Story Ava (Complete)

Griz3752

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Smitty60 said:
I wonder if she has a patron page. For amount of writing she posts for free, I would willingly donate.
Click to expand...
YES!
Suggested that to her & a few others here; if she posted her library in about 10-15 page chunks on Patreon, a nickle a page per reader (or something equally nominal) would add up quickly. I have no way of knowing how many readers that might be (probably lots though and I bet TB2K could report on that) but a little judicious link-posting around the web would drive readers, old & new there, card in hand.

There are a great many authors around who have published but usually through Amazon et al where the publisher gets a very large share of each sale & the author often gets so little, the effort required & complying w/ there rules & restriction often drives them to post for free elsewhere.

I'm sure it's not as simple as taking your .doc or .pdf & dropping it onto Patreon but I think its the most cost effective way to self-publish and maximize returns to the author.

I don't have a hate on for Bezos, Gates, Walmart & all the other market-maker-owners but if I get the chance to deal w/ a local person or company, I go there by choice every time. Heck if Kathy or any of the other generous folk here wanted help getting their libraries up on Patreon, I'm pretty much retired, so I have time and DSL and would be happy to help for next-to-nothing; probably the cost of a decent jug of some adult beverage or some ammo. Gotta love barter; give me something I can use, not something some gov. can tax.

Besides, it would keep me busy & out of my wife's hair; she'd love you for that!

Damn but I can be long-winded.
Stay healthy all y'all.
G.
 
C

Catshooter

Contributing Member
You guys haven't been listening to her. She has said repeatedly that she doesn't want money for her writing. Pay attention. :)

Watch. Now that I've spoken for her ( a stupid thing to do) she'll have changed her mind and blast me.


Cat
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Catshooter said:
You guys haven't been listening to her. She has said repeatedly that she doesn't want money for her writing. Pay attention. :)

Watch. Now that I've spoken for her ( a stupid thing to do) she'll have changed her mind and blast me.


Cat
Click to expand...

ROFL. Nah. I really just do this because it is my way of working off stress. When the writing becomes the stress I change stories or take a break. But if I was doing it for money I think my motivation would change. For free I don’t have a conniption if my grammar or the homophone monster make me look silly. And I am able to be lax about deadlines. For pay I would need to behave more like a professional and where’s the fun in that? Lol

However, I do thank everyone for the compliment. I really do appreciate it.
 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
Griz3752 said:
"Feral monkey high school football players with more brawn than brains."
OK, if ANYONE ever questions your ability to create an image in a just a few words, PLEASE refer them to this! My wife wanted to know why I was snorting and choking (read it as I took a healthy swig of tea; I survived. Good thing I have screen wipes handy!)

You need to stop, breathe and maybe get some sleep and a decent meal and then, worry about Ava & us.
How you can effectively work on two separate story lines on two platforms, deal w/ RL and this family rescue move marathon is a story in itself. Being frazzled & tired is likely why your Ava post wasn't to your liking.

C U Soon.

THX.

G.
Click to expand...
Yep. Kathy is totally the bomb. <3
 
F

Freebirde

Senior Member
Talking about eating ramps and mushrooms. I'm indifferent about the taste of mushroom, but the effect they have on me is something different. If I miss some on the pizza or they serve mushroom gravy on the Salisbury steak on the buffet, you do not want to find us together in a closed car or downwind of me. Add ramps to that is something I don't want to think about.
 
R

Raymond

Contributing Member
Kathy thanks again for all your updates. I saw on one a list of sugar to lots-of-stuff substitutions. Can you please list it again where it can be copied? Thanks and be well.
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Raymond said:
Kathy thanks again for all your updates. I saw on one a list of sugar to lots-of-stuff substitutions. Can you please list it again where it can be copied? Thanks and be well.
Click to expand...

I've used it before but probably the latest was in an earlier chapter of Hartford. I'm slammed with end of the month/beginning of the month stuff, but I'll try and find it in the next day or two.
 
Griz3752

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Kathy in FL said:
I've used it before but probably the latest was in an earlier chapter of Hartford. I'm slammed with end of the month/beginning of the month stuff, but I'll try and find it in the next day or two.
Click to expand...
Move-outs, move-ins, my cheque didn't get deposited (countless variations thereof!) My furnace, my........ is out. your tenant has failed to comply with the .....,

Yeah I know where you are ma'am; drop the keyboard & TCO-your-B for a bit. We understand. I worked harder in the 7 days surrounding month end than the rest of the month.

At least your folks are all settled in....right?
 
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J

john70

Veteran Member
Chapter 71

Up On Hartford Ridge



One of the things I had been pondering is how to do stuff if or when a staple ingredient ran out.



We spent at least a week every semester of culinary class going over substitutions. I keep a nifty little chart that I made and added to all during high school that lists all sorts of substitutions. For instance you use equal amounts of honey for sugar up to one cup. If you go over one cup, you replace each cup over of sugar with 2/3 to 3/4 cup of honey depending upon the sweetness desired. Then you lower the baking temperature 25 degrees and watch your time carefully since products with honey brown faster. In recipes using more than one cup honey for sugar, it may be necessary to reduce liquids by 1/4 cup per cup of honey. And in baked goods, add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per cup of honey if baking soda is not already included in the recipe. This will reduce the acidity of the honey, as well as increase the volume of your product.



And then when I found out about the sorghum we would get in exchange for Sawyer helping bring in the canes I went to the library and looked up how to substitute sorghum for white sugar as well. It was very similar to using honey. In replacing ordinary sugar with sorghum, you increase the amount of sorghum by 1/3 over the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. At the same time, decrease the amount of liquid (milk and/or water) by this same amount. This is to keep the amount of total liquids and sugars in balance. When replacing sorghum for sugar in baking recipes, you apparently need some experience so the first few times you use a recipe you’ll need to keep a close watch. The exact ratios of substitutions may vary somewhat between different recipes. Also, it is not recommended that all sugar be replace under most circumstances. Best results are obtained by replacing 50% to 75% of the sugar with the required amount of sorghum.



I’ve got a long list of other substitutions as well and a good thing I kept my list from school because Linda had lost hers. We took it to the library and made several copies to share with the other wives but not all of them took it. I think that it is foolish to turn down knowledge like that but maybe they have enough they don’t have to worry about things like I do. I hope that is the case anyway.



During his “interrogations” Gramps brought up one of my bigger worries and that is how will I get by without flour. Easy enough to just say do without or use cornmeal but I want other options as well and I know they are out there, it is a matter of whether they are feasible for our money situation.



One of the big issues that a lot of the special ed kids faced at school were special diets. Sometimes the special diets were about behavior; for instance plenty of the kids weren’t supposed to have foods with red dye in it. Sometimes the special diets were about messing with their medications, especially if they were on certain meds that didn’t mix well with caffeine. And sometimes it was about allergies. Things like milk, strawberries, and nuts were fairly simple to deal with but some students were allergic to wheat. That was a humdinger to try and work around. It is amazing the number of common dishes that have wheat in them. Just flouring something for frying was a no no for some of my classmates. Most cookies and crackers were out. Most gravies were as well. I wanted to try and use some of that creativity I learned during the semester we studied that but this time, not because either Sawyer or I had an allergy but because we simply might wind up without wheat flour of any kind to use.



I checked out a couple books from the library and found that it was time to pull them out to read. One of them is called “The Complete Guide to Wheat-Free Cooking” by Phyllis Potts. Of all the “wheat free” type cookbooks available for check out it looked the least threatening. There weren’t any pictures and the book was kind of flimsy but it has over three hundred pages and easily at least that many recipes. Almost at the very beginning of the book (on page 6) I found a list of flour substitutes that I immediately wrote into my notebook.



Flour Substitutes



One Cup of Wheat Flour equals:

· 7/8 cup amaranth flour

· ¾ cup white bean flour

· 7/8 cup buckwheat flour

· 7/8 cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour

· ¾ cup corn flour

· 1 cup corn meal

· ¾ cup millet flour

· ¾ cup oat flour

· 5/8 cup potato flour

· ¾ cup potato starch

· 7/8 cup rice flour

· ¾ cup soy flour

· ¾ cup tapioca flour



I recognized about half of them including the bean flours as during my last semester in school one of my culinary lessons had been on how to deal with unappetizing foods like old dried beans. Beans that are too old to cook up even in a pressure cooker can be ground like wheat and turned into a type of flour. Bean flour can be used in gravies or as a thickener for other stuff. Now apparently I found out it can be used to make bread too.



Millet I thought of as a type of birdseed that was often used as a hot cereal. I was pretty sure that amaranth was the same basic thing but I’d never seen any for sale at the stores where I’d shopped. Same for the potato and tapioca flours. Rice flour I had been interested in since school but had never had any scope to experiment. And you needed a grain grinder which I only recently became the owner of one. I have gotten pretty good at grinding my own wheat and corn so I knew it was time to try rice. The good thing is that several sources said that a twenty-five pound bag of rice should make enough flour to last a couple of months. It is a cheap way to extend my flour.



But there is a catch. Isn’t there always a catch to anything that sounds too good? The problem with almost every kind of flour besides wheat is that it has zippo gluten. Gluten is the stuff that makes dough all elastic and junk so it can trap the air bubbles made by yeast and make the bread rise. So the best thing to do is use wheat substitutes in flat breads or mix it with other things to make up for the lack of gluten.



Corn flour and corn meal I’m not going to worry about because I can make cornbread all day long and Sawyer will eat it by the skillet full. I also know how to make corn cakes which are a lot like pancakes and can be eaten savory or sweet depending what, if anything, you put on them. I started looking at the different recipes in the book and making notes and that is where Sawyer found me a couple of hours later when he finally woke up ready for bed.



“Hey, what’s the idea of leaving me to sleep on the sofa?”








Chapter Forty-Six

This is Me Surviving







Substitution of Sorghum for Honey - Sorghum can be used in place of honey in almost any recipe on a simple one for one basis. The only exceptions are those recipes for cookies and cakes that use baking powder, where the change may prove troublesome (recipes calling for baking soda will not cause any trouble).

Substitution of Sorghum for Molasses - In non-baking applications (such as meat sauces, barbecue sauces, baked beans, etc.) sorghum can be substituted for molasses on a one-for-one basis. In baking recipes (such as cookies and cakes), sorghum should be substituted for molasses one-for-one, but it is necessary to cut the amount of sugar used in the recipe by 1/3 of the amount specified. This is because sorghum is sweeter than molasses.

Substitution of Sorghum for Sugar - In replacing ordinary sugar with sorghum, increase the amount of sorghum by 1/3 over the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. At the same time, decrease the amount of liquid (milk and/or water) by this same amount. This is to keep the amount of total liquids and sugars in balance.
…………..

In between canning batches I watered the garden, refilled the water barrels from the pump … Rand is praying rain holds off until they can get the sorghum in although the oats need it … and experimented with the sorghum syrup or molasses or whatever you want to call it.

I made a pretty doggone good gingerbread with that sorghum if I do say so myself. Rand sure did eat a good slab of it with no complaints. I only substituted some of the sugar with the sorghum rather than all of what Momma’s recipe called for and I could tell the difference in flavor. I think with dark, spicy cakes the sorghum will be really good; like pumpkin bread or tavern bread … yum yum. I don’t think it will be a good substitute in a white or yellow cake that I need to taste light but I’ll probably wind up giving it a try at some point. I bet it is good with chewy cookies too. And pies … wow, I imagine that I’ll really be able to make some good pies with sorghum.

Good grief, I’ve got the munchies all the time lately.
 
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Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
john70 said:
Chapter 71

Up On Hartford Ridge



One of the things I had been pondering is how to do stuff if or when a staple ingredient ran out.



We spent at least a week every semester of culinary class going over substitutions. I keep a nifty little chart that I made and added to all during high school that lists all sorts of substitutions. For instance you use equal amounts of honey for sugar up to one cup. If you go over one cup, you replace each cup over of sugar with 2/3 to 3/4 cup of honey depending upon the sweetness desired. Then you lower the baking temperature 25 degrees and watch your time carefully since products with honey brown faster. In recipes using more than one cup honey for sugar, it may be necessary to reduce liquids by 1/4 cup per cup of honey. And in baked goods, add 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per cup of honey if baking soda is not already included in the recipe. This will reduce the acidity of the honey, as well as increase the volume of your product.



And then when I found out about the sorghum we would get in exchange for Sawyer helping bring in the canes I went to the library and looked up how to substitute sorghum for white sugar as well. It was very similar to using honey. In replacing ordinary sugar with sorghum, you increase the amount of sorghum by 1/3 over the amount of sugar called for in the recipe. At the same time, decrease the amount of liquid (milk and/or water) by this same amount. This is to keep the amount of total liquids and sugars in balance. When replacing sorghum for sugar in baking recipes, you apparently need some experience so the first few times you use a recipe you’ll need to keep a close watch. The exact ratios of substitutions may vary somewhat between different recipes. Also, it is not recommended that all sugar be replace under most circumstances. Best results are obtained by replacing 50% to 75% of the sugar with the required amount of sorghum.



I’ve got a long list of other substitutions as well and a good thing I kept my list from school because Linda had lost hers. We took it to the library and made several copies to share with the other wives but not all of them took it. I think that it is foolish to turn down knowledge like that but maybe they have enough they don’t have to worry about things like I do. I hope that is the case anyway.



During his “interrogations” Gramps brought up one of my bigger worries and that is how will I get by without flour. Easy enough to just say do without or use cornmeal but I want other options as well and I know they are out there, it is a matter of whether they are feasible for our money situation.



One of the big issues that a lot of the special ed kids faced at school were special diets. Sometimes the special diets were about behavior; for instance plenty of the kids weren’t supposed to have foods with red dye in it. Sometimes the special diets were about messing with their medications, especially if they were on certain meds that didn’t mix well with caffeine. And sometimes it was about allergies. Things like milk, strawberries, and nuts were fairly simple to deal with but some students were allergic to wheat. That was a humdinger to try and work around. It is amazing the number of common dishes that have wheat in them. Just flouring something for frying was a no no for some of my classmates. Most cookies and crackers were out. Most gravies were as well. I wanted to try and use some of that creativity I learned during the semester we studied that but this time, not because either Sawyer or I had an allergy but because we simply might wind up without wheat flour of any kind to use.



I checked out a couple books from the library and found that it was time to pull them out to read. One of them is called “The Complete Guide to Wheat-Free Cooking” by Phyllis Potts. Of all the “wheat free” type cookbooks available for check out it looked the least threatening. There weren’t any pictures and the book was kind of flimsy but it has over three hundred pages and easily at least that many recipes. Almost at the very beginning of the book (on page 6) I found a list of flour substitutes that I immediately wrote into my notebook.



Flour Substitutes



One Cup of Wheat Flour equals:

· 7/8 cup amaranth flour

· ¾ cup white bean flour

· 7/8 cup buckwheat flour

· 7/8 cup chickpea (garbanzo) flour

· ¾ cup corn flour

· 1 cup corn meal

· ¾ cup millet flour

· ¾ cup oat flour

· 5/8 cup potato flour

· ¾ cup potato starch

· 7/8 cup rice flour

· ¾ cup soy flour

· ¾ cup tapioca flour



I recognized about half of them including the bean flours as during my last semester in school one of my culinary lessons had been on how to deal with unappetizing foods like old dried beans. Beans that are too old to cook up even in a pressure cooker can be ground like wheat and turned into a type of flour. Bean flour can be used in gravies or as a thickener for other stuff. Now apparently I found out it can be used to make bread too.



Millet I thought of as a type of birdseed that was often used as a hot cereal. I was pretty sure that amaranth was the same basic thing but I’d never seen any for sale at the stores where I’d shopped. Same for the potato and tapioca flours. Rice flour I had been interested in since school but had never had any scope to experiment. And you needed a grain grinder which I only recently became the owner of one. I have gotten pretty good at grinding my own wheat and corn so I knew it was time to try rice. The good thing is that several sources said that a twenty-five pound bag of rice should make enough flour to last a couple of months. It is a cheap way to extend my flour.



But there is a catch. Isn’t there always a catch to anything that sounds too good? The problem with almost every kind of flour besides wheat is that it has zippo gluten. Gluten is the stuff that makes dough all elastic and junk so it can trap the air bubbles made by yeast and make the bread rise. So the best thing to do is use wheat substitutes in flat breads or mix it with other things to make up for the lack of gluten.



Corn flour and corn meal I’m not going to worry about because I can make cornbread all day long and Sawyer will eat it by the skillet full. I also know how to make corn cakes which are a lot like pancakes and can be eaten savory or sweet depending what, if anything, you put on them. I started looking at the different recipes in the book and making notes and that is where Sawyer found me a couple of hours later when he finally woke up ready for bed.



“Hey, what’s the idea of leaving me to sleep on the sofa?”
Click to expand...

Thank you! I probably have something in a couple of the other stories as well. Dovie's and Kiri's, or something fairly close to it anyway. LOL
 
Griz3752

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
I've said it before; the stories on here always have good-things-to-know in them but sometimes the side bars & responses are where the largest concentration of nuggets are; I had no idea about the baking soda offset for honey &, being raised where sorghum isn't seen much (W. Canada) didn't even think of that. If it works well in ginger bread, I'm thinking it might be the answer to my ginger snaps - Mom didn't let me copy her recipes; she just told me want she thought I needed to know I guess.
 
Griz3752

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
ReneeT said:
Also fanfiction.com - but you'll need to use the search function to find MotherHenInFlorida
Click to expand...
Personally, Fictionpress, fanfiction or any blog are not my favourites but it has to do w/ formatting (font size, back ground etc) not the actual story. I really dislike blogs becuase of how they're tied to the calendar which makes searching a 'backwards' process for me.

Problem is there's a host of scabrous scumbag bottom feeders who will copy anything and try to pass it off as their own or sometimes just post it someplace where they can get per-click-payments. A host of authors, not just Kathy, have decided to move away from their blogs or forums to these platforms because neither permits rt-click, copy and therefore protects their copy right.

Sad but it is what it is, particularly as most forums have a much better reader interface, TB2K being the best I know of currently.

Consequently, I buy any sort of anthology any author offers up on media or, contact the author and ask permission to copy & store their work on my own TB Library. To date, none have refused and a couple even put their collections together, then zipped them up and emailed the whole thing to me. One even mailed me a USB stick & refused payment for the stick or postage.

Pretty generous folk on here which helps offset the high incidence of the aforesaid scabrous rascals. Well, I have other names for those but, this is a 'family show' so.......use your imagination.

All y'all stay healthy
G.
 
C

Catshooter

Contributing Member
Griz,

I feel your pain for the way a blog will post up a story. They suck.

However, FictionPress isn't formatted that way. They start with chapter 1 and go numerically. Plus there's a drop down menu of chapters so you can go were you want.


Cat
 
Griz3752

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
And apparently, less RA pain and maybe even improved vision - saw that last part somewhere but can't remember where.
The pain relief is documented though.
 
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