Solace and Fog

bad fairy

2006-02-28T17:05:00.000-05:00

Multi-title "events" are often rather irritating, but Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers, made up of 7 four-issue titles and 2 bookends, is a major exception. He twists up some minor DC characters to fascinating effect. Best so far are the dark fairy tales. There's Klarion, about a witch-boy who lives in a subterranean Puritan culture and his journey to "Blue Skies," (also an clever take on Solomon Grundy in that one.) And Shining Knight, about a young knight thrown forward in time from milennia-old Arthurian realm while battling some very dark fae, the Sheeda, who've come for "the Harrowing."

Grant spins myth-making like a crazed spider. The Sheeda character designs alone are worth buying it. Major inspiration material. Also good are Zatanna, an examination of how one magician struggles with "addiction" to her powers, and Mr. Miracle, featuring the first ever Darkseid most properly cast as Michael Clarke Duncan.

detail-obsessed in baltimore

2006-02-28T15:22:00.000-05:00

I brought my camera with me, so pictures:

water is composed of two gins...

2006-02-28T14:57:00.000-05:00

Let's say, hypothetically, all you have in your liquor cabinet is gin. How shall you drink it? You could wave an empty bottle of vermouth over it and pretend it's a martini, or:

Empty-Cupboard Cocktail

Shake over 3 cubes ice
2 oz gin
1 oz key lime juice
small dash vanilla extract

ode to a highball, pt 2

2006-02-28T14:36:00.000-05:00

What you put in it:

Mojito
Squeeze 1/2 lime, drop in glass.
Muddle with 1/2 tsp bar sugar (or simple syrup) and a few mint leaves.
Fill glass with ice.
Add 2-3 oz white or gold rum.
Top with club soda.
Stir.
Enjoy.

eieio

2006-02-24T21:16:00.000-05:00

Eieio: some nice organic forms in bold colors, on wrapping paper.

french bull

2006-02-24T21:04:00.000-05:00

French Bull China: great stark and colorful graphics on dinnerware.

anemone

2006-02-24T20:56:00.000-05:00

Marjorie Victor: Delicate and sweet jewellery; the anemone set of pieces is outstanding.

bellies & heads

2006-02-24T17:15:00.000-05:00

Baltimore eateries, most delish: Tapas Teatro — I not only ate asparagus, but regarded it tasty not merely for the sauce, fine ham, and aged parmesan, but for its crunchy vegetable-ness. This does not happen every day.

Sofi's Crepes — Fresh-made crepes, variety of ingredients for filling, both savory & sweet, plus hot cider on the side. Can't go wrong.

Feed your head: Red Emma's.

ode to a highball, pt. 1

2006-02-24T16:51:00.000-05:00

What you hold: Perfect in hand, smooth, cool, and well-weighted, faceted for grip. In material, contains without corrosion or taint. In size, 14 ounces precisely, just enough concoction to be pleasant, and would you like another?

Not even milk goes in plastic. ^_^

smoky chili

2006-02-24T14:15:00.001-05:00

Smoky Chili
3 New Mexico chiles (mild)
2 pasillas, a.k.a. chile negros (mild to medium, with a rich flavor)
1 tsp whole black pepper
1 tsp ground cumin
4 cloves garlic
1 flavorful tomato (such as beefsteak or uglyripe)
2 red bell peppers
1 1/2 poblano chiles (medium)
3-4 chipotle chiles in adobo (medium-hot and smoky)
4 cups beef stock
2 bay leaves
2 small dashes ground cinnamon
small handful fresh oregano
1 lb stew beef or round cut
1 bottle lager (12 oz)
1 large onion
1 can black beans
honey, to taste
grated cheddar cheese

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Toast the dried chiles in a large pan on medium-high heat until they darken a bit. Watch the New Mexicos for this, since the pasillas should be pretty black to start with. For wusses, removing seeds & veins is essenital, and is very easy with dried chiles. Just open them up & empty out the seeds, then gently pull the veins out.

Soak in water, if you're doing a long-simmer chili. This may take up to an hour. If you're working a little faster, you can cover in boiling water and leave to stand about 20 minutes.

Set the garlic on aluminum foil and drizzle with olive oil, then wrap. You can put this directly in the oven, though it might drip a bit. It cooks a little more evenly this way. You could skip the foil and broil it in a pan. I like to roast a whole head at a time since the leftover garlic is delicious on bread with a little butter.

Once the garlic is done (half an hour to 45 minutes in foil), turn the oven up to broil and set your tomato & bell peppers on a pan or baking sheet with high edges. If it doesn't have a nice edge — more than a pizza pan has ^_^; — you will drip oil. Put this on your top rack, as close to the broiler as you can. Turn until blackened on all sides. Remove & let cool.

Remove seeds & veins from the poblano and chop finely. The smaller the pieces, the easier they will be to grind. Remove seeds from chipotles.

You might substitute 1 poblano & 1/2 - 1 ancho chile. Anchos are dried poblanos and have a rich chocolate spice flavor, most often used in moles and sauces. A little hotter than a poblano, not so hot as a chipotle. They should be treated like the other dried chiles.

Toast the black pepper in a dry skillet on medium-high; when it's lovely and fragrant it's done. Repeat with cumin. Whole cumin seeds would be even better; you can substitute the same amount. Actually, this could have used a bit more cumin, and I expect to add at least another teaspoon next time I make it.

Grind your chiles and toasted spices together. With some muscle and in batches, this can be done in a medium-sized mortar & pestle, or more easily in a spice grinder.

You can start heating your stock at about this time if you've prepared it ahead or if you're cheating and using bouillion. Add the bay, oregano, and if you like a more mole taste, cinnamon. Remove tomato skin, core, dice, add. Remove red pepper skin, de-seed, dice, add. The peppers should be soft enough that if their stems are intact you can pull the stem and most of the seeds right out with your hands. Smush garlic and add. Chop beef into small chunks, add.

While that's simmering, chop your onion finely. This will a) cater to finicky eaters like me and b) speed up the carmelization process. You could start the onion earlier, my method works with my kitchen constraints. Cook until dark brown — really brown, not golden. Add to stock.

Drain beans and add, along with beer. Any sort of beer you like would do, but I think lager is best. Pilsners seem a little thin for this, stouts a little heavy. I know a lot of folks aren't fond of beans in chili, but I like them and they add to the chunkiness of this stew. Let simmer & reduce until froth from beer is gone.

Now you can start to add your chile paste. I do this last because the longer chiles cook, the spicier your dish will be. All the other flavors are already blended together, so now you just have to adjust the heat just right. This is a fairly mild combination, but if you prefer to be cautious you can add about half the paste at the start, let cook for about 30 minutes, and then taste & see how you like it, halve again, cook about 10 minutes, then add your last batch if you wish.

At the half-hour taste test, for a little extra depth to the spiciness I like to add just a touch of honey. Sweet & spicy work nicely together. Like sugar, it will cut a fire-alarm chili down a bit, as will masa.

Once you've reached your preferred heat-stage, chili is done. Serve with grated cheddar on top.

Makes about 4-6 servings. Leftovers = chili dogs.

knowing stuff

2006-02-20T17:11:00.000-05:00

Marvel's in the middle of a big cross-title shake-up right now called "Decimation," but you can gather everything you need to know for X-Factor without reading anything else. I must confess I never read the old X-Factor, but each of the three issues of this relaunch has only made me more eager for the next. Gorgeous art as well, by Ryan Sook, as nice in the interior as the cover up there.

The detective agency device is a little old, but done well. Our narrator is Jamie Madrox (a.k.a. Multiple Man) and the writing — shock — serves him well, with an intriguing consideration of his situation. The plot circles around Miss Layla Miller, who has a power I've long loved (in a variation of my own,) which is " to know stuff." No mechanism revealed for yet, but it seems to be wide-ranging. It's all hooks so far, working their way deeper into the flesh.

lawyering the apocalypse

2006-02-20T16:58:00.000-05:00

She-Hulk: Single Green Female is a trade well worth reading. Hilarious, as is the next collection, Superhuman Law, although the current run is not quite as sterling. Turns out all those villians need lawyers to defend them. And even superheroes sometimes get sued. This comic has got its eyes open to everyday repercussions of supernatural acts.

One small example: setting a legal precedent, Jennifer convinces a judge to let a ghost testify in court. Ben Grimm takes the stand to confirm that many heroes and villians have been dead multiple times (hence the fan term, "Marvel death.") Thus potential future legal standing as a living person is possible for the dead. Furthermore, a show of hands demonstrates that even ordinary folks are potential resurectees — about half audience in the courtroom had been killed and returned to existence during The Infinity Gauntlet arc, here called "case of Thanos v the Universe."

Let me repeat that: case of Thanos v the Universe. Classic.

canon to the left, canon to the right

2006-02-20T16:54:00.000-05:00

Just one issue out so far, but Mythos #1 takes you back to the first X-Men team in delightful fashion. Painterly art by Paolo Rivera actually makes the old blue and yellow costumes not look dumb. Seriously! Plus, the danger room sequence isn't just fighting; it's a breakdown of tactics based on Napoleon and Wellington's troop movements at Waterloo. It takes into consideration the uses of each member's powers and their interaction as a team, and would be good reading for the extended comparison alone. Very promising.

one-shots

2006-02-20T14:00:00.000-05:00

X-men: 198 #1: The first seven pages of this issue would make a beautiful one-shot. It's an — rather literal — exploration of the phrase coup de foudre, which the author translates as "When love strikes like lightning... Love born out of fire!" I'm not hugely fond of the interior art, but it doesn't detract from the story. Too bad #2 seems to be heading off into the "identification," and "relocation," Sentinel program territory, a vein already thoroughly mined.

I wish Marvel would use Amazing Stories to tell small stories like this and give some underappreciated characters more screen time rather than to introduce new characters.

The best one-shot I've read to date was a few months back, Incredible Hulk #82. This odd little story, a romantic occult ghost-tale, is unexpected in a Hulk comic, but does work within the very-angry-monster context as well. Wonderful peek at a could-have-been and the art, by Jae Lee, is lovely.

bastard miso

2006-02-20T12:32:00.000-05:00

Bastard Miso

This is a recipe that's measured mostly by feel. So, no teaspoons or tablespoons necessary here.

Fill small soup pot with water. Turn heat to medium-high. Add about 1 1/2 soup spoons worth of hon-dashi.

Then take a heaping spoon of miso — and by heaping I mean piled four times as high as a level spoon, at least — and stick the spoon in the pot, stirring until the miso dissolves off. This prevents the clump from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.

Put about 1/4 cup of dried wakame in a measuring jug. Fill with water, let stand until seaweed expands.

Continue to stir until almost boiling, add wakame, cubed tofu, and finely diced negi (spring onion/scallion.)

I call it a bastard miso, first of all, because I like it on the strong side, with enough hon-dashi to smell almost outright fishy (in that way most Americans detest), and of course at least equally strong in the miso. When B makes it, we often have sediment deposits at the bottom of our bowls.

And secondly, our miso of last night was extra blasphemous, because not only did we have neither tofu nor negi, we also had no wakame. And neither of us wanted to run out to the store at that time. We did, however, have several sheets of nori that had been sitting in the cupboard for some time.

echoes and devils

2006-02-18T23:26:00.000-05:00

Daredevil was a third-rate hero before Frank Miller turned him around in the 80's, and the imitators never brought him out of that rut. However, the last few years have seen some really great work on this title.

David Mack writes & draws beautiful stories in slowly building, repeating and collaged paintings and in childlike scribbles. He created the lovely Echo:

introduced in Volume 2: Parts of a Hole. There's a love story in it, and a revenge story, but it's not truly either. Plus, we glimpse a fascinating slice of Kingpin's mind, showing the hard-scrabbling early Fisk. There's a fun cameo by Wolverine in Volume 8: Echo — Vision Quest, the continuation of this story.

Volume 3: Wake Up is penned by Brian Michael Bendis with Mack's art. This one's a mystery involving a little boy who loves comics and will draw, but won't talk. A little artsy for some tastes, but unusual & beautiful. To tell you more would spoil it.

The real, true reason I started buying Daredevil is Alex Maleev's art. It draws the readers right in so Bendis can work 'em over with his stunning plots. It's easy to discern the writer's bent from his earlier series — lots of crime & detective tones — and he bends Daredevil just a touch to work that vein with him. This take fits the roots of the character while revealing new sides to him.

Volume 7: Hardcore, though fairly deep into the story, typifies the Bendis goodness. I like it because a) Typhoid Mary cameos, and if you want awesomely fucked-up psychotic in a woman, she's it:

Matt always had the least girly & annoying love interests. Maya, Mary, Natasha, Elektra, and Milla in about that order. Sacrilege, I know, but I never read anything with Karen, so she's not on my list.

And b) Matt finally snaps and gives Bullseye what he deserves. No more killing his girlfriends, you evil bastard.

Oh, plus fallout from the secret-identity revelation continues, and Matt makes more & more radical decisions.

The series is gold all the way through, but the "Decalouge" arc (no trade yet) blew me away. The framework is a support group for those affected by Daredevil. Some of them hate him, some of them defend him, but nobody's cut and dry. The meaning of the interaction is left up in the air, and the man himself stays in the background until the end. What an end it is! Truly great.

chu-hai

2006-02-18T21:00:00.000-05:00

Right now there's lots of lovely blood oranges at the farmer's market, tasty straight or as follows:

3 ice cubes
2-3 oz Korean soju a.k.a. Japanese shochu
3 slices blood orange, squeezed & muddled
top with club soda

Shochu is traditionally served with fruit on the rocks in the summer or heated water in the winter; I thumbed my nose at the cold month of February and cracked a few ice cubes out of their tray. As in sangria, the orange soaks up a lot of alcohol — much as I love liquored-up fruit, you need enough liquid to keep the drink portion of the drink potent, thus the soda.

look upon my kitchen, ye mighty, and despair

2006-02-18T18:49:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the "first apartment" kitchen. Everything except the fridge is in plain view in this picture.

As you might imagine, preparation is necessarily slower here than in say, Kitchen Stadium. Most of the time only one cook may command the kitchen, and there's only so much room for chopping, dicing, melting, etc. — let alone to keep bowls of prepped ingredients. More space can sometimes be squeezed in for use, by resort of resting things in the sink when dishes aren't lurking there, and working right on the stove while some other item is on the burner cooking already.

But, no matter how awful your kitchen seems, here's assurance: you can make delicious & ambitious things. All those nice tools & expanses of counter just make it easier.