Cooking with Cat "“ Steamed Pork Buns are the Food of the Gods by Travis Heermann

Cooking with Cat:
Steamed Pork Buns are the Food of the Gods
by Travis Heermann

Back when I was living in Japan, about 2003-2006, one of the foods that I fell in love with wasÂ nikumanÂ è‚‰ã¾ã‚“, steamed pork buns. They could be found in any convenience store, and they made a great meal for someone who didn’t feel like cooking.

They come with various fillings: pork, beef, chicken, shrimp, veggie, even sweet custard. They are particularly comforting when the weather turns chilly and they’re all steamy and warm.

I was planning a vacation to Japan with the family in March 2020. We’d been planning it for years, and it would have been the first time I’d been back since returning to the States. I was excited to show my family, whom I didn’t have then, all the sights.

A secondary reason for going to Japan was professional, as I was in the midst of writingÂ Tokyo Blood Magic,Â the first volume of my Shinjuku Shadows trilogy. I wanted to visit some important Tokyo locales, refresh my memory, gather some inspiration, but it was not to be.

As you might guess, COVID-19 derailed that, four days before wheels up for Tokyo. I was crushed, and nine months of isolation has not done much to help that state of mind.

Nevertheless, writing the book did assuage some of my disappointment, as I spent a lot of time in Google Street View, walking virtually around the streets of Tokyo. Writing the book was a fun way to reminisce, and also learn about places I didn’t get to visit while I was living there, such as Shizuoka, Ginza, and Roppongi.

There’s a scene inÂ Tokyo Blood MagicÂ where our hero, Django Wong, a ninja warlock, has his bacon saved from a very dangerous monster by a wisecracking alley cat, known only as Cat. Cat, however, is far from normal, and it’s not clear exactlyÂ whatÂ he is until Book 2,Â Tokyo Monster Mash.

Amid snarky repartee, Django and Cat venture into a convenience store for some post-fracas grub, whereÂ nikumanÂ becomes a big part of their bonding. Cat becomes Django’s supernatural sidekick.

So in this Year of a Thousand Cuts, I wanted some comfort food for the Virtual Book Launch Party, which my wife and I put together over Zoom a couple of weeks afterÂ Tokyo Blood MagicÂ was released. So I made someÂ nikuman,Â and thisÂ videoÂ tells the tale so much better than text.

This recipe is adapted from Japanese measurements. Credit for the original goes to Namiko Chen.

Nikuman, Steamed Pork Buns

Video:Â Cooking With Cat ““ Nikuman

INGREDIENTS

DOUGH

2 1/3 cups all-purpose white flour, plus more for dusting
2 scant Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp instant yeast
1 Tbsp neutral-flavored oil (vegetable, canola, etc.)
2/3 to 3/4 cup water

FILLING

2 shiitake mushrooms (without the stems), finely chopped
1/2 cup water
1 green onion/scallion, finely chopped
4 leaves cabbage, finely chopped
1 tsp kosher/sea salt
3/4 lb. ground pork
About 1 Tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp sake
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 Tbsp potato starch/cornstarch
freshly ground black pepper

INSTRUCTIONS

First, we make the dough. Put all dry ingredients in a large bowl (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, yeast). Add oil and mix. Once the oil is thoroughly mixed in, slowly add the water while mixing. Mix until incorporated.
Flour your hands and knead the dough into a ball. If the dough is too dry, add a tablespoon or two of water.
Sprinkle a smooth surface with flour, move the dough onto the surface, and knead for 10-15 minutes. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle it with a little flour. After 10-15 minutes, dough should be smooth and silky.
Form the dough into a ball. Grease the bottom of the bowl with neutral flavored oil and put the dough in the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place to rise for about an hour, until the dough doubles in size.
Meanwhile, it’s time to make the filling. Remove the thick stem parts of the cabbage leaves, then chop them finely. Sprinkle 1 tsp of salt onto the chopped cabbage. Massage the salt into the cabbage. This will begin to draw out cabbage’s moisture. After about ten minutes, squeeze the excess moisture out of the cabbage.
Add pork, mushrooms, and scallions to another bowl.
Squeeze the excess moisture from the chopped cabbage, then add it to the pork mixture.
Add ginger, sugar, sake, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, and starch. Sprinkle on some fresh black pepper to taste. Mix well. Cover and refrigerate until dough is ready.
When dough has finished rising, divide the ball in half. Roll each half into a log shape, then cut each log into five pieces. Then cut each piece in half.

Note: If you like big buns, and you cannot lie, you can cut your dough into larger sizes and use more filling for each one.

Lightly dust the balls with flour, cover them loosely with a damp cloth, and let them rest for ten minutes. (In the video, I missed this step!)
Roll each ball into a flat circle about five inches in diameter.
Cut twenty squares of parchment paper, about 3″ x 3″.
Take a circle of dough and place 1 1/2 Tbsp of filling in the center.
Fold the dough into a pouch around the filling. It works well to hold the pouch closed with thumb and forefinger while folding up the next bit of dough. First, it will resemble a taco, then a crab rangoon. As you fold in the corners of the “crab rangoon, ,” you’ll end up with a little pouch. Then pinch these corners together and give them a twist to seal the bun. Put each bun on a piece of parchment paper.
Cover the finished buns with plastic wrap and let them rest for 20 minutes. (In the video, I missed this step, too.)
Prepare a steamer with boiling water. Put buns in steamer, about 2″ apart. They will swell during steaming process. Steam for 10-15 minutes, (10 for small buns, 15 for large ones).
Enjoy!

The result: they were delicious.

The texture of the bun was a little bit off, maybe because I missed a couple of steps with letting the dough rest. Another reason might be because I live in the Denver area, and altitude can certainly affect cooking and baking in unexpected ways, which I didn’t account for in my procedure.

Cooking is much like magic and writing. A little here, a little there, bits and pieces of accumulated experience and creative wisdom.

I hope you’ll give this recipe a try for yourself. If you do, let me know how it goes. Going into the Winter of COVID, maybe we’ll all need a little more comfort food.

Bio:Â Freelance writer, novelist, editor, and screenwriter, Travis Heermann is the author of nine novels, includingÂ Tokyo Blood Magic, The Hammer Falls,Â The Ronin Trilogy,Â and others, plus short fiction inÂ Apex Magazine, Cemetery Dance,Â and many more.Â His freelance work includes contributions to theÂ Firefly Roleplaying Game, Battletech, Legend of Five Rings,Â andÂ EVE Online.

Find out more atÂ travisheermann.comÂ or follow him on TwitterÂ @TravisHeermann.

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, pleaseÂ check out the guest blog post guidelines. Or if you’re looking for community from other F&SF writers,Â sign up for the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Critclub!

This was a guest blog post.
Interested in blogging here?

Assembling an itinerary for a blog tour? Promoting a book, game, or other creative effort that’s related to fantasy, horror, or science fiction and want to write a guest post for me?

Alas, I cannot pay, but if that does not dissuade you, here’s the guidelines.

Guest posts are publicized on Twitter, several Facebook pages and groups, my newsletter, and in my weekly link round-ups; you are welcome to link to your site, social media, and other related material.

Send a 2-3 sentence description of the proposed piece along with relevant dates (if, for example, you want to time things with a book release) to cat AT kittywumpus.net. If it sounds good, I’ll let you know.

I prefer essays fall into one of the following areas but I’m open to interesting pitches:

Interesting and not much explored areas of writing
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Women, PoC, LGBT, or otherwise disadvantaged creators in the history of speculative fiction, ranging from very early figures such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Wollstonecraft up to the present day.
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Length is 500 words on up, but if you’ve got something stretching beyond 1500 words, you might consider splitting it up into a series.

When submitting the approved piece, please paste the text of the piece into the email. Please include 1-3 images, including a headshot or other representation of you, that can be used with the piece and a 100-150 word bio that includes a pointer to your website and social media presences. (You’re welcome to include other related links.)

Or, if video is more your thing, let me know if you’d like to do a 10-15 minute videochat for my YouTube channel. I’m happy to handle filming and adding subtitles, so if you want a video without that hassle, this is a reasonable way to get one created. ???? Send 2-3 possible topics along with information about what you’re promoting and its timeline.

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Guest Post from Pete Sutton: On Crowdfunding North by Southwest

March 10, 2015

Cover of north by southwest — In February 2014, at a North Bristol Writers meeting I said “We should write an anthology!” which was greeted by enthusiasm by all present. Writing the stories was the “˜easy’ part; how would we get it published?

In 2014 The North Bristol Writers created an anthology and successfully funded it via Fundsurfer. The book is now available to buy in eBook and paperback from Tangent Books & Amazon worldwide.

North by Southwest is an anthology by ten writers. The tales are mainly set in Bristol and are an eclectic and unlikely series of journeys through landscape and story. These are all new stories, never before published, and show great variety. Here lies the strength of the book, showcasing as it does the work of the writers after a year or so of collaboration.

Bristol is a vibrant, creative city and the tales here are infused with that energy. Bristol has had such a great effect on transport through the ages ““ it’s an airplane city, a railway city, and a port city ““ so naturally such themes recur, as does the theme of “˜North’.

***

In February 2014, at a North Bristol Writers meeting I said, “We should write an anthology!” which was greeted by enthusiasm by all present. Writing the stories was the “˜easy’ part; how would we get it published?

A few friends had run successful Kickstarters and we toyed with the idea of crowdfunding but weren’t sure how to start. Then I had a chance meeting at a reading evening (the much missed Small Stories) with another writer ““ Amy Morse http://www.amymorse.co.uk/ who had just successfully funded her novel Solomon’s Secrets via a funding platform I’d not heard of ““ Fundsurfer, which is a Bristol based crowdfunding platform, very similar to Indiegogo and Kickstarter. I invited Amy along to a North Bristol Writers meeting to talk about her experience and after her talk we determined to use Fundsurfer. Mainly because Fundsurfer was local and the stories were mostly set locally.

Christmas Steps by Pete Sutton. Art by Claire M Hutt

We got on with writing the stories and recruiting local artist Claire M Hutt to do the cover and illustrations. Claire was a key addition as we could use her art for pledge rewards. I had a couple of meetings with the Fundsurfer guys, who were super helpful and also with local publisher Tangent who were going to facilitate the publishing process.

We budgeted for Typesetting, Design, Printing and postage & packing then set up the Fundsurfer page. The most difficult bit was making the video, no-one in the group had any experience of making videos. We recorded a few hours of footage and in the end I only used the audio from it.

We launched the Fundsurfer at the end of October 2014 at BristolCon, who very generously donated several sets of tickets for the 2015 Con that we could use for pledge rewards, and set it to run for until mid-December.

Friends who’d had successful crowdfunding campaigns gave some great advice. The best piece of advice was “build the crowd, then the funding” so we had spent a while telling everyone we could think of that the book existed and needed funding. So that when we launched the Fundsurfer campaign a lot of people already knew about it.

I’ve mentioned a couple of rewards already and obviously the rewards and the levels are key to the success of the project. We started with a long list of about fifteen rewards but with the advice of “˜less is more’ from the Fundsurfer guys we whittled them down to seven. Apparently it’s like the way people choose wine, some will go for the bargain basement (but in fact we had very few go for the lowest reward level) some will go for the mid-range and some will go for the top range. The majority of people will go for the mid-range. So having a range of rewards is more important than having a variety of awards. We budgeted for a certain number of physical copies and worked out the likely number for P&P. P&P kills many crowdfunding campaigns & is something you need to give careful consideration to!

We got some nice publicity from Bristol 24/7 and a very entertaining “˜celebrity endorsement’ from local writer Jonathan L. Howard.

With 10 writers, an editor and an artist involved we thought that funding would work out if we could all get a few friends & family to pledge. It was still a nailbiting few weeks as the project slowly accumulated the funds; slower than I would have liked. We reached our funding goals a few days before the project was due to end and got pretty much what we asked for, getting just Â£62 over our goal.

Often it felt like all those times in school when you tried to get money out of people for doing a sponsored walk, or similar. We mainly sold it as a pre-order for the book, but potentially didn’t set expectations well enough, that once we had the funding the process of getting the book published would begin, and as we all know, everything in publishing takes a lot longer than you think. However the actual process has been very smooth, thanks to Tangent. All the funders have now received their eBook and the print book is imminent. We are looking to have a local launch and have started planning our next anthology.

Would I crowdfund again? It’s a very viable way to fund a project but it does rely totally on people’s goodwill and it is a lot of hard work. The amount of people who will “get round to it” is very large and there is an inevitable amount of nagging, which I didn’t like at all. However we were successful and it was the most equitable way of creating the book.

Bio: Pete Sutton is a UK writer and blogger, one of the organisers of Bristol Festival of Literature and contributing editor to Far Horizons magazine . He is a contributor to the Naked Guide to Bristol and you can read his latest published story ““ The body in the lake in Fossil Lake 2 published by Sabledrake Enterprises.
Follow him on Twitter as @Suttope and read his blog here: http://brsbkblog.blogspot.co.uk/ & his website here: http://petewsutton.com/.

Want to write your own guest post? Here’s the guidelines.

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Enjoy this writing advice and want more content like it? Check out the classes Cat gives via the Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers, which offers both on-demand and live online writing classes for fantasy and science fiction writers from Cat and other authors, including Ann Leckie, Seanan McGuire, Fran Wilde and other talents! All classes include three free slots.

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Guest Post from Rob Dircks: 8 Ways to Make Your Writing Funnier

November 10, 2015

First, I didn’t set out to be a humorist. And I’ve only got one sci-fi comedy novel so far, Where the Hell is Tesla?, so I’m not sure I qualify as anyone you should listen to. But I’ve always loved funny sci-fi, like Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, or John Scalzi’s Agent to the Stars, or Pratchett and Gaiman’s Good Omens, and I love the process of writing humor. It seems like a fit. I’m sticking with it.

Along the way, I’ve learned a ton from great writers, and great teachers, and from screwing up in every conceivable way. So here are a few of my favorite little nuggets that you might find it useful in your own writing:

1. Exaggerated Contrast.
Imagine you move into your new apartment, and you go next door to ask if they signed for a package you were expecting. You’re invited in, and you find yourself in the middle of four adult males playing Dungeons and Dragons. With costumes on. Hmm. This might make a funny story to tell your friends later. But let’s exaggerate the contrast more by making all four of these guys over-the-top-crazy-smart scientists who revel in everything tech and sci-fi. Now what’s your story? The Big Bang Theory. A huge comedy hit, in its ninth season. A classic fish-out-of-water story pitting poor Penny against the ultimate geek squad.

Or take Dortmunder, the cat burglar hero from the old Donald Westlake novels. He’s literally the only sane person in an insane world filled with incompetent crooks, bungling cops, and inept villains. The result? He had so much comic potential he starred in twenty-five novels and short stories.

Why does fish-out-of-water work? Because the greater you can make the gap between the normal person’s perspective (Penny, Dortmunder) and the crazy world’s perspective (the four scientists, incompetents in general), the richer the vein of comic possibility. And science fiction can be even better, as your worlds are only limited by your imagination. Just look at Hitchhiker’s Guide’s hapless Arthur Dent, thrust into insanity on a galactic scale. And in my novel, the “fish” are two regular joes who find themselves trapped inside an “Interdimensional Transfer Apparatus” ““ where each dimension they visit is strange, and rife with comic opportunity.

2. The power of three.
Take a look at this exchange between two friends on a bridge.

Murph smiles. “Look. It’s only forty feet, and the water’s plenty deep. You first.”
Andy peers down, with one eye closed, gripping the railing for dear life. “What are you crazy? No way!”
“Come on. Okay, we’ll jump together. It’ll be fun.”
Andy shakes his head. “No, It’ll be death. Forget it.”
“I’ll buy you Skittles.”
“Hmm. The big bag?”

The first time Andy says no is the setup, describing the conflict. The second time he says no, it ratchets up the tension and validates his convictions ““ there’s no way he’s backing down. And the third time is the release and the punch line ““ not only has Andy reversed, but he’s made risking his life contingent only on which size bag of Skittles he gets out of the deal. (He must really like Skittles.) That’s the power of three.

Let’s not stop there, though. Who did you think this was? A couple of teenage boys? Now imagine they’re seventy-five. Suddenly we’ve added exaggerated contrast to goose the humor (old guys don’t jump off bridges, and I don’t know any that eat Skittles). Even think about the word “Skittles.” Okay, it’s cheap comedy, but the sound of the word “Skittles” is kind of funny. Different. The way it rolls off your brain when you say it. Plus, their little exchange is also”¦

3. Two friends arguing.
Listen to Where the Hell is Tesla?‘s heroes, Chip and Pete, after Chip discovers directions to Tesla’s interdimensional portal in a journal and tries to talk Pete into investigating:

“So, you want to check this thing out, right?”
“F**k no. What are you, an idiot?”
“Dude. What could possibly go wrong?”
“Classic. Cut to scene of us in jail. Or scene of us dead. Or scene of us God-knows-where in space-time.”
“Well it would be space, not time. It would be the same time no matter where we went. It’s a dimension machine, not a time machine. “
“Oh, gee, now I totally want to go.”

The comedy tradition of two buddies who love each other but bicker like an old married couple goes way back to Laurel and Hardy’s “here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” (I’m sure it goes back even further, like ancient Egyptians had plays about roommates who couldn’t agree on how many humps a camel is supposed to have.) Abbott and Costello, Crosby and Hope, Chandler and Joey, the angel/demon couple of Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens, and David and John in John Dies at the End. The list goes on and on and on.

Why does it work? There is something about friendship (which we all love) and bickering (which we all indulge in) that feels familiar, and when exaggerated, reminds us how the foils of life, the things we fight about, are silly and kind of funny. And it creates conflict where the stakes aren’t too high. And it allows us to live vicariously through characters who say and do the things we secretly wish we could in real life.

4. Surprise.
There are a lot of things I love about Audition, Michael Shurtleff’s book on how actor’s should audition for roles (though it’s really about how to craft a good story). But my favorite is probably what he calls “Discoveries” ““ remembering always to ask yourself “what is new?” Surprise creates new ““ and potentially funny ““ conflict in a scene. An example: deep into Where the Hell is Tesla?, Chip wakes up from a particularly shocking experience with a surprise: he has a new foot. A furry one.

“I don’t care. I’d still rather have no foot. Nikola, you’re a man of reason. Would you want a furry alien foot? Truly, deep down in your heart? Wouldn’t you rather have a nice pair of crutches? Or a hand-carved mahogany peg leg? Please cut this thing off, will you?”
“Chip. We are obviously not going to cut off your new foot. Can you not see even one positive thing in this?”
Hmm. I hesitate. I look down at it. “Well, it’ll never get cold.”

5. Don’t be afraid of slapstick.
People fall down. Kids accidentally hit their parents in the crotch with frisbees. Moms drop birthday cakes on the floor. And you know what? It’s funny. It just is. America’s Funniest Home Videos is based entirely on that premise, and it’s in its millionth season. So don’t shy away from it ““ embrace it. Have your main character slap someone by accident while making a point. Have your villain bend over and split his pants. Have your hero drink what she thinks is lemonade, until the lab guy tells her it’s poison, and she spits it out in his face. BUT keep it relevant to your characters’ personalities and motivations, so it’s not just a one-off visual joke. Because”¦

6. It’s not about “jokes.”
One-liners are for stand-up comedians and movies like The Avengers. Don’t get me wrong, I love the fun of The Avengers, but I avoid things like serious action sequences punctuated by zingers, like this one after Thor hits Captain America’s shield: “It’s all in the swing.” In fact, that whole trailer is a great example of joke overkill – there’s a snappy one-liner every five seconds. Be careful of “jokes.” Jokes are empty unless they’re a natural extension of the situation and the character’s state of mind.

7. Playfulness.
There’s a security in writing comedy, knowing that as bad as it gets, even if minor characters die, it’ll never get THAT bad. So don’t forget to let them have fun. I love the way John Scalzi does this (I’m thinking about Agent to the Stars and Redshirts in particular.) Even in their lowest moments, trapped in an underground chamber, your characters can talk about how they hated the movie Ghost. Or during a torrential downpour on a dark night on a dangerous planet, have your hero skip through a puddle, remembering that was her favorite thing when she was a kid. In Where the Hell is Tesla?, I had the main characters, right in the middle of all the tension, have a pillow fight. The world is your oyster ““ slurp it up.

8. Heart.
Maybe the biggest thing with comedy (as with all storytelling, I guess), is instilling it with heart. Without real living, breathing characters with real feelings, you wind up laughing at them, instead of with them (if you laugh at all.) Think about all the characters I’ve mentioned in this post, or ones from your favorite sit-coms. When you get to know them, you bond with them, and when they fall down you feel bad (even though you’re laughing), and when they’re climbing a mountain you’re rooting for them, and when they say or do something funny, not only do you laugh, but you feel good about it.

Wow. I didn’t realize I’d actually have a point, but I guess that’s it. That it’s not about the laughs. It’s about the feeling that comes with the laughs: that kind of giddy, warm connection to a story and a character, that makes you feel good, feel a little glow, even after you’ve closed the book.

Reading Recommendations
If you’re interested in humor writing, I highly recommend:

The Comic Toolbox, by John Vorhaus (indispensable, and the source of several of these concepts)
Audition, by Michael Shurtleff (not specifically about comedy, but awesome for scene writing)
1984, by George Orwell (I’m kidding, if there’s ever been an anti-comedy, that’s it)

About Rob Dircks
Rob is author of the science fiction comedy novel Where the Hell is Tesla? His previous work, an anti-self-help book titled Unleash the Sloth: 75 Ways to Reach Your Maximum Potential By Doing Less, has the distinction of being the very first self-help book to prescribe taking a nap instead of mowing the lawn. Both books have been bestsellers (depending on your definition of “bestseller.”) He’s a member of SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America), and owner of Goldfinch Publishing, a small (very small, wee in fact) assisted publishing service. He also owns and operates an ad agency, Dircks Associates. You can follow and contact him on RobDircks.com.

About Where the Hell is Tesla?
SCI-FI ODYSSEY. COMEDY. LOVE STORY. AND OF COURSE… NIKOLA TESLA.
I’ll let Chip, the main character tell you more: “I found the journal at work. Well, I don’t know if you’d call it work, but that’s where I found it. It’s the lost journal of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors and visionaries ever. Before he died in 1943, he kept a notebook filled with spectacular claims and outrageous plans. One of these plans was for an “Interdimensional Transfer Apparatus” – that allowed someone (in this case me and my friend Pete) to travel to other versions of the infinite possibilities around us. Crazy, right? But that’s just where the crazy starts.”

If you’re an author or other fantasy and science fiction creative, and want to do a guest blog post, please check out the guest blog post guidelines.

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Cooking with Cat "“ Steamed Pork Buns are the Food of the Gods by Travis Heermann

Cooking with Cat:
Steamed Pork Buns are the Food of the Gods
by Travis Heermann