Brian's Better Butterbeer Booster--Pyro-style and other . . .

ONE CHRISTMAS DINNER, many years ago, my father went a little overboard with the brandy--not in the consumption, but in the quantity with which he doused the plum pudding. And so, as he carried the platter into the darkened dining room, while blue flames danced around the tray, they also danced in a little stream onto the floor and left a trail of melted carpet.



I offer this tale as a caution: if you like fire, by all means enjoy the "pyro butterbeer." But don't set anything on fire that you don't want to burn.

More recently, about three years ago, I went googling for a butterbeer recipe to share at my "Lunch at the Three Broomsticks" club at school. I found many ideas, (sorry! can't remember where:( ) though I couldn't bring my favorite to school. I did, however, bring all my test-batches to the annual Heiss family New Year's Eve gathering for testing.

I'm presenting here the top tasting recipe:

BRIAN'S BETTER BUTTERBEER BOOSTER (I think that night we came up with even more b's, but I disremember now:)

You'll need:

• Good cream soda in large quantities


• Mrs. Richardson's or other good caramel sauce


• a few cups of Butterscotch schnapps


• pure vanilla extract


• butter


• a stout sauce-pan


• stove


• fire


• jars, mugs, ice


• tasters & helpers

What you do:

• Pour a couple of cups of schnapps into the sauce pan and set to heat on medium. How much cooking you do depends on if you want to boil/burn off the alcohol so this mixture is safe for house elves & children. Even if you don't, it won't be very stong (unless you're a house elf). Buttershots is about 15 % alcohol. If you mix the booster with cream soda at 1/10 ratio, this dilutes it to about 1.5 % or less, since some of the alcohol is going to evaporate, and there are other ingredients.


• If you want to leave it a little boozy:
  
  
  
  • warm up the schnapps, but don't boil or let it steam.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • Stir in some caramel sauce as it warms--maybe one or two overflowing, dripping tablespoons-full per cup of schnapps.
  
  
  • pour in a cap-full or so of vanilla
  
  
  • melt in a little butter--a very little because it hardens when chilled. You may want to leave this out unless you like your butterbeer hot; even then you can dot the top with butter.
  
  
  • stir it up.
  
  
  • slide the pan off the heat as soon as the caramel and butter are melted and stirred into the mixture.
  
  
  
  

• If you want it safe for house elves (almost alcohol free)
  
  
  
  • Do everything the same, but heat to boiling.
  
  
  • boil until it the mixture reduces to about 75% of it's original volume. Since alcohol vaporizes at a lower temp than water, the alcohol should be pretty much gone by now. Give it a sniff or a taste and see what you think.
  
  
  
  

• Pyro Butterbeer! If you like fire:
  
  
  
  • Add only the vanilla to the schnapps.
  
  
  • Heat it until just before boiling.
  
  
  • sniff it carefully! Smell that alcohol?
  
  
  • give it a good stir to get the fumes going and set it ablaze. Be careful! Use a long candle/grill lighter if you have one. Don't let your hair swing over the pot.
  
  
  • Turn off the light and enjoy the blue glow.
  
  
  • stir it around, taking care not to burn yourself or set your wooden spoon on fire. The burnt wood flavor is unpleasant. (use a metal spoon:)
  
  
  • When it goes out, stir it up and light it again. You can keep burning it until it won't light anymore, or you're bored.
  
  
  • Add the rest of the ingredients.
  
  
  • boil/burn/mix until reduced to 75% of original volume.
  
  
  
  

• When you finish cooking the booster, let it cool.

I like my butterbeer cold:

• Pour a little booster into your mug. (try about 1/10 ratio and add more if you like it strong and sweet)


• gently add cream soda.


• gently stir


• put in as much ice as you like--again, gently.


• You now have a mug of rich, creamy, sweet, and foamy butterbeer!

If you want to try it warm:

• Mix to taste with warmed cream soda and serve with a dot of butter. Don't boil the soda, or it will loose its fizz entirely.

If you're of legal/moral age, and you like a little extra cheer:

• add some good rum to taste, but watch out because this is very sweet and might give you a headache in the morning! ;-)

If you have suggestions for bettering the booster, and thus the butterbeer, please comment!

Finally, enjoy your butterbeer with good friends--muggle or magic! Or alone with your favorite book or movie. And watch those house elves!

Too Many Links! Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist Movie! A Contest! & A Question . . .

Andrew Karre told me, and Sara of Sara's Holds Shelf told him about this first. But tonight I read about it on Rachel Cohn's myspace blog: the film adaptation of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist! Sara wondered, but sounds like it's going to be fantastic. When I brought this book to school last year, my students were practically fighting over it, and they are going to be really psyched about this flick. When I first saw this pic of Rachel and Kat Dennings, I thought Kat looked almost too beautiful to be Norah:



I like this picture because it shows me something else, not exactly Norah-like, but, well, you know, gangsta.



Also check out Andrew Karre's album and book coupling contest and win yourself a book!

Question: I'm keeping my livejournal, because I can post simultaneously. And I love my myspace like a baby blanket. But should I keep my blogspot, or direct my traffic to my mandabach.com website?

SUSPENSE! A DAY IN THE WRITER'S LIFE

Check out this blog by Rhona Westbrook about a sudden attack of angst, Walmart, revelation, and the comments on suspense. This woman has some good stuff going on!

AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D

Here's another link that I'm excited about--this one to a website that has named me its AUTHOR OF THE MONTH!! :D The site is called Embracing the Child and the main feature of this honor is an interview.

Here's an excerpt:

ETC: The voice of Cassie, the main character, rings so true, especially her thoughts and emotions as she makes entries into her journal. How were you able to achieve that authenticity, writing in the voice of a teenage girl?

Mandabach: One of my old friends who just finished the book emailed me saying, "Are you sure you're NOT a 14-year-old girl?"

I'm pretty sure I'm not, but that's the exciting thing about writing fiction--going deep into your imagination, bringing everything you know and feel, and living that alternate reality via language as you attempt to communicate it.

So how did I achieve authenticity in the voice of a teenage girl? (check out the whole interview at the link above to find out . . . :)

Peace, everybody, and talk to me here or at www.mandabach.com!

<3
M

New Ink; Next Gig; Spokane Notes; Coronado, North Central, and Barker High Schools

FIRST OF ALL, here are links to a couple of new things out there:

• My longest and most in depth interview so far: Authorlink Interview


• Another, different, interview: ETC Interview


• More good ink: South Florida Sun-Sentinal Teenlink Review

NEXT GIG:

• My fall micro-tour is over, but I'm doing one more event in town before the close of the year:
  
  
  
  • Barnes and Noble @ the Citadel, on Academy Blvd.
    
    
    
    • December 15, Saturday @ 1:30-3:30ish.
    
    
    
    
  
  
  
  


• I hope to see some of the new friends I met today in Chapman's creative writing class at Coronado High School. What a great class. You guys really know how to make an author feel good: laugh a lot and at the right places and say, "Read more!" It was also fantastic to see old friends Mr. "Stay Black" Ken, Tiffany, Kara, and Emily. Love you all.

WASHINGTON NOTES:

Spokane was amazing--what a cool city. But it helps to hang out with the best people:

• My incredible friend Sam Ligon, author of the great novel Safe in Heaven Dead and editor of Willow Springs

• Sam's wife, Kim, and kids Jane and Paul, who are all brilliant.


• His friends, Kelly Chadwick, who introduced me to some fantastic wine, and


• poet Renee Rohl, who introduced me to her students at Barker Center.


• Other friends, novelist Jess Walter and his wife


• Ann, who used to live in my fair city and write for our hometown newspaper The Gazette. (Both she and Jess worked for the Spokane Spokesman-Review until former Gazette editor Stevie Smith came on board and began running ruining it.)

I had a great day visiting with creative writing students at Barker with Renee's class and also with Jim Creason's groups at North Central High School. Special thanks to Dylan, Pauline, Cassie, and (your dad-burned name slips my mind, but you're the best) who I met in class and who actually came out to the reading that night at Auntie's Books.

This event was a little different for me, with the reading showcased up front and with microphone, even, which made the power of the poet's voice truly tremendous.

Then it was a weekend of hanging out with my daughter who is the same age as Sam's girl, Jane. Or the girls spent time together, mostly, and Sam and I stayed up until three or four every night listening to music and talking. And talking. And talking. It's funny to think that I'm still friends with the guy I pulled a desk out from under in Mr. Johnson's actor's workshop class when we were in high school. But that he's still the most brilliant person I've ever met is no surprise.

Not Your Mother's Book Club and Spokane Bound . . .

I never got a chance to do a write up on my last trip, but the hostess with the mostest has done a better job here Literaticat on the Mandabach, Hopkins, Asher, & Lyga gig
with the San Francisco portion.

Here's silly me reading:

Tomorrow I'm off for the last stop on my fall 2007 micro-tour, Spokane, WA.

That where my best old friend Sam Ligon lives, and where I'll appear at Auntie's books on Friday night. I'll also be visiting two creative writing classes at two different schools, North Central and Barker Center. This is is my favorite part, I think, becuase it's so energizing to talk with the kids about writing. I'll miss my own students, of course, but the new groups are refreshing.

It's cold and snowy over in Spokane today, but looking at this pic from the area makes me wish I was going to be there in fishing weather. (Though I have fished in the snow!)



Peace, and wish me happy trails!

Q & A from Barrington High School Creative Writers, Part 3

It's been almost 2 months now since my visit to the old home town of Barrington and my beloved Barrington High School.

Or, disbeloved, unbeloved, nonbeloved . . . You get the picture.

I loved my English classes and my biology classes and my friends.

And I still love Baker's Lake, which used to have an island with couple of big trees on it, where herons nested. Both black crowned night herons:

And great blues:

But the herons loved it to death, and the conservationists love the herons, so they built these scaffolds for the rookery.


But let's get to some more questions from the BHS class of '08:

Have you distinguished yourself the way you wanted?

I joked about this question in class, mentioning my distinguished grey temples and beard, because I try not to think about winning renown. But the truth is, no—I haven't.

I would like to have written more and have garnered more recognition and money with my work than I have. (essentally none at this point.) I've written a novel that's as good as I could write it. It's been published, and I am grateful for that. But—I don't think I'm supposed to admit this—I'm jealous of writers who have bigger publishers and bigger budgets for promotion. But I'm also proud of my publisher's independence and that I have complete artistic autonomy. More than anything, I try my best to focus on the work for the work's own sake, and I believe that by loving the work, the process and the product, that I'll distinguish myself in my own esteem. If I retain any integrity at all, that's what matters most.

What do you think of the self-publishing option?

Sorry, but I don’t think much of it. I know somebody who self-published a good tween novel that my daughter loved, but I think she should have held out and pushed harder for a regular publisher. Unless you have something unconventional that you really believe in, and have the drive to do all the marketing work yourself, I think self publishing is best for those who have written something that they only want to share with family, friends, and close professional associates. But that's just me.

How do you find an agent in Chicago? What do you think of the Writer's Market books. How many query letters did you send out?

I think they are great, though I found my agent by using Jeff Herman's Guide to Agents, Editors, and Publishers.

But first, I tried to concentrate on the writing: on preparing to write a draft, and on getting the draft done. I want to clarify what I said before about giving myself permission to write a really crummy first draft: what I mean is that I try to avoid perfectionism and the paralysis of being self-critical. From the beginning, as I write about character and place, relationships and events, I strive for quality. I want real characters, characters that I love—I want a good story and good writing. But in that first draft, I don't try to get it perfect. I try to free myself to let the story come out, which means writing naturally and quickly. Then I'll go over it again and again and again, making my work as good as I can with my own skill and the help of people I trust to be honest and not destructive. These people also must also be readers (and writers) whose judgement I trust and who know how to talk about reading and writing.

Then, with OR NOT, I combed all the books trying to find agents who represented what I did, talked with everybody I knew who had published or knew people who had, googled the hell out of agents that I thought might be appropriate, and sent out 60-80 queries, in batches of 12-24. 6 wanted to see a chapter. 2 wanted the whold book. One became my agent and sold the book. Oh, and he's not in Chicago. He's in NYC.

How do you manage writing and other things such as jobs and school?

Luckily, I'm a teacher, so I had a summer to write my draft. And even then I had to sacrifice a lot of leisure time. During school, it's even worse. I have to give things up, some trivial, some that I miss. I don't watch TV. I watch fewer movies than I'd like to. I don't get out fishing, or skiiing, or hiking, or even walking very much. Sometimes I hardly have time to read, which is dangerous for a writer. My house is a wreck. My yard is an embarrasment. I don't get enough sleep.

Was it worth it?

Totally.

Do your parents approve?

My mom is sooooo proud. She is 85, raised six kids, and has always been a reader and a writer. She's kind of in awe because she feels that she never had the discipline to write a book, and we're a lot alike, so maybe she never thought I had it in me! My dad would approve, too, though he was on the conservative side, politically, and he wouldn't approve of Cassie and her parents' unabashedly progressive politics.

Have you ever been to a book signing?

Yes, but my first book signing is October 11. (I was in Barrington on Oct. 4. Now, as I revise this a get ready to post it, its Nov. 24th and I've had 7 book signings! They are so much fun.)