Rebels: "Imperial Supercommandos" (Ep. 3.07)

-- "Strategy is an art. Maybe I'm luring you into a false sense of security."

Oh, wow, it's been a while since I've done one of these. I've just been busy, I guess.

But this was a good, and exciting, episode to jump back in on.

Of course, the Mandalorian stuff is always good. Or, at least, interesting. This one was both.

This episode ties back to... oh, I don't know, some episode or other, back in season two, I think. Another Mandalorian episode, but I'm not going to go look it up, right now. At any rate, in the earlier episode, the Rebels cook up a deal with a Mandalorian outpost for safe passage through their system.  But that outpost has gone silent, so Ezra and Sabine, along with a "guest," go to check it out. They fear the Mandalorians may be setting a trap for Rebel ships passing through the system. Oh, the deal? Well, it wasn't exactly reached by choice on the part of the Mandalorians.

When they get there, though, the find that the base has been wiped out, everyone killed. Those responsible? Imperial Supercommandos. And they are pretty cool looking, let me tell you. They are also traitor Mandalorians who joined the Empire, which is part of why they're so cool. They're like hybrid stormtrooper/Mandalorians. And what kid didn't want that action figure back in the 80s?!?! Or now, probably.

The episode is actually a lot more complex than what I've gone into here, but, hey, no spoilers, right? Well, I guess I kind of did give a spoiler about the commandos... excuse me, supercommandos! But, hey, it's in the title, so I'm going to give it a pass.

And, well, we find out a thing about Sabine, and I think that's going to come back to haunt her. Or us. I am writing this on Halloween evening, so I'm going with the haunt... Hey, you know what? No one ever goes trick-or-treating as a ghost anymore. Did Charlie Brown ruin it for everyone?
Maybe no one ever went as a ghost? Except me... Because I did, sort of, when I was 11: the ghost of Scooby Doo. Yeah, I'm not going to explain that.



"What took you so long?"
"I was using strategy! It takes longer!"

My Empty Chair

The apartment was dark except for the flickering light of the television set. It had been like that for days, maybe weeks; I didn't really know. The concept of time had lost much of its meaning. I could tell that time was passing from the vague fluctuations of dimness through the blinds, but what did it really matter? I suppose realizing that you're dead has that kind of effect.

Finding myself dead in my easy chair had created a rather substantial existential crisis for me. What do you do with that kind of information? I mean, there I was, dead and bloated with a bottle of whiskey hanging from my stiff fingers and the TV flickering on and on. What was I supposed to do now?

Besides sitting here and staring at myself, that is. How morbid.

It was overwhelming. Sometimes so much so that I would find myself back at my door thinking I had just come home to find an intruder in my apartment. It took me a while to realize that's what was going on. I had to come to grips with my death over and over again, but each realization was a little easier, and those events were becoming less frequent. It's hard to go through that kind of trauma, especially when you have to relive it every time you begin to break down.

The worst part, though, was that I couldn't remember dying. Once I was able to get over... I was going to say "get over my death," but I wasn't over that. I don't think you can get over that. I was stuck in this room, now, with a corpse and, even if it was my own corpse, it was gruesome. If I could have left, I would have, but I couldn't move anything or affect anything. Everything was as solid as if it had been cast in stone. I couldn't even pry the whiskey bottle from my cold, dead fingers and, believe me, I needed a drink! It was the only thing I could think about other than my corpse.

My corpse and trying to figure out how I'd died, which I couldn't remember. Once I was able to focus beyond re-living the moment of discovering my body, I could remember leaving home for the bar a few blocks away: I remembered getting out of bed and puttering around with making coffee and eating something vaguely identifiable as leftover Chinese food. Opening the blinds and quickly closing them again, all of them, because of how bright it was and how much the light hurt my eyes. I remembered the splitting headache of my hangover. I contemplated turning on the TV but decided against it because that, too, would be too bright, and I didn't want any noise at all. Then deciding that what I needed was a drink and fumbling into my clothes and going to the bar...

That was pretty much it.

I didn't remember coming home again. Or turning on the TV, though, from the low volume, I must have still been suffering from being hung over and from being drunk. I didn't remember getting the whiskey, either, and I was only just realizing that I must have been a raging alcoholic. A breakfast of beer on cereal was pretty common for me, after all. But I couldn't remember how I died and wondered if that had been it.

There was a noise at the door and, as it opened, someone said, "It's not even locked." Then, "Holy Hell! That's a smell I'm never going to forget," and the door closed again. A few minutes later -- or hours, how would I know? -- two men came in with Matilda, my neighbor from down the hall, my only friend in the building.

Matilda was saying, "Of course, I knew it wasn't locked, but I couldn't just come in. That would be breaking and entering."

One of the men said, "No, Ma'am, that's not breaking, and you didn't have to come in. If you'd just looked in the door."

"But no one answered when I knocked."

"Because he was dead."

"Hey, how long do you think he's been dead?"

"I'm not the M. E., how should I know?"

"I've been knocking on his door for over a week."

I couldn't keep track of it all. Maltilda was crying. The men were looking around the apartment using sticks or something to poke at my stuff, and one of them was taking pictures of my body. It was enough to make me sick, and I gagged and dry-heaved and found myself back at my door disoriented and confused. Matilda walked straight through me as one of the men escorted her back to her apartment, and that made me feel even sicker but, still, nothing came out.

Somewhere in all that was happening another man and some other men came in. The first one poked and prodded my body and said his guess was that I'd been dead somewhere around three weeks, and the other men loaded me onto a stretcher and carried my body away. I felt like that should have made me cry or, at least, feel sad or a sense of loss or something, but I was actually kind of glad. I was tired of looking at my corpse.

Finally, I was left alone in the room; all of the men were gone. The TV had been turned off. The bottle of whiskey was sitting on the kitchen counter, and I still couldn't pick it up.

It was only then that I realized that I was alone in the room. Alone in the room! Again! And I couldn't get out. I didn't want to be stuck in this apartment that I'd died in. Stuck alone in this one room for the rest of my... life? Death? Un-life? I didn't even know what to call whatever kind of existence this was.

I think I went kind of crazy for a while, beating on the door and walls and screaming for someone to let me out, someone to help me, someone to do anything.

Even ghosts, or whatever I was, can get exhausted, I guess, because I woke up later lying on the floor near the door. There were people with weird equipment walking around the room, and Matilda was with them. She kept telling them that she thought I was still there and that she was sure she had heard me yelling to be let out. Then, at some point, she turned in my direction and looked... well, she didn't quite look at me, but it was close enough, I guess, and said, "It's okay, John. You can go now."

I blinked and looked at the open door. I looked back at her and she nodded. The other people milled about the room with their beeping and blinking equipment and talked in low voices about cold spots and electrosomethingorothers. I looked back at the door, and Maltida said again, "You can go."

So I did.

I walked out the door and into the world, and it felt like I had never been out in the world before. Like I was seeing everything for the first time. Like I was being reborn. Reborn without my addiction and without my bills to pay or, even, a need to eat anything. I walked out into the world and for the first time in a long, long time... I was happy.

*****

If you enjoyed this story (all three parts, so make sure you check the previous two days for parts one and two if you missed them), which I have posted here for free, I would strongly encourage that you support the author (that's me!) by buying one of my other works. Seriously, it really helps.

Also, if you enjoyed this story, please share it with your friends. That's not a difficult thing to do. You can share it on Facebook or Twitter or, even, google+ (for now, at least)! The point is, spread the word.

Oh, and this won't be up forever. I'll leave it here a few weeks, but, then, it's coming down to be collected together and will no longer be free. So enjoy it now. I sincerely hope you did!

Some Body in My Chair

The apartment was dark as I entered it, which was not unusual, as I never left the lights on when I left. It's just that it seemed darker than usual, more foreboding, even with the television set on, its light serving only to deepen the shadows in the rest of the room, broken only by the flickering of people moving about on the screen. The low murmur of voices, not quite intelligible, gave the room the feeling of a hospital room with doctors and family whispering just outside of the rooms of dying patients. It sent a chill through me and turned my arms to goose flesh.

The television being on was a problem; I was sure I hadn't left it on, hadn't even been watching it before I'd left my apartment earlier in the evening; yet, on it was. A shiver began to work itself through my body as I watched the eerie light glinting off of the hard surfaces in the room. The surface of my little dining table. The glass in the picture frame on the bookshelf. The whisky bottle dangling from the fingers of the body in my easy chair... The shiver turned violent as I realized there was somebody in my easy chair.

What the fuck! There was somebody sitting in my easy chair!

I stood by the door trying to get my shaking under control and trying not to breathe. Trying to hear beyond the sounds and knocking of my body. The beating of my heart. The rushing of my blood. The ocean roaring in my ears. Trying not to give in to the vertigo I felt as the room spun around me.

I stood there, frozen, like a squirrel in front of a car... like a squirrel in front of a car... like a squirrel...

There was something about a squirrel. A squirrel leaping from my hands and dying. Unless I was the squirrel. Was I the squirrel? Was I the squirrel about to leap and die, or was I stuck in place and about to get run down? Was death my only option here?

I stared at the body in my chair and realized that his face was turned toward me and that one large eye was open and staring at me. I quit breathing. I had already been seen!

Dizziness began to overtake me, and real panic set in. Even more real panic. I was going to pass out right in front of the intruder in my house! I was just going to fall down and die for him, and there was nothing I was going to be able to do about it. Not literally die, of course, except in the way that he would be able to kill me without a fight when I fainted. As if I was any kind of fighter to begin with.

Can you black out while standing up? I don't know if that's possible, but I think I did. All I know is that time passed, some quantity of time that I'm unaware of but enough of it that I knew that time had passed. Time had passed and the person in the chair hadn't moved. At all. Not even blinked, from what I could tell. At least, once I came back to my senses and continued to stare at the intruder, he never blinked. And his mouth was slightly ajar, chin slack, and he never closed his mouth. His tongue must have been completely dry; I had a sympathetic gush of saliva at the thought.

Was he asleep with his eye open? Because I realized, soon, that the eye wasn't looking at me. It was just staring... at I don't know what. It was flat and dull and as unmoving as the body. I felt drawn to it and, without really meaning to, took a step toward it.

There was a smell in the air, a stench. Or, at least, I imagined there was. Dead bodies are supposed to stink, right? But I don't know if there was anything I could smell or not. Even once I found myself standing over the body, the smell may have just been the result of my revulsion. My revulsion at having someone break into my apartment and die in my chair while drinking my whiskey. How sick is that?

The body was already bloated... Wait, how long did it take a body to become bloated? I don't think it's at all possible that there would have been time for that. I wasn't gone all that long. Had someone broken into my place for the purpose of dumping a bloated corpse? Who would do something like that? I felt sick...

But I kept staring at the dead thing in my chair, the t-shirt spread too tightly over the now expansive belly, the taut skin, ...the empty eyes. A chill spread through my body as I began to realize the person in the chair, the ex-person in the chair, seemed familiar. Very familiar.
The body in the chair... was me.

Someone in My Chair

The apartment was dark as I entered, which was not unusual, as I never left the lights on when I left. It's just that it seemed darker than usual, but, perhaps, that was because the television was on, the sound turned down to a vague hum, and the dim light from the screen highlighted the darkness in the rest of the room, filling it with weird shadows and flickering lights.

The television was the problem. I was sure I hadn't left it on. I hadn't even been watching TV before I left, but, yet, there it was, its pale light glinting off of the hard surfaces in the room. Glinting off the whiskey bottle dangling from the hand of the man sitting in my easy chair...

There was someone sitting in my easy chair! What the fuck?

I stood silently by the door, not moving. Not breathing. Trying to still the sudden slamming of my heart in my chest through force of will. The pulsing of the blood in my ears and the hammering of my heart drowned out all other sound and, for a moment, I wasn't sure if, maybe, an earthquake hadn't started while I was standing there. The room seemed unstable enough for it.

But, no, it was me. My world spinning. Someone in my home, sitting in my chair, drinking my liquor. I was frozen in indecision, not unlike a squirrel in front of an oncoming car.

I held a squirrel once. It was injured, and I picked it up with thoughts of helping it. I'm not sure what I thought I would do to help it since I don't know the first thing about first aid or medicine, especially to do with animals, or anything of the sort, but that's what I had thought. Its little heart pelted my hand with tiny blows as I picked it up to carry it up to my apartment. I spoke softly to it hoping to soothe it, but I could tell it was freaking out. As I was going up the stairs to my building, without warning, it sprang from my hand and bounced down the stairs. I retrieved it quickly but, by the time I had gotten up to the door, it was dead.

I felt like that squirrel, gripped by some strange hand holding a whiskey bottle. Frozen but ready to leap. If only I knew where to leap. To the phone? Could I make it to the phone and dial 9-1-1 before the man reacted to my presence? What if he had a weapon? Not that that would matter; I wasn't a fighter. I wasn't really a lover, either, but I certainly wasn't a fighter.

Should I back out the door? Matilda was just a few doors down. I could use her phone. But it was Wednesday... She wouldn't be home. Wednesday was bingo night. Leave it to me to have an intruder on the one night during the week when my one friend in the building wasn't home. Which left me wondering why I had never bothered to make any other friends in the building. Not that I really had to wonder. I knew what kind of person I was, the kind who hung out in bars with people who were your friends as long as you were buying the drinks. People whose names I couldn't remember from one night to the next. And who couldn't remember mine.

Matilda was only my friend because she'd taken it upon herself to befriend me, bringing me actual food for dinner rather than allowing me to subsist on an all alcohol diet. In exchange I did the occasional chore for her, like carrying her trash down to the bin or...

Well, it didn't matter. She wasn't home, and my only other option was to go banging door to door, and I wasn't going to do that. Not only wasn't I going to do that but doing that might arouse the intruder from all the noise, so I certainly wasn't going to do that. If only pay phones were still a thing! But I couldn't think of the last place I'd even seen one...

Other than the bar a couple blocks over, the bar I spent most of my evenings in. They still had a pay phone! It was a pretty far way to go to call the cops on an intruder in my apartment when I was standing in the door to my apartment, but I didn't see what other option I might have. Which, I suppose, serves me right for never bothering to get a cell phone. Which I didn't need. Since I never called anyone.

Really, I just hadn't seen the need after my partner died three years ago. He was the social one. The one who liked to have friends over and who, evidently, maintained all of our connections. Right up until he got really sick and people quit coming around. Despite all of the talk, it seemed people still had that same 80s fear of AIDS and, yes, people still die of it. Excuse me, people still die of complications caused by AIDS. Why bother with a cell phone; I didn't want to talk to any of those people.

A low moan drifted up from somewhere in the vicinity of my chair -- my chair! -- and I was reminded of what I needed the phone for in the first place. Stupid stupid to let my mind wander around like that with an intruder sitting in my chair not much farther away than spitting distance from me. What was wrong with me? I hadn't had that much to drink. I hadn't even needed a ride home from the bar..

The pounding of my heart in my ears was making it hard to think. I just needed to get away but, when I reached for the door so that I could ease back out, I bumped it closed instead. The noise was deafening. Or may as well have been. It was enough to attract the attention of the intruder, and his head slowly turned toward me.

You'd probably expect that someone intruding in someone else's house would have a stronger reaction than to slowly turn one's head at an unexpected noise, but he wasn't just holding the whiskey bottle, it seemed. The bottle was nearly empty. Not that I really noticed that at the time. At the time, I was frantically trying to get out the door of my own house. That's somewhat more difficult to do when you're trying to move against the opening of the door.

It didn't help that I was being stared at by a bleary, bloodshot, yellow eye.

Maybe there was another moan. Maybe it was me trying not to scream. Maybe it was the squeaking of the chair. I couldn't tell over the pounding of my heart and the scrape of the door as I wrenched it open. Then I was gone. I don't even know if I shut the door behind me or not. Not that it mattered since there was already someone in my apartment. At that moment, I didn't care. I just wanted away. What to do about the person in my chair was a problem for some other time.

Get Your "Soul Cakes" Here!

If you've been around here for any length of time, you'll know that it's that soul cake time of year. If you haven't been around here, you're probably asking yourself, "What the hell is a soul cake?" Which is a very appropriate question since a soul cake is like a get-out-of-jail-free card but for Hell. Yes, a Get-Out-of-Hell-Free cake.

If you'd like to know more and see what they look like, you can go here and, for an actual recipe, here. They're pretty tasty treats.

Unfortunately, we didn't make any this year. It's just been that kind of year. Of course, we didn't make any last year, either, but that's because Sonoma county was on fire last year, and we just didn't do it. Of course, I am writing this ahead of Halloween, so I suppose we could still make some, but I don't think it's happening this year. If it turns out I'm wrong, I'll make pictures about it.

Anyway! Even though we didn't make any this year, you can still get yours by buying my story of the same title and which features soul cakes prominently. Come on, it's a Halloween story, and who doesn't need a Halloween story? NO ONE! That's who! So pick up your copy of What Time Is the Tea Kettle?... Oh, right! You get stories for the price of one! Because it's "What Time Is the Tea Kettle?" and "Soul Cakes"! What a bargain!

Come on, help a guy out. It's even got a flying cat! And, no, he wasn't launched from a catapult. He does the flying, of sorts, all on his own.

Look, I don't ask (tell) you guys to buy stuff from me very often, so pick up your copy today and READ it. It's fun!

Oh, and, hey! There's another story featuring the man and his cat coming soon!
Just soon, okay!
As soon as it's finished!

...after (pictures I like)

Before... (pictures I like)

This Is What Soul Tastes Like (a recipe post)

Research can take you to some interesting places at times, and it was research for... something (yeah, I don't have any idea, now, what I was actually researching at the time)... that led me to soul cakes. Soul cakes became the inspiration for a novelette which you can find in "What Time Is the Tea Kettle?" and has also become the inspiration for making some of our own every year. [I use the term "every" rather loosely as this is only the second time we have done this.]

I gave a brief history of the food item in last year's post, but I'd like to add to that by saying that soul cakes were made by the wealthy to hand out to the poor in no small part just to show off how wealthy they were. Many (many) of the ingredients were luxury items, and some of them (like saffron) were extreme luxury items. Also, this is, at least in part if not in full, where the tradition of trick-or-treating comes from.

I think this year's attempt, for which we went as authentic as we could, finding a recipe from 1604!, turned out even better than last year's. Yes, indeed, I did save some souls!

Now, here's my wife to explain the recipe:

Last year we made what is basically a modern cookie--because most of the recipes that call themselves "soul cakes" on the internet are modern cookies, by which I mean they are leavened with chemical agents (baking powder and baking soda). There is nothing wrong with cookies, but they aren't medieval food, and this year I wanted to do a more authentically medieval soul cake. That meant making one that was leavened with yeast, which led to the basic recipe that we used this year, which is from 1604: click here. Quoting, the recipe they used goes like this: "Take flower & sugar & nutmeg & cloves & mace & sweet butter & sack & a little ale barme, beat your spice, & put in your butter & your sack, cold, then work it well all together, & make it in little cakes, & so bake them, if you will you may put in some saffron into them and fruit."

So first off, whoa, it's like people in the late middle ages / early modern era didn't even know how to spell and punctuate or something. And second, what the heck are some of these ingredients??

Using the Gode Cookery translation of the recipe, here's what I came up with:

1/2 cup ale

1 tsp active dry yeast

2 cups flour (I use white whole wheat)

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 tsp. each nutmeg, clove, and mace

1/2 tsp. saffron

1/2 cup dried currants

2 tbsp butter

1/2 cup sweet sherry

When I looked at the recipe last year, some of the instructions made zero sense to me. But this year I was determined to figure it out, and it turns out that the ingredients in the recipe themselves lead to some pretty interesting history.

"Ale barme" is now just called "barm" and it is the foam that forms on top of fermented alcohol such as beer or wine: click here. The foam contains yeast, so, in medieval England it was routine practice to skim that off and use it to leaven breads. This barm bread was considered to be very good stuff: "The barm method appears to be an ancient method developed by Gaelic peoples in the mists of time, and was quite different to that used in Europe, which is to leaven bread with a sourdough or leaven (the French call it 'levain'). When the Romans first conquered Gaul, modern day France, they were astonished by the light sweet bread made by the Celtic inhabitants... In England noblemen's bread, manchet was always made with the barm method, whereas the commoners' bread maslin was a sourdough." link

And while I knew what the other ingredients were, I hadn't quite thought about what their meaning in the culture of the time was. Spices and sugar seem very common and easy to get and not all that expensive to us now, but that was not true in 1604 and earlier. Saffron was and still is quite expensive, and was usually an import to England (though there was some farming of it within England for a time). There was even a brief war over saffron. Saffron gave both bright color and interesting flavor to foods, AND, EVEN BETTER: Europeans thought it was a plague cure! So it was a culinary and medicinal luxury good.

The first step in this recipe is to get your saffron ready for use by extracting it in some alcohol. This helps bring out the color and flavor. Soaking the saffron in a couple of teaspoons of brandy or any other strong alcohol, it starts out looking like this:

And very quickly becomes this:

Then I prepped the "ale barm" substitute by mixing 1/2 cup of good local ale with 1 tsp of active dry yeast.

I combined the flour and sugar in a bowl, made a well in the middle, and poured in the ale barm to let it sit and proof. Were I to do this again, I would probably use instant yeast because it doesn't require proofing, and I think that might lend a slightly lighter character to the finished cake. Though it probably wouldn't be quite as authentic that way, either.

Sugar was also a luxury imported good in England, and sugarcane was being grown in Spain and Siciliy (link). In the decades after 1604, of course, the demand for sugar would drive colonization of the new world and the enslavement of many people. "Its price per pound in 14th and 15th century England was about equally as high as imported spices from tropical Asia such as mace (nutmeg), ginger, cloves, and pepper, which had to be transported across the Indian Ocean in that era." Sugar was also thought to have medicinal properties (sorry medieval people, lol, you were wrong).

Meantime, Andrew creamed together the butter and spices in a small bowl.

Look into the spoon...THERE IS A MAN IN THE SPOON! Oh, it's just Andrew.

Then I added the sherry to the creamed butter and spices. This seemed unnecessary to me, but the recipe said to do it, so I did. I ended up with lumps of spicy butter floating in sherry. Not a very effective technique, and even if you were to beat in the sherry slowly you'd still end up with this result. Since everything is going to get mixed into the dough anyway, why not just add the components separately? Anyway, sherry was an import from Spain to England, and spices came from far-away places such as the Middle East and Asia (link). I used a sweet sherry in the recipe because that's what sherry was then--sweet and probably not as high in alcohol as modern sherry. (I had a reference for that but don't know what I did with it!)

After steeping in the alcohol for a while, the saffron starts to look like a little sun in its glass.

The beginning of mixing everything together! I covered the ale barm well over with the flour and sugar, then poured in the sherry and spices and saffron. Then began to stir...

After my dough was holding together, I turned it out onto a wooden peel to knead.

Then added in the currants...

And kept kneading until they were all incorporated.

Then it was time to roll the dough out into a disk, about half an inch thick...

That's a closeup of one of the saffron threads in the rolled dough. I just think saffron is really cool.

After rolling the dough out, I used a cookie cutter to make rounds, then Andrew and I marked the shape of the cross on them. After letting them sit to rise for about 15 minutes, I baked them at 375 degrees for about 25 minutes--but they might need a bit more or less in someone else's oven.

Texture-wise, these soul cakes are interestingly different from modern cookies or breads. They are flatter and chewier and a bit harder. These were sweet enough, and the flavors were good, but next time I make them I will put some salt in them, because I think they needed a bit of balance, and salt would heighten their flavors. Andrew liked them and the kids liked them, so that seemed like a pretty good success rate.

As Andrew explained above, these would have been luxury goods, indicated by several of the ingredients--sugar, spices, saffron, and sherry. And they would have been perceived to be healthful, since the ingredients had "medicinal" purposes. So, in effect, rich people handing out soul cakes around Allhallowtide would be like rich people today handing out little goodie bags of Whole Foods protein bars full of acai berries and artisanal honey or something, I think. (I wonder if kids today would even eat Halloween candy they thought was meant to be healthy??)

What Is the Flavor of Soul? (a FREE! book day)

For someone who grew up not really liking Halloween, I seem to write a lot of Halloween flavored stuff. There's the whole disastrous trick-or-treating escapade in The House on the Corner and, then, there's "Soul Cakes." Not to mention all kinds of other creepy stuff I've done or am doing.

But back to "Soul Cakes"!

If you pay attention to the cover for "What Time Is the Tea Kettle?", you'll notice that "Soul Cakes" is included. Yes, it's a pair of novelettes, and they are some of my favorite stories. In my mind, they're just fun. I won't lie, though, and try to say that some people haven't been unsettled by them.

Oh, well.

Anyway...

Just in time for Halloween, "What Time Is the Tea Kettle?" is FREE! And, hey, you can't beat FREE! Seriously, pick them up and give them a read.

And be ready for the man and his cat to be back very soon. Very.
And with an actual name.
Sort of.

What are you waiting for? Click the link and go get your FREE! book!
Creepy days are here, but they're almost over.

Pumpkin Spice Latte (a recipe post)

Hello, blog readers. I am Sarah, Andrew's wife. We are doing a special Creepy Days thing here where we post things that are fall-themed / Halloween-themed. I offered to Andrew that I would help out with recipes, because I am the recipe person in our relationship. [This is true. I do most of the cooking, but my inclination, often, is to just wing it. Sarah researches and provides recipes to keep me more on track.] So here is your first recipe for Creepy Days: Homemade Pumpkin Spice Latte!

First, what is a pumpkin spice latte? Historically, it's a flavored espresso drink invented by Starbucks and first sold in 2003. [Link]  It has a pretty rabid fan following, and also inspires non-fans to become snarky about "the PSL" (as those in the know dub it, apparently). I don't really know why people become snarky about it, because 1. it's a coffee drink that no one is forcing anyone else to drink, 2. "pumpkin spice" is a delicious melange of flavors generally, 3. the PSL feels autumnal, right? are these people who are snarking actually FALL-haters, and wouldn't that mean they are anti-American?? 4. the eggnog latte seems to slip under everyone's radar and not come in for any abuse at all, despite being a legitimately gross concept, [She says this in a house in which all of her children love eggnog and, though none of them have discovered having it as coffee, they will probably love that, too.] and 5. who even has enough energy to waste on getting cranky about an espresso drink, unless they are in a circumstance where the barista just spit in it? Oh you're not in that circumstance? Then maybe stop being snarky about freakin' coffee!

Whew! OK. I myself do not care for the PSL as it is formulated by Starbucks; however, I am not going to snark at people who like it that way. More power to them in their chosen method of enjoying the seasonal spirit of autumn. For my own preferences, I want a PSL that is more pumpkin-y and less sweet. A lot less sweet, both because I don't like things that are overly sweet and also because I want to avoid consuming a lot of sugar. If you like the idea of the PSL but you would prefer not to have to visit your dentist and cardiologist after each one you consume, then this recipe may be right up your alley.

Now, this recipe is more of a formula than a recipe per se. I recommend that you adjust the formula components to suit your own desire; this could take experimentation. Delicious experimentation. [We do a lot of that.] I consider that a feature rather than a bug as regards this recipe. So does Andrew.

Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) Formula

Pumpkin flavor. Once upon a time, the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte did not contain any actual pumpkin, rather it was artificially flavored. In 2015, in response to consumer pressure about the drink not containing "real" pumpkin, it was reformulated to contain some quantity of pumpkin; Starbucks doesn't indicate how much. To me, this is not a knock against the drink itself (because, I mean, come on--any of Starbucks' sweetened drinks are really just dessert in liquid form, and extracts are often used in desserts to supplement flavor), though to some people it might matter. Rather, I say this in order to make you aware that you have two basic options as regards flavoring your own personal PSL:

• Pumpkin flavor. Pros: Can be purchased here from my favorite baking-supply company, King Arthur Flour; using a very small amount will apparently give you a big flavor; won't add any texture to your drink as real pumpkin does. Cons: Waiting for your flavor to reach you in the mail; isn't "real pumpkin."

• Real pumpkin. Pros: It's real pumpkin!; it's easy to find in the stores this time of year; adds some Vitamin A and other nutrients to your coffee drink. Cons: It will add texture to your drink, depending on how much you add in; some people don't like the "raw" taste of it (you can cook it before using it in your drink if that is an issue). [We go for texture. Just sayin'.]

Milk base. Totally up to you what to use here. If you like your lattes made with milk, do that; if you prefer almond milk or coconut milk or something else, that is also fine. Just maybe no goat's milk, that doesn't seem like such a great idea.

Coffee. Do you have an espresso machine? Use a shot of espresso! [If you don't have an espresso machine, you should totally get one. It's well worth it and will provide you a reason to redecorate.] Do you keep instant coffee in your cupboard? It's OK to use that too! (We have both, because we love espresso but sometimes we're lazy and/or I need the instant for baking with.) Or are you a kid or someone else who hates the taste of coffee? NO COFFEE FOR YOU!

Sweetness. Andrew and I are sugar-avoiders, so I use sucralose to sweeten our homemade PSLs; a little less for him, a little more for me. You can use sugar or honey or stevia or maple syrup (that sounds interesting!) or agave or whatever you want. I recommend starting with less and going to more because, as my mom always said, "You can put more in, but you can't take it out." (Good advice for cooking AND pretty good advice for managing your retirement account, too.)

Spices. If you have "pumpkin pie spice" in your cupboard already, you may as well use that. If not--e.g., if you are a crazy baker like me [She is the baker; I just do the cooking.] and have a collection of 30+ spices and herbs that are getting regularly used (ok, except for the ghost chile curry powder that Andrew bought on a whim, that stuff is never going to get used up because no one in our household, mysteriously, wants to have their tongue burned off) [Not true! I use it when I make things that require curry powder! It's just that I didn't buy it until the end of our run on Indian food experimentation so haven't had a lot of opportunities to use it since then.]...anyway, if you have the individual spices you can just use those, and if you have the individual spices then you also probably know that you want to be using some combination of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and/or allspice. Or, if you enjoy masala chai (AKA "chai tea" to Americans), a bit of cardamom will add that flavor. Or try turmeric and black pepper if you're feeling adventurous and want to add an extra dash of warm color and heat to your PSL (black pepper boosts the beneficial effects of turmeric).

Vanilla extract. Why a flavor other than pumpkin and spice and coffee? Vanilla is a great balancer and rounder of other flavors.

Salt. Salt is an enhancer of other flavors. It also moderates the bitterness of coffee.

Whipped cream. Totally optional, unless you are our daughter, in which case whipped cream is literally the most important part of this drink or, indeed, of any dessert. In fact, if we were to allow her to put whipped cream on her breakfast cereal, she would probably be really eager to do that; but please, no one put that idea into her head, because we are already exhausted from saying "NO, YOU MAY NOT PUT WHIPPED CREAM ON YOUR WHIPPED CREAM, THAT IS ENOUGH WHIPPED CREAM."

Pumpkin Spice Latte - 2 servings

4 oz canned pumpkin

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ginger

1/4 to 1/2 tsp blend of other spices such as cloves, nutmeg, mace, allspice, cardamom, black pepper, turmeric

2 cups milk

2 to 3 tbsp sugar or substitute

2 tbsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1 to 2 shots espresso

In a small saucepan, heat up the pumpkin, along with your chosen blend of spices.

Add in milk, sugar, vanilla, and salt. Stir to combine, then heat up. If you're using instant coffee instead of espresso, this is the time to add it in to your mixture, so that it dissolves. If you want your drink frothy, you can use a hand-held blender to do that when the milk is warmed up.

Pull espresso shots and pour into your favorite mugs. Top with the latte mixture, and whipped cream if that's your thing.

Then, enjoy your fall-themed hot beverage!

'Tis the Season (pictures I like)

Star Wars season, that is.

And here's a look behind the Halloween curtain:

Soul Cakes

Last year, I wrote a story called "Soul Cakes" which appears with "What Time Is the Tea Kettle?"

and is set in the same universe.

A soul cake is a real thing. A few hundred years ago, they were a common Halloween "treat" that, as my wife says, the 1% would hand out to the poor to make themselves feel better. Seriously, the poor and orphans would go door to door (or whatever passed for that at the time) and collect soul cakes. Eating one was supposed to  deliver a soul from perdition. It's a tradition that has passed out of style.

[The subtle reader may gain a valuable insight into the main character of the Tea Kettle world by paying attention to the whole soul cake thing in the story.]

However, in style or not, we decided to make some! Which means, I wanted to make some, so my wife did! Hey, I shopped and roasted the walnuts! But, um, she really did all the rest. Here's a photo story of the process:

Yum! Souls taste good!

To celebrate "Soul Cake" day, I'm running a special deal on "What Time Is the Tea Kettle?"! From now through Halloween, It's less than a buck! That's right, for just $0.99, you can pick up two great stories! And eat some souls. Don't let this deal pass you by.