Super Easy Vegan Stuffed Acorn Squash, and Tasty Roasted Squash Seeds

I’m a writer, not a chef.  But I love cooking, and the writing muse has been making herself scarce lately, so I’ve been putting quite a bit of focus on finding satisfying recipes to help me transition to the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle that I hope will help me to live a longer life than my parents.  So far, at age 55, I’ve outlived my father and am only 6 years away from the age that my mom was when passed of a massive heart attack.

Playing with a few recipes I’ve seen on Pinterest and going with the ingredients I have on hand (the last local crop box of the year contained a buttload of squash!), I threw this together for tonight’s dinner.

VEGAN STUFFED ACORN SQUASH

• 1 acorn squash, halved and relieved of its pulp (Don’t throw away the pulp!  See below)
• 2 tbsp. dairy-free butter, divided
• 2 tbsp. organic brown sugar, divided.
• 2 cups garlic & herb croutons
• 1 cup vegetable broth (or enough to moisten the croutons)
• 1 cup of Daiya or other dairy-free mozzarella shreds

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Score squash halves by running knife several times up and down, then across.  Spread 1 tbsp dairy-free butter over each squash half, then sprinkle 1 tbsp brown sugar over each half.
3. In a small mixing bowl, mix croutons, vegetable broth, and dairy-free cheese shreds.  The broth should be just enough to moisten the croutons.
4. Wrap each squash half in aluminum foil and place in casserole dish or on baking sheet.
5. Bake for an hour.  The squash flesh should be tender when pierced with a fork.

Now, the best part!  TASTY ROASTED SQUASH SEEDS

While the squash is baking, separated the seeds from the pulp.  Rinse in a colander, making sure all pulp is removed.  Dry the seeds on a paper towel, toss in a small bowl with a little olive oil and salt (I used garlic salt, as I am a garlic fanatic).  Place scattered on baking sheet.  Once the stuffed squash is finished baking, turn the oven down to 300F, put the baking sheet with the seeds in the oven, and roast for 10 minutes.  I did this meaning to bring the seeds to work as a snack the next day, but they were so yummy that I ate them for dessert!

I must admit that I’ve never been a squash fan.  My mother, bless her heart, did not enjoy cooking and it showed.  She gave us squash that…well, let’s say I was put off for many years.  But I’ve been trying to put my picky eating ways behind me and open myself up to new things, especially now that I’m trying to commit to a lifestyle devoid of animal products.  When I found myself loving sweet potatoes (another food that is a dark memory from childhood – sorry, Mom!), that cracked open a door to more and more new things that I am willing to try.  Squash is one of them.

I can’t say that this recipe made me want squash as my be-all-and-end-all go-to, but the door is opening a little more.  I want to try a more ambitious stuffed squash – perhaps one that involves quinoa or something else unfamiliar.  Besides, I have all that squash from my crop box to use up.  I will learn to love it!

Pass the Veggies!

About 15 years ago, I made an attempt at becoming a vegetarian.  It lasted for about 2 weeks before I was back to cheeseburgers and t-bone steaks.  I hadn’t really known what I was doing, and it didn’t help that I’m an incredibly picky eater.  At that time, my thwarted attempt at vegetarianism was for health reasons.  My cholesterol was at 290, and my family has a history of heart disease.  My mom and grandfather (Mom’s dad) literally dropped dead of massive heart attacks.  Mom was only 62.

This time around, it’s for those same health reasons, plus an epiphany I had about a month and a half ago.  I saw the documentary “Vegucated” and saw some things I had never known about the cruelty of the meat and dairy farming industries.  No, wait!  Don’t stop reading!  I’m not here to proselytize or change anyone’s eating habits.  I’m just recounting my own personal journey.  Are we good now?

Anyway, after “Vegucated” was over, I swore that I was a vegan from that moment forward.  I really meant it.  Unfortunately, my veganism lasted for less than a day.  Once again, I’d jumped into something without really knowing what I was doing.

However, I didn’t give up entirely.  I figured there was no reason why I couldn’t start cutting my use of meat and dairy way down, and take the vegetarian road in baby steps.  The first thing I cut out entirely was milk.  I replaced dairy milk with almond milk.  The picture you see with this entry is my very first veggie-centric shopping trip, complete with almond milk, dairy-free butter substitute, and loads of fresh fruits and vegetables.

The first couple of weeks were really hard.  With my mind also on my health, I began eating fruit instead of the cakes, cookies and chocolate I love.  (Can we say major sweet tooth?)  That was harder than anything else, quite frankly.  The good thing about being a wannabe vegan these days is that there are so many products now that weren’t widely available a few years ago – vegan mayonnaise, dairy-free cream cheese, even fake bacon (which really isn’t too bad).

I’ve also watched other documentaries such as “Forks Over Knives” which promote plant-based diets, and have stocked up on vegetarian cookbooks such as both of the Thug Kitchen cookbooks and Mary McCartney’s “At My Table.”  I already had one of Mary’s mum Linda McCartney’s cookbooks from my first attempt at going veg.

I’ve already lost 10 pounds since I began this journey.  Oh yes, did I mention that this is another incentive?

Even as I write this, I have a couple of carrots marinating.  Instead of hot dogs, I’m going to have…yes, carrot dogs!  I found the recipe in the Thug Kitchen “Party Grub” cookbook and loved their description of ordering carrot dogs at an L.A. hot dog place and were prepared to mock it, but ended up ordering two more.  I’d rather have a real vegetable than fake meat, so I’m giving it a try.

It sounds trite, but I really do wish I could re-live my youth with the knowledge that I have now.  The young me was so anxious to please.  At almost middle age, I am finally learning to let go of what others think and to just please myself.  But how much different would my life be right now if I hadn’t gone through all the little things like being too shy to meet my classmates’ eyes, or closeting myself in my bedroom to read instead of trying to socialize with kids my own age?  I like and enjoy the person I am now.  I don’t want to be anything different than what I am today.  So I guess that means every painful damn thing I’ve been through to this point, has been worth it.

I’ll take it.  🙂

‘Turn around!’ Fans fail to notice John Stamos standing in front of ‘Full House’ home

Hilarious!

My short story, officially in print

This feeling is indescribable. A story of mine, “The Frontman’s Journey,” is now published and available in both print and digital versions in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. An excerpt is available at AHMM’s site.

That publication, along with Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, are the gold standards of short mystery fiction. I’ve been sending stories to both magazines for nearly 30 years. The clear lessons for every writer who feels that the ultimate goal is to be traditionally published:

1) Never give up.

2) Be open to criticism. Get a beta reader who is interested in your writing (not always the case in workshops) and who isn’t afraid to give you an honest opinion. My highly-trusted beta reader needed only to say one word to make me do some rethinking: “Ack!” But be able to listen to your instincts and heart enough to know when to take a critique to heart, and when to thank the critic but do your own thing anyway.

3) Be willing to put the work into it. The creative part is fun. The honing, shaping, and umpteenth revision are not. Not for me, anyway.

4) Never give up. And I repeat,

5) Never give up.

This is why I don’t throw away my old files

I’ve been looking forward for months to July 22, 2014 – the publication date for the October issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. That’s the issue in which my short story, “The Frontman’s Journey,” will appear.

This is especially exciting for me because I’ve been an avid fan of both AHMM and its sister publication, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, for several decades.  If memory serves (and it doesn’t always!), I discovered them when I was a teenager in the late 1970s, working a part-time salesclerk job at a mall that boasted both a Waldenbooks and a B. Dalton Bookseller.  I left much of my salary behind at those two stores.  I’ve been trying for almost that long to have one of my own short mystery stories accepted by AHMM and EQMM.  As far as I’m concerned, if your work is published by either of them, you’ve hit the gold standard.

Today is July 20, and I was delighted to find out last night that the digital version of AHMM, containing my story, is already available on Amazon.com.  Even though I really, really want to hold the actual paper hard copy of the magazine in my hands, I couldn’t wait.  I had to buy the digital version to see how my story looks.  I wondered if they would give it an illustration, and they did.  It looks awesome on my Kindle, and will look even better on paper!

The truly cool thing is the way that “The Frontman’s Journey” could have been a never-was.

Every writer works differently.  That’s the awesome thing about writing:  it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as the result is an entertaining, well-written story.  A few of my writer friends never keep the files, notes, etc. of stories that, for whatever reason, didn’t pan out.  I’m the opposite.  I keep everything.  I still have copies of stories, notes, and revisions that I created back in high school.

“The Frontman’s Journey” started out as a couple of paragraphs jotted down a few years ago.  I had a vision of two rock-and-roll band members driving down the highway.  I’m a huge fan of 1980s rock music, and I often find a way to work my true loves into my fiction. After I wrote those first few paragraphs, I was lost.  I couldn’t figure out where to go with it.  So I shrugged and went on to something else, but I kept the file.  Those few paragraphs might be just a weak sploot of uselessness, but as my Depression-era grandparents used to say, you never know when you might need it.  Grandma and Grandpa were absolutely right.  I’ve been able to go back and harvest quite a bit of my old cast-off stuff for ideas, lines, and characters.

Anyway, not long afterward, I became a member of an online workshop called The Writing Bridge.  There were monthly writing challenges in which all members had to participated, either by writing a story or by reading the contributions and voting.  One month, a challenge to write about a journey brought to mind that few paragraphs of bandfic that had gone nowhere.  With the inspiration of a journey, the story ideas suddenly flowed.

That first version was hastily written.  My Bridge challenge entries were always hastily written, since I always seemed to decide at the very last minute that I wanted to enter. But once the challenge was over, I had plenty of time to do serious revisions and shape it into a story that I would be proud to have carry my name, and that I would be excited for mystery fans to read.

For me, the lesson goes beyond saving my old files.  The real lesson is this:  Never give up!  At the age of those middle-aged musicians in my story, I’ve finally achieved one of my most important dreams. There is everywhere to go from here.

867-5309

867-5309

If you grew up in the 1980s – or, hell, have any knowledge of 1980s music at all – you just sang that phone number. And maybe even added a, “Jennnnny, I’ve got your number” for good measure.

If you don’t recognize that number, then Google it. You’ll be treated to 3 minutes of absolute fun.

On the other hand, you might wind up that time thinking that you’ll never get back the 3 minutes you just spent listening to Tommy Tutone wailing about Jenny’s number on the wall.

That song is pretty much what you make it. It can be fun, or it can be a big drag. That’s how I listen to music. I started out this piece intending to compare it with writing, but I’m rethinking that.

Writing is fun. For most of us, the fun lasts throughout the creative process of getting all your thoughts down. Then comes the part that’s not-so-fun for me: editing, rewriting, getting it all into a condition that makes it fun for other people to read.

This sounds simplistic, but today’s publishing world is becoming more and more a world of immediate gratification. Not that there’s anything inherently wrong with immediate gratification, mind you. But when you’re putting your soul and blood out there in a piece of writing, you’ve got to make sure it’s your best piece of work. If you’re after traditional publishing, the reason is obvious: you need to look your best in order to please editors and publishers.

Self-publishing doesn’t mean that you can let down your guard. In my opinion, it means you need to be even more vigilant. Especially since Internet = Forever. Do you want your story to be the one that is wonderful but is immediately invalidated because it portrays someone using a cell phone in 1984?

I was an aerobics instructor (these days called a “group fitness instructor”) from 1986 to 1997. I focused on fun in my classes, because that was the way to get people to want to participate. I used “867-5309” in one of my most popular routines, pointing to one side of the room to sing the chorus of “867-5309,” and then pointing to the other side of the room to sing the responding “867-5309.”

Make it fun. Make it memorable. But for God’s sake, make it without grammatical errors, because there is going to be someone like me who will voice their honest opinion in their Goodreads and/or Amazon review

One of These Things is Not Like the Others

Hey, how did that Nook get in there?!

I admit it.  I even say it with some pride: I’m an old-school reader (and writer, too, but right now I’m just speaking as a reader).  I love the weight of the book in my hands and the feel of the paper as I turn the pages.  Some of my fellow book lovers say they love the smell of books, too, but I personally only hold that true of new books.  Old books, especially ones that haven’t been stored correctly, have always smelled musty and gross to me.  Oh, I’ll still read them, but I’m not going to plunge my nose between the pages and take a huge whiff like some of my fellow bibliophiles say they do.

One thing that’s become important to me in the past couple of years is donating my books after I’m finished.  When I was growing up, escaping to other worlds through books was vital to my existence.  I couldn’t always afford to buy my own books.  Libraries are wonderful, but not everybody has access to them.  Especially these days, as budget cuts begin to make them disappear.  It’s important to me to do my part to help reading be available to people who don’t have much money.

I also want to support brick-and-mortar bookstores.  Especially small businesses that are locally owned.

This being said…

Last November, Barnes & Noble had their basic Nook Simple Touch Reader on sale nearly half price for Black Friday.  Up to that point, I had thumbed my nose at e-readers.  However, as a writer, I’d been reluctantly tossing around the idea of looking into one.  I may be old school in my views, but the world of publishing is changing whether I like it or not.  So, impulsively, I ordered the Nook.

I feel guilty even saying this, but I fell in love with it immediately.

Reason #1 I love my Nook:  reading in bed.  Who among us has not fallen asleep in bed with the open book tumbled gently beside our snoring faces?  The e-reader is a lazy person’s dream.  I can lie on my side with the Nook propped up on the other pillow.  No need to hold it, or hold the pages down.  I don’t even need to turn the pages.  Just lift a finger and flick.

It also makes reading easier when I’m lying on the sofa.  I can rest my hand beside my face and prop the Nook against it.  That, however, poses its own problem.  When I fall asleep while reading (as I inevitably do), my hand relaxes and the Nook falls off the edge of the sofa.  After the first few such tumbles, I now place a pillow on the floor beside the sofa whenever I lie down to read there.

And when I’m at lunch at work, I don’t have to try to hold pages down.  Just rest the e-reader beside my sandwich and I’m golden.

Reason #2 I love my e-reader:  I’ve got around 30 books on it now, and can carry them all with me anywhere I go.  If I’m sitting around waiting for my car to be washed (I get unlimited free washes at the dealership where I bought my Honda) and the book I’m currently reading begins to bore or otherwise displease me, I can easily move on.

Still, I feel horribly guilty.  I’m trying to keep in mind that old childhood nursery rhyme:  “Make new friends but keep the old.  One is silver, the other gold.”

In the same vein, I’ve recently gotten out my old Nikon 35mm film camera.  Like a book, the weight of it feels wonderful in my hands.  So wonderful that I’ve decided to make it my primary camera again.  It’s like seeing an old friend again after a long time and picking up right where you left off.

I like my new silver friends, the digital camera and the e-reader.  But my old friends, the analog Nikon and the paper-and-ink books – those are gold.

What Makes You Happy – Uh Huh?

“What Makes You Happy”, by the way (complete with uh-huhs aplenty), was the B-side of K.C. & the Sunshine Band’s 1970s hit, “That’s the Way I Like It.”   This was one of those cases in which I liked the B-side as much, if not more, than the A-side.

However, this post isn’t about whether or not you know what a B-side is.  If you don’t, Google it or ask your parents.  This is about songs that just plain make you happy.  If you’re like me, music’s importance in life cannot be underestimated, whether it creates the mood for writing or sets the soundtrack to your life.

Led Zeppelin was undoubtedly the most important driving force in my formative years.  But that was different than what I’m talking about here.  I’m not necessarily discussing my favorite artists right now, or songs that I think are the best ever.  Just my top 6 songs – all rock or pop, ’cause that’s how I roll – that are guaranteed to bring me to a happy place.  6 songs, because why do 5 when I can do 6?  Let the countdown begin:

6. “Shake Your Booty” – K.C. & the Sunshine Band –  What, did you think K.C. & the Sunshine Band weren’t going to make the list?  Actually, any of their songs lift me up.  They’re called the Sunshine Band for a reason.

5. “You’re the One That I Want” – John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, from the “Grease” soundtrack – Maybe it’s just that the youthful John and Olivia look so great together at the end of the movie, but this song is incredibly joyous and full of hope.

4. “I Can See Clearly Now” – Johnny Nash – When someone with such a clear, pure voice sings about having a bright, bright sunshiny day, you can’t help but believe you’re really going to have one.

3. “Spirit in the Sky” – Norman Greenbaum – A strong, thrumming beat instead of the light tune of #4, but just as uplifting.

2. “Top of the World” – The Carpenters – With a voice like Karen Carpenter’s singing about everything she wants the world to be “now coming true especially for me…”  Just happy, happy, happy.

And my top make-me-happy song:

1. “Karma Chameleon” – Culture Club –  For a writer, I often pay amazingly little attention to song lyrics.  Especially if the melody is upbeat.  Case in point:  “Karma Chameleon” had been my #1 happy song for at least 10 years when I told an acquaintance that it was my happy song, and she demanded, “Haven’t you ever listened to the lyrics?  It’s a break-up song!”  She went on to tell me that Boy George had written it about his tumultuous relationship with Jon Moss and furthermore, the rest of the band hated the lyrics so much that they made up the stupidest music they could think of so that nobody would want it.  Alas for them, it became one of their biggest hits.

I’ve never really looked into it to find out if my friend’s version of the Boy George/Culture Club thing was indeed true. I did, however, finally listen – really listen – to the lyrics.  And yeah, I guess a song that starts out with someone singing about listening to his lover’s wicked lies every day, is not coming from a good place.

Still, I reserve the right to keep “Karma Chameleon” as my go-to happy song.  Too late to change that now.

The Writing Life: Passion or Circumstance?

I like to think that I’d feel the same lifelong excitement about writing no matter what.  But really, has it been part ability, part nurturing?  What does it truly mean to be surrounded by people who believed in me?

I’ve always known that I’m a writer.  Note that I did not say, “I always I knew I wanted to be a writer.”  Because even as a kid, the excitement of seeing my imagination come to life via pencil and paper made it very clear that there was no question.  No “want to be” about it.  I’ve always been a writer.

My grandparents, who had the nothing-goes-to-waste mentality of many who’ve lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s (okay, they were hoarders), had boxes of discarded business memos from a local corporation.  My aunt worked there as a tour guide.  The idea in bringing this stuff home, I’m sure, was at least partly because the blank flip-side of the memos made ideal scratch paper for us kids to draw on and amuse ourselves.

My start as a writer came at age 5 or 6, when my grandfather stapled multiple sheets of this old memo paper together for me to use to write my own “books.”  The length of each book depended on how many sheets of paper he stapled together.  I don’t remember if the original idea was mine or his.  Possibly mine, since I was the only one of my siblings who did this.  I illustrated every page of my books, too.  The less said about my artwork, the better.

So I had family support right from the start.  One of the proudest moments of my young life was when I received an “A” on a poem I wrote for a school class, and my grandmother accused me of copying it from somewhere.  Okay, so that part of it isn’t particularly supportive, but I was 9 or 10 years old and smart enough to know that if Grandma thought my poem had been written by an adult, I really had something going on.

Grandpa’s stapled memo sheets transitioned to my own stapled sheets of double-sided notebook paper on which I wrote adolescent novella-length stories featuring Sugar Barry, my own version of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden.  This morphed into spiral notebooks.  At age 15, I wrote my first novel in 3 spiral notebooks.

My mom, despite being downtrodden with 5 volatile kids and a husband who would come home from the bar at 3:00 AM to croon “Oh Lonesome Me” accompanied by his guitar, always made time to read my writing.  With that first youthful novel, I naively wrote a scene in which a dying boy’s mother rushes from the hospital room because she couldn’t bear to see him die.  Mom advised me that no mother would leave her dying son’s bedside.

When I was 16, I worried her with knife-wielding, wrist-slicing murder and suicide poems with titles like “Fire and Ice” and “From a Suicide.”  (I never did tell her that she had every reason to be worried.  I suffered from deep bouts of depression and serious emotional disturbance as a teen – all undiagnosed and untreated, because this was the 1970s and society felt I should “just cheer up” and “quit mooning over boys.”  But that’s for another time.)

When I graduated from high school, it was Mom’s idea to take a creative writing class together at a city college.  In my 30s, she was thrilled when I wrote a character based on her into a mystery novel.  She called me excitedly from Boston to talk about the ending and her character’s secret life.

In fact, the more I matured as a writer, the more exasperating it became to show my work to Mom.  In those days before the internet and online writing workshops, I wanted honest feedback.  In Mom’s eyes, everything I wrote was great.  That was no help!  I needed guidance, not a fangirl.

However.

Would my strong sense of knowing myself as a writer be different if I hadn’t had lifelong encouragement and support?  I like to think that, no matter what, the passion of writing would always have burned within me, yada yada.  But what if my grandfather hadn’t stapled together makeshift books for me and praised the results?  What if Mom had been indifferent to my writing, or told me to quit wasting my time?  What if I hadn’t also been an avid reader who knew what to do with the overblown fantasies in my head?   What if I hadn’t been a painfully shy, perpetually bullied introvert who had nowhere else to release my feelings?

Is a writer nurtured, or is it all just a matter of circumstance?  Right time, right place, etc.   I know gifted writers who don’t see themselves as such because they have shockingly little faith in themselves.  (A particular shame, considering there are too many people who think they are talented writers but desperately need to rethink that.  Again, something for another time).  Nature, or lack of nurture?

I’d love to hear from my fellow authors.  What’s your story?  Has the support system around you been vital to your journey?

I had planned on a different topic this week, but my mom has been on my mind.  Eleven years ago on February 7, she died during a massive heart attack.  I miss my biggest fan.