Plugs

As happens every month, this particular Monday has me heading back to the hospital for my routine oncology check-up. What’s a little different this time though is I’m four weeks out from my third COVID-19 vaccination, a jab of the ol’ J&J brew to supplement the two ineffective (i.e., non-reactive) Pfizer vaccines from January and February. I’ll be getting tested for the presence of antibodies and maybe, just maybe, I will get to come out of lockdown mode. Here’s hoping.

Meanwhile, regular readers here will know that I was recently part of a book bundle organized by the IASFA. It was a good project, and it created the opportunity for me to become acquainted with more of the group’s members. That’s the segue today because one of my co-bundlists was Eric Klein, and it only made sense to invite him to be this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest.

He has a keen focus on how science and technology affect us, as can be demonstrated in his nonfiction activities in the world of Telecom and Cyber Security. Somewhere in there he found time to write fiction, a hard SF novel that includes a tour of the solar system.

Eric describes himself as an avid science fiction and fantasy reader, a huge Star Trek fan, and a Shakespeare aficionado. Clearly it’s only a matter of time before he applies himself to Klingon so he can read the Bard in the original language.

LMS: Welcome, Eric. What stands out in your memory as your best meal ever?

EC: Now that is a hard question, I have had many meals with great food and company. But the one that stands out is when I was knighted into the Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs. The Chaîne des Rôtisseurs is the world’s oldest international gastronomic society, founded in Paris in 1248. It was created when Louis IX, the French King later canonized as Saint Louis, ordered the establishment of several professional guilds including that of the “Ayeurs” or goose roasters. They were a well-established guild until 1793 when the guild system was dissolved during the French Revolution. In 1950 the organization was revived as the association founding the Confrérie de la Chaîne des Rôtisseurs.

Now before I describe the meal, I would like to mention the location. Here we were, several hundred people in the ruin of an ancient Khan that was built in the 18th century during the Ottoman period. I was there with friends and family that came to see my knighting. The meal was based around venison, and each course used different parts of the red deer. Starting with the liver pâté through the filet mignon tips.

Truth be told, it was not the best meal of my life in terms of food, but the ambiance and ceremony more than made up for that. There we were, in this converted old ruin, with the light coming from candles in niches in the walls and on the tables and everyone dressed for a formal event. Then they got to the formal part of the event. There were three of us being knighted that night. And the official officiating had flown in from the main branch in Paris. But, he did not have a sword. In fact, the organization did not own a sword, so usually they would use something else for the knighting. As it happens, I do own one and had been asked to bring it. So there I was being knighted using my own sword in front of friends and family before they served the dessert.

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I spent a portion of the past weekend rooting through piles of papers and boxes, much of which had been shoved into this corner or onto that shelf, items that came to me a few years ago in the months following my mother’s passing. Dusty report folders with memories of things I’d all but forgotten. I’m sure many of you reading this have been in similar situations and cringed upon opening scrapbooks of ancient photos, images perhaps best summed up by the question “What was I thinking?”

My particular flavor of neuro-atypicality hasn’t left me with much in the way of memories from my youth, but I can appreciate it when I hear about it from others, which was the case with this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest, Michael J Adams as he related his most memorable meal.

Michael writes about private eyes and tooth fairies, which wouldn’t be that unusual for a genre author, except when those job descriptions apply to the same person. I’d tell you more, but I don’t want to risk any spoilers. Michael lives in a suburb of Chicago with his wife and children, living a double life by working in IT by day, and writing fiction by night. I have no idea what he’s told his kids about the tooth fairy.

LMS: Welcome, Michael. As you look back over your life, what meal sticks out?

MJA: I have a notorious sweet tooth (something the main character of my debut series shares—which is humorous because she’s a tooth fairy). However, I wouldn’t necessarily call myself a foodie and I wouldn’t say there are any specific meals that stick out to me.

What does stand out are experiences with individuals I’ve shared meals with. I was lucky enough to share a unique relationship with my late grandfather. I say that because he owned his own private plane (a 4-seat, single-prop Cherokee Piper). Every couple of months we’d fly out of the DuPage airport in the Chicago Suburbs, land across the border of Wisconsin, and then he’d buy lunch.

Sometimes it was just the two of us, and sometimes it was one of his other “flying buddies”. And the meals were never anything fancy — usually a simple Greek Family restaurant. But I’d get to sit and listen to them sweet talk the waitresses, share stories about landing in pot fields in Columbia, and pick up new vulgarities.

As with all teens, at some point hanging out with my grandfather wasn’t the “cool” thing to do. We flew less and less and before I knew it, we’d had our last flight. I wish I could say our last meal consisted of a grilled ham & cheese and fries and a country-fried steak, but I couldn’t tell you.

Cherish those memories.

Like the time he took the family to Hooters. Again, I can’t tell you what I ate, but the scowl on the faces of my grandmother and mother are all too clear in my mind’s eye.

#SFWApro

Just over two weeks ago, I participated in the online convention of SFFCon, and I so enjoyed myself that for the first time in more than a year, I’ve been thinking a lot about attending conventions. For health reasons, at least for now, I’m limiting my focus to events within driving range. Fortunately, the 2021 World Science Fiction Convention (aka DisCon III) is in Washington, D.C. less than three hours away. Their hotel opened to reservations last week and I swooped in and secured a room before they ran out. So that’s where you can find me come December. Before that though, I’ll be heading down that same general direction for Capclave in early October. I like that convention a lot (sharp-eyed readers may have noticed I dedicated my last novel to them!). At this stage, I don’t know if I am willing to do programming, let alone sit in a crowded room to attend anyone else’s panels, but worst case scenario I’ll spend the weekend hanging out in the lobby and visiting with anyone who comes by.

I mention all of this not just to clue you in to my upcoming schedule, but because it was during the aforementioned SFFCon where I met CW Lamb, this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest. Charlie took on the challenging task of moderating a panel entitled Creating an Alien Civilization that included myself, Shelina Valmond, Allen Stroud, and SJ Schauer. He did a great job and the experience was a blast, so naturally I asked him to come here and share a meal.

Charlie’s a fun guy and he’s not above slipping a bad pun into his fiction. Life has moved him around from the Southwest to the Pacific Northwest and across the country again to Jacksonville, FL where he now makes his home. Not content to sit indoors at his keyboard (writing is only a part-time gig), he enjoys boating, scuba diving, shooting, motorcycles, and classic cars (but probably not all at once).

LMS: Welcome, CW. So, let’s talk about your most memorable meal.

CWL: I consider myself to be a bit of a Foodie, so just picking one memorable meal is a little like asking a mother of four to pick her favorite child or, more appropriately, for an author to pick their single favorite book.

For pure ambiance and a fantastic food experience, I have to go with my trip to New Orleans in 1992 for the IMSA Grand Prix du Mardi Gras. I was a design engineer for Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers, and we were in an all-out brawl with Jaguar for the Manufactures Championship Title that year. The midpoint of the season was the New Orleans race, and we were one win behind Jaguar at this point.

The racecourse wound through the Superdome’s adjoining city streets, and we made our temporary home on the stadium floor inside the dome itself. Working here allowed us easy access to the famous French Quarter and all of the renowned eateries. We headed out at night, searching for dining adventures, and then to the famous Café Du Monde for coffee and beignets at breakfast.

The night before the big race, we had a busy day practicing and preparing the racecar. Once finished, we made our way toward the river and the many bars, cafes, and restaurants hidden within the Quarter. It was in one of those back-alley bistros where I ordered the best pork chops with red beans and rice I have ever experienced, before or since.

Pork served atop a bed of beans and rice, the seasoning and blended flavors had me enthralled with every bite. Unfortunately, I was soon stuffed to the gills, a clean plate before me, and no room for dessert. My biggest regret is that I never bothered to learn the establishment’s name, to pass on its fame, so it lives in my memory as a mystery location.

We would go on to win that race and seven more races in a row that year to lock down both the Manufactures and Drivers championships.

#SFWApro

One of the things I’ve missed about conventions is meeting new people. Especially when I’m doing programming, there are usually folks on the panels with me whom I’ve never met. As I mentioned previously, I have not been a big fan of the online version of most conventions, but I recently participated in SFFCon, which has only ever existed as an online event (and the entire programming is available on their YouTube channel). That’s your segue to how I met this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest. Anthea Sharp was the moderator of a panel involving me, Martha Carr, and Wendy Van Camp, the four of us talking about the tools we use to juggle multiple projects at the same time.

Anthea is a USA Today bestselling author of YA fantasy, blending fairy tales and computer gaming in her fiction. Not content with that mash-up, she also writes Victorian Spacepunk. Her latest book (out this past May) is White as Frost, the first volume of a new Darkwood Trilogy. This is Snow White and Rose Red in a whole new light.

LMS: Welcome, Anthea. What stands out in your memory as your best meal ever?

AS: The best meal I remember having was at Kirala Japanese restaurant in Berkeley, back in 2001. My husband and I and our 18-month-old daughter were traveling from WA to CA and stopped in the Bay Area to visit relatives. After a long day in the van with a young child who needed a lot of attention, we weren’t sure about going out to eat, but they wanted to treat us to dinner. So, after splashing some water on our faces and packing a bag full of entertainments for the kid, we headed out for sushi.

I don’t recall the ambiance at Kirala, particularly, but from the moment the bacon-wrapped asparagus appetizer came out to the crispy sesame ball dessert, the meal was simply splendiferous. Melt-in-your-mouth tuna and salmon underpinned with just the right hit of wasabi, draped languidly over perfectly seasoned sushi rice. Seaweed salad like a soy-flavored mouthful of ocean, but even that was tender, too, without the annoying stringiness of most wakame. We ordered plate after plate – sizzling gyoza, vegetable tempura light as clouds, sweet and smoky unagi rolls. Even that old staple, teriyaki chicken, was grilled to perfection and complemented by, not drowned in, a piquant sauce. Nothing we hadn’t eaten before (except the bacon-wrapped grilled asparagus, which was crispy on the outside and perfectly cooked inside) but a fine example of taking every element of the food one or two steps further into greatness. Super fresh, super well-prepared, exquisitely flavored.

We talked and ate and had a bit of palate-cleansing sake, and the meal probably took two hours. Through it all, our kid was amazing – hanging out in her high chair, scribbling with crayons, eating shelled edamame and bits of sticky rice with her fingers. I recall a nearby couple stopped at our table just to mention how great our kid had been throughout the lengthy meal. One of those perfect confluences of everything going right, from the fabulous food to the gracious company, to the well-behaved offspring. Memorable indeed.

#SFWApro

June is continuing to fulfill its promise. Last week I managed a small getaway, the highlight of which was a five hour meeting with a co-author for a shiny new series, and I’m optimistic that we’ll have the first book out before the end of the year. I also hit a major wall of medical bureaucracy (boo!) but quickly found a workaround courtesy of members of the SF community (hooray for the Facebook Overmind). And tomorrow my latest novel, Ace of Thralls, will be available from the ’zon in both ebook and trade paperback formats.

By way of not only continuing the celebration of good things but also segueing into this week’s EATING AUTHORS post, let’s return to boosting the signal for this year’s Astounding Award nominees (Lindsay Ellis, Simon Jimenez, Micaiah Johnson, A.K. Larkwood, Jenn Lyons, and Emily Tesh). Today I get to introduce you to Micaiah Johnson.

Her bio describes Micaiah as a biracial author who was raised in a Jehovah’s Witness community in the Southern California desert. It goes on to point out that she graduated from high school at just thirteen. She has an MFA, and she just finished her comprehensive exams in her PhD program at Vanderbilt where she studies race and robots. This summer she’ll be attending the prestigious School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell.

It’s also worth mentioning that her debut novel The Space Between Worlds was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, a finalist for the LOCUS Award, and took home the Compton Crook Award.

LMS: Welcome, Micaiah. What’s your most memorable meal?

MJ: My most memorable meal is also my favorite meal is also my least favorite meal, depending on the year. Most of us who are latchkey-kid-adjacent can name at least one large-batch meal, born to be leftovers, that we hated not because it was gross but because we knew it too well. For me, it was my mother’s chili. Cooked in a giant black pan that intelligent people tell me is a soup pot, but I will only ever call a cauldron, the smell of chili in the kitchen meant my sisters and I would be eating it once a day for, at the very least, a week. Every I’m hungry would be met with eat some chili. Every there’s no food would result in there’s the chili. There was always — like crocodiles or horseshoe crabs or some other prehistoric creature that manages to slog forward through time untouched — the chili.

When I left home it was in the fashion of all Jehovah’s Witness teenagers leaving home — in an explosion and an exile. My last year at home was every cliché about teenage self-discovery conflicting with parental control, like Dirty Dancing but without Patrick Swayze and with far more quoted scripture. I was poor, living in a trailer with mold in the ceiling and the kind of landlords who are so difficult, so unstable, they are forced to keep the rent cheap because only those who have no choice would put up with them. I was isolated. I was hopeless. I was hungry.

One night there was a knock at the door, and I opened it to that familiar giant pot of chili with one hundred dollars tucked into the lid. My parents were not the kind of people for whom one hundred dollars was nothing. In three months, they would be facing another foreclosure, losing their house in the hills of Hesperia and having to move with two grandmothers into an apartment in a-less-than-desirable part of an already less-than-desirable town. But here was a hundred dollars. And a week’s worth of food. In my memory I held the still-warm pot like a buoy and cried, but that may be a trick of a decade’s distance and my dramatic imagination. But it felt like that. It felt like I was holding onto something that was the difference between drowning and not-drowning.

For the next week, every desperate, panicked I’m hungry or I don’t have any food was met by a different, calmer voice from my childhood answering: There’s the chili.

#SFWApro

Welcome to the first Monday in June. As it happens, yesterday was the 34th National Cancer Survivors Day. Want to know more? Just click that link.

I have to say, June is looking pretty good already. I put a book on sale yesterday; through Sunday Pirates of Marz is 99¢ in the US and £0.99 in the UK. Also, Ace of Thralls — the long awaited third book in my Freelance Courier series — is available for pre-order and will be released on the 15th.

But wait, there’s more! I’ll be meeting with my oncology team today to discuss what (if any) options exist given my resistance to COVID vaccines, and tomorrow I’m going on a road trip (my first in over a year) where I will check into a hotel, dine on out-of-state takeout, and have socially distanced meetings with several author colleagues and friends for two days. As if that wasn’t enough, I’ll return in time to be part of the programming for all three days of SFFCon, an online convention organized last year by my friend (and past EATING AUTHORS guest) A.K. (Amy) DuBoff. So, yeah, and all of that is just this week. There’s so much going on in June that I’ll have to wait until next Monday to tell you more.

But that’s okay, you’re not here to get the scoop on me, you want to read about another author’s most memorable meal. And a good thing too, because this week I invited Marcus Alexander Hart to be the guest for EATING AUTHORS. I first met Marcus a year and a half ago at 20Books Vegas, an Indie Writers’ conference, where he was organizing a meet-and-greet of authors who self-identified as creating humorous SF. Naturally, I wanted to learn more about him.

Once upon a time Marucs was working in computer animation, but he walked away from the video game industry to, in his words, “write the Great American Post-Nuclear-Apocalypse Adventure Comedy Novel.” Alas, things rarely work out as we plan them, and some might say that Marcus wandered in the literary desert trying his hand at some very different kinds of books before returning to his true love, the intersection of space and comedy. The proof of this can be found in his latest novel, Galaxy Cruise, a sci-fi comedy that follows that classic strategy of piling on more and more, like a SF version of a Marx Brothers film. The book will be released in a mere two weeks, but you can pre-order it right now (and you should).

LMS: Welcome, Marcus. Tell me please about your most memorable meal.

MAH: Have you ever heard of a thing called Rental Car Rally? On a random Friday in July, forty or fifty cars full of costumed maniacs gather in Los Angeles for a madcap, all-night, road trip/scavenger hunt/moving violation. When the starting gun sounds at the stroke of midnight, each team is given a list of ten top-secret checkpoints they must visit on the several-hundred-mile journey to the finish line. Whoever hits them all with the most style and the lowest odometer reading wins eternal glory and a gas pump handle poorly spray-painted gold.

If you can imagine a Cannonball Run with less speed and more poor life choices, you’ve got the basic idea.

My wife Amanda and I once ran the Rental Car Rally in a white Dodge Grand Caravan that we had modified to look like an ice-cream truck, complete with a huge, illuminated strawberry cone on the roof. Among the other teams competing that night were a black SUV full of Secret Service agents, a 1980s stretch limousine kitted out with Ben-Hur-style gladiators, and a fifteen-person van dressed like Noah’s Ark and loaded with college students in provocative animal onesies. Each vehicle hurled insults and eggs at each other as we thundered through the night up the California coastline.

Checkpoint one involved hopping the fence at a community college to molest some ugly cowboy statues. Number two had us trespassing on a defunct Nike-Ajax missile base. Three was an abandoned oil refinery where we stomped through puddles of God-knows-what and probably shortened our lifespans by several years. But the fourth checkpoint challenge took it down a notch—we were to converge on Solvang, California to “acquire and consume aebleskivers.”

If you’re not familiar, Solvang is a Danish village/tourist attraction, complete with a downtown rendered in medieval-style, half-timbered buildings. It has a statue of Hans Christian Andersen, and one of his Little Mermaid. As you drive into town you pass a full-sized windmill. Then another. Then another. It’s adorably quaint. And that morning it became ground zero for a cavalcade of automotive chaos.

As the first light of dawn illuminated the horizon, the picturesque curve of Copenhagen Drive was bumper to bumper with filthy rental cars covered in food-fight detritus and the most puerile graffiti this side of a truck-stop bathroom stall frequented by seventh-grade boys. Thanks to our smartphones, every Rally team knew they could “acquire and consume aebleskivers” at the appropriately, if not creatively, named Solvang Restaurant. Unfortunately, we rolled into town about an hour and a half before they opened.

Rowdy weirdos started to gather in the street outside the restaurant, rattling the door handles and peeking in the windows. By an amazing twist of fate, someone happened to be at work early that day. And by an even more amazing twist of fate, instead of calling the cops, he welcomed the invasive rabble inside.

The intimate eatery was quickly packed with grimy costumed maniacs, giddy with that special kind of delirium you get when you’ve been awake for more than thirty hours. Intricately carved, Bavarian-style booths filled with haggard heavy-metal rockers. Hockey-masked serial killers loitered near hutches displaying neat rows of local jellies and jams. 1920s bootleggers smuggled brown jugs of hooch under shelves of Delftware plates. And all of them wanted aebleskivers.

Aebleskivers (alternately ebleskivers, or Æbleskivers if you’re Danish AF), are basically golf-ball-sized, spherical pancakes smothered in raspberry jam and dusted with powered sugar. And when you’re crashing after a long, stressful night of high-stakes rabblerousing, they are the most delicious thing you’ve ever eaten.

Despite the “closed” sign still hanging prominently in the window, more Rally teams kept appearing, filling the place to its exposed wooden rafters. Every time another group of dusty luchadores or sexed-up fairy-tale characters walked in, the solitary waitress would slump in defeat with a groaned, “Let me guess. Aebleskivers?”

That early morning respite of sugary dough balls gave the teams a chance to regroup and share stories of the adventures we’d survived through the night. Aebleskivers and black coffee paved the way to new alliances and friendships. For the next six checkpoints, the ever-present sabotage turned less aggressive and more joyous. We drove rental cars on an ATV beach. We ate terrible barbecue in a Korean-War-era airplane. We threw water balloons out of a seven-story treehouse. We escaped monotony. We lived life.

Eighteen sleepless hours after leaving Los Angeles, Amanda and I crossed the finish line at an unsuspecting ski lodge high in the Sierra Nevadas. Our fake ice-cream truck was covered in a hard shell of sun-baked mustard and dog food and cake mix. Our bodies weren’t in much better condition. But when all was said and done, we walked away from the wreckage with eternal glory and a gas pump handle poorly spray-painted gold.

To this day, winning that award remains one of the top achievements of my life. Which really says more about my slate of life achievements than it does about the Rental Car Rally. But whatever. My point is, if you have a chance, try the aebleskivers. They’re terrific.

#SFWApro

I very much do not want to be one of those people who is always going on and on about the weather, but a week ago we were touching the bottom of the 90s and this weekend the high was about 50°. C’mon, spring, get with the program.

And I say that as someone who has also finally gotten his act together. Last week, after more than a month’s delay, I completed another novel. It’s off in the hands of my hardworking Typo Team, and soon I’ll incorporate their kind feedback and let the folks at Amazon have their way with it. By that time, I expect to be well underway writing a new Barsk novella, and after that I have even bigger plans — but hey, no spoilers.

Instead, let me direct your attention on a much-warmer-than-yesterday Memorial Day to this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest, whose latest novel builds off that classic quotation from Alfred Henry Lewis, “There are only nine meals between mankind and anarchy.” It’s a chilling line, an ironic choice for this blog, and a snapshot into the work DJ Cooper. She’s taken Lewis’s point seriously, not only as an author of post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction but also as a prominent figure in the preparedness community where, among other things, she is both the executive producer and host of Surviving Dystopia from the American Preppers Radio Network.

DJ lives in New England and when she’s not writing about the end of all things she is working to complete a Master of Science in Marketing, which will surely come in handy if all her fiction turns out to be just, you know, fiction. I should note that the meal she is about to share also makes an appearance in her latest novel, Terminus State, so the lines are already blurring.

LMS: Welcome, DJ. If you wouldn’t mind, please share the story of your most memorable meal.

DJC: I call out from the open refrigerator door. “Would you like some breakfast? I have eggs. Wait, there’s no bacon; maybe an omelet?” The crisper drawers open and close one at a time. “Dang there isn’t much to put in an omelet either.” Looking up at him sheepishly smiling I shrugged. I quickly realized I’d forgotten to stop at the grocery store for even the staples. There was nothing in the fridge worth eating, I’d not gotten any food for the weekend at all, let alone stuff for a good breakfast; and on the only morning we actually could spend some time together. “What do you say we try that little place up at the circle? I just love small diners, they have the best food.” Coyly winking at him as I closed the door to the fridge. As usual, he just smiled and said, “It’s your call, you know I’d eat a bowl of cereal.” Anyone who knows me knows there is no cereal in my house. Yuck!

I must admit we often look like a mismatched pair. I stood in front of him, all of five foot, five… “and a half,” of me. He readily agreed and twenty minutes later we were dressed in our winter gear— for the weather had gone from cold to arctic overnight. Me in heeled boots and a long black wool coat with a scarf that wrapped about my neck. Him in a hooded sweatshirt and work boots. The sight of us may have made you question our compatibility. Lady and the Tramp never seemed so poignant and yet fascinating as you observe his devotion and gentle nature.

The lot was full, which I took to be a good sign. Sliding into a tight space with his big red truck he hurriedly came round to the passenger’s side and opened the door for me, offering me his hand to help me down from the cab. He even opened the door for me to enter the diner, and as he did a warm breeze flowed from the opening that carried on it a scent of bacon with a hint of something baking. Oh, the wonderful smells that hovered in the air as we entered and found a small table in the free for all seating. I sniffed the air as we considered our favorites from the menu. At this point one might think that my poor choice of skipping the grocery store might have turned out for the best and in we went.

The pancakes seemed like just the thing on such a chilly day, and they were to be garnished with real maple syrup? Perfect. This combination of buttery and sticky sweet would be mouthwatering. Anticipation is evident, waiting for the savory tastes of the tart blueberries and sticky sweet real maple flavor. The smells made me crave bacon with my fluffy blue flecked disks. I was ready, I knew exactly what I’d order, and I could just imagine the greasy kitchen, the hot stove littered with eggs, pancakes and bacon splattering its greasy rain as it danced atop the grill.

The waitress approached placing her hand on the back of his chair and leaning over him, she seemed pleasant asking, “Can I start you guys with some coffee?”

“Yes please,” I piped up. “And could I also get a glass of water?”

Still considering the menu, he just nods to her. I interject, “Make it two.”

She rolled her eyes, turned and retreated to the waitress station.

Once we’d ordered I felt full of optimism, ready to take on the day and start it off with the kind of wonderful food you can only find at such little local establishments such as this. The homecooked goodness of real food. My face was alight and mood high.

She’d returned and brought his dish. Across the table his spread held a man-sized steak with a couple of eggs, some home fries and pristine toast laid across the massive platter neatly segregated, yet gently brushing each other as though it were doing a ballet across the plate for his enjoyment.

The imminent arrival of next order was at hand, and for sure this platter of pancakes would be steaming hot slabs of fluffy, lightly browned, gently flavored with vanilla, heavenly pancakes. Donning those sweet-smelling disks would be telltale dark blue spots of the largest ripest blueberries. The napkin laid out neatly in my lap, for it was the ladylike thing to do, I waited mouth waterning. Like an opera, the older blonde waitress strode, gliding across the floor; plate in hand, coming straight for the table. A broad smile emerged as she approached and laid the plate on the table. Any smile swiftly diminished when I looked down at the single pat of butter sitting atop the two flat slabs with black specks.

My disappointment was evident with the change in my expression. The flaccid pancake drooped lazily off one side of the plate as the small pat of butter disappeared into a hole dead center. No matter, it was a lovely day with breakfast and conversation to enjoy. Trying to disguise my disappointment I looked to her and asked, “Could I please have some extra butter?”

She glared in my direction, huffed, turning on her heel, and without a word, she retreated from whence she came. A bit later she returned, the scowl on her face had not changed. A single piece of her stringy blonde hair hung across her furrowed brow as she pulled two small containers of Country Crock Margarine from her stained white apron. She dropped them on the table. They rolled like dice, tumbling in my direction. Her demeanor changed when she turned to le’ boyfriend, and she smiled asking him. “How’s your coffee, sweetie?”

He grunted at her without looking up and pointed to the two small cups on the table, “Babe, that’s margarine. You don’t eat that.”

The waitress glared at me as though I’d made her look bad in front of her boss or something. I wondered what I’d done to make her so disagreeable towards me. I just grimaced and said, “It’s fine every once in a while.” We’d discussed the differences while shopping only last week. He liked Country Crock, but I refused to buy it calling it “practically plastic.”

Looking down at my very flat pancake-like food and then up again, I smiled. He’d not cared what she’d done, only that my food was what I’d wanted. Being the quintessential optimist, I was not going to allow any of it to spoil the day. After all, I didn’t have to cook or clean up.

I poured the roughly two tablespoons of real maple syrup onto the pancakes and tried to stretch it out. After eating about a quarter of one pancake, the maple syrup had disappeared. I sat there considering the possibility of requesting more from this surly woman who’d chosen to stand but twenty feet away and chat with another and laugh, while watching my obvious displeasure. Or… I could just live with the brown colored corn syrup that was offered at the table.

I’d only wanted a pleasurable morning, and this was turning out to be a serious detriment to my psyche. Rather than face off against the gruff waitress, I opted for the lesser of miseries by choosing the table syrup. Grasping the clear plastic ketchup bottle with the brown sticky syrup in it, I tipped it upside down and prepared to squeeze out a string of this thick ooze onto my flat slabs flecked with black spots. Thinking to myself how this was not how I’d intended to have breakfast. As I awaited the agonizingly slow descent of the ooze toward the opening of the container, again I thought at how I’d not gone shopping. Resolving that after this I would not be remiss in this task again, or I’d likely face another bout of waitress rage.

The ooze had made its way to the cap and was ready to be applied to the slabs. Grasping the bottle, I gave it a squeeze. Plop! The top had not been screwed onto the bottle properly and I now had a deluge of gelatinous brown sticky liquid oozing over the sides of the plate onto the table and headed for my lap in a slow creeping motion. Looking about the room of tables, searching for a savior with those ever present white soggy towels. There was none to be seen… Anywhere. The waitress was suddenly missing as I sat looking at the floating rafts in my plate and contemplating how to avoid the wave of ooze headed for me in a slow-motion slide toward the table edge.

After what felt like an eternity of panic, the realities of these consequences of my failure to obtain the proper food items had again flashed before my eyes. She sauntered over and asked my man if his food was ok; ignoring my precarious position with the ooze closing in on me. I was becoming angry, thinking to myself “Is his food ok?” I interrupted her and asked, “Can I get a rag for this?” Feeling as though I’d done something wrong, I continued, “The top…it popped right off.”

She rolled her eyes as she wadded up the placemat and told me to lift my plate, so she could wipe. You know… the one with the floating pancake rafts and syrup dribbling over the side? I handed it to her and said, “I’m finished, thank you.”

She wiped some of the brown ooze but left the mat and a huge swath of sticky goo on the table in front of me never to return. When rising to leave I said, “I’ve got the tip.” He stopped and turned, looking at me shocked, “Really?”

I pulled a bill out of my wallet, grinned, and slapped it hard onto the table. Right in the sticky mess she’d left, turning it over, making sure the entire bill was well covered. Wiping my hands, I smiled at him, winked, and took his arm to go. I was still hungry but a bagel from Dunk’s would surely be better than this.

An old woman who’d been at the table beside us witnessed the whole ordeal. Smiling at me with pure white hair and tiny crooked fingers, she pointed her tiny finger at the bill, giggled and said, “That’s how it’s done honey.”

#SFWApro

The days have been heating up, and my response has been to start my daily walks earlier and earlier to avoid the worst of the heat. It’s not a bad plan, assuming I’m able to get to sleep earlier too (so far, not so much). But it’s a work in progress.

Other plans going forward involve me just getting in my car and driving away, preferably where I can sit down at a picnic table in some park somewhere, and share a bucket of chicken with a friend or colleague, because I’ve not gone anywhere or shared a meal with anyone (other than my wife) since January of last year. Please note, it doesn’t have to be an actual bucket of chicken, that’s a metaphor, okay? Though, it probably will be a bucket of chicken. But the point is to regain a sense of connectivity and slip in at least the illusion of travel.

Speaking of travel, this week’s EATING AUTHORS guest is no stranger to going from place to place. In addition to the particulars she recounts below in her meal, Anna Mocikat started out in Poland, moved to Germany for film school where she wrote award-winning screenplays before branching out into video games, and writing books. In 2016 her travels took her to the United States and she now makes her home in South Carolina.

Anna has eight books out, in German and English, some through traditional publishers and some self-published — which is another way of saying she’s a hybrid author. Shadow City , released in 2019, was her first novel written in English.

LMS: Welcome, Anna. Tell me about your most memorable meal.

AM: I’m an avid traveler and love backpacking through Southeast Asia. My favorite country in the world is Thailand, and I’ve been there ten times. I even learned how to speak Thai because I love it there so much. Why? That’s another story for another day, but the food is certainly one of the reasons. I love Thai food.

I traveled through the whole country multiple times and can tell dozens of stories of amazing meals, sometimes in fancy restaurants and sometimes on the street, served from a small stall, hidden somewhere in between the skyscraper canyons in Bangkok or in a small village far away from the usual tourist paths.

But I want to talk about my very first trip almost 20 years ago and one of my first meals in Thailand. My travel companion and I went to a small restaurant only frequented by local people. There I ordered a seafood glass noodle salad. The waiter informed me that the dish is very spicy and asked if I really want it.

Sure, I said. I can handle spicy! In fact, I love spicy food. I always pick the spicy dishes back at the local Thai restaurant at home.

The waiter smiled and informed me that the dish is really spicy and if I was sure, I wanted it.

Yes, yes, of course! I said, like the clueless first-time Thailand tourist I was.

Then the dish came, and it was incredible! It tasted sooo good… fresh seafood, coriander, glass noodles, fish sauce… and chilies. The infamous red Thai chilis. Many of them.

Now here comes why the waiter warned me and tried to convince me to pick another dish. The chilis were chopped into tiny, almost invisible pieces and mixed into the food. And there’s something particularly nasty about those little red chili-bastards. At first, when you start eating them, they hardly burn. Yes, you taste that they’re spicy, but it’s not that bad. Only after a couple of spoons full, you will realize the full extent of the drama taking place in your mouth. Once it starts burning, there’s no stopping it.

I started sweating and coughing, it felt as if I would burn from the inside. Stupid tourist as I was, I tried to fight the heat with beer… which made it even worse. It was like fueling gasoline into an open fire.

Then I tried water, and it didn’t help either. I thought I would die.

After watching my struggle for survival for a moment, the waiter was overwhelmed by compassion and saved my life by showing me the one and only remedy against Thai chili burn: sugar.

When you visit a Thai restaurant, you’ll always find little packets of sugar on the table. It’s not meant for your coffee. It’s the secret weapon against chili burn.

If you happen to be as stupid as I was, all you need to do is fill your mouth with sugar and it will neutralize the heat immediately. Yes, really!

I’m happy to report that I survived, and after many more trips to this wonderful country, I now can eat a spicy glass noodle salad without dying. But I will never forget this very special meal.

#SFWApro