By: Viviane Schwarz,
on 5/13/2014
By: Mary Lee,
on 3/21/2014
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| Flickr Creative Commons Photo by TIm Hamilton |
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By: amysecretseed,
on 3/4/2014
Today is Pancake Day! Also called Fat Tuesday or Shrove Tuesday if you take part in Lent. It’s traditionally a day to eat up all sorts of yummy things in your house that you are promising not to eat during Lent, like chocolate. It’s a long month if you’re giving up your junkiest habit so first of all you need to eat a shed-load of pancakes.
It’s strange people MAKE and EAT pancakes only one day a year.
HOW ODD?! Why only eat such a great food one day out of 365? We must change this silliness once and for all.
But how? …Time for a Seed Agent Mission.
WHAT IF?! We rename pancakes Flippers! Every time we make a pancake we call it a Flipper. Everytime we eat a pancake we call it Flipper. Everytime we see a pancake we call it a Flipper. Soon the world will call pancakes – Flippers!! And then we can eat Flippers ALL year round, and not just on Fat Tuesday.
There’s nothing that can’t be used to fill a flipper, sweet or savoury, hot or cold, the choice is yours Seed Agents! Try some veg-flippers! “Move along old-school lemon and sugar”, “Bye-bye gooey joys of chocolate”, “Hello pongy cheese, spinach and mushrooms!”
Have a go at making your own flippers here and experiment eating them with different fillings. Discover which one you like best!
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By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 2/12/2013
I haven't posted a drawing for a few days, so here you go, a caricature of Michael Portillo. 
I like trains - I even illustrated a train book - but Stuart loves them more (he's a proper anorak) and has been obsessing over Portillo's Great Railways Journeys series. I've been watching the first episodes of Mad Men Series 5 with headphones on to avoid the show, but this evening it seemed companionable to watch it together while we ate our pancakes. Drawing made it much more fun. 
That is my favourite pancake sugar, which we always buy when we go to Brussels. And I found the chocolate sprinkles in a suitcase I hadn't used for awhile, from a trip to Amsterdam. They still hadn't gone stale. Gary and I have been putting in long hours at the studio and trying to eat sensibly, but we sort of lost it today, even before the Pancake Hour. I popped out this afternoon and Gary sent me along with a little shopping list:
4 Stars Drummer Boy of John John Mark Greenwood Frané Lessac Lee and Low Books Pages: 32 Ages: 4+ Jacket: Carnival is coming and the villagers of John John, Trinidad, are getting ready to jump up and celebrate with music dancing, and a parade. Best of all, the Roti King has promised free rotis—tasty friend [...]
By: Hazel Mitchell,
on 4/25/2012
By: Emily Smith Pearce,
on 3/6/2012
I started making these a few years ago when we were going through a no-wheat exclusionary diet for my son. I thought the kids might balk at the thought of pancakes made out of chickpea flour, so I just told them they were “salty” pancakes, and the name stuck. Three of us really like them. My son is now going through a phase where he’s rejecting everything, but I still make them. They’re a quick, pantry-friendly meal, and I love that the protein and fiber from the beans goes down so easily.
The recipe is here, though there’s also one in Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. He also has one for chickpea fries that I’ve never tried, but it sounds divine.
A few notes on the recipe. You’re directed to cook the pancake partly on the stove and partly in the oven, using an ovenproof pan. Maybe my technique is lacking, but that method has never worked for me, and I cook them much like other pancakes, flipping over in the pan. Sometimes they do fall apart (don’t make them too big) but they taste good even when in bits.
Germany friends: you can find chickpea flour at Denn’s Bio and Alnatura. I’ve found the chickpea flour here in Germany to be a bit coarser than the American kind. The coarse flour makes for a slightly different (but still good) texture. You will probably need to add more water to the batter than the recipe calls for in this case. It should be about the same consistency as regular pancake batter.
I usually serve the pancakes plain with some freshly ground pepper on top and veggies on the side. The recipe says you can serve with sliced onions, which I’m sure is delicious, and I’m thinking they would also be great topped with fresh tomatoes or feta lots of other things. Enjoy!
Here’s a photo of the batter in the pan:
6 Comments on Chickpea Pancakes (Socca), last added: 3/7/2012
By: Kristin,
on 3/26/2011
By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 3/24/2011
Ha ha! I sort of forgot that when one begs and is granted an advance copy of a book, one is then expected to write a review! So here goes... starting with what arrived in the post:
Having galloped through the four Mortal Engines books and their two prequels, Fever Crumb and A Web of Air, I could hardly wait to read the third prequel, Scrivener's Moon. In fact, I couldn't wait, so I pestered Philip Reeve's publicist, Alex, until she kindly sent me an advance copy. (Oh, the joys of working with the same publisher!)
Our Shiba Inu studio dog, Momo, also had something to say about it:
YouTube link
I loved opening David Wyatt's painted covers to find Philip's own inked and yellowed map of the northern Europe of a distant future. In Scrivener's Moon, he gives us the most tangible clues to the great war which devastated the planet and rendered most technology incomprehensible to the survivors. Once again, we see people dangling old mobile phone cases as talismans, floors tiled with 'eye-pods' and computer keyboard buttons, and mangled references to London place names. And this time, again, we set off on a journey with Fever Crumb, a solemn, devastatingly practical Engineer who eschews her mother's attempts to feminise her wardrobe, to the far north to find a certain black pyramid; inside this monolith, surrounded by superstition and Night-wights, the leaders of the ever-growing city of London hope to find valuable information and stockpiles of the ancient bio-technology that reanimates corpses into the efficient killing machines known as Stalkers. For London is just becoming a power, its Engineers ruthlessly changing it from a helter-skelter pile of rough houses and streets to a well-organised unit that, for the first time, can move about on huge tracks, find better land, and chase down other towns to plunder their resources. In Scrivener's Moon, we get to ride London in its test phase as a moving city, and tumble about on it as it covers its first new ground.
Detail from the end papers map of an traction fortress of the Arkangelsk nomads, much more primitive than London's fortress and inspired by pictures of wooden churches in Norway. See a larger, colour drawing here.
Fever has another reason for wanting to find the black pyramid. In her mind, she's seen it and touched it before, and memories technologically implanted into her brain by her scientist grandfather urge her toward it; she has an inkling that the pyramid's contents will help her understand her strange physiology. But Fever's not the only one struggling with strange and overpowering memories from her ancestors. While wounded and fleeing attackers, Fever is rescued by a mammoth-riding warrior girl Cluny Morvish, who is plagued by visions of a terrible, all-consuming London. 
Philip's early doodle of Cluny Morvish (read about her on Philip's blog here)
As she and Fever try to confront the strange things going on in their heads, Fever also fights the strange twists and turns of gender identity which emerge, partly from sharing her brain with a man, but also being a complicated piece of work in her own right. I lo
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By: Jama Rattigan,
on 2/23/2010
Peaceful on the outside, looney on the inside.
Okay, enough of this whole winter wonderland thing.
It's been two weeks, and we're still covered in snow.
When I leave our driveway, I see this:
The side streets are still relegated to single lane traffic. God help you if somebody comes from the opposite direction. Then you have to back up.
I am not good at backing up.
True, we're not stranded at home or anything, and we were very lucky not to have any power outages or fallen trees.
But somebody tricked us because this snow doesn't want to melt. Kind of like those jokey birthday candles that won't blow out. This snow stays and stays and stays. To be fair, it melts a little, but ice dams on the roof prevent the water from going anywhere -- except inside the house. In our kitchen: drip, drip from a ceiling light fixture and a switch on the wall. In our upstairs guest room: floor boards buckling from water trapped between floors. Not since the frozen pipes incident of 1981 have we suffered interior damage from winter weather.
Len has spent a LOT of time chipping and thwacking away at ice. We had a huge "ice tumor" growing from the side of our house pushing against one of the heat pump units. The unit has been displaced a couple of inches. Crossing fingers that it'll continue to function okay.
Thank goodness for our animal friends! They're up to business as usual, a sure sign that Spring is coming soon. A flock of robins touched down in the neighbor's yard yesterday, and Fuzzy the Fox has been spotted sunning himself on his den porch. Just a minute ago, three deer gamboled across the front yard, and last night, a momentous occurrence -- the return of Mr. Pampano (whom we hadn't seen in about a year)! He's our resident possum, somebody with an adorable face who really should do something about his ugly tail. He was sporting a very thick fur coat which wanted brushing, and busied himself wolfing down the puppy biscuits we left out for Fuzzy. Sometimes when Fuzzy is busy daydreaming or grooming himself, Rocky Raccoon, Mr. Pampano, or the squirrels steal his food. Oh, the price one has to pay to maintain a rock star image!
Speaking of squirrels, I saw one washing his face with snow the other day. I loved how his little hands rubbed his snout and ears till they were sparkly clean. If you're going to have yard pets, it's nice to have ones who practice good hygiene.
Len's 70-something-year-old cousin, who's lived in D.C. for most of her life, said this is the worst winter she's ever experienced! She had to pay someone to extract her car from a mountain of snow and ice. We're still looking for our gas grill. It's out there, somewhere.
Meanwhile, we've been consoling ourselves with delicious pancakes. I first saw this recipe at Orangette a couple of weeks ago. Molly wrote all about "weekend mornings" and how pancakes were an essential part of them. She posted a wonder
Image via Wikipedia
If you are dining with someone important such as your boss or the president. To use this method hold your fork in your right hand and the knife in your left. Use your fork to stab the part of the pancake you wish to eat. Then proceed to cut of a piece of pancake. Make sure you do not cut a piece that is too big to fit into your mouth. A piece that is too big causes you to look like a pig as you try to fit it into your mouth.
In the casual hand style you pick up the pancake with your hands. This method is best used in the presence of people you know well and don’t really care how you act at the table. First you take the pancake and let it cool off on a plate for a while (if it is hot). After the pancake is cool enough for you to handle you can either decide to hold it in your hands and take bites or rip it into smaller pieces that you eat individually.
This is probably the funnest way to eat a pancake. You should only attempt this method if have closed all the curtains in the house and have locked all the doors. This way of eating should never be seen by anyone. To use this method take a pancake and cover it with as many toppings as you can. Then put your hands behind your back and shove your face into the pancake and start chewing. When you are done eating all your pancakes make sure to take a shower.
Eating pancakes a special and specific way makes pancakes more interesting to eat. I hope that soon you will come up with your own methods of eating to have fun with and enjoy.
Image via Wikipedia
If you are dining with someone important such as your boss or the president. To use this method hold your fork in your right hand and the knife in your left. Use your fork to stab the part of the pancake you wish to eat. Then proceed to cut of a piece of pancake. Make sure you do not cut a piece that is too big to fit into your mouth. A piece that is too big causes you to look like a pig as you try to fit it into your mouth.
In the casual hand style you pick up the pancake with your hands. This method is best used in the presence of people you know well and don’t really care how you act at the table. First you take the pancake and let it cool off on a plate for a while (if it is hot). After the pancake is cool enough for you to handle you can either decide to hold it in your hands and take bites or rip it into smaller pieces that you eat individually.
This is probably the funnest way to eat a pancake. You should only attempt this method if have closed all the curtains in the house and have locked all the doors. This way of eating should never be seen by anyone. To use this method take a pancake and cover it with as many toppings as you can. Then put your hands behind your back and shove your face into the pancake and start chewing. When you are done eating all your pancakes make sure to take a shower.
Eating pancakes a special and specific way makes pancakes more interesting to eat. I hope that soon you will come up with your own methods of eating to have fun with and enjoy.
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By: Sarah McIntyre,
on 2/24/2009
Okay, I am going to jump on the illustrators' unicorn bandwagon just this once:
I am painting like mad for an upcoming book deadline and it's so bad I even spent all night dreaming about painting it. Argh.
So I went on my date with Reginald and the four other blokes who won ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
nedroidcomics' date-Reginald competition. Reginald seemed to fancy one of the blokes more than me and he didn't call or anything, but then yesterday the postman brought this lovely signed pin-up in the post. It was so sweet, but I think we will just have to be friends.
(Today's strip is pretty awesome.)
Just saw that Garen Ewing has updated his website, and you can get a look at his workspace and drawing tools here. It looks like he's livened it up a bit since the last time I saw his desk, which he accurately described as rather Gulag-like.
Dave Shelton's done some fab little drawings of a skeleton in an orange polo neck, undoubtedly inspired by wilburonline's jumper at the DFC party.
I did a quick search for my song reference this blog post title (gotta luv John Denver) and came up with this corker:
YouTube link
By: Becky,
on 7/2/2008
Madison, Alan. 2008. 100 Days and 99 Nights.
Everyone calls me Esme, which is five letters short of my given name, Esmerelda. My middle name, Swishback, is my mother's last name before she got married. And my last name, McCarther, is spelled with two C's--the first one is a baby and the second one isn't. That's me all over: I'm Esmerelda Swishback McCarther. (1)
Esme has a younger brother, Ike, and quite a few pets. Esme is used to moving around quite a lot. Her father is in the army. She's lived in Korea, Kenya, and Germany. And the U.S., of course, where she is living now. Virginia to be exact. But her father's last assignment is a place where his family can't come with him. He'll be away on tour of duty for 100 days and 99 nights. This is Esme's story of how she copes with his absence, and copes with life in general--getting along with her brother, going to school, etc.
Esme's uniqueness manifests itself early on. She's got a "bedzoo" of animals living with her. Stuffed animals on her bed all the way from A to Z. Each chapter features an animal from her bedzoo. But Esme's uniqueness is also illustrated in her narrative voice. It's strong; it's spunky. It's vulnerable. It just feels right.
138 pages.
By: Maggie Summers,
on 3/16/2008
Moose Pancakes! That's what we had over the weekend. Or, technically, that's what we had last weekend. Since then Blogger's been a pain and I've not been able to upload a thing or you would have seen this post sooner.
I hope you have a great start to the week with a good night's sleep and we'll catch up later. Until then find out more about our experience with Moose Pancakes.
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By: BookEnds, LLC,
on 8/9/2007
Elizabeth Joy Arnold
Pieces of My Sister’s Life
Publisher: Bantam
Pub date: July 2007
Agent: Kim Lionetti
(Click to Buy)
Author Web site: www.ElizabethJoyArnold.com.
My debut novel tells the story of identical twin sisters, Kerry and Eve, whose childhood is upended when they learn that what they both want is a future only one of them can have. After an estrangement of thirteen years, Kerry returns to her childhood home to be with her ill sister and to confront Justin, the husband she thought would be hers, and Gillian, the niece who looks just like her—hoping to finally bring closure to the dark secrets and cruel betrayals that tore the sisters apart.
My publication story started like almost every writer’s, in that I suffered for years from not even being able to get agents to ask for material after I sent queries. Now somehow here I am, with a really nice deal from a big publisher, my book sitting on the lead spot in that publisher’s catalogue, a first print run number that absolutely blows my mind, newspaper interviews and print and radio ads coming up—absolutely a dream come true; I literally have to pinch myself every day, because it still doesn’t seem real to me.
So how did I get from there to here? I wish I had an easy answer to give you, but that would be acting like the herbal-supplement people who tell you they’ve got the secret to losing weight. Anyone who says they have a surefire way of getting you published is either trying to scam you or they’re a vanity publisher. I’d have to say it’s about 80% perseverance, 10% luck, and 10% “talent.” (I put quotes around talent, by the way, because although I guess there are some people who are innately talented, almost anyone can learn to write better. Talent comes primarily from hard work, I think.) So that means 90% of it is up to you.
Just a quick note on each of these:
Perseverance
People will tell you it’s nearly impossible to publish a first novel without prior publishing credits, but that’s obviously not true. In my case, I never stopped believing this was what I was meant to do, and so I kept papering my walls with rejection slips, writing new manuscripts and sending them out, and then filling another wall with rejections. I kept trying because I loved to write, not because I ever expected to get published; publication was just the cherry on top. I was happiest when I was immersed in the worlds I’d created, and so I never gave up. And eventually, people started getting interested. A few years ago, I actually had an editor at Soho Press send me an encouraging letter, along with my manuscript (he actually paid for postage) with editing marks all over it, which meant he’d read the whole thing. That little pat on the back was enough to keep me going for another few years worth of rejections.
“Talent”
I think part of the success of this novel is that I found the right story, one that my agent and publisher believe people will connect to. I learned how to write by writing daily, sometimes from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., to the point where my husband was starting to feel like a widower. And I learned by reading—I still read every spare minute, sometimes three books at a time, everything from Chekhov to Vampire novels, and I pay attention to what I like and don’t like, think of different choices I would’ve made in the writing, and what works and doesn’t work for me. (By the way, there’s very little in Chekhov that doesn’t work. . . .) For most people, this is where “talent” comes from. Not copying or emulating, of course, but learning with every book you read.
Luck
Well, this is the tricky one, because luck is mostly outside your control. But to some extent, you do make your own luck. Write the best book you can possibly write—Do rewrite after rewrite until you feel like the book is as good as it’s ever going to get. (I’ve probably written twenty versions of my second novel, and it hasn’t even gone through the editing process yet.) Do a lot of research before you decide who to query, and write a kick-ass query letter that’ll get their attention. I owe a ton to Kim, my agent, who showed so much enthusiasm for the book when she called to take me on, and I know that enthusiasm must’ve carried through to the editors she met with. So I was incredibly lucky to find the right agent, one who truly believed in my story, and just as lucky to find Caitlin, my editor, who also had so much excitement about the book that she got me excited all over again, and really pushed it to her publisher. But the luck wouldn’t have come without the hard work and perseverance.
It’s been a year and a half since I first got my acceptance from Bantam, and finally the book’s out there in the world. The book’s only just been published, and I’ve already gotten seven pieces of “fan mail,” from people who’ve bought the book. Getting those e-mails was the first time the whole thing actually began to feel real for me. The realization that people are now reading the story and meeting the characters that were alone in my head for months and months just blows me away. And that’s what made all the pain of rejection and the hard work (not to mention the carpal tunnel syndrome) worth it.
Best of luck in your own publishing adventures!
Feel free to ask Elizabeth questions in the comments. She'll drop in during the day to read and answer them.
By: Ginger Nielson,
on 8/8/2007
Are you an ILLUSTRATION ATHLETE?
Do you exercise your creative talent?
How?
It would be interesting to hear how others out there create an environment that encourages their gifts or talents.
Like any olympic swimmer, runner, or hurdler, there are obstacles to overcome in our everyday lives that may hinder our progress.
Are you ever burned out, facing ridiculous deadlines, worrying about an editor's comments?
In my own way I deal with these challenges on a day to day basis. But the most important aspect of my illustrating life is the time spent each day drawing, observing, painting, or photographing. Maybe it is the 'ink in the blood' syndrome, but for me a day isn't complete without a drawing either begun, finished or somewhere on its way to completion.
The reward, may not come in money or a new assignment, but in simply standing back and looking at the finished work, and being able to say... " Now that one, I really am proud of!"
What keeps your illustrating muscles toned?
get chick pea flour from the Indian store on Marienstrasse its finer, probably closer to what you are used to.
Thank you for that most excellent tip!
That sounds like a great idea, they look very tasty. And a good tip about where to buy the flour. I think I’ll give them a go. Thank you!
I want you to cook for me, Emily.
Okay, Joyce
We’ll have to make a date.
Great! Let me know how they turn out. You saw Awanti’s comment about the Indian store, too, I hope?