KTEH -- Doctor Who

A reminder to anyone in the KTEH area that New Who starts at 8...

food porn

I did indeed buy duck legs, and start the preparation for confit this afternoon, according to the recipe kindly supplied by desperance here:
http://community.livejournal.com/foodanddrink/4293.html

Two slight hiccups, in that the legs in the New Castro Market this week are larger than the last time I experimented with confit, and thus will not fit in the same Pyrex dish as last time, and in that I forgot about the bay leaves. The latter is no real problem, but the former might be, as the quantity of stored duck fat assumed a particular cooking dish. There is a larger Corningware dish available -- we shall see on the morrow whether it matches both the quantity of duck legs and the quantity of duck fat.

Long term food preparation also happened, in that yesterday I planted the Siberia tomato in the pot on one side of the patio door, and today planted the Black From Tulsa tomato in the pot on the other side of the door. Both went in on a layer of banana skins at the bottom of the pot topped by only a thin layer of compost, so that I could bury the lower stems below the final surface of the compost. It will help them develop better root systems, a necessity in this climate where they need all the water-gathering capacity they can get even when well watered. I'm planning to put the Yellow Pear in the other patio pot, with the rest of the plants going in the bed in the front garden. There was a minor virus outbreak last week with yellow-mottled leaves, suspected vector being the Roma plum tomato bought a week or two after the rest, but the infected leaves were removed and all but the Roma are still looking healthy and vigorous. Several of the plants have put forth their first flower trusses in the last few days, although at this point they're still tightly in bud.

The pineapple sage is coming along nicely after winter, with a flush of flowers that's keeping the hummingbirds very happy, and enough fresh leaves for me to use occasionally. The grape vine has thoroughly broken bud, and various other things are poking up from the soil. It'll be a while before there's anything other than rosemary in great abundance, but I forsee lunch components straight from the garden in the near future...

Book review: Chaz Brenchley -- Outremer 6/6: The End of All Roads

I still need to write an overview of the series as a whole, but here's the review of the final volume in the US edition:

Chaz Brenchley -- Outremer 6/6: The End of All Roads

Over the last five volumes, Brenchley has laid out a large number of plot strands. Now he weaves them together in a final volume that sustains the tension almost to the end. The folded land of Surayon is folded no more, and has become a battleground for multiple warring armies, not all of them human. The different human armies are at war with one another, but face a greater enemy -- if they can recognise it in time. The central characters of the series face their own battle to protect the many people and things they love, not all of which are on the same side. Marron's battle is particularly harsh, for he has sworn, with good reason, to never again use the power of the Daughter to kill.

Even in the midst of battle, this is a character-driven story, and there's some beautiful development of character, as each of the surviving main characters is tested to the breaking point. That's "surviving", because right the way through this has not been your fluffy fantasy where only the redshirts die. There's no gratuitous gore, but that's not because the author flinches away from showing the reality of a land at war. As a result, there's genuine suspense right to the last chapter.

At the end of the battle for Surayon, there's one last conflict to resolve. The King of all Outremer has until now been an off-stage figure, shown only through what others say about him, and the effects of the magical power he wields. And the survivors from various sides have questions they would like answered about his failure to intervene in their war at an early stage. They get their answers, but answers that pose more questions.

While Brenchley answers the reader's questions, it's far from a neat and tidy ending. A satisfying one, with Julianne, Elisande and Marron pragmatic enough to be content with what they've got, but certainly not a tidy one.

As a whole then, this is a wonderful and unusual fantasy series, with this volume providing a fitting conclusion. And while romance isn't the be-all and end-all of the plot, the series is definitely one for fans of unconventional romance, so long as they don't insist on all parties getting an unambiguous Happy Ever After.

Outremer #6: The End of All Roads (Outremer, 6) 6/6 at Amazon US
Hand of the King's Evil (Outremer) 3/3 at Amazon US
Chaz Brenchley's website