Back in Action...

I left the blogging world behind for a time.  There were other things going on in my life.  Things that needed to get sorted out.  Priorities decided upon.  One of those priorities, a major one, is writing.  While I have exchanged my CNA position at the VA hospital for a new one there as a cardiac telemetry technician (an improvement in nearly all ways), I plan on eventually making my living as a writer.  That means it is high time to jump back into the blogging multiverse.  I'm hatching plans (shhh - it's all very hush-hush - if I tell you more I'll have to kill you, and all that...) while working on an outline for a cookbook and an urban fantasy/horror novel.  I know that's an odd pair of projects, and I suspect that food will seep into that novel.  Other potential projects include gathering my poetry into book form, and a book about martial arts/culture.  Did I mention I'll be helping my wife put her words onto (digital) paper, too?  Oi.  It's going to be busy, but fun.

This blog has stood dormant for some time.  I'll be dusting things off, re-organizing, and fleshing it out.  I've already added some links, off to the right, and eliminated a couple I knew were no longer working.  The picture on the header is of an Uzbek pomegranate-and-onion salad I made a while back.  Quite tasty, that. My wife and I have plans to enter the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest and the Sutter Home Build a Better Burger Contest this summer.  We've got a couple ideas for burgers, already, and need to start testing them in the next couple of weeks, but we have to wait for the 4th of July to find out what the lists of mandatory ingredients are for the Bake-Off, before we can make firm plans there.  In the meantime, we are going to attend our first Portland Preservation Society meeting next week.  Other things in the works will be reviews of some recent cookbook acquisitions and profiles of some of the international food shopping options in our area.  I hope to see you here.

The Portland Preservation Society...

The Oregonian, the greater Portland area newspaper, recently published an article, "Fare Trade: Portland Preservation Society gathers once a month to swap prize preserves", about the Portland Preservation Society, which was celebrating it's first anniversary recently.  Founded by Brooke Weeber and some friends, the group members meet monthly to swap jars of homemade preserved goods of all shapes, sizes and varieties.  It's free to go - people bring up to five jars of whatever they put up, to trade - and looks like great fun to my wife and I.  The next meeting is at 7PM, July 3, at Union/Pine, 525 S.E. Pine St.  We have lots of ideas for what we want to take to the meetings, in months to come.  Hopefully, we'll get a good crop of quinces from our tree this year.  I'd like to make another batch of paradise jelly, as well as some other Middle Eastern preserves I've got recipes for.  I'm thinking we'll cook up a pot of Peach Chutney with Dried Cherries and Rosewater for next week. Recipe and pictures will appear later in the week, with news (and pics, hopefully) about the meeting next week.