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French toast with berries
Food, restaurants and cookingTravel

French Toast As Served On Five Railroads

by Diane Duane

(I was hunting around for the below quote from James D. Porterfield’s classic cookbook/research book Dining By Rail, and found that its original online location had vanished. This post appears at my Tumblr as well, but because of the change to data management permissions over there, I’ve reposted it here.)

(PS: this is a real passion for me. When Peter and I are on the rails over on this side of things, we always head straight to the dining car and spend most of the trip there. The windows are bigger, for one thing. But the people-watching is also superior, and the food on some European railways – especially on the SBB, the Swiss National Railways – is always at least really good, and often superb, even in these days of cutbacks. Anyway, I collect old railway recipes from both sides of the Atlantic, and cook them when I can. These are fabulous — especially the Santa Fe’s recipe — and the Northern Pacific’s dedicated French toast bread is worth making at any time.)

A predominantly male ridership, in a time when dietary health concerns were not voiced, assured beefsteak its perennial place as the most popular food item on dining-car menus of transcontinental trains. Aside from the quality of the cut, however (where the Union Pacific, with its ready access to the stockyards at Omaha, Nebraska, surely prevailed), distinction could only be established with cosmetics. Thus, the Cotton Belt Route topped its steaks with a pimento cut to the distinctive shape of its logo, and the Union Pacific – leaving nothing to chance – served its steaks with a large fried onion ring, unique for its coating of potato flour and potato meal.

 

In meeting the demand for the second-most-requested item, apple pie, the railroads played up whatever apple of the season was grown by their shippers. Beyond that rather important distinction, only a pie’s crust and toppings could differ, as the nutmeg sauce that topped Fred Harvey’s French apple pies and the sweet pastry crust of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad attest.

 

It fell, then, to French toast to become the most popular menu item that was both common to the various railroads, yet creatively distinctive. And as the samples below demonstrate, chefs responded with some dazzling variations on the classic formula of stale bread soaked in an egg-and-milk wash, then fried. These frequently requested recipes were distributed to patrons to share with others, giving special meaning to the concept of “word-of-mouth” marketing. The Northern Pacific Railway went so far as to develop a flavorful bread used for its French toast, one suitable for use with all the recipes provided.

TOAST BREAD (NORTHERN PACIFIC)

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: large mixing bowl, medium mixing bowl

two 8″ x 4″ bread pans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

Preparation time: 21h hours

Yield: 2 loaves

  • 2 pkgs. active dry yeast
  • 3 Tbsp. sugar
  • ¾ cup warm water
  • 1 & ½ cups warm milk
  • 1 Tbsp. dry malt
  • 2 Tbsp. shortening
  • 5-5 ½ cups all purpose flour
  • 1 Tbsp. salt

In large bowl, combine yeast with sugar and warm water and let stand for 8-10 minutes. Add milk, salt, dry malt, and shortening. Mix at low speed until blended.

Add 3 cups of flour and beat thoroughly. Using a wooden spoon, gradually stir in enough of remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough. On floured surface, knead dough until smooth and elastic. Place in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 40 minutes. Punch down dough, divide in half, and let rest for 10 minutes. Form loaves and place in the greased bread pans. Let rise again until doubled, about 35 minutes. Bake for 40 minutes.

For the best French toast, allow bread to become stale by storing in a paper bag at room temperature for 2-3 days. If bread is still moist when sliced, expose each side to air for up to an hour before using. Slice as directed by the individual recipes.

NORTHERN PACIFIC FRENCH TOAST

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: shallow dish, large skillet, Heat oil for frying to hot

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

  • 2 slices bread
  • 2 eggs, slightly beaten
  • ½ cup milk
  • 1 Tbsp. sugar
  • ¼ tsp. salt
  • ¼ tsp. cinnamon butter or shortening to fry

Cut bread into ½-inch slices and cut slices in half diagonally. Mix eggs, milk, sugar, salt, and cinnamon well in a shallow dish. Dip bread into mixture. Fry it in a little butter or shortening until golden brown on both sides. Serve hot with topping of your choice.

SOO LINE SPECIAL FRENCH TOAST

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: deep fryer, shallow dish

Preheat frying oil to hot

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

  • 2 slices bread
  • 1 egg, well beaten
  • pinch salt
  • 3 oz. light cream

Cut bread in ½-inch slices and cut slices in half diagonally. In a shallow dish, make a batter of well-beaten egg, salt, cream, and sugar. Dip bread in batter and fry to a golden brown in hot, deep fat. Remove and drain. Sprinkle with fruit, maple syrup, or honey and serve immediately.

PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD FRENCH TOAST

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: electric mixer, mixing bowl, large skillet, paper towels

Heat oil for frying to hot

Preparation time: 30 minutes

Yield: 4 servings

  • 8 slices white bread, cut 3/8 inch thick
  • 1 & ½ cups milk
  • pinch salt
  • 2 oz. butter, at room temp
  • 3 Tbsp. powdered sugar
  • ¼ tsp. vanilla or cinnamon
  • 6 Tbsp. strawberry preserves
  • 3 eggs
  • oil for frying

Spread one side of 4 slices of bread with butter. Spread one side of the other 4 slices of bread with preserves. To make sandwiches, press well together a buttered slice of bread onto a slice spread with preserves. Trim crust carefully and cut each sandwich into four triangles. In a mixer, beat eggs and sugar well together for at least 10 minutes. Add salt, milk, and vanilla or cinnamon and beat well again. Lay small sandwiches in this mixture, carefully turning them over to soak well. Drain on paper towels. Fry in a very little hot oil. Remove when of nice golden brown color and drain. Dust with powdered sugar and serve hot with maple syrup.

FRENCH TOAST, UNION PACIFIC STYLE

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: shallow bowl, large skillet. Heat oil for frying to hot

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Yield: 1 serving

  • 2 slices white bread
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 Tbsp. light cream
  • 1 Tbsp. clarified butter
  • 1 Tbsp. lard
  • powdered sugar

Cut two slices of bread ¾-inch thick and trim crust. Cut diagonally, making four triangular pieces. Beat eggs and cream together well. Dip bread triangles in mixture and fry until golden brown in hot butter and lard. Serve hot and well drained. Top may be sprinkled with powdered sugar if desired.

FRENCH TOAST A LA SANTA FE

This special and renowned recipe, perhaps the best French toast of them all, was perfected by Fred Harvey chefs in 1918 for the Santa Fe Railway’s dining cars. It produces a puffy, golden brown delicacy. The Santa Fe Railway dining-car service, at its peak, provided nearly 1 million breakfasts a year. This item perennially topped the “most popular” list.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

You’ll need: small mixing bowl, whisk, 12-inch cast iron skillet, paper towels, baking sheet

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Yield: 2 servings

  • 2 slices white bread, cut ¾ inch thick
  • 2 eggs
  • pinch salt (optional)
  • ½ cup light cream
  • ½ cup cooking oil

Place cooking oil in skillet, heat to hot. Meanwhile, cut each bread slice diagonally to form four triangles, and set aside.

In small bowl, combine eggs, cream, and salt and beat well. Soak bread thoroughly in egg/cream mixture. Fry soaked bread in hot oil to a golden brown on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Lift from skillet to clean paper towel and allow to absorb excess cooking oil.

Transfer to baking sheet and place in oven. Bake 4-6 minutes, until bread slices have puffed up. Serve sprinkled with powdered sugar and cinnamon and apple sauce, currant jelly, maple syrup, honey, or preserves, and bacon, ham, or sausage if desired.

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The Feuerzangerbowle lady gets ready to torch a booze=soaked sugar cube
ChristmasDrinkEuropeGermanyTravel

In the “Christmas in Germany” Dep’t: the Feuerzangenbowle

by Diane Duane

…or, “You’ll Burn Your Bangs / Fringe Off”

So there’s this drink. It’s mulled wine augmented (a kind word) with flamed overproof spirit, usually rum.

…Okay, wait. A moment’s worth of scene-setting is called for.

So it’s 2014, and we’re in the Münich area for the Christmas period—something that for some time we’d been planning to do when we had enough money: and that year, we did. After a night or two spent in Münich proper and touching base with some friends / business acquaintances, we headed off to the nearby ancient university city of Augsburg to spend Christmas there. As do many other German cities, Augsburg has a very nice Christmas market—the Christkindlesmarkt—and we spent a happy pre-lunch and post-lunch hour there picking up some small presents for friends and family, and (as one does, if so inclined) visiting the local food and drink stalls.

A stall we’d never seen elsewhere was one selling Feuerzangenbowle. We looked on in wonder for a while, and Peter (having recently acquired a new lens for his camera, and a powerful new camera-dedicated flash) started taking some photos.

By a truly magical bit of timing—and also by dint of being really good with his camera—he managed to get this shot of the lady in the Feuerzangenbowle stall dosing the sugar cubes sitting on the cups’ little built-in tongs (that’s the –zange– part of the word) just before setting them on fire. (In her right hand she’s holding the device with which she’ll torch them.)

The Feuerzangebowle ladt

So after he had the camera put away again, P. ordered one for himself (I was then standing off to one side drinking glühwein, less dramatic but also potentially much less angst-ridden) and brought it back. “Oooh,” he said, “smell that, isn’t that lovely, smell the sugar caramelizing…” And I bent over to take a sniff.

And suddenly we could both smell something that WAS NOT SUGAR CARAMELIZING wut wut WUT WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE TO ME NOW  MORWOOD?!

So after the excitement (and the flames) die down, my bangs are only missing a LITTLE bit on the right side. “Oh look, that just crumbled right off, you’re fine,” says the Helpful Voice, while the Helpful Fingers brush at me. (Note to self: Alcohol flames are usually colorless and well-nigh invisible. Alcohol flames are usually colorless and well-nigh invisible. ALCOHOL FLAMES FUCK FUCK FUCK oh well I have a haircut scheduled after the New Year anyway…)

…Seriously, it’s okay. I’m fine. But make a note for yourself:  DO NOT LEAN OVER THE DAMN FEUERZANGENBOWLE until the flames have GONE OUT.

(eyeroll…)

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AppleComputer stuffebooksEuropeHobbyhorses and General RantingHome lifeNewsOnline lifeTechnogeekeryTravel

A rant: iOS6 and Maps

by Diane Duane

If you’ve already heard enough about this, or just don’t care to hear a couple pages’ worth of venting right now, please avert your eyes now. Thank you.

…I’ve had a soft spot for Apple products for a long time, to the point where versions of them have for years appeared in my Young Wizards series as “the preferred devices of the Powers that Be”. (So everything that follows this should be read as “more in sorrow than in anger”, though there’s certainly some anger, make no mistake.) I worked with Apple computers myself in the ancient day (while not owning them) and recommended them wholeheartedly to friends. So it sometimes surprises my readership to find that until recently I’d never myself owned anything Apple-ish but an iPod.

A couple/few months ago this changed when the first serious Apple computing device came into the household, in the form of an iPad. We haven’t had it for very long (I say “we”, but the hard truth is that Peter hasn’t had much of a chance to get his hands on it) but I’ve been enjoying gradually learning its ways, and it makes my work a lot easier. It is peerless for e-reading purposes (especially using BlueFire Reader) and there’s nothing like it for proofreading prose: errors just seem to jump out for the catching.

And one of the great satisfactions of using the iPad, quite early on, was hitting “Maps” and having the house come up instantly, for we’re out in the middle of nowhere. And the pleasure hasn’t just been about finding my own place, but other places, in close detail. For both the working writer and the busy traveler, the Maps icon was a gateway to the most functional of joys. You could find your way in a strange place: you could work out where the nearest post office or cab rank was: you could read a map in the streets of a foreign city without instantly making yourself look like a tourist ready to be relieved of his or her valuables. (Easiest on the iPhone, of course, but there are ways to use the Pad less obviously for this too. Deep purses have their uses, and you could be looking for anything in there.) You could sit in a restaurant over a meal and scout around for interesting places to check out afterwards. Or you could just sit home and do research about the things your characters needed to be doing and seeing in a place you’d never been, moving easily between map view and street view as required.

…But not any more. If you’re alert to computing issues at all, you’ll surely have heard the noise over the last couple of days as regards what’s happened to Maps in the iPhone and iPad. There are explanations all over the place (here, for example) as to why Apple chose to make the change and so forth.

I don’t think this is a minor issue. Accurate and dependable GPS-friendly mapping to handheld and portable devices has become one of the most important reasons to have such a device in the first place. Jeez, if even Sherlock bloody Holmes needs such a thing to save his bacon sometimes, it should be an indicator of how vital such usage is for the rest of us mere mortals.

And what does iOS6 for the iPad and iPhone do with so vital a commodity? It throws out the best online mapping available, that of Google, and goes with a homebrew mapping application.

Baby. Bathwater. Especially since the Apple Maps facility is so not ready for prime time yet.

Once upon a time I knew that if I had both amnesia and the iPad, then Maps on the iPad could get me home. (Best memory of this: using Maps on the iPad in conjunction with the wonderful DB (German Rail) app, (yes, there’s an Android version too, we both have it on our HTC phones) which was given a start point somewhere in the middle of Germany and told “Get me home!” All by itself it got us as far as Dun Laoghaire Ferry Port and then threw its figurative hands in the air and said “All right, not even we can do anything with Irish Rail if they won’t run a rail link to a main ferry port, and they’ve made their bus schedule inaccessible to us, so  you’re on your own now.” But the Google Maps implementation in the Pad did the rest and found the best route back to the right spot on Unnamed Road Number 876,543. And all praise to Deutsche Bahn for whoever they got to build that app for them.) Anyway, once upon a time, the imagery was all clear, right down to a very close zoom, so close you could see not just our driveway but our backyard clothesline.

No chance of any more such happy homecomings, however. I don’t have a comparison shot of the previous view – I never thought I’d need it – but this is what our area looks like now:

The road in front of our house is gone. So are other minor roads in the area (and this is exactly the kind of help a traveler in these parts would seriously need). So is the house, as half the image (as you see) now renders it impossible to find due to poor quality. And what happened over to the left there? And why is the definition sharp again just half a mile away??

Now, yes, granted, this is rural Ireland, not exactly the most populated corner of the planet. But if you check the blog here, you’ll see that great cities have been affected the same way. The Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge has big problems. Freiburg in Breisgau, a vibrant and beautiful modern/medieval city in southwestern Germany, is now represented in places by postwar aerial imagery (take a look, you can see the bomb craters). Berlin has relocated itself to Antarctica.  Something really strange has happened to the Schuylkill Expressway in Philly near the Art Museum (which doesn’t look too well either) right next to it. Gothenburg, Sweden, is missing. Closer to home, Dublin Zoo has somehow relocated itself into the south city center, right on top of a hotel where we routinely stay: I’m half concerned that the next time we check in I should bring a whip and a chair in case of lions.  (Also, an area near Dundrum in County Dublin [now mostly famous for a high-end shopping center] has been labeled “Airfield” and the Irish Minister in Charge of Yelling at Apple has had to contact them to get it removed urgently before some iOS6-using pilot [of whom there are many] mistakes it for the military airport at Baldonnell and tries to land there. …Is it gone yet, BTW? I’m afraid to look.)

Apple. How did you let this application leave the house in such a state? What on Earth possessed you?!

Yes, I know about the bad blood between you and Google, about the Apple / Android divide, about your desire to put some distance between you. I understand that perfectly. But here, in this one spot, you should have just sucked it up and said All right, fine, we can cope with this until we have something not just better, but breathtakingly so.

…Too late now.

So many actions in life have unexpected results. Here’s my list of the local ones resulting from this whole business:

(a) I now bitterly regret ever having punched the Upgrade button. I will never regard an Apple OS upgrade the same way again. I should have been more suspicious to start with. Lesson learned.

(b)    The minute there’s a Google Maps app in the App Store? I’ll be all over that like a cheap suit and I will never touch the native Maps icon again. I won’t even look at it. (Probably I won’t be allowed to delete it, which is a shame, because for a long time, every time I see it, I’m going to growl.)

(c)    We will be buying a Samsung tablet at the earliest opportunity. Admittedly, we were already inclined this way for several reasons: (1) for ebook production, because nothing works to test an ebook version like the actual device it’s intended to run on: (b) Peter likes the Android OS better than he does Apple’s (“And now you see why,” says the annoyed voice from the next room):  and (3) the constant and sleazy-looking litigation over whether or not the Samsung looks too much like an iPad has put a bad taste in both our mouths. But this has pushed me right over the edge. Apple, your implementation of Google Maps may not work any more, but I know someone whose implementation will. If my experience is anything to go by, you are driving your customers straight into the arms of your competition. And the ripples from this are going to spread: the longer it goes on and the louder the ruckus gets, the more potential Apple customers are going to say “Nuh uh, don’t want one of those.”

(sigh) Okay, done ranting. But I wish I knew how they were going to fix this, because a function of the iPad that was important and useful to me (and apparently to a whole lot of other people) has been reduced to a heap of smoking rubble. It would be lovely if Apple would amend iOS6 to allow a user to opt in to Google Maps (or out of the Apple mapping application). But bearing in mind the rather controlling nature of Apple, this seems… at best unlikely.

Meanwhile… can anyone recommend a reliable way to roll back to iOS5? (Though I already have a horrible feeling about what the answer’s going to be.)

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

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ConventionsEuropeFoodHobbyhorses and General RantingTravel

If You Knew Fiuggi (or: Deepcon XIII, March 2012)

by Diane Duane

It’s a pleasure to confirm that we’ll be attending Deepcon XIII in beautiful Fiuggi, Italy, next year. (I see that the news is already out here.)

Dates haven’t yet been finalized, but the convention organizers advise us that the convention will be happening in the second half of March 2012.

And we would not miss it for anything. The unmatchable hospitality of the organizers, the other guests, and the attendees, makes it a gotta-be-there event: intimate and comfortable. And, OMG, the FOOD! Fabulous. It’s such a pleasure to start with to have the chance to sit down twice a day and eat with your fellow con-goers — food at conventions usually being such a hit-and-miss thing. But when the bill of fare includes such  superb regional (Lazian) food … well! (Also: any place with a breakfast buffet that includes chocolate cake is okay by me.)

And the hill-town ambience of Fiuggi can’t be beat. (Neither can the hotel’s downstairs spa: Fiuggi is a spa town of considerable vintage.) …Anyway: we had an absolute blast as guests in 2010, and can’t wait to get back there!

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EuropeHobbyhorses and General RantingHome lifeHumorIrelandTravel

Some Ryanair moments

by Diane Duane

A friend asked to see these videos, so I thought I’d bundle them together in a single post.

They’re comments on a certain airline which unarguably has changed the face of aviation in Europe — unquestionably for the better — but has since turned into something of a nightmare. Our own nightmare unfolded during the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull, during which Ryanair’s complete uselessness and unhepfulness caused Peter to swear many mighty oaths regarding what he would someday do to “that man” should the airline’s MD ever venture within range.

And as regards the airline’s general fitness-for-purpose when volcanoes are not erupting… seems a lot of other people have opinions that chime with ours…

 

WARNING: especially regarding the first video, the Cheap Flights song by the wonderful musical comedy group Fascinating Aida — do NOT be drinking anything while this runs.

 

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPyl2tOaKxM&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

 

And now a few words on the subject from der Fuehrer.

 

 

 

 

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Paper from the "Magic" Pad
EuropeFeaturedHome lifeMiscellaneaTravelWriting

In the Writer Superstitions Dep’t: The Magic Pad

by Diane Duane

Almost all writers I know have work superstitions, though it’s not something we usually discuss except amongst ourselves. They’re like the superstitions some sportsmen have — the way, for example, that baseball players cross themselves when they’re coming up to bat. (Often provoking the response, Oh, come on now, you didn’t have to cross yourself so many times. And do you really have to touch yourself there right afterwards? How can your nethers need so much adjustment when you’ve hardly moved? And now you’re doing it again. I’m looking away now… )

For writers it can be any one of a number of things, or a combination of them. Which way the desk is oriented. How many cups of coffee you have to have before you can sit down and start work. A certain kind of pencil to scribble notes or doodles with. The right seat in the right cafe. Not starting work before a specific time. Not starting work after a specific time. Some of these habits just seem to begin themselves: some are a behavior or an accessory  that may have been sheerly accidental at the time, but which the writer has come to associate with work that just came out right.

This is mine: grid paper. Specifically, this grid paper from the Swiss supermarket/department store chain Migros. (Their online shopping partner LeShop.ch carries it as well.)

I’d have to do a little digging to nail down the exact date when this started, but it goes back at least to the late 1990s — not long before the Transcendent Pig started turning up in the YW books. (I’m pretty sure that the writing episode featuring the Pig that’s described here was conducted on Migros grid paper: “the pad” is mentioned, and before the Pad came along, it would have been just plain white printer paper.) In any case I was in Switzerland a lot during the 90’s — doing research for A Wind from the South, among other things — and since everybody who stays in Switzerland for any length of time winds up in a Migros sooner or later, it was probably a given that I would run across these pads eventually and pick one up.

But they’ve turned out to be really nice to work on. Reasons:

  • The neutral gray is easy on the eye.
  • The grid spacing is just right for my handwriting (which is small): 4mm boxes.
  • The paper is 100% recycled.
  • It’s a nice weight: 100g/m2.
  • Ink doesn’t bleed through, no matter which side you’re writing on, even when you’re using a fountain pen.
  • It feels nice to work on — the surface finish is very pleasant.

But most important of all for me:

  • Work done on it comes out right.

Don’t ask me how or why. It just seems that way.

A YW note from 2004

So I don’t use it on just anything: no to-do lists, no shopping lists. (Those go on sticky notes, either real ones or the virtual ones in my smartphone. Though sometimes work notes do wind up on these due to accident or necessity, and those get stapled up over the desk so I don’t lose track of them. They are never removed until the line or issue mentioned on the note is dealt with in print. Some of these have been around for a while: see the image to the left.) The grid paper is saved for outlines, serious notes or edits (like the ones above, for the High Wizardry New Millennium Edition revision), hand-writing chapter excerpts (as detailed in that link above), and other such heavyweight stuff.

When somebody in the household goes over to CH (or these days, to Germany: there are some Migros outlets there now too), they’re always enjoined to bring a couple of pads back home with them. These go on the shelf by the desk where I can peel off a few sheets in a hurry if I need some at home, or else pack some in a bag with the red plastic writing clipboard if I’m going offsite.

So now everybody knows.

Whether this “magic” has the slightest chance of ever working for anyone else, I have no idea. These things are so subjective. The definition of superstitious behavior, after all, is that it assumes or attempts to create causal links where none really exist.

But who can tell. If it does someone else some good… cheers.

 

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Current eventsebooksEuropeIrelandKindleTravelWritingYoung Wizards

It's not just US Presidents who visit Ireland. US wizards do it too.

by Diane Duane

In honor of President Barack Obama’s visit to Ireland today, we’re happy to announce the release of the latest in the series of Young Wizards International edition ebooks, A Wizard Abroad.

Fourth in the Young Wizards series, A Wizard Abroad details how the concerned parents of fourteen-year-old Nita Callahan — thinking that she and fellow young wizard Kit Rodriguez are getting a little too close —  pack their daughter off to Ireland for an extended visit to the farm owned by her slightly eccentric Aunt Annie. They think that by doing this they’re going to give Nita a little rest from both Kit and from the stressful and dangerous business of wizardry.

They couldn’t be more wrong. Nita shortly finds herself plunged into a local crisis, as the Lone Power finds yet another way to interfere in human existence. All over Ireland,  myths and creatures of the past — both good and evil — start erupting into modern life, a response to the swiftly growing influence of the Lone One’s ancient Celtic avatar, the terrible Balor of the Evil Eye.  Nita, Kit, and a host of Irish wizards — including the brooding and enigmatic Ronan Nolan, who Nita starts to find disturbingly attractive — soon find themselves enmeshed in a deadly struggle to stop the Lone Power before Its  evil exploits this unexpected gateway to overflow Ireland’s boundaries and overrun the world…

This 2011 International Edition is intended for Young Wizards fans outside the US and Canada who can’t purchase the classic editions of the YW series from North American ebook retailers due to regional sales restrictions. It  follows the text of the US SF Book Club first  edition of A Wizard Abroad (1993) and the subsequent US paperbacks from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.  (North American readers can obtain their own region-specific ebook editions of A Wizard Abroad from Amazon.com,  Barnes & Noble and Kobo.com.)

Readers outside the US and Canada can purchase the International ebook edition of A Wizard Abroad, DRM-free and in .mobi (Kindle) and .ePub (Nook, iPad) formats, through the DianeDuane.com ebook store. It’s also available through Amazon.com for instant download to your Kindle.

Also please note: a new revised edition of A Wizard Abroad, updated by the author and available to readers worldwide, will be released by Errantry Press in the second half of 2011. Please check DianeDuane.com for dates and other details.

…And in the meantime, would somebody please tell the President to stay a little longer next time? And not to forget the golf clubs.

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Home lifeTechnogeekeryTravel

Lost a camera or had it stolen?

by Diane Duane

We had a camera stolen from us some years back while en route to Freiburg from Basel on a late train. It’ll be interesting to see whether this is any good to us —

StolenCameraFinder.com

The site reads EXIF info from one of your own digital photos and then trolls the Web looking for other images with the same info.

ETA: it won’t help us — the camera we lost was an older Sony that doesn’t record serial number info in the EXIF. Oh well.

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Just one push...
Alien lifeformsEuropeFeaturedFood, restaurants and cookingPhotographyTravel

Just One Push

by Diane Duane

We saw this while in the excellent Martinsbräu in Freiburg im Breisgau, that jewel among German cities — possibly the most Mediterranean of the cities of the German south.

The whole place is downstairs one level, under the busy city food market above. There are booths and tables set near the big copper brew kettles (the Martinsbräu is a microbrewery) and off to one side, by one of the big tables, pictures of angels are hung on the far wall.

Theoretically, the various angels are supposed to be protecting their charges. But some of the angels look… a little ambivalent.

 

 

 

 

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EuropeOnline lifeTravel

Some interesting carnival stuff

by Diane Duane

Just going through the blogroll and revisiting some old favorites preparatory to cleaning the present list up.

One I’ve always liked is “Rubber Slippers in Italy”. Here Rowena posts about the Carnivale in Schignano and its traditions about the Bei and the Brut — “the Beautiful and the Ugly.”

Peter read this over my shoulder and said, “Isn’t it interesting how cultural stereotypes shift over time. Once if you had a big belly, or were pale from not having to work outside in the fields, it was a sign you were wealthy and successful. Now it’s all tans and abs…”

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