WhimsyLand

Even my sons have asked why my blog is dark.  Well, I've been working and writing and actually I have no good excuse.  I figured I would make like Bill Murray and do baby steps to get back into it.  Baby steps to the office.  Baby steps to the keyboard.  Baby steps to FrontPage 2003.

I did somewhere along the way make Arroz Valenciano with home-made fish stock.  I found three frozen tilapia in a bag at Safeway for $3 and figured that was a pretty good deal, a lot better than driving to Whole Foods and asking if they had any fish heads.  Frankly, that's all that tilapia is good for, in my opinion.  I can't imagine why restaurants think they can substitute this bland mega-farmed excuse for a fish for sea bass or whatever used to be on the menu, but is so fished out that the population is threatened. 

After making the stock, I took the third fish and baked it long enough to get a little meat off the bones.  I had bought a frozen bag of mixed seafood, also cheap, also at Safeway, that contained octopus and squid and mussels and assorted sea goodies.  The fish and the mixed sealife went into the paella in the last 10 minutes, along with some frozen scallops that I stocked up on the last time Safeway had a sale.  The result was reminiscent of the time that Pepe took us to a seaside restaurant in Denia and this was the second course.  I was with a couple of Russian engineers, fresh from the Cold War, who vowed there was nothing they brought that they couldn't eat, no matter the quantity (the quality wasn't in question).  We all petered out about the 6th course. 

I've been reading like crazy for MMM and went to an outrageously well-prepared brunch poetry get-together at Marj's.  This woman actually made pumpkin waffles, starting with fresh pumpkins, dutifully baked and scooped out and folded into waffle batter.  Everyone brought champagne and no one brought oranges, so we had mimosas without fruit juice.   Repeatedly.

The MMM Literary Salon was a great success, as I expected given the talents of our readers, Eli Noah Gordon and Joseph Lease.  The readings were wonderful, the open mike was pretty good, and the wine poured by Cannon Mine Coffee was decent.

Talk at you tomorrow.