Abandoned Places: Bodiam Castle (and IWSG)

Bodiam Castle was built during the middle of the Hundred Years' War by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge (say that three times fast; actually, just say that one time) to, theoretically, keep out the French. However, the castle didn't see any "action" until the War of the Roses, that is if you can call being surrendered to avoid a seige "action." By that time, the castle had passed to the Lewknors, who owned the castle through the 1500s but, by the time of the English Civil War in 1641, it was owned by John Tufton. Tufton was forced to sell the castle to pay fines against him for, basically, being on the wrong side of the war. Bodiam was dismantled and left in ruins for 200 years. Restoration began on Bodiam during the 1800s, and it is now considered one of the most "romantic" castles in England.

Cooking for Your Audience (an IWSG post)

I am the cook in my house. Not the baker, the cook. I get up every morning and cook breakfast for my wife and, usually, my oldest son, sometimes my daughter, and rarely my younger son. I also cook dinner every night. That one's for everyone (except for my oldest son who is rarely home because of his ultra busy schedule). I'm just gonna say it: I am a good cook.

Of course, my mom is a cook, but it's not like she ever taught me to cook anything. My earliest forays into cooking were because I was home alone (or, maybe, with my brother) and needed to eat. I started with mac 'n' cheese and tuna fish. Not that you need to cook tuna fish. Well, unless it's in the mac 'n' cheese. Oh, and deviled eggs. That was actually the first thing I ever made on my own. I think they showed how to make them on an episode of The Electric Company (or something), and I decided I wanted to do it. That was my thing for a while. I was probably around seven but certainly not more than eight, because my brother was still a toddler. He loved the deviled eggs and would shove them whole into his mouth getting egg goo all over his face.

The fact that I am good cook does not, however, mean anything to my kids, especially my daughter. She likes a more processed type of food, and we just don't do that in our house. It can make meal times challenging, to say the least. It is a rare occurrence when all three kids like the same meal and on regular nights they will sub in various vegetables so as not to have to eat whatever I cooked. For my daughter, that's generally carrots; I keep a large bag of them in the fridge for her, basically, at all times. My younger son has taken a liking to yams, which I often cook for my wife and me. And you can never tell with the oldest one. Sometimes, he'll eat whatever we stick in front of him as if he's never seen food before; others, it's "I'm not hungry," which translates into "I don't want to that crap."

For a long time, a couple or three years, probably, after we dropped all the processed stuff from our diets (something like six years ago, now?), I took it, well, kind of personally when my kids didn't like what I cooked. It was distressing to me. In my head, I knew it wasn't about me, but that's not how it felt. Eventually, possibly because of having to deal with it so much, I did come to a place where it quit being an insult to me when the kids didn't like something I cooked. It was about the food, not me. They still loved me no matter what I cooked. We could go from "I don't care if you like it! Just eat the food!" to cuddling on the couch and watching a movie within moments.

And, after years, I have managed to find a few things that they all like and would rather have me make than go out for, like hamburgers. Thought that one's still kind of iffy, because my daughter loves to go to Super Burger, but that's more because of the shakes (they have something like two dozen flavors) than the hamburgers. That's why I am King of Hamburgers!

Writing is rather the same way, which is why it's important to remember that when someone doesn't like something you've written, it has nothing to do with you or whether that person likes you or not. So you didn't write something that person liked or, maybe, even most people, but it still doesn't have anything to do with you.

The sad thing is that I have seen negative reviews of books cause rifts in friendships or, even, destroy friendships.

Here's the thing, if you cook something and you like what you cooked -- you taste it and say, "I like this!" -- it doesn't matter if anyone else likes it or not. If you do like it (and aren't just telling yourself that because you're the one that made it), chances are there are other people that will like it, too. You just have to find those people. People who don't like it can find something else to eat. But it's really not fair to hold it against someone (especially a friend or loved one) if they don't like what you cooked. That would be like me getting upset with my younger son for night liking the fish dinner I cooked (when I know he doesn't like fish).

There's a decision you have to make as a cook (or a writer): do I think this food is good enough to let other people taste? If you think "yes," then you have to decide to not take it as a personal insult if other people don't like the food. If you really want to share your food with other people, that means you go back to your recipe, figure out what people didn't like about it, and try again. Writing is really that same way. Getting upset about it would  be like me getting upset that so many people eat at McDonald's when my hamburgers are so much better.

So, remember, it's about the food, not about you. Or, um, it's about the book. And it's really unfair for you to expect people to grin and say "I love it!" while they're spitting it out behind their napkins. Or, maybe, they will love it, but it needs to be up to them to decide apart from any expectations on your part.

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I talk about "Jack" (not the Jack that is my cat).

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How To Be... a master Chef (and IWSG)

So... you want to learn to cook, do you?

I see you there saying yes.

It's your lifelong dream, but how do you go about it?

Well... let's just talk about that.

First, you need to learn how to boil water. Yeah, you wouldn't think that would be such a big deal, but, evidently, it is. I mean, my brother can't boil water to the extent that my mother banned him from trying to cook anything that didn't involve the microwave oven. I suppose he just burned up too many of her pots. I'm not talking about when he was a kid, either. This was when he was a full grown adult. Seriously, if he had gone to college, he would have starved from lack of being able to make ramen noodle soup.

Boiling water, though, is a basic skill of cooking. After that, boiling eggs. I think I was about nine or so when I started doing the boiled egg thing. I got a recipe for making deviled eggs off of some TV show (I sort of think it was The Electric Company, but I don't remember for sure), and I was really into doing that for a while. I'd make them for my brother (who was about three at the time) and me after school or on Saturdays or, basically, whenever I wanted to, and I was competent enough that my mom let me do it whenever I wanted without any supervision.

Everything I've learned since then, I've learned just from doing it, and, I have to say, I'm a good cooker. That's how I like to say it, "I'm the cooker in the family." The thing is, though, you can get a recipe for anything online. And I mean anything. You want the top secret recipe to make fried chicken just like KFC? It's online. You want the special chocolate sauce recipe from Outback? It's online. You want to make your great grandmother's squirrel dumplings (and squirrel is big in England and France, right now), I'm sure you can find it online. Or, you know, something that's so close you can't tell the difference.

The thing is, if you really want to be a chef, the best way to go about it is to practice cooking. A lot. Constantly try out new recipes and expand what you can do and make. Sure, you can go to school for it; you can even get a degree in it, but, when it comes down to it, when it actually comes time to get a job in a restaurant, that degree is not as helpful as it may seem, because most restaurants still use an apprenticeship system for their chefs, so, no matter how good you are or what kind of degree you have, you're going to get hired at the bottom and have to work your way up. From that standpoint, the guy that's been a cook at Applebee's for five years is going to have just the same kind of chance as someone fresh out of culinary school. The main thing is to do it.

IWSG:
Living Between the Spikes

Being Wednesday, it's also IWSG day.

Sometimes, it can be hard to live between the spikes. The problem, if there is a problem, is that there are spikes. With, well, everything. Personally, I'd prefer a nice smooth incline. Just a gradual trip up the slope without any dips, but that's not how it works. Knowing this doesn't help. I mean, I know that the spikes don't matter as long as there is an overall increase, BUT...

Every time there's one of those dips, I feel a bit of panic. I can't help it. The beginning of each month is... uncomfortable, no matter what I say to myself about it.

But I'm not really talking about the blog here, even if that is a graph of my blog traffic. No, what I'm talking about is "book traffic." As I mentioned here, the release of "The Tree of Light" was my best release so far.

This week's release of "The Angel" was not nearly as inspiring.

(Even though the cover is SO cool! Say a big thank you to Rusty Webb and tell him how cool his work is!)
So another dip... and, even though everything is tending upward, the dips are... well, they're dips. When what you really want is for everything to just keep going up and up and up, the dips are kind of a bummer. But, if the stock market is any example (and I'm not saying it is), the dips are good. You don't want anything to just keep going up and up and up until it breaks. The dips, I'm sure, are healthy, but, man, it sure is difficult to climb back up the other side!