Caren Gussoff writer. geek. bon vivant. dot com

Muchly for my own ref, but maybe you like to geek out about speculative numbers, too:

“How Many People Have Ever Lived on Earth?“

Now that the glow of the holidays is starting to blow away like so much marine fog, and the tins and tins of holiday cookies are making me fatter and malnourished, it’s time to start cooking again.

My last post on this topic urged y’all to learn to or start cooking yourself. But I realized that I’ve left out one of my most treasured and hard-won-through-mass-experimentation (trying to figure out what to cook for a vegan) cooking tip: how to use the cans of stuff I know you have in your pantry.

For some reason or another, just about everyone winds up with some combination of the following cans, stuck in the back of their kitchen cabinets: green beans, peas, beets, tomatoes, asparagus, beans (usually red kidney, although sometimes black), and pumpkin. I bet you do too. Right? The stuff no one eats because it’s all mushy, bland, or leftover from more exciting things (like pie).

So, here’s what you do. Make soup. Get down your trusty blender and whip some of these cans of stuff that no one eats but everyone has into a flavorful (and somewhat creamy feeling base) for soup.  It’s great for vegans who miss the thickness of a chowder, really good for “hiding” veggies for veggie-haters (whoever they are), and a really nice way to throw together a delicious, fresh soup on the fly for cheap (or free, really).

Trust me.

Take the can of peas, asparagus, and green beans, drain the liquid, dump them all into a blender and whip until you have a smooth, turtle green slop. Put in a pot; add onions, garlic, other veggies, salt, and pepper. Thin it down with broth, bouillon cubes, water, milk, or soy milk.

Take the canned pumpkin and whip it with some drained kidney or black beans and some canned tomatoes. Again, add onions, garlic, salt, and pepper, then thin down (tastes awe-some, even if you don’t love pumpkin. I have served this to many guests, with fresh veggies tossed in).

Beets + tomatoes. Peas + beans. Green beans + pumpkin. Asparagus all by itself. You’re really only limited by whatever you have gathering dust in your cabinets.

On a similar note, I use the same process with random cans of fruit (especially fruit cocktail). I blend the crap out of it, then use it instead of applesauce or pears in quick breads (I use the pear bread recipe from the Joy of Cooking). That makes a really nice, light fruity bread that’s kind of dreamy for breakfast.

Enjoy.

Happy holidays, everyone. I hope this day finds you surrounded by people you love with easily-cured heartburn caused by delicious food.

I didn’t do a holiday letter this year. I meant to. Consider this my holiday letter to all of you.

This year was a year filled with financial hardship and great kindnesses. I learned some good lessons about how to be an adult, how to ask for help, and how to accept help I’ve asked for. I’ve made some strangers into friends, and I hope they know how much I have begun to treasure them.

(I hope I taught some lessons too: how to endure, how to take risks, and how to start again, again. I’m pretty good at all that.)

There were also some triumphs—a few good publications, awards, and wins; the start of a new novel; the birth of Brain Harvest; Chris’ first school transcript showing all As.

I am often terrible at keeping in touch; even worse at regularly blogging interesting things. But I thank you for bearing with me and continuing to take this ride.

Here’s to 2010 kicking metric fucktons of ass.

Following up on my first set of personal tips and advice on saving money in a brutally dismal economy–which, for the artsy types that avoid 9-5, may last longer than the rest of y’all–is my spiel on saving money on food/grocery bills (which was the most requested topic via email). Remember, this is all from personal experience and some of this, I realize, may seem a bit extreme or–even, yes–wacko. YMMV.

• The very best tip I can give you is to learn to cook. Not only that, learn to like to cook.  But, if your repertoire pretty much involves toast and boiling water for pasta, start by learning to cook, at least. Take out some basic cookbooks from the library or keep an eye out for free cooking classes at local Whole Foods (and places like that). Experiment–but not too much at first. Wait until you’ve made a few dishes following recipes exactly, with success, and you understand the basic chemistry of how foods cook and what tastes good with what.
• Play the grocery game. I’ve never played the Grocery Game, but I do know quite a few people who have. This works well, from what I am told, if you have a family to shop for. Essentially, the GG, for a few bucks a week, consolidates every special, coupon, and rebate for products you buy at major chain grocery stores. I’ve heard of people who use the GG to wind up with a $200 cart of groceries for less than $20 out the door.
• Do what everyone else tell you: clip coupons, shop the perimeter of the store (avoiding frozen and packaged foods), plan meals in advance, don’t shop hungry, etc. You can find articles on this everywhere. It’s all usually good advice.
• Build up your basics pantry. Your basics pantry are the ingredients (aside from spices) you use often and can combine to make other things. In our house, our basics pantry includes eggs, flour, butter, milk, canned black beans, canned tomatoes, sugar, and unsweetened baking chocolate. If we have these ingredients, I can usually use them–along with whatever else we happen to have–to make some sort of meal. Your basics pantry will probably contain different things based on your taste. But once you’ve figured out what those are, always try and keep them on hand.
• The most extreme, but personally interesting  tip is to go freegatarian. That’s right. Freegatarian. Also known as freeganism, freegatarians try and, well, salvage all the good stuff that would be, otherwise, thrown away. Tons of food are simply tossed because they’ve passed their aesthetic prime–rather than because they’ve become inconsumable. Finding food that would otherwise go to waste is remarkably easy. Sometimes you can ask the folks that work at restaurants and grocery stores, although that usually only flies at Trader Joes and organic markets (they are the most receptive). There’s also lots of info on the internet from other freegatarians who are very generous with sharing their intelligence about where to find things (including where and when to visit the alley behind Theo Chocolates or Top Pot Donuts, yum).  The most challenging and fun thing about freeganism is that you have to be open to happy surprises, coming home with 3 pounds of slightly bruised gala apples one day (pie!) or packages of just wilting fresh herbs the next (which can be air dried for later use*. If you have a good basics pantry, you can usually figure out something to make with your prize (Allrecipes.com has a lovely search feature where you can search by ingredient for recipe ideas).
• Get a garden or a P-Patch and grow your own food. Last summer was my first year doing this and I am so excited to do this again. I didn’t plant some things early enough and I lost all my pumpkins to blight, but we had fresh herbs, garlic, peppers and chard all summer (and well into fall). This next season, I’m going to add more tomatoes and do strawberries (which do well in the PNW summers). Getting started can take a small investment, but I used mostly found containers (lots of coffee cans) and have been keeping a compost bin (we go through coffee like madpeople and coffee grounds make for excellent compost), so my only expense will be some fresh soil and seeds–and really, if I had my crap together, I’d get in on all the seed swaps that happen both locally and on the internet to get a good seed store together for even less money.
• And finally, scavenge your neighborhood. You’d be shocked at the food that grows wild and local all over the place. Within one block in my neighborhood, there’s a field filled with dandelion greens and at least 3 lots where blackberries take over**. I keep my husband in blackberry pie all season that way, and nothing beats fresh berries that are twice the size of what you find at the market. Also, look for neighbors who have more bounty than they can handle (and ask before taking). Our neighbor has a fig tree that always bears more than she could ever hope to eat…so, voila. Fresh mission figs for us.

 
*For those of you in the back row freaking out about “dirty” food, freegatarians wash their finds. Wash them well–just like you should be doing even if you buy your food at Safeway. Think for a second how many people fondle each piece of produce in the grocery store before you get it home.
**Again, a good wash/rinse and they are just fine. Delicious.

I really do love doing research. I’ve been doing a lot of it (on plagues, pandemics, and public health) as I work on this draft of the novel (if you’re remotely curious, I’ve been keeping a running bibliography on what I’m reading for the novel over here). Today, I came across a gem that I just have to share (and for the ethnically Jewish out there, it’ll probably explain quite a bit about our mothers’ constant fascination with our digestive health while we were growing up), a reference to a “plague” thrust upon the Philistines as punishment for stealing the Ark of God.

From the Old Testament, 1 Samuel 5: 6-12

6: But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof.
9: And it was so, that, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: and he smote the men of the city, both small and great, and they had emerods in their secret parts.
12: And the men that died not were smitten with the emerods: and the cry of the city went up to heaven.

After exercising the full extent of my google-fu, I came to learn that emerods can mean…hemorrhoids. Yes. Jehovah smote them with hemorrhoids.

There’s also a bunch of scholarly research that contends that emerods actually refers, in this instance, to bubonic swellings–which is, probably, more likely. But, hemorrhoid smiting paints a much, uh, richer picture, doesn’t it?

Just wanted to share a quick and potentially amazing place I just happened to find during my nightly “avoiding doing work” internet jags—the Seattle Free School. This jives really nicely with the second blog post I’ve been tinkering at, on saving monies: part deux.
Anyway, free classes. On interesting stuff. Really. I just signed up for a hot process soap making course on December 3rd. There’s also a Russian cooking class I’m eyeballing.
Did I mention the classes are free?

Dang, I really love this book.

“No one has ever written truly immortal poetry about how good their dog looks in knitted garments.”

Amen, brother.

All around me, the economy is showing. Friends and family are eating up their savings cushions. Writers and editors I know are in low level panic. Etc. Etc.

I was laid off from my last full time gig two months ago, but really, I haven’t worked a day job with any regularity since I went to Clarion West in summer 08. My husband, Chris, an artist, has recently returned to school to upgrade his day job skills. Having been raised poor myself, and living in a house of two relatively creative people, we’ve managed, thus far, to continue living.

I usually speak in broad strokes here in this blog, but I’m starting to feel obligated to try and share some of the tips and tricks we use here in the Gussoff-Sumption camp to stay afloat (and by afloat, I mean bobbing around the surface getting occasional gasps of air, not racing across in a honking and luxurious yacht. These are not get rich tips. These are staying fed and clothed tips with the electricity on).

Today, I’ll share three internet sites that have helped us get by. If these are interesting to you and seem helpful, let me know by commenting or by sending me an email. I’m happy to go on to cover keeping your fridge filled, scaring up health care, and so forth, if folks are interested.

–Go to the content mills, or “work for hire.” There’s always a lot of poorly paying gigs out there. Suck it up and take one. You won’t be writing art. So what? Use a pen name if it bothers you (I don’t, but really, do people care? Half the time my content mill articles don’t give bylines, and when they do, whatever). A place I have direct experience with is Demand Studios (who’ve gotten a lot of mixed press lately). The pay is relatively low, but the articles can be, well, interesting (I’ve written articles on making chicken manure tea, using Hoyer lifts, making plaid pants for punks, knitting hats, using Suboxone, getting diagnosed with psoriasis…) and once you get the hang of what they want, you can make 30 bucks an hour. They pay twice a week, they pay on time, and they will now be offering health insurance (!!!!!!!) for freelancers who average 30 articles/month for more than 3 consecutive months. The application process is straightforward. The work is steady. I’ve worked with them on and off for 2 years, and they’ve never screwed me. They’re honest about what they want, how they want it, and when they want it. Right now, they are my main source of income. If you’re a broke writer or editor, I can’t encourage you strongly enough to go apply already.

–Low paying content mill jobs require lots of internet searches. Get free stuff to treat yourself with while you have to search anyway. There are lots of “reward” sites out there (they seem to come and go), but the one I use right now is swagbucks (which has been around for awhile). I really don’t ever promote this kind of stuff, but swagbucks is easy and free.
You use their search engine (which uses Google, only with more sponsored links) and you earn “swagbucks” which you can then trade in for a variety of stuff–most notably and interestingly, Amazon gift cards. The prizes are real and actually show up, the site is legit, and they don’t spam you. The search results are pretty diluted, so reserve your serious searches for Google straight up. But for causal searching, you may as well get free stuff. In fact, I’m pretty close to getting a $50 Amazon gift card, which will be one of my husband’s holiday gifts. If you sign up, I’d appreciate you using my referral link, but you don’t have to if you don’t feel comfortable.

–Join Freecycle. I’ve gotten great stuff from local folks who were trying to declutter, including the office chairs Chris and I are sitting on right now and a breadmaker that I use at least once a week. I’ve been able to give people stuff we didn’t need, including an extra toaster, a bathroom scale, and a gigantic sack of yarn scraps–all to folks that can use them. It’s awesome. Really. Not just because it kept the stuff out of landfills, but because, hey, you know, free stuff we/they needed. There’s a Freecycle group in just about every metropolitan area and most have email lists or newsletters that list stuff people are looking for or are giving away.

A super sweet one line review of my mini space opera in BIG OTHER : “Caren Gussoff offers a fine cyberpunk junket in her story “Correspondence.” ” Thanks, John Madera! I love the word “junket.”

I’ve been having a lot of fun lately guest blogging for Jeff VanderMeer while he is on tour. It’s especially cool because the other guest bloggers are so brilliant that they make me seem much smarter just by posting near them.

Also, in odd news, I’ve become one of the Seattle Literary Scene Examiners for Examiner.com. Kind of a random and strange little gig, but becoming pretty awesome. I’m keeping up with this stuff because it’s uh, my life, so I may as well grow some discipline and write about it. I can see wicked potential to pimp my friends and loved ones in here (because you people do such really cool things, anyway). I’m planning on spotlighting Seattle writers and editors weekly, so drop me a line if you are interested in being featured (caren at spitkitten dot com).

Today is Support Our ‘Zines Day.

… ‘zines are where we go to find good, new short fiction. Magazines like Asimov’s or Weird Tales. Fanzines like Electric Velocipede or Shimmer. Webzines like Clarkesworld or Strange Horizons. Podcasts like Escape Pod and The Drabblecast. There are hundreds and maybe even thousands of ‘zines publishing speculative fiction stories, and from the largest to the smallest they all contribute to building the SF community (thank you, Damien Walter!).

Since March 2009, we’ve been working hard on Brain Harvest. We’ve been bringing the best, baddest-ass speculative flash and micro fiction to the web while paying our writers a fair (professional) rate. We’ve been really lucky to have readers and supporters like you, and today would be a great day–if you haven’t already–to show your support for what we are doing by making a donation, posting a link to us in your blog, telling a friend who may dig what we do (and not have found us yet), or just stopping by and catching up on stories you may have missed.