Heading Into the 2nd Half of the Year

Within the last few years, an industry has sprung up aimed at people who don’t know how to cook but yearn to do so. The basic model of such companies is that they deliver kits for making a homemade meal: the ingredients, with any pre-work like peeling or trimming already done, and a set of instructions that includes step by step photographs pretty enough to be in a food magazine.

I tried one of these services a year or two ago, lured by a good coupon deal, and did get some value out of it, but cancelled the subscription before they could start hitting me with the non-coupon costs. For someone utterly foreign to the idea of cooking, these might be useful to show how easy it is to create a tasty meal, or for someone scared of failure, they might build confidence. But the amount of wasteful packaging was striking, and that seems a bad thing to me. I don’t like creating garbage, because among other things, it means I must expend effort taking it out, but also because it’s bad for the planet.

The average American generates 4.3 pounds of garbage per day. That’s over a pound and a half over what the figure was in 1960. So we’ve gotten, overall, less efficient rather than more, while at the same time depending on resources that are diminishing.

Every one of the kits came in cardboard packaging around a styrofoam box with two large ice packs. I stuck a few of those ice packs away for re-use but there are only so many ice packs any household can use and they’re not recyclable because they’re filled with some sort of chemical solution. Every ingredient was packaged separately, down to tiny plastic bottles holding approximately a teaspoon of soy sauce. If I had weighed the garbage against the end result, I would have found the garbage far in excess of the end result.

I think people should know how to cook, because it’s a skill that helps them make their life better in a number of ways. I freely acknowledge that people with few resources will have a harder time cooking, yet be in a position where the practice would benefit them tremendously. Some low-cost appliances can be of much use here, like a rice cooker, hot plate, or toaster oven, but using those efficiently takes skill and knowledge. These kits aren’t going to teach people some important basics, such as how to shop economically/efficiently, how to store ingredients, or how to prepare food.

My grade school taught home economics in 6th grade, in a time benighted enough that girls weren’t allowed to take shop class, because that teacher claimed he was too worried about long hair getting caught in machinery. It was useful stuff: how to plan and cook a meal and how to sew things, mainly. We did have a few boys in there, mainly ones who were there for eating part of cooking practice.

Most of what I learned about the kitchen, though, I learned at home, from my mother, who was and continues to be a skilled and adventurous cook, my maternal grandmother, who provided farmhand meals for decades and was a master cake decorator, and my paternal grandmother, who had only a few dishes down, but made them well.

It wasn’t until graduate school, though, that I realized that I really loved to cook and was pretty good at it, particularly after two years of catering to a household that included two vegetarians, a lactose-intolerant, someone testing for food allergies, and a follower of the Pritikin no-fat whatsoever diet. I hosted dinners and potlucks, fed a houseful of boarders, and created a backyard garden that supplied fresh ingredients. I learned to love tiny ethnic grocery stores as well as how to make some of my own staples, began to bake bread on a regular basis, and began to accumulate what’s currently two shelves of cookbooks (and books about cooking), despite frequent culling.

Why do I think the skill is so important? Here’s what it has brought to my life over the years.

• Economic advantages: I can live significantly more cheaply than someone who eats out or buys pre-prepared food. I could feed my household for significantly less than I would otherwise if I’m willing to put a little time into planning my meal schedule and shopping. Among the things I can and often do make at home that are cheaper: yogurt, bread, pasta, salsa, mayonnaise, hummus, cookies, soup stock, kombucha, burritos, ricotta cheese, cold-brewed coffee, instant oatmeal, flavored butter, ice cream — and that’s just the foodstuffs. I can stretch meals – buy something that serves for multiple meals, like a pork shoulder that goes into pulled pork, stir-fry, and then soup. Learning how to cook well can be the single biggest budget-changer skill a person learns.
• Nutritional advantages: I know what’s going into my food and can accommodate my partner’s sensitivity to corn, for one. Looking at the list of ingredients of something like Hamburger Helper, I see a bewildering array of chemicals. Some are everyday things dressed up in scientific names, but a lot are chemicals designed to keep the food lasting longer on a store shelf or to make it pretty. I can incorporate foods that I know are good for us or cut down on things like sugar, sodium, and fat.
• Educational advantages: Learning how to cook means learning how to plan and prepare. When I give a dinner party, I’ve got a schedule laid out ahead of time: this dish goes into the oven at time x, then I prep onions for the next dish while the water’s boiling for yet another. It means a bit of math if you want to play around with servings and substitutions. It can mean even more education: learning the cuisine of a particularly country often involves learning something about its history and culture. You also learn how a small addition can have a major impact, how to taste as you go, and other useful stratagems.
• Social advantages: In grad school I hosted countless potlucks, which were a cheap way for impoverished grad students to come together for a meal, as well as various cook-offs, including a chili competition that featured, if I’m remembering correctly, eight different kinds. Yesterday I hosted my D&D group, feeding them an epic lunch of Mongolian hotpot before we started gaming. I can also throw a party much more cheaply than the cost of hiring someone to cater it. Moreover, through judicious application of delicious food and drink, I can delight my friends and enjoy their company and conversation for a period of time. When I was dating, I showed off my cooking skills more than once in order to woo someone. There’s something about having someone prepare food to you that is deeply romantic. Not to mention the seductive shazam of an intimate meal shared in the right setting. Even now, I can demonstrate affection for my spouse by fixing him breakfast in bed or his favorite snack when he’s feeling beleaguered by the world.
• Aesthetic advantages: Food is one of life’s great pleasures. Celebrating its flavors and complexities is an aesthetic pursuit, and learning to appreciate new foods is an opening up to new things that helps make life more enjoyable. If you understand food and some of its complexities, you can appreciate that elaborate dessert or delicately flavored cheese even better. And a writer can rarely go wrong by exploring the sensory, in my opinion.



• Ecological advantages: Learn how to cook and you eliminate a lot of waste. Plus you learn how to use up some of what would be otherwise thrown away. Vegetable and meat trimmings can be saved to make awesome soup stock; those excess bananas so quickly turning brown can become an ice cream substitute. I made soup stock from chicken feet yesterday; the result was a healthy broth for my sick spouse that cheered him up, but also reminded me that living creatures went into our meal. Eating meatless (which has its economic pluses as well) is much easier if you know how to cook things like lentils, beans, and grains. Learning how to ferment foods has made me more aware of how much we depend on the microbial world in cooking.

How does one acquire the skill? DIY kitchen kits are not the way to go. Pick a simple dish: scrambled eggs, a grilled cheese sandwich, a basic soup. Start smaller if you’re totally new and learn how to hard-boil an egg. That’s a useful skill, because not only have you learned how to make pre-packaged protein-rich snacks that you can take with you to work, but you’ve learned a basic ingredient for recipes ranging from egg salad to eggs Vindaloo.

Or pick a basic appliance and start experimenting. A rice cooker is one of the most versatile things you can own; throw a handful of lentils and some spices in with your rice and you’ve got a cheap, one-pot meal, for example. A toaster oven performs a multitude of tasks, and a slow cooker has many of the uses a rice cooker does.

One of the great things about the Internet is that it throws up so much of this stuff online. When I started making my own tamales, I went to Youtube to watch techniques and learned by seeing the demonstration in a way I would have never absorbed from a textual recipe. It was a bit of a challenge, which learning new things should be (IMO) in order for them to really sink in. Opening a package and putting preassembled bits together doesn’t give you the knowledge you need in order to assemble those things on your own.

Like so many things in life. Right now we’re at a time when plenty of people are ready to provide you with pre-assembled mindsets, lists of talking points, ingredients measured and tailored so they can be assembled only into a single recipe. Question your mental ingredients, know where they come from, and taste as you go.

And remember the universe loves you (along with everybody else).

Peace, out.
#sfwapro

Among the things I’ve done in 2017:

• In writing, I did the works listed here as well as turning Hearts of Tabat (so MANY thanks to my awesome editor, Kevin J. Anderson) into the publisher (also Kevin) and starting book #3, Exiles of Tabat, which I’ve got about 40k on so far. I didn’t publish any book-length work, but I’d had two in late 2016 (to the point where I was thinking one had come out this year) and will have at least two in 2018, so I guess it all evens out.
• Lots of new classes for the Rambo Academy, including guests like Alex Acks, Jennifer Brozek, Cassandra Khaw, Rachel Swirsky, Paul Weimer, and Fran Wilde.
• In skill acquisition, I added how to cook sous vide, coffee roasting, basic lockpicking and (even more basic) scuba to my overall character sheet. I also learned how to load and shoot a pistol, along with basic gun safety.
• In fear conquering, I swam with sharks (twice) and took a self defense class.
• In travel, I visited Orlando, New York City, Indianapolis, and Pocatello (ID) in the US and Dominical and surrounding areas in Costa Rica.

Notable highlights of SFWA-related stuff:

• The Singularity, SFWA’s electronic newsletter, an entity I kicked into existence and which Kate Baker and Terra LeMay have coaxed into blossoming, has a regular, predictable monthly schedule now, and is always full of useful and timely stuff. This newsletter has garnered consistent compliments for its friendly but professional and informative feel, and it’s provided a new way to let SFWA members know about SFWA stuff they might want to take advantage of, as well as to share their own appearances and projects with each other.
• SFWA’s excellent Executive Director Kate Baker said a few years back, “I want to make the Nebula weekend -the- premiere conference for professional F&SF writers” and I said, “Tell me what you need to do it.” This year’s Nebulas were fantastic; next year’s will be even more, including having Data Guy there to present on the industry, an effort that’s taken a couple of years to get in place.
• The SFWA Storybundle had its first year and was wildly successful, as was the Nebula-focused HumbleBundle. The Storybundle program will grow 150% in size in 2017, which sounds really impressive but just means 3 bundles instead of 2. Plus – SFWA’s Self-Publishing Committee has taken that effort over, so no work for me! (Last year I read a bajillion books for it.)
• A long, slow revamp of Emergency Medical Fund stuff driven by Jennifer Brozek, Oz Drummond, and Bud Sparhawk is coming to its final stages. I just saw the EMF stewards in action: they received an appeal, evaluated it within 24 hours, and within a week, if I am correct, funds had been disbursed. The Grants Committee just wrapped up its 2017 work; next year it’ll have even more money to play with, thanks to the aforementioned Nebula HumbleBundle.
• Over 50% of the membership participated recently in the survey that went out this year, so we have some data about who the members are and what they want. I would like to think that the high participation rate was driven in part by enthusiasm for what the organization has been doing lately, but it might have something to do with the idea to offer a chance to win one of the ten $25 Amazon gift cards we gave out for participating.
• Many of the steps talked about in this discussion of the Fireside Fiction’s report on black writers in speculative fiction and what SFWA could do have been or are being put into place. One thing I’d like to find in 2018 is a volunteer who might coordinate diversity efforts, searching for opportunities where they might dovetail in order to strengthen and inform each other as well as helping make sure we’re examining and evaluating results to see how we’re doing, etc.

I appreciate the many of you who have joined or renewed their memberships specifically because of things I’ve done; it gladdens my heart when you tell me that, but I want to stress that it’s a team effort. That’s because this year I have increasingly experienced a wonderful thing, which is that I will say, “Hey we should do X,” and someone will reply, “Already on it, here’s what’s been done and the overall action plan/timeline.” Dan Potter, Derek Kunskën, Erin M. Hartshorn, Jeffe Kennedy, Jonathan Brazee, Kate Baker, Sarah Pinsker, Steven H Silver, and Terra LeMay, among others, have all given me the precious gift of moments like this in 2017. You folks rule.

When I first came on board a few years ago, I sometimes felt like I was wandering through a morass of undone things and incipient crises. Some plates that had been in the air had fallen and shattered, sometimes disastrously. As I got them back up, it was a panicked dash from one plate to the next at times, and I know I dropped my share. But now more and more of them have their own dedicated spinner, usually with a fallback person in the background, and that lets me stop long enough to take a breath.

I’m kinda amazed I got as much done as I did in terms of writing and teaching. Certainly some words that I otherwise would have written this year got sacrificed on the SFWA altar, but I think that will be less so in 2018. *fingers crossed* (If you enjoy my stories, please consider supporting the Patreon effort; $1 a month gets you at least one story each month; double that to get weekly writing tips and resources.)

So what’s ahead for 2018?

• I’m editing two projects. The first is Godfall and Other Stories, a solo collection by Sandra Odell. These stories are brutal and great, and I think this is an outstanding collection, particularly after coaxing a couple more stories that will be original to the collection out of Sandra. That will come out from Hydra House in April. If you’re interested in finding out what Sandra writes in a super timely way, she has The Twelve Ways of Christmas, a collection of speculative holiday stories, available for $4.99.
• The second project, which is still taking submissions, is an anthology of political SF focused on the aftereffects of 45’s era, which will come out around the same time as the elections. It’s called If this Goes On and will appear from Parvus Press.
• I’ll be writing at least one Tericatus and The Dark story for an upcoming anthology I got a solicitation for.
• I am insanely juggling three novels and need to just buckle down and knock them off one at a time. They are, in the order I plan on doing so in 2018, The Five, a YA space opera (currently at 30k, destined to be somewhere in 70k range), the sequel to Hearts, Exiles of Tabat (Hearts was 120k, suspect Exiles will be as well, currently around 30k done), and an urban fantasy, Brazen (got 20k written, will be in 70-80k range.)
• I have enough SF stories for another collection. Maybe two. Debating whether I want to approach a small press or self-pub those. I have around 50-60 flash stories, depending on how you define flash length, that I am putting together in a book for Patreon supporters and can after that can use to accompany the Flash Fiction class.
• The Idea to Draft book is so! close to being done and I just need to get butt in gear and finish it up.
• In Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers news, both old and new live classes will be offered in 2018, including ones from Ann Leckie, Rachel Swirsky, and some of the other guest teachers. Ditto with the on-demand classes – right now I’m working on turning Writing Steampunk and Weird Western into written form. Many thanks to Jim Johnson for pointing out areas I’d overlooked; the overall class will be much stronger as a result.
• Conventions I definitely plan to be at in 2018: International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts (ICFA), Norwescon, the Nebula weekend, Worldcon, and Snake River Comic Con.
• I do have one very large and absolutely terrifying project up in the air, getting ready to launch in 2018. It is not a creative effort but a political one. Stay tuned for info on that or drop me a line if you’ve been looking for a place to put some volunteer time/effort in 2018.