I’ve started working…

I've started working (again) on the interview with Nalo. (To remind, this is an academic-type piece for a proposed book, Queer Universe. They don't have a publisher yet, but if they don't find one, I'm sure I can find someplace else to place it.) I lost all my notes, of course, so I'm starting over from scratch, but it's not as bad as I feared -- I took the notes recently enough that I remember the general areas that interested me, so it's just a matter of writing them up again. I've sent Nalo two (long) questions about Brown Girl, and I'm looking forward to her responses. We'll see if we can get a few back and forth today, and then I can take Midnight Robber and Skin Folk with me and draft some more questions while I'm in Ann Arbor.

Other than that, I've been reading an interesting little chapbook by Dora Knez, Five Forbidden Things. I really like the chapbook format for this kind of collection -- it's just enough stories to give me a sense of the flavor of the author's writing. Enough to make it clear that I'll enjoy reading more by her. I hadn't read anything of hers before picking this up, so I would have hesitated to buy a $12 collection, but a $4 chapbook (from Small Beer) was just the perfect size. Nice.

Oh, and I made lunch. I've started craving curry -- these other dishes are all very well, especially the green peppers stuffed with an artichoke-salmon risotto, served with a dill-yogurt sauce, that Kevin made for me last night (the ones he made for himself had olives instead of salmon). I got back from the gym way too tired to cook, and he stepped in like a trooper. That was yummy. But there's only so long a girl can go without some fire to her food.

I took the last 10.5 oz. of grilled salmon and simmered it in a Thai red curry sauce with some green beans -- using light coconut milk and the recipe on the curry paste jar (fish sauce, basil, brown sugar, chicken stock), it came to 1120 calories for the entire pot, or 280/serving for 4 servings. Take a quarter cup of Japanese rice and cook it (80 calories) and you've got an incredibly satisfying 360 calorie meal that tastes rich and spicy and fish-a-licious and just nummy. I was afraid cooking the salmon for another fifteen minutes would make it tough and dry, but no -- it just soaked up that curry sauce flavored goodness, and stayed moist on the inside, nicely seared on the outside. I'll have that again for first dinner tonight, and heck, maybe second dinner too. That'd leave me with only 30 calories for a snack when I get back from the gym, though, so probably not. That's okay -- one dinner of it is plenty (I'll probably have Greek yogurt with honey and almonds instead, which I had for a snack yesterday), and curry keeps. I'll have more when we return from Ann Arbor. Yum yum.