Food – Rice pudding, specifically
Ok, I know my three readers are probably saying, “hey, this post isn’t about books; it’s about food!”. Yup. Guess what? I like to cook, and I like to eat – and I don’t happen to currently have anything to say about books.
NB re my recipes : they are almost always without quantities; they evolve in the kitchen. If this bugs you, please don’t complain, it’s how I cook. The Joy of Cooking (a pre 1965 edition) is a decent quantity reference, if you need one. Look, I mentioned a book! I couldn’t help myself…
Rice Pudding
Rice, milk, salt, sugar, vanilla
Take a quantity of cooked leftover rice – say it’s about a cup. If you don’t have leftover, make fresh. I like to use leftover Japanese style rice. It works better than Basmati or Jasmine for this recipe. Never use Uncle Ben’s, or some other kind of almost-rice. If you’re using leftover, salt it just a bit. If you’re making fresh, salt a bit more. (You can always put more in later, but you can’t take it out if there’s too much.)
Put it in a pot large enough to hold the rice and a quantity of milk. I can’t tell you what your most favorite rice-to-milk ratio is; put enough milk in the pot so that the rice looks right. Heat this slowly – not like how I do it, where I get impatient and then I end up having to clean up a huge mess. Let the rice and milk simmer together for a while, until the rice swells a bit more than you might like if you were eating it with a curry. It should not be sticking to the pot at this (or any) point. If it is, add more milk.
Make sure the whole thing’s been simmering for a little while – enough to scald the milk. If you’re on a gas stove, bring the heat way down as soon as the milk even looks like it’s going to boil and keep it on the heat to continue simmering the mixture. If you’re on an electric ring, bring the heat way down and be prepared to lift the pot off the ring, so that you don’t end up cleaning out scalded-on rice and milk from under the burner when it burst out of the pot.
When your milk is simmering nicely and the rice is plumping up, take one egg and beat in a fairly large cereal bowl with one tablespoon of (ie, turbindo organic) sugar and a bit of vanilla. (One tablespoon of sugar doesn’t make this very sweet. But start here, and then add more later if you want it).
NOTE: this is the reverse of what you thought you knew : Add a tablespoon of the hot milk-rice mixture to the egg (don’t add the egg to the hot milk). Mix it in. Do it again. And then again. Keep going until the bowl is almost full of milky eggy rice and is warm to the touch. You have occasionally stirred the rice and milk mixture.
Now, you’re going to add the eggy cerealbowl full to the milk and rice mixture. First, make sure the heat is on the absolutely lowest setting. Now, start adding the eggy mixture. Do it very slowly, please. The last thing you want is for your custardy rice pudding to taste like milkly scrambled eggy rice, though if you added enough hot milk to the egg mixture slowly enough, you have probably already avoided this problem.
If all goes well, you have watched your milky rice mixture turn a lovely shade of custardy pale yellow as you have finished adding the egg mix to the rice mix. It has thickened up appetizingly – and they say that if the custard has thickened, the egg is cooked… so you can take it off the heat now and let it cool a bit, or a lot, before you start eating it. You may add a bit more milk at this point, if it’s too thick.
Optionally : Add raisins to the milk / rice mixture before you add the egg. Maybe sprinkle some cinnamon on it when you’re ready to eat.
September workshop – Quill-cutting and Ink-making
No Bar Code is sponsoring a weekend workshop with Paul Werner on the 25th and 26th of September on Quill Cutting and Ink Making. Dr Werner is a freelance lecturer in Medieval techniques and is the author of several books on medieval illumination and vellum preparation.
The workshop may be held in French, or in both French and English, depending on participants’ preferences. Space may be limited to 10 participants, though if there is huge and early interest, we may be able to arrange a larger space for the workshop; still, maximum 15, so register early to avoid disappointment. Inquiries : info(at)nobarcodepress.com.
Location: no bar code studio @ 305, rue de Bellechasse, locale 405, Montréal (QC) H2S 1W9 goggle map
Price : $350 CDN, materials included. Two full-day sessions; bring a lunch.
Flyer with course plan available shortly.
Open House May 23 – 25
Our entire building is having an “open house” on the weekend of May 23-25 – Friday through Sunday. 305, rue de Bellechasse, Montreal is known sometimes as the Schiff Building. There are many artists and craft-type installations in this building, as well as architects and designers.
Many artists and others will be present to show you around their spaces. And many others, like me, will have some small interesting things for sale.
(Please forgive my occasionally long silences. There is not always something to blog about!)
Free Books and Recreational Reading
There’s a lot of recent discussion about whether or not giving free books away on the Internet is a good idea.
Some say that it will affect sales negatively. Some fear that the book will be pirated. I think that’s all nonsense, especially if the book given away has already sold many many copies. See some of the discussion here and here, both of which are links Gaiman published in his blog.
How many times does one copy of a bestseller get read? In theory, lots! In actuality, they are oftentimes “bestsellers” because libraries order 10 copies of Barbara Taylor Bradford because the bindings are crap. Think of all the copies in libraries everywhere. Kind of like the video store when there’s a new release – lots of copies. Then in a few months, fewer. Then in a few years, fewer again. This happens a little more slowly in libraries. Just a little.
Of course I’m being just slightly facetious – I agree strongly with Gaiman’s comment that there are fewer and fewer recreational readers. Ask around – how many of your friends will spend the evening or weekend deeply involved in a book? It’s kind of like getting caught with a somehow embarrassing friend, if you’re caught reading in public. You can’t tuck a Bestseller away in your pocket, discretely. You need one of those wheely carts to lug your book around with you — and so you never take it out to dinner, preferring the solitude of your apartment and some takeout…if you still read, that is.
It’s tragic, really. Lost is the image of the elegant bohemian, book in hand, seated on a park bench with elegant wee volume. Instead, the hipster with iPod or iPhone in hand. “How are they in sunlight? Oh, you’re not reading. Sorry!”
So, no, I don’t think sales of American Gods or any other book will be affected negatively by this or any other free book offer that involves having to read the book online. Aesthetically, laptops are nicer and nicer, but it’s still not the same thing as curling up or walking out with a good book. Screen reading on a park bench. Hum. Not for me, thanks.
If publishers want to seriously increase book sales, look at book aesthetics!
It’s darned hard to curl up with a bestseller. Most of them are bladderbusting behemouths that have only barely enough glue on their spines to get them through five readers before falling apart or being completely twisted out of shape. They are huge and heavy and seriously unpleasant to take to bed, much less to hold in your hands for hours. They often smell bad. When they fall out of bed, they wake the neighbours and send the cat shooting across the room. Sounds like something you really want to take to bed, doesn’t it?
Sounds remarkably like a laptop, too – though instead of smelling badly, I find the fan noisy, especially when the computer’s been on my lap or a blanket for a bit. And you don’t want it falling off the bed…
What happened to Everyman- and Modern library-sized books? Small and sweet to hold in your hand, they fit relatively easily into a bag or pocket of an overcoat. They are portable, they are nice in bed, they don’t hurt if you happen to rest them on your body. They are economical – less paper, smaller print, smaller format. They take up less room on your bookshelf, they take fewer boxes to move, and weigh less. You can take them to dinner or to the park, without needing extra wheels. An All-round better choice!
Everyman books still exist, of course. You can find them here. Above, I am specifically referring to Everyman books published between 1905 and 1934 – they measure 4 3/8″ x 6 3/4″; however, the slightly larger (taller, wider) editions from the 30’s to the 50’s were still quite nice. So are the Modern Library editions. They weren’t particularly fancy (and are more-so now), but they aren’t particularly low-end either. Meant to last, many have.
To me, the size of the book forms a significant and serious part of the aesthetic – I am often greatly and unexplainably pleased by the fit of a book in my hands. This is definitely something I seek in a book. I want the paper to be pleasant – not blinding white, but something softer, a bit more off-white. The paper should have a nice feel. And it should be ecological as well… recycled, oxy-bleached, acid-free…
Mass-market paperbacks, while ostensibly physically small, have grown cubic over the years, they are almost without exception hard-to-hold and hard-to-read. Often printed on newsprint with stinky petroleum inks, they are not meant to last, and they don’t. The “ideal” throw away – when booksellers return unsold copies, they remove and return the covers, and throw away the books. That’s right. The books go in the garbage. You knew this already from reading the Bantam copyright pages, though… right? If you want to re-read something, you’d better get the Trade Paperback edition.
Trades are kind of “close but no cigar” in my book. They are still too large (often 6 x 9 or 5 1/2 x 8 1/2), and still suffer the worst excesses of the HC format. Though they are considerably more portable, both the TP and HC are victims of the same typographical crimes: Type is typically set in some “default” QuarkXPress or InDesign format – “double spaced” 12 point type, kind of like a careless Large Type book or high school essay. The book itself, or its jacket, looks like a “billboard” at, typically, 6 1/2″ x 9 1/2″ with a loud [red] cover.
A book is a book. It is the author’s content — and it is far more than a pile of paper or a digital file or a four-letter word. The word “book” is a spiritual thing. It means so much more than “papers bound together”. A book is memory, it is nostalgia. It is growth and change and discovery. It is laughter and tears and daydreaming. A book deserves the very best package we can make for it, to honour it, to treasure it; that package starts with dimension and weight and smell and texture and … memory.
I will buy (and not just borrow) more books when they are no longer ugly, heavy, hard to hold, and impossible to read. Which basically outlines ones’ possible on-line reading experience, too …
new!
I am horrified to finally notice that I didn’t blog at all (so far) in the entire month of February. This, then, is to break the spell.
I have acquired new (old) characters for hot stamping! The three old drawers they come in are old and battered and the font names are long-lost. All are bronze, and one is a nice large 24 point sans-serif condensed, with a cocky Q. The others are both 12 point, one serif, one sans. The sans is a nice open gothic, and it is a particularly numerous font in the sense that there are lots of bits of it. The serifed font is lovely, with little flourishes on the serifs. Ok, “flourish” isn’t exactly the right word. The impression given by this one is of something a bit art-nouveau. I will provide visuals. Tomorrow.
Other news -
• Norman Nawrocki’s Breakfast for Anarchists is to be reviewed in Broken Pencil issue 39 (forthcoming). It is available from us for $12 CDN, or from Les Pages Noires.
• I have a massive new display case. Coffin-like, it stretches its nearly 7 foot length in the hallway outside my studio’s front door, in the common hallway. An oak and glass Victorian confection, it stirs my steam-punk soul. I will have to invent a new word for that aesthetic…
off the ball!
It happens. Which is to say, I didn’t read my RSS feeds or …
So without further ado or excuse – Yesterday should have seen me blogging about an first novel author, Patry Francis, and her book, The Liar’s Diary who has, through the strength and grace of her friends, got over 300+ literary and book types to blog and publicise her new book, because she can’t. So go check out litpark for details on the mass blogging effort on behalf of someone who seems, by all reports, is a wonderful woman utterly deserving of all the support available. Patry’s blog is Simply Wait and there’s an article in a national news paper here.
merkinabox
This is what I call a “merkinabox”. It got named that at a birthday partly last summer.
It’s a small box (2 in diameter, 2.5 inches high, approx) with fur inside, covered in leather and sometimes also lined in paper. Some are round like the one photographed here, and some are square, rectangular, more cylindrical… it depends on the materials at hand. Mostly the shape is dependent on what I have kicking around in my leather scraps.
Its purpose (for me) is to make something beautiful out of some of the scraps and odds-and-ends I have in my studio. I hate to waste beautiful things. The photo shows seamless glory – it is not seamless, but the seam is very small and very well done on a piece of very high quality and fine, thin Harmatan goatskin. So it’s a very small scar indeed. The fur used can be either fake (on request), or, most often, it comes from some lady’s discarded fur-lined coat.
Yes, I found someone’s coat in the street. There was a tag attached, with the value of the coat on it, and the owner’s name and phone number. I took it home, thinking it had maybe been stolen. I phoned, she said, “no, I intended to throw away that coat. Do whatever you like with it”. Amazed, I kept the fur lining and sent the outer part off to the Goodwill. I cut the fur lining out of its housing and discarded the parts that were too worn to re-use (the shoulders). I have enough of this 1-inch long black fur to make manyyyyy merkinaboxes.
On average, I make one of these per month; it is not a high-production item and its appearance relies entirely on my having suitable scraps.
In case you wondered… A merkin is a wig for areas other than your head. Austin Power’s chest hair is one, for example.
** Warning : not for the delicate of sensibility ! ** (the rollover talks about vulva, scrota and shows a merkin in use) ; wikipedia has all the dirt. It can be made out of human hair or other animal’s hair and dyed whacky colours, and the merkin is currently experiencing a resurgence in popularity, specificially with the burlesque crowd!
It looks like a merkin inside the box, but it’s actually attached to and part of the box. it does not come free for you to play with otherwise. Though you *could* order one like that, I suppose.
Give your sweetie a heart-shaped box with a heart-shaped merkin in it? Yes, I do have enough scraps of red to do that…
Why are bookbinders invisible?
I’m a bit of a book collector of special editions (sometimes they come unbound) and I’m also a fan of seeing other people’s bookbinding* work.
But just TRY to find out who made what, and if there are photos for it.
In a recent email conversation with a small-press publisher of fine limited and lettered editions, it was like pulling teeth — with no anesthetic — to get the name of the person who does his fine binding. Not only was it hard, but I suspect I deeply insulted or annoyed him in the process.
Why? You think he’d be proud to show her work – a well-renowned person – and that her name might sell more copies of the books?! Or are the lettered editions SO sought after that the binder completely disappears, no need whatsoever to acknowledge the hands that made the beautiful package. The package that, in and of itself, has an aesthetic worth? Indeed, no need even to show images of the item for sale it is so sought after!?
Wow – I have to find a product that sells that well. (”one x for sale, $750 + shipping and taxes” and it flies out the door! whoot!)
Ok, so crappy book binders (”kitchen table bookbinders”) aren’t going to get a contract to do lettereds. Understandable. But why on earth should the persons’ or company’s name be intentionally or unintentionally withheld? Is there some sort of conspiracy on the part of the publishers to minimize what it is that is the bookbinder’s art?
I don’t really think this is the case – I do think that most publishers simply don’t think about this very much.
They have no trouble saying that they have x number of so-and-so at so-and-so much, and it’s “nicely bound in leather and boxed with a this and a that special slip out whatnot”. So why not “nicely bound in xxx leather by xxx”? Doesn’t that add something to a work? I’d personally rather buy a fine binding where the binder and materials used are known and documented than otherwise. I want also the reputation that goes behind the bound work, of all parties involved in what becomes the finished item.
If there are any small-press publishers of fine bindings reading this, and you don’t document your fine bindings and lettered editions – Please start thinking about it!
Ours should not be an invisible art. Ours should also not be an art with silly professional jealousies. I mean, really. Why competitive? We are all business people, some better than others. Some are artists in their own right; again, some better than others. Art is subjective, and so not competitive. Business – well, that takes care of itself if you’re a rotten business person.
Let’s celebrate what we share, and encourage the people who publish the books we bind to fully and accurately document the work we provide.
* this goes for anyone who produces special editions of anything, really. For example, letterpress artists. Describe your work! Build your catalogue! Tell the world what fonts you use and why. I want to know. Maybe someone else will, too.
All Brand New and Shiney
Are the streets, paved in water. Happy New Year, even though it feels very much like early April out there.
Tis the season to make resolutions and clean neglected spaces. With that in mind, all of my older stock and materials are going out the door sometime during this next month. Whether that will be bound in new journals or by some other method is not for me to specify at this moment, largely because I don’t know, yet. This in order to make space for New Arrivals in February – new leather and materials will be coming in, and so all kinds of wonderful new things will be going out.
Stay posted, and also keep an eye out for my new website, due to go up this week sometime. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!
Tis the season
This open house thing – I’ve decided it’s fun and not a pain, as I’d though it was the last time I did this. I’ve had many interesting visitors so far, and hope to have yet more this coming week.
I’ve extended the dates, you see – this coming Thursday (noon to …) and Friday (noon til five pm), you can still drop by for a visit. As I stated before, it’s not really an exhibit, and it’s not really a sale, though there will be a few small things for sale, weather permitting.
Thursday is the Big Day – there will be a cinq à sept (cocktail) starting at 5 until whenever. So stop by for a glass & a chat & bring a friend.
Weather permitting – so much depends on the weather. 35 cm of snow yesterday kind of made getting around a little awkward today. Hopefully the rest of the week will be smoother sailing.
The address : 305 rue de Bellechasse (the Schiff Building), corner Drolet (or Henri-Julien, if you like). Locale 405. tel : 514 570 8913
