LIT SOUP

Freelance Editing Rates

2015-12-03T14:48:00.002-05:00

*dusts off shingle*

This is the official post to state that I am available for work as a freelance editor. I have five years of experience as a literary agent, so I aim to offer an edit that is concerned with both the quality of the writing and the marketability of the book. I also hold a BA in Creative Writing from Carnegie Mellon University.

I'm currently taking limited clients on for the next few months. My specialties are science fiction, fantasy, and romance. I am available to edit either novella or novel length projects.

I offer the following services:

Structural Editing
This is similar to a manuscript critique, but much more detailed. You will receive a long letter addressing issues within your work such as plot, pacing, voice, structure, marketability, etc. I may make drastic suggestions, such as combining two characters, or introducing a completely different plot element. My aim is to make your project the best story that it can be.
My rate for this is 1 cent per word, based on Microsoft Word 2013 word count.

Line Editing
This type of edit is much more concerned with the actual language of your project. I will go through it on a sentence by sentence basis, correcting your prose on a detailed level. My aim with this edit is to improve the grammar and readability of your prose, so that you can present the most polished project possible. This is done using Track Changes in Microsoft Word--your manuscript will come back with many corrections in red.
My rate for this is 2 cents per word, based on Microsoft Word 2013 word count. If we have previously worked together on a structural edit for the same project, this service is available at 1.5 cents per word.

Query Letters
If you want to submit your project to a literary agent or publisher, I can draft a compelling query letter for you. My experience as a literary agent has given me a fine eye for the type of pitch letter that will catch an agent's attention, and get you a request for a partial or full manuscript submission.
My rate for this is a flat fee of $100, if we have previously worked together on a structural edit for the same project.

I can be contacted by e-mail at editingbyjenny@gmail.com to book any of these services.

Preach, sister, preach!

2015-07-22T01:28:00.002-04:00

I've known E socially for ages--ever since I first started working in publishing, ten years ago. She's a fantastic author in her own right, but this piece about superhero movies is just literally the bomb.

Have a pull quote, why don't you?

"And so I will not see another superhero movie until we get one for a solo woman. I don't care who she is--Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Captain Marvel--just give me ONE. One fucking movie that acknowledges my gender exists and we can be heroes, not supporting cast."

Captain Barnacles Octonauts Cake

2015-07-15T02:34:00.000-04:00

My apologies for the brief hiatus, but this happened this past weekend and sucked up tremendous amounts of my time and energy between the cake and the party itself.

Yes, the cake is homemade.

Yes, that IS Captain Barnacles from Octonauts.

Yes, my husband and I may be a tiny bit crazy. =)

Sourdough Starter, Day Two

2015-07-08T22:12:00.000-04:00

Picking up with Twinklestar the Sourdough Starter, let's move to Day Two!

Day Two

So, the book says that "Bubbles will have formed on the surface." I'm not seeing any bubbles, are you? What I am
seeing is that the color has darkened. Which surely has to be a good sign, no?

For today, we take 40 g of rye flour, 40 g of water (Poland Spring, again), and 5 g of honey.

Combine as before.

And mix in the entire mixture from Day One.

Cover loosely, as before.

We're basically taking the new mixture of rye flour, water, and honey, and using it to feed all the lovely bacteria that have gathered on the first day's starter mixture. This is called "refreshing the starter".

More to come, as we soon explore Days Three and Four!

July garden photos

2015-07-07T02:14:00.001-04:00

You know that summer cold I thought was gone?

Yeah, not gone yet.

Never fear, I have (theoretically) kept Twinklestar the Sourdough Starter alive--the Day Two blog post will be coming tomorrow.

In the meantime, however, have a look at some lovely garden photos I took this afternoon. =)

It's a tiny garden, based on the square foot gardening method, but I'm very fond of it. One day, I'll have a bigger one. =)

This is my potimarron squash plant.

Have some baby green peppers!

I do love tiger lilies. =)

My shiso is going crazy this year. It just sort of reseeded itself from last year, with no encouragement. In fact, it's doing even better this year than last.

It's a wee, baby eggplant! I have totally forgotten what variety I planted, wouldn't you know? I'll have to look it up later.

This is either a Black Krim or a Purple Cherokee tomato, but I kept terrible planting records this year, so I won't know until it matures more.

This is an Azoychka tomato. I had two plants, but lost one to a late cold snap.

And finally, carrots gone wild! Nantes carrots, to be precise. Doing so much better in a container than my in-the-ground carrots did last year.

Do you guys garden? Am I talking into the thin ether? If androids dream of electronic sheep, do they also grow mechanical gardens?

Sourdough Starter, Day One

2015-07-05T16:08:00.000-04:00

This is what happens when you let your almost-four year old name your sourdough starter: it becomes known as Twinklestar the Sourdough Starter.

As Twinklestar will now be a permanent blog feature, at least while I attempt to use it, we will all be forced to live with it. Enjoy the sparkly My Little Pony inspired goodness. =)

Anyway, this comes about because I had a $25 Barnes & Noble gift card burning a hole in my pocket (thank you, mother-in-law!), and I found this fabulous cookbook there: THE LAROUSSE BOOK OF BREAD.

It's written by Eric Kayser, whose bakery my husband I ate at it in Paris back in 2013... where we literally had the best baguette we'd ever had in our lives. How could I not try such a book?

Unfortunately, or fortunately as it may be, almost all of his recipes call for a liquid sourdough starter to be mixed into the bread dough as leavening. So, Twinklestar it is. Let us begin in a pictorial manner!

Day One
Start with rye flour, water, and honey. You want the water to be room temperature. As you can see by the first picture, I've opted to use spring water, since it's a more easily controlled source. Distilled would probably be ideal.

First, measure out 50 g of the rye flour.

Then, add 50 g of the room temperature water to the rye flour.

Mix to combine.

Then, add 5 g (or 3/4 tsp) of the honey to the starter mixture.

Mix some more.

Finally, cover loosely (my bowl lid isn't secured), and place in a warm place to continue to ferment for 24 hours.

As a small caveat, if your starter curdles in this first 24 hours, throw it out and begin again.

We shall pick back up with this tomorrow!

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

2015-07-04T01:35:00.001-04:00

These cookies are addictive. More than addictive. My latest batch yielded 33 cookies, and they were gone within four days. I may have eaten an unhealthy number of them.

They're a combination of salty and sweet: deep, rich chocolate, tempered with hits of salt, and a texture that's reminiscent of the best parts of a chewy Chips Ahoy cookie.

These are my cookie crack.

They're not the same type of cookies you've always made from the back of the yellow bag. For starters, the Toll House recipe uses the Creaming Method, and these use the Muffin Method of construction. (Can you tell I love Good Eats?) They also play off the heightened chemistry that salt works on sweet things, as it intensifies their flavors. Always put salt in your sweet desserts. Salt in pie crust. Salt in cookies. Salt in chocolate pudding. It will make it that much better.

The recipe is lightly adapted from Tara O'Brady's cookbook, SEVEN SPOONS, which is based off of her blog of the same name. I must have been living under a rock these past few years, since I hadn't heard of it until the cookbook came out. I want to make more from it--much more.

The metric measurements for the ingredients are the more precise ones in this recipe. Do you use a scale when baking? Yes, now you do. Whip it out--weigh your stuff--and you will be surprised by HOW MUCH BETTER everything turns out.

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies
Lightly adapted from Tara O'Brady

1 cup (225 g or 2 sticks) unsalted butter
3 1/4 cups (415 g) all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup (200 g) packed dark brown sugar
1 cup (220 g) sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons (or one good glug) vanilla extract
12 ounces (340 g) semisweet chocolate chips
Kosher salt for sprinkling

1. Preheat your oven to 360 degrees F. Line two or more cookie sheets with parchment paper or Silpat equivalent. My cookie sheets are 16" x 14", and I found that I needed to use three of them, plus one small extra one to make this recipe. You may need more, if you eat less cookie dough than I do.

2. Melt your butter. My microwave handily accomplishes this task for me, but if you need to use the stove, do it in a small pan over low, low heat.

3. Stir together the dry ingredients: that's the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and the measured amount of kosher salt. Set them aside in a small bowl.

4. Now, it's wet ingredient time: pour the melted butter into a large bowl, and stir in both sugars. Once combined, add each egg, mixing thoroughly after each one. You're forming an emulsion with each one, which will hold the batter together. Don't dump them both in at once--slow and steady is the name of the game here. Add the vanilla, and then stir once more.

5. Now, take the dry ingredients, and add 1/2 of them to the bowl with the wet ingredients. Stir just until the flour disappears. Add the last 1/2 of the dry ingredients and mix, making sure to stop when the dough still has a dusting of flour visible.

6. Fold the chocolate chips into the batter, but don't overwork it. When the flour disappears, you're done.

7. Using a standard ice cream scoop, take a portion of the dough and form it into a ball between your hands. Place on a prepared cookie sheet, making sure to leave at least 3" of space around it. I fit 9 cookies per 16" x 14" cookie sheet.

8. Next, take the kosher salt, and sprinkle on the top of each cookie dough ball. Do not let yourself get seduced by the beauty of the salt crystals on the cookie dough--that way, madness lies. Sprinkle only enough to dust the top of the ball, and then move on to the next one. You do not want to over-salt the tops of the cookies.

9. Bake for 12-14 minutes, until the tops of the cookies are cracked and lightly golden. Rotate the cookie sheets midway through baking, to ensure evenness. Cool on the pan for at least five minutes, as the cookies will be very, very soft still. Transfer gently, with a spatula, to a wire cooling rack, and do not touch until they have hardened.

Cookies coming soon...

2015-07-03T01:05:00.001-04:00

As soon as I can shake the stupid summer cold that never ends, these are coming.... They are seriously, hands-down, some of the best chocolate chip cookies you will ever eat. Hopefully, the full recipe to follow tomorrow, once my brain feels better. In the meantime, salivate away. =)

What I'm reading...THE DUKE'S GUIDE TO CORRECT BEHAVIOR by Megan Frampton

2015-07-01T21:35:00.003-04:00

Three-quarters of my family are now down for the count with a summer cold, but we persevere on! Lest you think that I do nothing but read all day, I feel that I should remind my humble readership that I'm essentially an exclusively pumping mom. Milo will nurse once or twice a day... and the rest is all breast milk. So I spend a good 90-120 minutes a day hooked up to my milking machine, reading or baby-entertaining or doing whatever computer stuff I can get done on my iPad.

Anyway, I've finished A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC, which ended up being just as fantastic as I thought it might be. I'm officially fangirling over V. E. Schwab, and anxious to read more of her books. I've gotten THE ARCHIVED out of library, which may end up being the next on this little blog feature.

But, we must first speak about THE DUKE'S GUIDE TO CORRECT BEHAVIOR.

I'm a picky romance reader; so picky, in fact, that I think I may be pickier than some of the romance authors that I love to read. I've often picked up a book that Eloisa James or Julia Quinn have recommended, and simply walked away disappointed. I want my romance novels to have plot and good writing and sizzling chemistry. Is that too much to ask of every single romance novel I read?

And therein lies the problem with this book... it's not a bad novel. It's well-written. None of the sentences make me cringe, which I've had happen with other commercially published romances.

I like Lily, the main character. I like the duke, the hero, somewhat. The little etiquette guide excerpts are charming. The title is one of the best things the book has going for it.

Which is pretty much the equivalent of Paula Abdul in her American Idol days, telling a singer that they "looked pretty".

It's just sort of a serviceable novel.

Now, granted, I'm only on page 174. I give it permission to sweep me up and wow me. In fact, I'd love it, if it did. But so far, I'm not seeing that happening. Which disappoints me--I really do want to find more romance authors to love.

Quarterreads

2015-06-29T12:37:00.005-04:00

Hello, all you Monday blog readers! Have a lovely picture of Cora with her Little People Zoo.

Mondays are awesome around here--Cora has camp for FIVE STRAIGHT HOURS! That's five hours of just me and Milo, which means that at some point, he will nap, and I will have time to do things! =)

To celebrate the awesomeness of Summer Mondays, I thought I'd point out that I've made my backlist available on this neat little site, Quarterreads. There's a few short pieces of fiction, a few poems, and one new piece that I've put up there. Each piece costs 25 cents to read in its entirety, but they're free to browse.

The following links will take you to my work:

New Work
--------------
The True-Cat Violins

Poetry Reprints
-------------
Lucifer Defiant
The Warriors of the Dark

Flash Reprints
--------------
Fever
The Sock Thief

Maiden Names On The Rise

2015-06-28T03:13:00.004-04:00

Just a quick link to an article in the Times about maiden names. I kept mine when I got married--my mother kept hers when she married. I like to think that I'm perpetuating a family feminist tradition.

But really, it's more than that. My name is me, and I am my name. And as much as I love my husband, I'd never change it for him.

What I'm reading... A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC by V. E. Schwab

2015-06-28T02:50:00.000-04:00

New feature time! =)

I've decided, as this was originally a publishing blog, that there should be some good content about books. Now, many of you (ahem, all of you!), have not responded to the Blog Content Survey, so I'm forced to forge ahead on my own! =)

So, here we go, into the reading brain of Ms. Jenny Rae Rappaport... the darkest reaches, where Joy and Sadness and Anger and Fear and Disgust battle it out (Can you tell that I recently saw Inside Out?)...

Ok, so, A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC is fantastic. I'm about halfway through the novel, and I'm loving it. It reminds me a little bit of SWORDSPOINT by Ellen Kushner, but it's less mannerpunk than it is urban fantasy set in the Regency period. Not that it could be anything but urban fantasy of the historical kind, since its central conceit revolves around a series of stacking Londons.

There's Grey London, which is essentially our London--complete with a mad King George III and very little magic. Then, there's Red London, a city rich with magic, and a river-analogue of the Thames, the Isle, that literally pulses with it. After that, there's White London, which is a fading city worn out by constant war. And finally, there's Black London, the cause of all the evils of White London, and a city that was literally subsumed by the machinations of magic.

Three centuries ago, Black London developed a magical plague, and the doors between the stacking Londons were closed--permanently. All traces of Black London were wiped from the other cities because what had happened there was THAT BAD. The only people who can still go between the Londons are the blood magicians, the Antari, and they're essentially a dying breed.

Kell--a Red Londoner who is one of the two remaining Antari--is content. As content as he can be, anyway, in his daily life as a messenger between the royalty of the stacking cities. But he has a yearning for more, and so he breaks the rules, deliberately bringing back artifacts from Grey London and White London into his own world. When one of those artifacts turns out to be something more than he bargained for, he's thrust into an uneasy partnership, forced to reevaluate his place in the multiverse, and worst of all...he may be forced to go to Black London. If there's even a way to do that...

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where I am, right now. =)

Love, Dream, Love

2015-06-27T02:17:00.001-04:00

I fell asleep on the couch this morning while nursing Milo. He gets going and the oxytocin hits me, and boom--I'm out like a light. There's something about the cuddly warmth of a sucking baby that makes you want to sink deeper into sleep; to give into the sleep-deprived urge and just snore away. But that's totally against all SIDS practices, so the best thing you can do is to doze and wake and doze and wake in an endless cycle that you seem to do unconsciously.

But during one of the wake periods, I had apparently turned the TV onto CNN. I can't remember why, but it was boring, and I fell asleep.

And then I woke, out of a dream, and there were rainbows and people crying. The TV was blaring, and the Supreme Court had, for once, managed to do the right thing and legalize same-sex marriage. The TV screamed love at me, and my baby sucked love out of me--and I fell back to sleep.

Somehow, in my sleep, I managed to magically change the channel. I'm talented, like that.

And so, when I woke again, the TV was on CBS, and President Obama was speaking of love. Love and history, and love and greatness. I don't remember much of the speech--just the content feeling that flowed through me. I was happy; the rest of the world was happy; and people would get to marry one another.

I'm not gay myself. Cisgendered, heterosexual is my default jam. But some of my family is gay. Some of my friends are gay. And my children might be one day, for all I know.

And here's the thing: regardless of the sexual orientation my kids end up being, they won't know any different. They won't understand that humans denied other humans the right to love, and to be joined together in that love under the eyes of the law. Oh sure, they'll learn. They'll understand at an intellectual level, from schoolbooks and history, but not at the gut level. Never at the gut level, if I can help it.

When I was a child, one of my favorite cousins married an African-American man. That man, is now one of my favorite cousins also. It never occurred to me that people thought there was anything wrong with this: with a white Jewish woman marrying a black Christian man. They were family; they still are my family. I was so blind to the idea that anyone could have a problem with this; so isolated as a child from the idea that there had been a struggle for race equality and a fight for a marriage like that to even be possible.

(And sure, we're not at race equality nowadays. As an adult, I can understand the situation with far more nuance than I could as a child. My heart can bleed for the racial history of this country, and ache to do more, anything more, to overcome the prejudice and disadvantage that this history grants.)

But what race relations was to me in the 1980s/1990s, LGBT rights will be to my children. They will be evolving. There will still be horrible battles to fight. Things will not be hunky-dory, at least not all of the time. But the idea that love cannot prevail will never be there for them.

Cora asked me today, why my husband and I were celebrating the Supreme Court's decision. And I tried to explain it to her, as simply as you can do for an almost-four year old.

"Well, it means that girls can marry girls, and boys can marry boys, and boys can marry girls," I said.

And she turned to me, smiled, and said, "Oh, ok, we play Little People now?"

Because the idea that you couldn't marry the friends you love, regardless of their gender, had never occurred to her. And that's how it always should be.

(For the record, she currently wants to marry two of her best male friends. I'm raising a future bigamist.=)

Blog content survey

2015-06-25T00:44:00.004-04:00

If you're still out there and reading, drop me a comment to know what sort of content you're interested in reading about. =)

Just as a note, I'm not an active literary agent anymore. I'm a stay-at-home mom who writes and kid-wrangles. That said, my brain hasn't turned to mush either. So let me know what you're interested in reading about!

Sisyphus and Me

2015-06-25T00:43:00.000-04:00

You know the myth of Sisyphus, right?

Classic tale of a guy pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it endlessly roll down on him. So he starts over again, doomed by his hubris, and begins to push it up again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Camus wrote a book about itthat I was forced to read for one of my high school classes. It's that much of a cultural touchstone.

Anyways..

This is life with an almost-four year old and a four month infant. Cora, my almost-four year old, is amazing and smart and incredibly messy. Strong-willed to the point of obstinance. Milo, the four month old, is a baby. He spits up--a lot; he poops--a lot; he's prone to needing to be held--a lot. This sets our scene, you see.

Next, enter the long-suffering grandmother, who dearly loves all of our aforementioned players, including your humble author.

Then, add in one incredibly messy living room, strewn with the detritus of life, ranging from toys to clothes to random papers brought home from preschool. And cue the music because the long-suffering grandmother and myself are attempting to clean it... wait for it... think about it... do we succeed at all?

Nope.

For every toy we put away, Cora takes four more out. The concept of one toy at a time is totally lost. There is too much to do; too much to play and never, ever enough time. And if we're not playing, then we must be bugging and loving and inspecting whether our baby brother has pooped, which is an incredibly interesting topic at her age.

It is an endless stream of Sofia the First toys, a well-loved (and spit up on) baby playmat, bottles and nursing, tiny Octonauts launchers and dress-up Disney Princess stickers that get everywhere. There's a prevalent need to want to curse out the designer of the Disney Princess sticker book, who decided that each and every princess needed her own removable pair of shoes and miniscule sticker jewelry.

We work for five hours. We clean one quarter of the living room and half of the dining room table. We trip over crayons and cuddles, making our way through it with laughter and not a few tears (Milo is in a teething mood today).

We are so not done with cleaning.

But at least my boulders are the soft and squishy kind; they may block my path, but damn, they give good hugs.

Catching up

2015-06-23T23:40:00.001-04:00

So... a lot has happened lately.

This little guy joined us in February. His name is Milo. =)

He keeps us pretty busy! His older sister, naturally, adores him. His dad and I think he's pretty awesome, too.

But before that, while I was pregnant with him, we had even more exciting news....

I HAD A STORY PUBLISHED!

To say that I'm overwhelmed and excited about this is an understatement. It's seemed like such a drought in publishing things, even though I've been diligently sending work out and collecting rejections. Having children has changed my writing--made it better, stronger--in ways that I could never have anticipated. Even now, almost four years into motherhood, I'm still figuring out the new nuances to my work.

So, without further adieu...

My story, "The Splintered Stars", is available on Amazon in the first volume of STRAEON. It's an awesome little new magazine! To whet your appetite, here's the first two paragraphs:

Maddox hated the ship-bright lights every morning,
and cold showers as Miyachun’s “Seranade” blasted
through the bathroom speakers. The other ensigns sang along to the martial tune, badly harmonizing, as they scrubbed their naked bodies next to his. Maddox wanted to punch them, to take a few teeth from their loud mouths, and feel their blood on his fists.

He settled for toweling himself off with rough efficiency
before slipping into his uniform. Breakfast stuck in his mouth, the algae and protein cubes damp between his teeth. He tried not to think of how they had been made, and what had happened to his own waste. They had run out of real food years ago—too many years for him to count—as they traveled further and farther away from the central core. Their last stop had been on one of the planets along the Neck, so far back that he only remembered the taste of orange beer in the spaceport bar.

Kamut, Lentil, and Chickpea Soup

2013-08-04T00:35:00.000-04:00

I know, I know, I say that I'll come back... and I step away... and then, I come back again.

But really, for good, I'm here! And based on the advice of my writing friend, Shane Halbach, I'm going to blog the modifications I make to recipes.

Why?

Because I cook a lot. Not as much as someone who might put dinner on the table seven days a week, but I think I do pretty well for having a two year old sous chef. =)

And I suppose I could make an entirely new blog, but I'm lazy. Aren't we all?

Subsequent posts will have photos, I promise, but this current meal is now residing in a Rubbermaid container in the fridge.

Without further ado...

Kamut, Lentil, and Chickpea Soup
Adapted from Cooking Light

3/4 cup kamut
2 cups boiling water
Good glug of olive oil (I refuse to measure olive oil in most recipes because it's simply easier to eyeball it.)
2 small onions
5 small carrots
1 bunch of parsley
4 ribs of celery, with leaves
2 cloves of garlic
2/3 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. fines herbes
4 (14.5 oz) cans of beef broth
2 bay leaves
1/3 cup green lentils
1 (15 oz) can of chickpeas
Salt and pepper to taste

Place kamut in a small bowl, and cover with the boiling water. Let it soak for 30-60 minutes, then drain. The original recipe calls for only 30 minutes of soaking time, which resulted in the kamut being "chewy". Ideally, kamut should be soaked overnight, according to my whole grains cookbook, but you can probably get away with 60 minutes yielding a better texture.
Chop the onions, carrots, celery (including the leaves), and parsley into rough chunks. Place in the bowl of a food processor along with the two cloves of garlic. Pulse, until the vegetables are chopped finely, but still have some substance to them. You're not trying to make them into mush. You may have to rearrange the contents with a spatula, in order to get everything evenly chopped.
Put a good glug of oil in a stockpot or Dutch oven, add the vegetables, and saute over medium heat along with the fines herbes and the thyme. You basically want enough oil to lubricate the pan, but not to overwhelm the vegetables. Since the mixture has garlic in it, I always, always start with cold oil, to avoid burning the garlic. Saute the vegetables for approximately 10 minutes, until they've softened and are releasing good smells. Salt, to taste.
Add the kamut, the broth, and the bay leaves to the pot; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. If you've skimped on the soaking step here, you can probably increase the cooking time upwards of an hour, so that the kamut softens appropriately. Taste, as you go along, for texture. Add the lentils and a few grinds of black pepper; cook for another 20 minutes, or until the lentils are tender. Add the chickpeas, and simmer for another 2 minutes. Taste the soup for salt, and adjust accordingly. Whether you attempt to find the bay leaves before you serve is entirely optional; just remember, they're not edible!

Country Rhubarb Cake

2012-03-17T09:00:00.004-04:00

Lately, I want to blog about food. This is partially because I've been cooking a lot more--I like to cook, mind you--and partially because I've been experimenting a little more as I cook. I can usually get something on the table for dinner most nights, although Cora tends to delay stuff sometimes.

I'm a little behind on getting the photos for this and the next post or two off of my camera, but I figured, better late than never!

For St. Patrick's Day, I present the Country Rhubarb Cake.

I know, I know, it totally looks like a pie. But the recipe is from Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking: The Time-Honored Ways are the Best - Over 700 Recipes Show You Why, and she calls it a Country Rhubarb Cake. It basically looks like a pie, but the inside... the inside is filled with ruby-red, glistening rhubarb.

And the cross-sectioning just shows how utterly delicious it is. The crust isn't a typical pie crust; it's more like a biscuit crust with a wee bit of shortbread, if anything. But it soaks up all of the delicious juices that the rhubarb releases, besides being tasty, so I really can't quibble about whether it's a pie or a cake or some sort of hybrid.

I followed the recipe pretty much as it was written with just one major change: I chopped the rhubarb up ahead of time, mixed it with the heaping cup of white sugar, then added some dark brown sugar into the filling, too. Then, I left it all to macerate, while I worked on the crust.

It goes beautifully with whipped cream.

My silly girl

2012-03-15T23:56:00.000-04:00

Meet Cora

2012-03-10T22:37:00.005-05:00

So, I took a blog vacation.

A rather long vacation.

Something along the order of ten months and change or so....

I suspect that I don't have many readers anymore, but you never know. There may be a few of you lurking around in the darkness, peering over a corner, saying, "Jenny Rae Rappaport, what the hell ever happened to her?"

This did:

That's Cora Minami, who made her appearance on July 15, 2011 at 4:49 pm at 6 lbs, 14 oz via somewhat scheduled c-section. She has turned our lives upside down, literally and figuratively.

I'm sure that's something that all new parents say--in fact, it's probably been said in every language, in every civilization, since the dawn of time. But all of a sudden I got to be a mother--a MOTHER. A Mommy. I had my own baby. It was like all of the nine months of pregnancy pressed together and exploded, dovetailing with all of the longing of being a little girl who had played house and had baby dolls as long as she could remember.

Except Cora isn't a doll. She's a small living person with feelings and a tiny vocabulary ("hungry", "yeah", and "neh" for nursing). She laughs and giggles and drives me crazy sometimes with whining. She's creeping forward really well, and is THIS CLOSE to actually crawling. She's in love with Zoe, and desperately tries to express this love by happy, happy shrieks. Naturally, this scares Zoe, but there's not much we can do about it. Zoe loves her, too, of course.

But I'm babbling, which I suspect is something new parents do.

My point though, the thing I'm trying to say, is that I disappeared and I've returned, and I think I want to blog again. I even think I want to write again. So there will probably be more posts and more things to share; the character of the blog may change; I have a huge desire to post recipes and talk about my beloved little girl. To send things out into the ether, even if they never get read by more than a handful of people.

And in the meantime, bear with me about frequency, because this

is infinitely more important than anything else in the world. She'll be eight months old on Thursday. =)

Happy Mother's Day!

2011-05-08T18:04:00.004-04:00

This is not my baby--remember, my baby isn't set to arrive until July 25th! =)

But this is my cousin's son, Hunter, who arrived precisely on his due date of May 6th. Very punctual. =) Isn't he adorable???

Happy Mother's Day!

Jennifer Lawrence, really?

2011-03-17T15:36:00.004-04:00

What an auspicious topic for the 1000th post on LIT SOUP...

But really, Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen in THE HUNGER GAMES movie? Are you kidding me? May I quote from the ever-convenient Wikipedia about Katniss' physical description?

Katniss is described as "having long, black hair, usually in a braid, gray eyes, and olive skin". While this doesn't necessarily make her a person of color, it makes a pretty strong case for it. Especially considering this is the RACIAL MAKEUP of the MAJORITY of the people who live in the Seam, where Katniss is from.

And then we have Jennifer Lawrence.

Sure, she can dye her hair and get contacts. But there's no way in hell that she will ever be mistaken for having olive skin.

Ms. Lawrence may be a fine actress, but she looks nothing like Katniss Everdeen.

I am so disappointed in this casting choice. Way to screw up a beloved book-to-movie adaption from the very beginning. Consider this an open protest against the blatantly wrong casting.

Things That I Am Grateful For

2011-03-14T02:36:00.003-04:00

That all of my friends in Japan that I've managed to get in contact with are safe. I should probably see if Shin is safe, but he lives in the central-central part of Tokyo, so I'm going to assume he is. (*Makes note to check*).
That the baby has grown so much that my stomach is now getting kicked by a small human. It is a very bizarre feeling. =)
That the baby furniture has arrived, been set up, and is almost intact; we're waiting on information about a replacement drawer support for a dresser--this is why I like to do major things early.
That I now own THE LITTLE HOUSE COOKBOOK.
That I have found a maternity bathing suit that is flattering, that fits, and doesn't seem to think that pregnant women should be wearing narrow little bikini bottoms.
That my mom is coming over tomorrow to help me do laundry, since I can't lift things out of the machine and bend to get them in and out of the dryer.

And on that note, six things make a post. =) お休みなさい！

Baby Blitzball

2011-03-09T02:13:00.001-05:00

This is totally what my insides feel like on a daily basis...

One baby.

One game.

No opponents.

RIP Mr. Buckles

2011-02-28T12:15:00.003-05:00

Sometimes, I find the passage of time stunning. I know that I've lived almost thirty years (21 days away from that milestone, I am), but it still baffles me sometimes.

Today, we commemorate the passing of Mr. Frank Buckles, the last American doughboy to serve in World War I. I read his obituary this morning while the baby is kicking away in my belly. And all I can think is that someday I'll have to explain to this little one that his or her great-grandpa served in World War II, and for them, THAT war will seem just as far as World War I does to me.

And this baby will certainly see the deaths of the last World War II veterans; given the longevity of the current American citizen, I'd lay good money that the baby will see the deaths of the last Vietnam War veterans, too.

But how do you make these deaths real to them? How do you make them understand, particularly with World War II, that these veterans made such an immense sacrifice for them? How do you explain that their great-grandpa was a naval radio operator on two different oceans--the Atlantic and the Pacific, as well as in the Mediterranean? How do you explain that their other great-grandpa flew bombing runs over Italy, and managed to miraculously survive a crash landing of his plane? How do you explain that their great-great-uncle was an army photographer who took all the photos of the men who left Maryland for the great beyond, some never to return? How do you explain that they had myriads of relatives who served in the American army, numerous more great-great uncles and cousins and other family members?

How do you tell them that it's because of these men and many more like them that Jews are still free today? That their grandparents and their mom grew up knowing that they had everything to be thankful for? That they were exceedingly lucky that their relatives had left Europe at the right time?

I can tell them the stories; I can tell them who these people were. They can talk to their grandparents and learn even more. But understanding the impact of their deaths... that's something I'm not sure how to do yet.

I suspect I'll figure all this out as I learn how to be a parent. But it's still some interesting food for thought.

Thank you, Mr. Buckles.