It’s here:

www.mizwrite.com

(Nice and easy to remember now, isn’t it?!?!)

I’ll be waiting for you. Remember to wear your hard-hat – there’s still some construction going on …

Or, rather, I’m moving this blog elsewhere. (That might be the better way to describe it.)

So bear with me — it might take me another few days or so. Right now, I’m transferring over all the old files, most of the old comments (darn! I lost some!), and rebuilding the new sidebars. I also have to go back and fix all the links, which is taking me forever, but I’m making my way through it.

On the new blog, you should be able to still find your old comments (at least through August — I believe I lost Sept and Oct, dang it) and should still be able to find all old posts. In fact, that’s part of what I’m working on now: coming up with a way to file old posts in categories that make some sense.

Here’s a way you can help me: Try to find an old post on my blog right now. Any old post or photo that you recall. And tell me if you had trouble finding it. (I’m guessing you will!) Then tell me where you would have liked it to be — in categories on the side? In a dropdown menu on top labeled well (like “stuff about Twitter,” etc.)? In a “folder” with a good name that helps you find what you like?

Any requests you have on reorganizing will be helpful — I feel like I’m untangling Christmas lights right now. : )

Hit me up in comments with any ideas. …

The reason this one is great for dinner parties is that you can make most of it ahead of time, then just turn the stovetop to simmer right when guests arrive to have it warmed up by dinnertime.

One warning, though. It has a LOT of this:

So you might want to make it for an evening when it’s just the girls. Or, um, you know, when you’re not going to be breathing all over someone.

You’re also going to need one of these:

Because no one could possibly cut all those onions by hand without crying all over the place.

Okay. So start by chopping all your onions. The recipe calls for 3.5 cups of onions, but I was doubling the recipe, so I did nearly 6 cups. (I told you it was a lot.) Pulse those babies and set them aside in a bowl.

Then you want to cut your boneless beef chuck roast into 2.5-inch pieces. You can buy it from a butcher already cut into stew-size portions, which saves a lot of time, but sometimes I cut them even a bit smaller. No one at a dinner party likes to gnaw.

Sizzle your beef until it’s brown on all sides (about 10 minutes). It starts to look like this:

Throw those onions in, and the scent of yummy stew starts to waft through the kitchen.

Now comes the fun part. You want to add one cup of this:

Any Cab will do. Note that the recipe calls for only one cup now, then a second cup later. This is very important. It means you can do a little of this:

Because, you know, cooking is hard work! You need a little beverage! But don’t do too much of that because you’ll have to add more in to the pot later. (And if you’re doubling the recipe, as I was, you can come reeeeeeeeeally close to not having quite enough!) (Not that that’s ever  happened.) (Ever.)

Okay, next you’re going to add 1 can of tomatoes with Italian seasonings. I love canned tomatoes! They taste fabulous and work in so many recipes. It’s one canned vegetable that actually tastes better than fresh to me.

Sorry the picture is getting a little blurry. Must be because of this:

Okay, then you’ll add 1/2 cup of hoisin sauce. This is what gives the stew its sweet taste. You can find hoisin sauce at many Asian markets or in the Asian section of your supermarket. Mine looks like this:

Wow, I just noticed that expiration date says it’s best before May 23, 2012? My son will be in college by then. Huh. Hoisin sauce and college. My mind is drifting. … Okay, back to the recipe. You’ll then need 2 bay leaves:

Are my photos getting more and more crooked? (My wine is almost gone.)

Okay, now if you’re doing everything right, your stew should look something like this:

And your counter should look like this:

(And note your wine glass should be almost empty.)

Now it’s time to let everything simmer for 45 minutes while you run upstairs and try to do something with your hair. (Though you need to run back into the kitchen from time to time to “stir occasionally.”) (Or you could make sure you have a teenage daughter so you’ll have someone to rely on in these crucial kitchen moments.)

Then you have to cut the hair-styling short because you need to come back downstairs and cut some carrots.

I didn’t get a good picture of the carrots. In fact, my brother-in-law cut them for me when I was running around trying to do last-minute cleaning and do something with my hair (not simultaneously, thank the Lord). But the carrots should be cut “on the bias,” so they form long oblongs about 1-inch long. Then throw them into the pot with that last cup of wine that you did not just drink (omgdidyoudrinkallthewine maybethere’sanotherbottleofitinthepantry) …

Then cover, simmer for another 30 minutes while you really finish your hair.

At the very end (I did this when the guests had already arrived, darn it — I really do try to have it done beforehand), you add some cornstarch to the mixture to thicken, discard the bay leaves, and add salt and pepper.

Then you serve it over rice.

Or, if you want to be very fall-like and make it look like comfort food, you can serve it in bread bowls like I did for the book club. Here’s the finished product:

Enjoy!

Here’s the actual recipe:

MAHOGANY BEEF STEW WITH RED WINE AND HOISIN SAUCE
from Epicurious.com

Hoisin adds complixity to the flavor of the sauce. You can save some time — and some tears — by chopping the onions in the food processor in two batches.

4 tablespoons olive oil
3 1/2 pounds boneless beef chuck roast, trimmed, cut into 2 1/2-inch pieces
3 1/2 cups chopped onions
2 cups Cabernet Sauvignon
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes with Italian herbs, undrained
1/2 cup hoisin sauce
2 bay leaves

1 pound slender carrots, peeled, cut diagonally into 1-inch lengths
1 tablespoon cornstarch mixed with 1 tablespoon water
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Heat 2 tablespoons oil in heavy large pot over high heat. Sprinkle meat with salt and pepper. Add meat to pot; saute until brown on all sides, about 10 minutes. Push meat to sides of pot. Reduce heat to medium; add 2 tablespoons oil to pot. Add onions; saute until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Mix meat into onions. Add 1 cup wine, tomatoes with juices, hoisin sauce, and bay leaves. Bring to boil.

Reduce heat to low, cover pot and simmer 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add carrots and 1 cup wine. Cover; simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Uncover; increase heat to high; boil until sauce is slightly thickened, stirring occasionally, about 15 minutes longer. Reduce heat to medium, add cornstarch mixture and simmer until sauce thickens, stirring occasionally, about 8 minutes. Discard bay leaves. Season stew with salt and pepper. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cool slightly. Chill uncovered until cold, then cover and keep refrigerated. Bring to simmer before serving, stirring occasionally.) Transfer stew to large bowl. Sprinkle with parsley; serve.

Makes 6 servings.
Bon Appetit
Entertaining Made Easy

We met as babies, actually. Our mothers were best friends in Ohio, and went to high school together. (Our grandmothers were even friends, living right around the corner from each other.) Our moms married around the the same time and had their first children around the same time — and those first children ended up being me and Michelle, born four months apart.

Our parents each moved out to California a few months later, to find the American Dream there. They rented homes across the street from each other in Huntington Beach. That’s when Michelle and I “met,” as tiny little things. We have pictures of the two us as 2-year-olds in our Easter dresses, having brunch at some cute little restaurant, and we have numerous pictures that follow — with our dolls, as kindergarteners going to ballet class, in our little bathing suits, playing with wagons. …

In the years following, our families each moved away from that neighborhood, but our lives kept weaving in and out. Our parents each kind of went their own ways, with new neighborhoods and new sets of friends, but we always reconnected after a year or two. I knew her aunt and uncle; she grew up with my brothers around; her mother is my godmother; we both knew each other’s grandmothers; we spent weeks at each other’s homes during the summers. Our parents had good times and bad times. There were many Christmas gatherings, with full-on ’70s garb, and flocked Christmas trees, and The Carpenters, and sometimes too many drinks. It always felt like we were family members — she felt like more of a close cousin to me than a friend; our moms always felt like sisters. We were maid/matron of honor in each other’s wedding; we each had little girls just a year apart. …

Anyway, we had our annual “family picnic” yesterday, with our own families, and it was good to reconnect. Our moms were there, and our daughters. No matter how much time goes by, she always feels like a friend, a cousin, a sister. …

It’s great to have good times with old, old friends.

How about you? Who is your oldest friend?

Heeeeeeellllllp! 

I need your ideas. … I’m drowning here under two laundry baskets and four hampers. … Anyone have a brilliant, fool-proof schedule I can borrow?

And now — off to do some whites!

My own personal hopeless gaffe came up the other night. It is, and has always been, Blinded by the Light (Manfield Mann’s Earth Band). Since 1977, I think I’ve been singing “blinded by the light … ripped up like inducient, like a runner in the night …” It never mattered to me that “inducient” isn’t even a word. I didn’t care. In 1977, I thought maybe “inducient” was a word and — being  only 11 — I just hadn’t learned it yet. But the other night, my 16yo told me that the real words are “blinded by the light … revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night …”

Huh.

Well, gee, that does make more sense.

(But I think I need to coin the word “inducient.”)

Jon Carroll at the San Francisco Chronicle calls these gaffes “Mondegreens” (after writer Sylvia Wright’s misperception of “…and Lady Mondegreen” in the Scottish ballad Bonny Earl of Murray instead of “…and laid him on the green”). Carroll has been documenting Mondegreens for some time. (He explains that here.)

Superman’s “Mondegreen” has been Carry On (Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young). Chris has been singing – until a mere two months ago, mind you – “…the forks on the table are able/to sing the song …” He sang it this way until he got his cool new iPhone app, Tune Wiki, and found out that the words were actually: “…the fortress of fables are able/to sing the song …”

When our DS and DD teens heard this (after my Blinded by the Light fiasco), they collapsed into laughter until they fessed up their own:

Rene’s has been Beautiful Mess (Jason Mraz). She’s been singing “…And through timeless words and priceless pictures/ we’ll fly like birds, not like lizards” for quite some time. (It made sense to her, she argued. Since lizards do NOT fly, well …) But finally it bugged her enough that she looked it up online and found out that the words were actually: “…And through timeless words and priceless pictures/ we’ll fly like birds, not of this earth …” Ooops.

Ricky’s was Hospital Beds (Cold War Kids). He kept hearing “…Me and my fish ‘n chips/ a tiny ant opera/me and my fish ‘n chips/ a tiny ant opera …” for some time. But even he knew that one didn’t make sense. So he listened more carefully and finally figured out that it was “…Vietnam fishing trips/ Italian opera/ Vietnam fishing trips/ Italian opera …” (I’ve included the link on all the songs so you can hear yourself — and this one REALLY DOES sound like “tiny ant opera”!!! Good one, Ricky!)

But Ricky shook his head about another one:  “I still don’t know what Aretha Franklin is saying in ‘Respect,’ though.”

Our family might be playing with our Tune Wiki for some time. …

What are your worse “Mondegreens”? Do you have Tune Wiki to help you out?

What’s that?

It’s National Novel Writing Month — “30 days and nights of  literary abandon”! Prospective novelists are given the challenge to write a 50,000-word book from November 1-30, and they can all find support in one another to do so.

I watched it last year on the blogs — finding it particularly intriguing when the deadline was looming and authors were starting to pull all-nighters – but this year should be especially fun with Twitter involved! I’m sure we’ll be getting much more constant updates about who’s keeping up, who’s falling hopelessly behind, and whose characters are speaking to them in the middle of the night! It’s great fun, and writers look forward to it every year.

I thought about doing it this year. I love the idea of writing a “fast first draft” — I’ve tried it twice and it works great for me — but I decided against it for two reasons:

1. I have at least a million other writing-related tasks I need to finish first! Sheesh. I need to write queries, finish a synopsis, make some editing changes, finish critiquing a friend’s book, and finish writing my second book. Since I can be the queen of Don’t Finish What You’ve Started, I figured NaNoWriMo would put me back a few steps: letting me start yet ANOTHER book without finishing any of the previous ones.
2. November is sort of a cherished month in our home. It doesn’t come with the List of Things to Do that October and December come with — it just feels like a nice, relaxing holiday time to me, leading up to a relaxing Thanksgiving weekend, which I can’t imagine giving up to writing, frankly. And we often take the weekends to do fun things like go apple picking, and get together with friends, and get outside and enjoy our November weather, which is usually gorgeous. Plus it’s our anniversary month, and Superman and I try to travel when we can to celebrate our anniversary.

Soooo … no NaNoWriMo for me this year! But I’ll certainly be watching from the sidelines and cheering on my new writer friends from Twitter. I do envy them a little — writing a fast first draft like that is an exhilerating ride. You never know where your characters will take you or what they’ll do, and when your brain is thinking fast like that, it can get outrageously creative. (Maybe I’ll have to do my own NaNoWriMo in some boring month, like January!)

Until then, join me in watching on the blogs and on Twitter (it’s #nanowrimo hashtag, if you want to create a stream and watch all the chatter about it)!

How about you? Have you ever taken on the NaNoWriMo challenge?

Here’s Nathan’s so far:

Here’s Rene’s:

And here’s Superman’s.

He has a strange talent for this.

(He also likes to make the biggest mess.):

And here’s my project. Mom gets to roast the pumpkin seeds:

So we’re workin’ away, here! I’ll take some more when they’re all done and lit for the night.

Until then, let’s see Superman’s cool ghoul once more.

(I might have to hire him out next year…):

Her comment on “Lovin’ Halloween Decor No. 2” marked 1,000 comments to date. How exciting!

And how appropriate that it’s Kat, too! Why? Because Kat was the first “outside person” (… you know … like not one of my friends or my husband) who became a fan of my blog. And she was the first to give me a link out in the blogosphere and put me on her blogroll. Back then (in February? March?), she wrote a nice little article about me on her blog (I was going to go find it for you, but I can’t find it now), and made me feel like an official blogger that day! {Thanks Kat!}

Her blog is great: It’s Happy Hour Somewhere, and is always funny.

I even mentioned her once before in this post about funny blog names because hers makes me smile every time. I also mentioned her in this thanks to all commenters, because I really do appreciate her and all of you.

So THANKS to everyone for helping me get to 1,000 comments. I love your comments. They totally make my day. (If you don’t believe me, just ask Superman.) You can all look for your official prize of fairy dust and rainbow glitter in the mail soon. …

Jack Head in Urn - Disney's Haunted Mansion