A gastronomic A to Z theme revealed

~ Carrie-Anne ~ 10 Comments

For the fifth year in a row, my A to Z theme is inspired by current events very close to my heart, and takes a few of its topics from a tentative list for a related future theme. It’s also a continuation of sorts of my 2023 theme.

Originally, I’d begun making a list for a different theme, but I decided it was best to put that aside for the future due to my ongoing, time-sensitive priority of preparing my four-volume book A Dream Deferred: Lyuba and Ivan at University for its August release. The topic I wanted to do would require too much time spent in research, writing, and editing, whereas the alternate replacement is fairly simple and not so intense.

In solidarity with the brave, beautiful people of Iran taking back their proud, ancient land from the rule of the mullahs after 47 years of darkness and repression, my theme will be Persian cuisine. Because Iran sits at the crossroads of so many different cultures, and has been home to a wide variety of ethnic groups for over 5,000 years, their cuisine has been influenced by Armenian, Azeri, Russian, Kurdish, Jewish, Uzbek, Turkish, Arab, Greek, Indian, British, French, and many other culinary traditions.

In turn, Persian cooking has influenced those cultures’ cooking. Some people get so caught up in trying to authoritatively claim certain foods as uniquely originating with their own country, they lose sight of the reality of cultural osmosis. Why get into a fight about who created shakshuka, kofta, or dolma when you can just enjoy the delicious food and be happy everyone loves it?

Restaurant Bastani, Copyright Ninara, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic

You’ll learn about foods including:

Fesenjan, a rich stew made with ground walnuts, pomegranate paste, and classic Persian spices. It traditionally uses meat, but can easily work with vegetarian substitutes.

Khoresh, a slow-cooked stew with many variations (meat, fish, mushroom, vegetable, fruit)

Qottab, a deep-fried cookie (biscuit if you’re British) made with ground almonds or walnuts and covered in powdered sugar

Pashmak, a sweet similar to cotton candy but made with flour, with a wool-like texture

Yazdi cake, a cupcake with a light, airy texture, made with cardamom and rosewater, and often topped with pistachios

Tahchin, Copyright Roozitaa, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

Gaz, a nougat candy from Isfahan, made with pistachios, almonds, and rosewater

Nargesi, a dippy egg (sunny-side-up if you don’t speak Pittsburghese) with spinach and fried onions, resembling the narcissus flower

Sangak, a leavened flatbread with a long, rectangular shape, traditionally baked on hot, small river stones

Iranian pizza, distinguished by its thick crust and multiplicity of toppings

Doogh, a yoghurt drink with water, mint, and salt

Halva, Copyright مانفی, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

All the foods will have recipes, as well as vegetarian and vegan modifications. Persian cuisine is truly special, reflecting the heart and soul of the Iranian people, one of the world’s oldest surviving civilisations.

***

My names blog won’t be able to have a connected theme, again on account of how unnecessarily time-consuming that would be in light of my primary commitments. Instead I decided to feature names I’ve thought about giving potential children over the years (both first and middle).

IWSG—Final draft fun and important lessons learnt

~ Carrie-Anne ~ 5 Comments

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Welcome back to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, which convenes the first Wednesday of every month to commiserate over worries, fears, doubts, and struggles.

I finally finished the third draft of A Dream Deferred, which was starting to feel like it would never end. There wasn’t much new material left to write, but I’d reached the same kind of stressed exhaustion I had during the homestretch of the first draft.

In particular, I was struggling with one section of the Epilogue. At first I deleted it completely, and then kept writing and rewriting a new version, even took it in and out multiple times. I finally decided this particular storyline needed dénouement, esp. since I went to so much effort during the third draft to develop it much more strongly and consistently.

I bought myself this pen over a year ago as a reward to look forward to for finishing the second and third drafts, and finally was able to open it in late February. It has real matcha in it. Given how samurai drank matcha after battles to recoup from mental trauma, improve concentration, elevate their moods, and heal themselves, the symbolism is very appropriate!

It’s been so long since I last did a full reread, I’d forgotten about writing some of these things. The second draft was mostly about moving around some material to line up with the correct semester start dates, taking out all the runaway, bloated clutter in the abandoned storyline to nowhere about moving back to NYC that kept changing course, and moving other material into files for inclusion in the future fifth book.

The third draft was mostly about writing new chapters and sections I’d marked out as necessary during the near-complete reread in 2022.

Since Part I is still so long even by my standards, I played around with different trim sizes, inner margins, and typeface sizes after changing it from Palatino (what I type in) to Baskerville (what I publish in). Though it’s a less common trim size for fiction, I ultimately decided on 7×10, with my normal one-inch inner margins and 12-point type. The other three volumes will be 6×9, since they won’t go over IngramSpark’s maximum page count.

I learnt so many valuable lessons from this entire experience. My wordcount was so high and necessitated another book being published in four volumes because I had so many storylines. They all arose naturally and were plotted and paced well, but in hindsight I wish I’d stuck more closely to my original core group of plotlines.

And yet, if I moved any of these storylines into the fifth book or were insane enough to radically rewrite the entire book so they unfold over a longer timeframe and continue into the next book, it wouldn’t be nearly the same story anymore. They all intertwine so perfectly with the other plot threads, at that specific time in the characters’ lives.

Another important lesson learnt is not to pack events together so tightly, with barely any breathing room between. It was a miracle I found enough wiggle room in the right places to move some of these sections and chapters around without compromising the timelines and how I wanted to tell these stories.

Though the situations are obviously very different, I relate to Captain Arthur Rostron’s famous remark “I can only conclude another hand than mine was on the helm” re: his rescue of Titanic survivors. So many things could’ve gone so badly wrong under the difficult circumstances, but Divine Providence prevailed despite everything.

I believe very strongly every book comes together in the way it was meant to, and can only be written such at that particular time in the writer’s life. The general story might be the same if it were done later, but it wouldn’t be the story it’s supposed to be.

Do you enjoy the experience of a final polishing? Ever find any funny typos, like “claw chowder”?

WeWriWa—A Persian feast

~ Carrie-Anne ~ 1 Comment

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Welcome back to Weekend Writing Warriors and Snippet Sunday, weekly Sunday hops where writers share 8–10 sentences from a book or WIP. The rules have now been relaxed to allow a few more sentences if merited, so long as they’re clearly indicated, to avoid the creative punctuation many of us have used to stay within the limit.

To celebrate the beginning of the Iranian people’s long-overdue liberation after 47 years of theocratic rule, I’m sharing a snippet from Chapter 35, “A Xenial Welcome,” from my published book Journey Through a Dark Forest. It’s 1937, and Inna Zhirinovskaya has just arrived in Isfahan, Iran with her niece Velira, not quite three, her old orphanage director Mrs. Brezhneva, and several dozen of the children.

They’ve been invited to dinner at the home of some new friends, Russophone Persians, alongside some Georgian and Armenian friends who also just escaped the USSR.

Tabriz dolma, Copyright Orartu, Creative CommonsAttribution-Share Alike 4.0 International

At 7:00, the guests arrive at Firuza and Vahid’s house three minutes away from the new orphanage. Velira, Siranoush, and Manzura’s eyes light up at the sight of all the food arranged around the table—mint tea, orange sharbat, cheese and walnut spread, stuffed grape leaves, cucumber and eggplant salad, noodle and vegetable soup with chickpeas, pistachio-stuffed lamb, saffron rice with dates, orange peel, and apricots, apple khoresh, honey almond brittle, nan-e dushabi with pomegranate jam, and baklava.

“It smells wonderful,” Inna says. “I can’t remember the last time I smelled anything so aromatic.”

“Do you have my ice-cream?” Velira asks.

“Of course,” Firuza says. “After dinner, I’ll serve you ice-cream. A little girl like you doesn’t have a stomach big enough to eat all this, so you’ll get your ice-cream sooner. I won’t be upset if you don’t have something of everything.”

Velira perches on Inna’s lap and obediently drinks the sharbat and eats the soup, khoresh, and plain dates Firuza sets before her.

The ten lines end there. A few more follow to finish the scene.

After she finishes eating, Firuza goes into the kitchen for a small bowl of ice-cream liberally flavored with saffron, pomegranate syrup, rosewater, and watermelon juice. Velira eagerly wolfs it down and then curls up on her aunt’s lap, where she quickly falls asleep.

 

IWSG—Revisiting my old books

~ Carrie-Anne ~ 3 Comments

InsecureWritersSupportGroup

Welcome back to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, which convenes the first Wednesday of every month to commiserate over worries, fears, doubts, and struggles.

This month’s question is:

Many writers have written about the experience of rereading their work years later. Have you reread any of your early works? What was that experience like for you?

I’ve reread my old books many times! Since I lost access to my old MacWriteII and ClarisWorks files on disks for many years, it was a huge blast from the past when I finally figured out how to convert and open the files in 2011. I was 22 the last time I’d seen them, and 31 when I regained access. There’s quite a lot of difference in cognitive development and writing maturity between those two ages!

I’ve written extensively about the experience of radically rewriting and restructuring the four books in my Atlantic City prequel series (whose first drafts were handwritten), and how I junked or radically rewrote 99% of the original 1993 material in You Cannot Kill a Swan. There really is something to be said about taking a step back from our work so we can edit and revise with fresh eyes, but I wouldn’t recommend taking a decade or more!

The first book in the series now called The Saga of the Sewards is waiting on its fourth draft (which will be another radical rewrite and restructuring). It’s fun to reread some of the scenes in the first twelve books, while others make me seriously cringe, for reasons including:

Frequent use of the R-word. WTAF! It makes me so mad that this word has made a comeback as a lazy, offensive synonym for stupid, foolish, ridiculous, loser, idiot, etc.

Way too much casual cursing. It’s unintentionally hilarious how these characters think nothing of constantly dropping the F-bomb, yet use the childish euphemism “make” instead of the vulgarism “piss.”

Max’s youngest full brother Gene being written as a mix of funny, gross, and perverted for being so sex-obsessed when he’s in lower elementary school. I truly had no idea how deeply creepy and concerning it is for a child that young to know so many details about sexual matters, let alone have an entire collection of such paraphernalia.

Kit’s psychotic, abusive treatment of her mother. I’ve significantly toned down their relationship and made it clear from the moment Mrs. Green is introduced that she’s the one who irrationally hates Kit. Mrs. Green is still intended as an unsympathetic character and villain who gets progressively worse over time, but it was way too over the top before, and there was no reason given for why Kit is so antagonistic towards her.

No understanding of age-appropriate cognitive development, and confusing ridiculously over the top (past even the levels of Family Guy or American Dad) for edgy and satirical. Because I went to such an abysmal school system from K–10 and didn’t interact much with my peers outside of school, I truly believed it was totally normal for preteens to have sex, use drugs, have wild unchaperoned parties, carry knives and guns, the works.

No real plots for the longest time, just random funny scenes strung together along common themes like summer vacation.

Referring to Max’s summer hookup of 1943 (whom he’s cheating on his girlfriend with) as “the slut” through the entire book, even after her name is revealed as Agnes.

Way too many unnecessary adverbs used in conjunction with non-standard speaking verbs, and cluttery prose like “Mr. Seward’s sapphire blue eyes that were characteristic of most of the family flashed in excitement.”

And so much more!

I’ve also written extensively about my shock and horror at finally being able to access the original discontinued first draft of Little Ragdoll after 16 years of it being presumed permanently lost. Egads, that was like a Grimm’s fairytale on acid! There was no way I could’ve salvaged a decent story by writing around that material. It was a blessing indeed I was forced to start over from scratch and memory.

When I reread my books published to date, I’m very proud, particularly of Swan. How did I manage to craft that so perfectly at ages 13–21? I also love going on the emotional journey from childhood to adulthood with the characters of Little Ragdoll.

Holocaust Remembrance Day has a very specific meaning and purpose!

~ Carrie-Anne ~ 1 Comment

It’s so damn depressing and infuriating to see all the usual suspects getting off on twisting Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz) into a feel-good, iNtErSeCtIoNaL, social justice free-for-all where everyone but actual Jews, the primary victims and targets of this campaign of mass murder, are centered or even named. These clowns have absolutely no shame.

People who’ve not said one damn word about the terrifying rise in antisemitism all over the world since 7 October 2023, or, worse, who’ve actively cheered it on and contributed to it, need to take our collective trauma and the names of our dead out of their damn mouths. The Shoah isn’t a meaningless, go-to metaphor for everything under the sun they don’t like. Particularly ironic when they toss out words like Nazi, fascist, genocide, Gestapo, and dictator for everything but the actual Shoah.

News outlets like the BBC (who also are radio silent on the ongoing massacres in Iran) dare to say Holocaust Remembrance Day is in memory of six million “people.” As insulting and offensive as woman-erasing language like “pregnant people.” What, pray tell, is the one distinguishing characteristic all these random “people” have in common? Might it be an inherent part of why they were killed, or why they become pregnant?

Jews and Romani were the only groups singled out for specific slaughter and destruction. Of course many other people were persecuted, sent to camps, and killed, but they were never the intended main targets. Plus, they didn’t suffer a catastrophic loss in population which has never been recouped to prewar levels. The worldwide Jewish population in 1939 was 16.6 million, and it was 15.8 in 2025.

Entire towns were decimated of their Jewish communities, and rural, smalltown Jewish life in Europe never returned.

This might seem an archaic or “problematic” concept in the era of iNtErSeCtIoNaLiTy (which itself has been twisted well past its original intentions), but not everything has to include everyone or be about every single type of person. If you can understand why a 30-year-old doesn’t belong in AARP or why an unbaptised atheist shouldn’t take Communion, you can understand why there are events, holidays, rituals, and memorial days only for the Jewish community.

There’s a separate Roma Holocaust Memorial Day, which varies by date and name depending on country. Some countries have memorial days specific to their own Jewish community, or all victims of the Nazi régime, on significant anniversaries (e.g., the liquidation of the Vilna Ghetto in Lithuania on 23 September, the Vél’ d’Hiv’ Roundup in France on 16–17 July).

I recently learnt the figure of five million non-Jewish victims was deliberately chosen and inflated so as to be close to the Jewish figure and therefore give Gentiles more reason to have sympathy for our documented six million dead and care about commemorating this tragedy. If we take out the three million Soviet POWs who died in Nazi hands and argue that their deaths, while of course tragic, are more accurately classified as war casualties off the battlefield, that number drops to perhaps somewhere in the two million range.

Again, while 100% acknowledging all of these deaths were tragic and should never have happened, we can see from the breakdown by group that the number of Jewish victims far exceeds every other demographic. Only our community was systemically, deliberately targeted for complete destruction.

Many people now agree Holocaust education has by and large been an abysmal failure. Teachers may be well-meaning by trying to universalize the Shoah and make it a feel-good lesson about man’s inhumanity to man, but this has produced several generations of people who genuinely believe it was a weird isolated event that Magickally arose out of nowhere,  could have happened to anyone, randomly chose Jews to persecute, and peacefully resolved as soon as the war in Europe ended, with antisemitism never to be seen again.

While I understand it’s impossible for the typical K–12 class to delve deeply into any subject, since there are so many events that need covered during the year, teachers could at least include lessons on the history of antisemitism and how the Shoah was the culmination of 2,000 years of this vile hatred being so normalized and promoted across Europe. No, it couldn’t have just as easily been you, and judging by how so many people have happily embraced antisemitism as a core social justice value since 7 October, you wouldn’t have hidden us or protested against the Nazis.

Many films and historical novels about the Shoah tend to center non-Jewish rescuers and resistance members, which further takes the focus off the actual majority of victims. Memoirs by actual Jewish survivors, and novels with Jewish protagonists, don’t have such a large mainstream audience. The number of people who bravely took a stand against the Nazis is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the total non-Jewish population of Europe. Things like Yad Vashem’s Righteous Among the Nations award show how rare it was. If the vast majority had rescued us, there wouldn’t be a need to recognize these heroes, and the Shoah wouldn’t have been possible on the same scale.

As Dara Horn points out in her essay collection People Love Dead Jews, the reason so many non-Jews gravitate towards Anne Frank as their go-to Shoah victim to invoke and praise is because her diary ends before she met people who really weren’t good at heart. Had she survived and written a sequel about her experiences in the camps, she likely would’ve had a very difficult time finding a receptive audience. Likewise with how Elie Wiesel’s original Yiddish version of Night explodes with rage at the bystanders who enabled the Shoah to happen, whereas the later French version was transformed into a story of theological angst more palatable to Gentile readers.

So, no, illegal immigrants (many of whom have committed serious crimes) being deported aren’t just like Anne Frank, and people trying to enforce the law aren’t the modern Gestapo. How dare you promote Holocaust inversion, minimization, and denial. If you don’t like that “Never again” was created as a specifically Jewish call to action, create your own for other issues instead of stealing ours and crying that we’re so intolerant for not sharing.

There will sadly come a day when no more Shoah survivors are here to bear their testimonies. They don’t deserve to see this repulsive hijacking of their trauma and grief in their twilight years. Find new metaphors already!