urgency. My energy is scattered and I feel frustrated.

First of all there are the proofs from Loveyoubye to finish (really? I missed all those commas and wrote “laid” instead of “lay?”) And then there’s the dratted “Buzz Your Book” program I’m creeping through. It’s all about marketing, including how to hone the perfect buzz-line that will target my audience. That whole arena has me by the short and curlies.

I’m also trying to finish laying flagstones in my front yard, along with a whole range of other smaller yard projects. I’m just flitting from one task to another instead of prioritizing.  Part of it I think is that I’m afraid of finally being done with Loveyoubye. Suffice to say for now, I need a deadline. I need to move forward. That’s where the blogathon comes in.

Monkey’s Wedding Update

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My memoir Loveyoubye is due to be published in August, right? So I was getting ready to launch a Facebook page for the book when I realized that I hadn’t posted any updates to  my YA novel Monkey’s Wedding‘s page. For almost two years! That’s because I’ve been so focused on getting Loveyoubye up to speed and published. It’s thanks to Nikki Frank-Hamilton who “liked” my Monkey’s Wedding Facebook page that made me notice.

Back in October 2011, I was all set to self-publish Monkey’s Wedding, had cover artist (and author) Travis Pennington, as well as an editor all lined up. But then I got sidetracked when Travis tried to hook me up with his agent (along with a list of other agents–he even helped me hone my query!) because he loved the story. But of course, it went nowhere: not marketable, especially not in this publishing climate. I’ve had a number of very close “almosts” over the years.

So I decided to focus on Loveyoubye which was almost ready. Figured I would perhaps piggyback on it, if you know what I mean. Get Loveyoubye out there, get a bit of attention and then publish Monkey’s Wedding as well as its sequel, Mine Dances.  So now that I’m heading toward the finish line with Loveyoubye, I’m polishing MW. Yet again. It’s next.

Reflection on The A-Z Challenge

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For two years in a row now I’ve completed the challenge. I had a blast. This year at least. Not so much last year. Halfway through the alphabet I was on holiday in England where I reconnected with old pals from Zambia, madly scribbling entries in between trips down Cumbrian country lanes, hugging sheep (love the little beasties), poob-crawling (that’s how they say “pub” and it was just two of them), visiting me dad’s old primary school in Ayr, Scotland–read about it here–laughing my head off, and trying desperately to remember the names of the people we knew.

This year I realized just how much I’ve learned through blogging. My writing experience, nigh these twenty years, has been the long form: books, three of them. (Yes. It took me twenty years, hey, I had a full time job and kids to raise.) I’ve written a few essays, but I’ve never had to wing it every day, or at least a couple of times a week.  It’s been tough. The A-Z Challenge was a godsend. It gave me a target. Through doing the challenge I gained confidence and honed my writing chops. I also made connections.

Cheers to the A-Z Challenge creators! Thank you.

Z is For Zyzzyva

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Zyzzyva – A genus of tropical American weevil often found in association with palms.

Pronounced ziz-e-va, it is a yellowish snouted beetle, no longer than an ant. It was first discovered in 1922 in Brazil, and named by an Irishman Thomas Lincoln Casey, Jr.  An entomologist at New York’s Museum of Natural History thought that, because there was not a Latin name or Brazilian name associated with this weevil, it was probably named Zyzzyva as a practical joke to place it in a prominent ending position in many guides and manuals, where the word itself is found in many English-language dictionaries.

Zyzzyva is also the name of a literary magazine–“The Last Word: West Coast Writers and Artists”–first published in 1985.  At a Writer’s Conference in San Diego in 2000, I found myself sitting next to the editor of the magazine, which would be great today, I could pitch some of my stories to him, but in those days I was finishing up my YA novel, Monkey’s Wedding. Not his cup of tea.

 

 

 

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Y is For Yellow

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Yellow – The color of gold, butter, or ripe lemons.

The word “yellow” comes from the Old English geolu, geolwe, meaning “yellow, yellowish”, derived from the Proto-Germanic word gelwaz.  It is commonly associated with gold, sunshine, reason, optimism, pleasure, happiness and energy.

Yellow makes me think of my dad. The time we were on the train from Nkana, about to pull into Johannesburg station where my uncle would be picking us up for a visit with all the relatives. I was six and my mom had just scrubbed off all the soot and dirt from the three day train journey and dressed me in one her latest creations, an apricot-colored voile-like dress with puff sleeves. My hair was brushed into a golden cap and I wore a yellow ribbon tied on top in a bow.

“Yellow’s your color,” my dad said.

Funny, I would remember that, but it stuck, like it was yesterday.

 

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X is For eXcited

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Excited – Enthusiastic. Sexually aroused.

 The former definition, not the latter. Not for this particular blog anyway.

It’s about the book cover for my soon to be released memoir, Loveyoubye. I haven’t said much about what’s been happening on the road to publication with She Writes Press. That’s because there hasn’t been that much to report because I’m only on the first step: the book cover. A biggie, I realized from all my sleepless nights wondering how it would turn out. So here’s how the process works: they make a suggestion–a woman walking on the beach, memoir-like, they said–NO. NO. NO. So not what my book is about. Please God, don’t let me have to settle for that. And then they get my input and then a rough rendering of my ideas. Yow! I don’t know people, but I’m cautiously eXcited about the final product.

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