Om to the Nom.

Recipe for Mushroom Spaghetti: I thiiink if you replace the butter with margarine, the recipe that follows is vegetarian or even vegan-compatible. Depends. Is tehre actual beef in most bouillon?

In a large skillet, mix:

1/4 c chopped baby spinach
14 pearl onions, quartered
1/2 bulb garlic, finely diced
1 box mushrooms
1/2 tsp seasoned salt
1/2 tsp Old Bay seasoning
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp marjoram
1 1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp cilantro
3 tbsp olive oil, virgin
3 tbsp melted butter
3 tbsp cooking sherry
1/2 tsp oregano
1/4 tsp beef bouillon

Heat on medium until mushrooms are brown and onions are softening. Add

16 oz tomato sauce
4 oz water

Reduce on medium-high to high heat for 10 minutes or until desired thickness.
Serve over angel hair or spaghetti (angel hair should take about 10 minutes to cook if you start heating the water right when you add the tomato sauce).

Enjoy.

I am but a pawn in a greater game...

So in about a week from now, if I am industrious and just a little lucky, I'm going to be paid for a piece of fiction; the first such occurrence in my life thus far. No, I didn't say I'm going to be published (that has already happened... next goal: get paid to publish!)

What happened is, when I made my post last week about my current financial hardship, someone was paying attention. I offered to write fiction on a commission basis, as an option I found far preferable to accepting charity... and a gracious patron has taken me up on it.

Here are the terms.



For those of you not clicking that link, hradzka has given me one week to write six thousand words of publishable quality fiction. I picked fantasy as the genre -- my exact words were "dark fantasy, on the horror edge of things." He picked the prompt:

An adopted child seeks her birth parents.

She finds them.

Upon completion of a six-thousand word publishable-quality story before the deadline, I will be paid the professional rate: 5 cents per word, or in this case, $300. In exchange for this money, hradzka will receive exclusive electronic rights for my story... unless I can find another pro market to sell it to, in which case his rights become non-exclusive.

I expect that you-all will be hearing quite a lot about this. Over the next week, I am going to be writing like it is my job (because it is!). 8 hours a day of effort poured into my fiction. At least once every day, I will be posting a word count. By 6:30 PM EST, Monday, August 29th, it had better pass 6,000; or I will be trying to explain things to my credit card company.

I'm looking forward to the challenge, and grateful for the opportunity.

Let the games begin.