EXCHANGE INTERFACE

Yes, still going!

scribblemy_name: What's your favorite kind of original story to read? alternatively, what's your favorite kind of fanfic?

Romances. Generally historical romances. I know they're usually anachronistic in idea and execution, but they're just so happily fluffy and sometimes you just want that. My preferred authors are Loretta Chase and Liz Carlylse, although I generally enjoy Mary Balogh's talent for humourous moments.

I'll usually read Nora Roberts' suspense-romances because she has a gift for telling stories and giving you enough detail without infodumping, although I haven't read any of her stuff lately - I got tired of her Irish Fantasy Series Number Umptyeleventeen.

And I tend to binge-read Nora's alter-ego J.D. Robb via the In Death series about Lieutenant Eve Dallas. I'll read two or three books in a week and then not touch it for, oh, a year or two.

I have a fondness for urban fantasy - I got into the vampire genre for a while, but more or less gave up on those. The two UF series that I do have on my bookshelf are Meljean Brook's Guardians series (complete), and Nalini Singh's Psy-Changelings series (ongoing).

My favourite kind of fanfics, on the other hand, are the long, involved, action/drama epics that feature my favourite female characters. They are, frankly, rare as hens' teeth - I've only read a double-handful in my 15 years of online fandom; and most of those were in Stargate SG1.

Yes, I know there are a few people writing action/drama epic fics about female characters, but they're not writing them about my favourite female characters. Because my favourite female characters are not anyone else's favourite female characters. (Yes, I know you like her, but you don't like her so much that you're going to put a month-and-more's worth of writing towards her.)

Interestingly, an original story series that I've been reading, which is action/drama epic with a female lead is Mike Shepherd's Kris Longknife series. Lots of action, drama, space military, friendships, and generally pretty engaging. There's romance in the later books, but still plenty of action and things going on in the midst of it all.

theladyscribe: You always have such interesting photos of meals you're eating in (I'm assuming) cool restaurants, but I'm curious about what you cook at home! Any go-to meals? Or dishes you only cook for special occasions?

Cooking at home tends pretty simple, actually. Steak with a bit of seasoning, vegies on the side. I love salads, but I'm so lazy at making them, and these days I'm spoiled by my garden; I want tomatoes that taste of something, not of nothing! In summer, though, coleslaw (cabbage, fennel, carrot, onion, red wine vinegar, mayo) is amazing and delicious and wonderful.

Breakfast is usually an egg; on a weekend, I might add smoked salmon or something else. Sometimes it's a full fry-up - eggs, bacon, mushrooms (cooked slowly), but that's pretty rare (I usually save the big breakfasts for eating out, which I do more often than I should).

I tend to cook a meat - like a haunch of beef or chicken - and then eat it several nights in a row (or sometimes over the course of a week), as much as I'm feeling like eating.

I'm going to have to be a lot more careful about what I eat in the coming months - my cholesterol is ridiculously high, and my family has a history of heart disease so I need to be careful.

5 basic meals
- bolognaise
- roast chicken (beer can chicken - always good)
- garlic and anchovy pasta
- mustard beef (roast beef)
- soy sauce chicken (usually chicken drumsticks/wings, in soy sauce)

celebration meals
It's hard to describe 'celebration' meals for me - they tend to be things that my mother/stepfather cook for family dinner kind of things.

- hainan chicken
- stewed pork belly in red bean tofu sauce
- lion's head meatballs (pork meatballs with wombok quartered and steamed in garlic sauce)
- eight treasure duck (stewed whole duck stuffed with eight other foods)
- pavlova (this is my specialty for Christmas)

For Chinese New Year (coming right up), there's usually a dish called 'tzai' (in the Cantonese), which is full of funguses and tofu and thin rice noodles, and is completely vegetarian to bring in the new year. There's also New Year cake (sticky gelatinous rock-sugar-flavoured deliciousness) and in my family deep-fried, sesame-rolled, red-bean buns which I know as 'tzin-dui'.

Not sure what's happening for CNY this year.

My family does cooking really well, which is also why I'm a big foodie; I had good food from an early age, and while my twentysomething tastebuds could take McDonalds, my fortysomething tastebuds revolt. If I'm going to have a burger, it's going to be the full-fry deal from a milk bar.

theladymore asked about my favorite SGA ladies

( well, the answers are pretty obvious there... )

jenab: If you had unlimited funds where would you travel in the world? What have been some of the most memorable places you have visited?

I would take one of those 'three months on a cruise ship traveling around the world', and I would hire a cabin or a suite, and then pay for people to come travelling with me for various legs of the trip, because travelling is always more fun when you have other people to share it with.

Or I would do a road trip across the US - again, doing 'legs' of the journey with various people as their time and budget allowed.

Or I would travel across Europe-Asia - from the UK all the way over to Russia, and then down through Asia and back home.

Africa. I want to see Africa, but it feels like something you should do with people, not just by yourself.

Basically, my big issue in travelling is that 75% of the time I have nobody to travel with, so if I had unlimited funds, I'd pay for other people to come travelling with me (they put in, say, $1000, and I'd pay the rest). And I'd go everywhere, man!

( memorable places from my travelogue )

Sorry for taking a break from this. One of the questions required graphics and I never remember until I'm in no position to actually create graphics for it.

I'll be back in, posting again every couple of days. I promise...

Talkmeme Masterpost

everbright_morning asked: One thing you didn't know about Vietnamese cooking before you visited last time.

Frankly, I don't know that I learned anything much foodwise. I already knew it's very heavily vegetable-and-soup based, even in summer, with not so much meat. Meat is the seasoning, not the main course, because vegetables are easier to grow, less intensive, and go with just about everything.

I did discover that too much street food apparently lowers my immune system, and I can develop a (temporary) allergy to shellfish? Itchy palms and sleeplessness. That was an anxious night. (Never google your symptoms.)

It was also a bit annoying, since I spent the rest of the trip not eating anything shellfish-y, and while there's nothing to compare with Australian seafood...still!

I haven't had any problems since I got back - then again, I haven't really noticed any problems that I didn't attribute to something else.

Also: if I'm going to risk myself on street food, I might as well do it with my stepmother and her bestie, because they know the really good places!