Canning mushrooms

Since Older Daughter has established herself as our live-in chef (she enjoys cooking but not cleaning up; I don't mind cleaning up but don't enjoy cooking), she's been regularly using the supply of mushrooms I have canned up in the pantry.

So last time I was in the city, after dropping Younger Daughter off at the Spokane Airport, I made a point to purchase a quantity of mushrooms with an eye toward rebuilding our stockpile. I would have bought more, but this is all they had in stock.

Canning mushrooms is easy, though of course they must be pressure-canned. I used my new canning guide from the USDA.

Since mushrooms should be hot-packed, I split them into two pots...

...then filled the pots with enough water to boil the mushrooms, putting on lids to trap the heat.

While the mushrooms were cooking, I washed some jars.

Draining the mushrooms.

Filling the jars.

Adding a half-teaspoon of salt to each jar.

Topping with boiling water.

Into the canner. Those four flats provided enough mushrooms to fill twelve pint jars.

I processed the mushrooms for 45 minutes at 12 lbs. pressure. Well, 14 lbs. A little bit higher pressure is fine.

A dozen jars of mushrooms still leaves me lower in stock than what I'd like, but that's okay. Next time I'm in the city, I'll pick up more and can another batch.

Man, I love canning.

Front cover art for my latest book

The front cover art for my latest book "The Amish Midwife's Bargain" (available in November) has been finalized.

I stinkin' love this cover. Also, I believe this is, hands down, my favorite book I've written so far, and I'm pleased the cover art reflects it. The hero, incidentally, has a severe facial disfigurement, so my editor suggested he be featured from the back.

What's interesting is how this cover evolved. For every book, authors must submit a detailed "Art Fact Sheet" to help the art department design an appropriate cover. Among the information we submit are sample photos of real people who resemble the characters, as well as background images resembling three different scenes in the book.

For obvious reasons, photos of Amish people in precise settings are hard to find, so most of the time I simply use "English" people. However I was fortunate enough to come across this photo and instantly uploaded it to the Art Fact Sheet:

(I kinda wish they'd kept the Jersey cows from the original photo instead of turning them into Holsteins on the cover, but whatever.)

You can see how well the art department blended the original photo with the elements of the story.

An earlier version of the cover (which I'm not permitted to post) had some problems. Per the email I wrote to my editor: "I have two smallish concerns. One, it looks like the hero is wearing jeans and a belt. The Amish wear neither. Perhaps the art department could remove the belt and stitching, and just make his trousers a solid color? And two, there is an electric fan to the right of the Hero's head. (If I peer closely, it looks like a couple of electric ceiling lights too, one of them to the right of the heroine's head.) Obviously the Amish wouldn't have anything electric, so hopefully those can be removed. Otherwise the artwork is beyond beautiful – the colors, the postures, everything."

The final cover addressed every one of those concerns, and I couldn't be more pleased with the result. I have to admit, the art department at Harlequin absolutely rocks.

I thought you'd appreciate a little glimpse into how a book cover evolves.

Random pix

Sorry for the silence, dear readers. I've had a nutty week with multiple writing deadlines and lots of things on my plate. So rather than write anything witty (my brain is pretty fried), I'll simply show you a selection of random photos I've taken over the last couple of weeks.

Black-chinned hummer.

Early-morning sunshine on dewy grass.

Busy robin feeding babies.

Some elk watching us from a nearby pasture.

Oak leaves.

For some reason, though, the tree is sporting a few red leaves, even this late in spring. No idea why.

We had this handsome boy grazing in our yard one afternoon.

Potatoes. I took this photo on May 30, so they're even lusher and taller now.

A neighbor's horse, framed by tree branches.

Aftermath of a thunderstorm...

...which left behind a beautiful double rainbow...

...as well as a pretty sunset.

My nuclear strawberries are starting to produce heavily. I'll be picking a generous bowl full every other day.

This was the first harvest. It's ramped up since I took this photo.

Some sneaky robins are enjoying the fruit too.

One last holdout. I figured breeding season was over, but evidently this fellow disagrees.

I removed this spider egg sac lest it get buried during a project. It ripped open and all the eggs were visible.

Poofy afternoon clouds.

Frumpkin, Older Daughter's cat, looking exceptionally cute.

So there you go, some random photos from the last few weeks. Hopefully I'll get all my writing deadlines done in the next couple of days and can un-fry my brain.

And so it begins...

I'm working on an article that's due shortly. For a variety of reasons, I decided to submit a HARO query to obtain additional information for this article.

HARO stands for "Help a Reporter Out," and it's a service that connects journalists to sources. I joined years ago when the business was in its infancy, and it's always served me very well.

The way it works is I formulate a query ("Looking for people with expertise in xyz") and send it to HARO. They post it and blast it out to a million subscribers in one of their twice-a-day email alerts. Anyone with the expertise I'm seeking submits their answer, which is then forwarded to me. (To answer a reader's question, the service has several levels of membership; I'm using the "free" level.)

I've used HARO dozens of times, most notably back when I was writing for Crafts Report Magazine (now called Handmade Business) when it was a convenient method to connect with artists and crafters outside my sphere of influence. I "cyber-met" some fascinating and talented people through HARO queries.

Anyway, that's a long-winded way of explaining what HARO is, and why I'm skilled in submitting the types of queries that will garner me precisely the information I need for what I'm writing. Crucially, however, I haven't sent a HARO query in several years.

Yesterday I sent in a HARO query, and today it got posted. Almost immediately I received six replies.

Except ... here's the thing: Four of them were AI-generated.

How could I tell? Because all four had almost identical formats. They started as follows:

"I am [name deleted], Director of [company deleted], a digital marketing agency. With a passion for web development and design, my focus on usability and user experience has been instrumental in [company name's] success. Here is my suggestion for your query..."

 

Or, "I am [name deleted], Co-Founder and Managing Director of [company deleted], with 20 years of IT experience, a Master's in Networking, and many industry certifications. Simplifying IT for reliable business tools and faster repair. Here is my suggestion for your query..."

 

The suggestions were then some short little blah-blah piece of nonsense that had very little to do with the subject matter I was seeking. Not only that, but all four replies allegedly came from high-tech companies, completely at odds with the rural-themed subject I was seeking. The company websites were allegedly genuine, unless websites are AI-generated these days...?

The remaining two replies were clearly human-generated, with cheerful greetings and relevant information.

I thought about lodging my concerns to HARO, but it's not their business to filter replies; it's simply their business to connect journalists to sources. It's up to me to filter out the AI nonsense.

 

It's a brave new world out there, folks...

Beautiful gopher snake

We took Darcy for a walk a few days ago and saw this large and beautiful gopher snake on the road. We don't normally see snakes this large. It was about two and a half feet long.

What's funny is Darcy walked right past it without noticing – I'm guessing he thought it was a stick – and when Don and I scooted the snake off the road so it wouldn't get run over, the dog leaped back in surprise and astonishment. The stick moved on its own!

For a day or two afterward, Darcy regarded any sticks on the road with caution. Can't be too careful about those moving sticks.

Homemade horchata

Years ago when Younger Daughter was just out of boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois, she stopped in a Mexican grocery store and discovered the drink horchata.

She loved it, but hardly ever had it again, especially during the years she was in Japan. So while visiting us, she decided to try her hand at making some. She used this recipe.

Here are the ingredients: Milk, rice, cinnamon, nutmeg, and sweetened condensed milk (and an empty container).

To the rice...

...she added the milk, condensed milk, and spices.

Next, hot water.

She stirred everything, then covered the bowl and put it in the refrigerator overnight.

The next morning she strained out the solids and reserved the liquid.

To the blender, she added the rice with some of the reserved liquid.

As it turned out, the blender wouldn't churn with so much rice in it, so she had to blend it in two batches.

Then it was back through the strainer again.

What remained in the strainer was a sort of viscous blobby ball of starch.

She re-blended it with a bit of liquid, and after that it strained through.

After this, it was a simple matter of pouring the horchata into jars and chilling it in the fridge.

A sprinkle of cinnamon, and it was ready to drink. A very delicious and refreshing summer treat!