Brownies

Elizabear told me to follow a recipe, and cautioned me against experimenting. Well, I couldn't do that.

We'll see how this comes out.

micromelt in your microfriend:
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 stick butter

beat in a big bowl:
4 eggs
pinch salt
big squirt vanilla

slowly add 1 cup sugar to the beaten egg mess
then beat in half a cup of flour
then the somewhat-cooled-and-unlikely-to-seize-the-eggs chocolate butter.
then another half cup of flour.

Into a greased 9x13 pan, 350 oven, 25 minutes. We will see.

The Joy of Cooking specifies one-third as much chocolate, but unsweetened; also, they put in 2 cups of sugar. Otherwise the same. Although I always hope that some overly-rigid recipe follower has conniptions at the notion of a 'big squirt' of vanilla.

I did not put in nuts, but I also did not put in cinnamon, whiskey, or orange zest, all of which came to mind. So I have been moderate.

[LATER: I should have put in cinnamon or orange. Chocolatey, dense cake, not too sweet. Reduce the flour a little?]

The house is starting to smell chocolate. I wish the kids weren't sick and we could go to the party, but Z is now snoring like a walrus and E is droopy.

[LATER: Z slept through the entire game. E spewed chunks before halftime. Sigh.]

Brownies

Elizabear told me to follow a recipe, and cautioned me against experimenting. Well, I couldn't do that.

We'll see how this comes out.

micromelt in your microfriend:
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 stick butter

beat in a big bowl:
4 eggs
pinch salt
big squirt vanilla

slowly add 1 cup sugar to the beaten egg mess
then beat in half a cup of flour
then the somewhat-cooled-and-unlikely-to-seize-the-eggs chocolate butter.
then another half cup of flour.

Into a greased 9x13 pan, 350 oven, 25 minutes. We will see.

The Joy of Cooking specifies one-third as much chocolate, but unsweetened; also, they put in 2 cups of sugar. Otherwise the same. Although I always hope that some overly-rigid recipe follower has conniptions at the notion of a 'big squirt' of vanilla.

I did not put in nuts, but I also did not put in cinnamon, whiskey, or orange zest, all of which came to mind. So I have been moderate.

[LATER: I should have put in cinnamon or orange. Chocolatey, dense cake, not too sweet. Reduce the flour a little?]

The house is starting to smell chocolate. I wish the kids weren't sick and we could go to the party, but Z is now snoring like a walrus and E is droopy.

[LATER: Z slept through the entire game. E spewed chunks before halftime. Sigh.]

Books

_The Dreaming Void_, Peter Hamilton
_Triplet_, Timothy Zahn

Hamilton can't write a simple 600 page novel to save his life. (He used to -- the three Greg Mandel mystery/action/SF novels are pretty good and mostly standalone.) This is the first book of a new trilogy, although I managed to forget that completely about halfway through as I started to wonder how he was going to tie all the threads up in the space remaining. Obviously, he didn't, nor will he do so in the next volume. On the other hand -- and a very large manipulating appendage it is -- Hamilton has finally writen more than two believable characters into a single book. The dream-story segments are especially well-written, and it would not have been an awful shame had he just written those and made a single novel out of them. It might have been something like Steven Gould's _Helm_, only with more alien technology masquerading as magic and less aikido. Okay, on second thought not very much like Gould at all.

I borrowed the Zahn from my minion on the dual strength of Zahn's reputation as a competent storyteller and the minion's recommendation as a multiply-read favorite. I was not wrong.. Pleasantly, a single volume, though the ending seems rushed and slightly unresolved, as though Zahn wanted to leave himself an open hook on which to hang a trilogy. I'm currently waiting for Zahn finish up the YA Dragonback series, but it's doing so well it might go on forever.

Books

_The Dreaming Void_, Peter Hamilton
_Triplet_, Timothy Zahn

Hamilton can't write a simple 600 page novel to save his life. (He used to -- the three Greg Mandel mystery/action/SF novels are pretty good and mostly standalone.) This is the first book of a new trilogy, although I managed to forget that completely about halfway through as I started to wonder how he was going to tie all the threads up in the space remaining. Obviously, he didn't, nor will he do so in the next volume. On the other hand -- and a very large manipulating appendage it is -- Hamilton has finally writen more than two believable characters into a single book. The dream-story segments are especially well-written, and it would not have been an awful shame had he just written those and made a single novel out of them. It might have been something like Steven Gould's _Helm_, only with more alien technology masquerading as magic and less aikido. Okay, on second thought not very much like Gould at all.

I borrowed the Zahn from my minion on the dual strength of Zahn's reputation as a competent storyteller and the minion's recommendation as a multiply-read favorite. I was not wrong.. Pleasantly, a single volume, though the ending seems rushed and slightly unresolved, as though Zahn wanted to leave himself an open hook on which to hang a trilogy. I'm currently waiting for Zahn finish up the YA Dragonback series, but it's doing so well it might go on forever.