Travel Food

I'm all about travel. The  sights  are  lovely, but let's get real. It's all about the food.

Some of my most memorable were:

The chocolate eclair from Paris - Once, my husband and I ran away to Paris for the weekend (WAAAAY before Bub came along.) We walked down the Champs d'Elysee and had eclairs in a tiny cafe. The pastries were so large they were like chocolate bombs. (Actually, mine was cappucino flavored.)  The waiter, an impossibly handsome Parisian, looked like Cary Grant. I was on a match  collecting kick at the time, and I thought it would be cool to have some  from Paris. I requested them in French, trying to impress "Cary." Unfortunately I asked for streetlamps instead of matches.

They come in all flavors in Paris. Raspberry, lime...

The churros y chocolate from Spain - Again, preBub. We were in Spain with some friends right before  Christmas. I told my husband I'd do anything he wanted, but I had, had, had to get churros for  breakfast one morning. He thought churros were those large, sinewy things you get at the mall. When he discovered they were little, delicate donuts you dipped in thick hot chocolate, he warmed up to the whole idea. They were served in a noisy bar, and we ate at a table surrounded by Spanish workmen. That was a good day.

And while we're talking about Spain, I  can't forget - The  plate of tiny mussels I shared with a group of my friends  in a tapas bar one night. We were poor students, so that's all we could afford. We sucked down the delicious mussels and called for bread to slurp up the  wine / garlic / butter sauce. I swear you can eat the paving stones in Spain.

Fresh coconuts in Haiti - Bebe Doc was still in power. The poverty was overwhelming. The beaches were lovely. For one dollar, a boy offered us a fresh coconut, large and green, which he cut down with a huge machete. We drank the juice, and he chopped it open so we could eat the  moist, fragrant insides. It was completely different from those hard, brown things you see in supermarkets.

Plaice in Ireland - My mother used to rush to the  market in Dun Laoghaire to buy us tiny flatfish that had just been caught in the bay. She dipped them in milk and flour and sauteed them in Kerrygold butter. Heaven! 

In Ireland and England we used  to eat Fuller's Walnut Cake, until Fuller's went out  of business. You can still get the  recipe, though, here, for the most delicious, moist cake in the world.

Southern Barbecue - I'm talking North Carolina. I'm talking home made coleslaw on the side, a soft  bun filled with sloppy barbecue. I'm talking a cold one to go with. Maybe two cold ones. 

Ice Cream in Mexico - I'm a huge fan of Mexican food and drink (I even adored the fresh pulque, served out of a dipper in a tiny fishing village) but my very favorite, besides FRESH GUACAMOLE SERVED WITH A BOHEMIA BEER, was the ice cream stand my boyfriend at the time took me to. There were one hundred flavors (Honey! Fish!) (Yes, I really said fish!) but the  best one was the avocado ice cream. Didn't I say I loved guacamole? This was like a sweetened, cold version in a cone.

We all see why I love to travel, now don't we. Next up: Italy, Germany, Denmark, and Finland. Get in my belly!

Whassup???? And, Hugo Too

Hello, Blogosphere!


I've been away for, well, most of the month of November. Here's why: I was a participant in NaNoWriMo,  which stands for National Novel Writing Month. I and a gafrillion other people write 50,000 words each during November.


I'm back, and I missed you. Here's a present that I brought back from my mental travels:

What's inside? Cute kittens, sparkly baubles, a nose trimmer? You decide!

Moving on, I see that my own genre, Steampunk, took a hugestep in becoming main stream with the release of Hugo, the newest movie from Martin Scorsese. It's based on a novel by Brian Selznick, called "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." 


Part graphic novel, part flipbook, and a story of Coincidences, puzzles, lost keys, and a mystery, it's the kind of story that appeals to, well, me. I love adventure, I love inventions and mysteries; always have, since I picked up "Spiderweb for Two" in first grade.

The movie itself is moving into pure steampunk. There are huge gears, clockworks, and a very important automaton. There are children and a toymaker and a race through Paris. There's a hidden message. What's not to like?

All of this is pure joy for a steampunker like me. Now, back to NaNoWriMo; while I worked on my new book, called The Gramophone Society, I abandoned steampunk for something new: Dieselpunk. 

My new world is powered by diesel energy, since it is set during World War II during the London evacuations. I became fascinated by the tunnels built to hold people during air raids. They seemed like the perfect place for more adventure and mystery.

I wondered about the possibility of time travel. I didn't want to open a portal, so instead I imagined a set of stairs that usually went upstairs, and that suddenly led down instead: down to a set of mysterious tunnels and into the past.


As Hugo hangs off his huge clock hands like Harold Lloyd, my heroine, Julia, hung between the problems of her modern day world (eating disorders, divorce) and those of the past (displaced children and rationed food.) It was a manuscript that was a LOT of fun to write.

Enjoy Hugo now, and I do hope that you'll enjoy The Gramophone Society in the future...