I Did a Recipe Thing!

I was thinking about Chicken Marsala, and came up with this.  It turned out AWESOME.

Poulet  Porto

3 skinless boneless chicken breasts, butterflied and separated into 6 pieces

1 lb mushrooms, sliced thick

1 garlic clove, minced

3 green onions, minced

1 cup Port, divided

1 cup chicken broth

1 cup flour

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

½ tsp nutmeg

½ cup butter, divided

1 tsp corn starch

In large electric fry pan, melt ¼ cup butter on medium high heat until frothy.

Combine flour, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in a large ziplock bag.  Dry chicken; shake in flour mixture until well coated.  Fry chicken in butter, 3 minutes per side, until nicely browned and juices run clear.  Remove to warm platter and set aside.

Add remaining ¼ cup butter.  Fry mushrooms, garlic, and onion over medium high heat until browned.  Increase heat to high.  Add ¾ cup Port and deglaze pan, stirring until Port simmers.  Add corn starch to remaining Port and chicken broth, blend well.  Whisk into gravy and stir until thick.  Lower heat to medium, return chicken to the pan and simmer 2 minutes or until warmed through.  Serve with roasted rosemary potatoes or gnocchi.

Yeah, okay, so I was thumbing through Facebook and came across George Takei's post about him inadvertently offending someone.  WHAT THE HELL.  Do people just sit around and wait to get offended by someone?  Does it make us feel better to ride that specific high horse, just so we can kick the rodeo clowns as we go by?  Do we not recognize that the clowns - the comedians - make us laugh by shoving the truth in our faces until we realize how ridiculous we are?  Why must we take everything so SERIOUSLY???

Yesterday, I was listening to Mark Marron's podcast in which he interviewed Robin Williams in 2010.  His introduction to the podcast was hard to listen to (you could hear his voice breaking as he spoke of Williams in life), but the interview was astonishing.  Williams and Marron spoke about comedy, about the business, about the comedians who have died, about what motivates them to tell the jokes and do the impressions they do, about their philosophies about comedy, about drug and alcohol abuse, about depression and bitterness.  My takeaway from this was that Williams was hurting, a twisted, frightened soul, who never let that fear translate itself into cruelty or selfishness.

And then I flip through the news this morning to see that Robin Williams' daughter Zelda had to quit social media because people were being cruel about her father committing suicide.  What is WRONG with this world?  What is wrong with PEOPLE?  Why are we such shits?

It seems to me that there are three types of people on the internet:

1. People who work and communicate
2. People who lie in wait, ambushing innocent funny people by saying they're offended
3. Trolls

You know what?  If you fall into 2 or 3, you can kiss my ass.  Get off the internet and bug people IRL where you can actually get physically punched in the face, and stop hiding behind your computer screen, you fucking bullies.  And if you don't think you fall into 2 or 3, if you keep telling yourself, "Well, this stuff DOES offend me!  How can they be so insensitive to (fill in the blanks)???" or, "I was only joking, jeez, it's not that important," GUESS WHAT.  You're a bully.  Shove a hot poker up your ass a la Edward II.

Very few of us live past 100.  Hell, few of us will live past 80.  (I know I don't want to.)  Do we really want to spend our time hurting other people, or making them feel less of a human being because they said something flippantly in passing?  I know 2 and 3 seem like two opposite ends of the same spectrum.  Balance, bitches.  Let's treat each other how we would want to be treated, YES, just the way Jesus told us to, and CUT IT OUT ALREADY.

I shall sit back and wait for nothing to happen.  Nothing ever changes.

In other news, the beans were excellent.

All right, so let's try some Boston Baked Beans.

At least, that's what I was thinking last night when I got home from my folks'.  (Thanks a lot, Tipsy Me.)  So I pulled out a bag of pintos and put them in a pot to soak.  This morning, though, when I accessed this recipe, I realized I'd already goofed ... I'm supposed to be using Great Northern Beans, or some other big white bean, not pintos.  Oh well. A good cook's all about improv, right?

So they're boiling right now, and I'm thinking that they're making my house smell like an industrial kitchen - not the good kind - and second-guessing my choice.  Boston Baked?  Mexican?  Cuban?  Portuguese?  What am I DOING???

I'm also thinking about my manuscript - specifically, about my protagonist, and the two people to whom he is sexually attracted.  Is it narratively feasible to give him the hots for a man and a woman?  Will anyone believe it?  I mean, he's a pretty screwed up kid anyway, what with the nicotine and pot and booze (though, arguably, considering what his family is like, you can't be too hard on him).  How believable is it to have a perfectly 50/50 bisexual man as a main character?

I've also got, knocking around in my head, another fic idea, based on a Belgariad fanfic I wrote about a kazillion years ago, and that guy's definitely bisexual.  Is this something that can be readily accepted these days?  Between the fabulous George Takei and the same-sex marriage kerfuffle, I'm fairly certain the Geek Community would welcome a bisexual character with open arms (look at Torchwood, for pete's sake).  But would a publishing company consider it marketable?  That seems to be what they go for.

And another thing.  Why do I constantly write stories with a man as a main character?

Urgh.  Off to stir the beans.