Sometimes, there is really nothing like coming home from a long day at work and get lost in cooking dinner. It has been quite some time since I’ve done a Cooking Adventure dinner and I feel as though I’ve gotten out of touch with cooking a little over the last few weeks. My plate has been filled with lots of things this month and it has been easier for me to just buy frozen things at the grocery store to eat rather than spend time after working all day to make something. Last night as I got home and realized I didn’t have any pre-prepared dinner to make quickly. But I was also feeling a real need to get lost in something, have a real “zen” moment where I could find my calm. Somehow, cooking seemed like the way to go. And I have to say this was one of the most calming cooking adventures I’ve done yet. All of the tension and frustration I’ve been feeling melted away into a pleasurable act of creating this flavorful potato salad with a unique pink tint provided by one of the most delicious vegetables known to man; beets.

When I went to shop for the ingredients for this recipe, I immediately forgot half of them. I wasn’t sure exactly how involved it was. I picked up things I knew I would need such as potatoes (dur), a beet, and onion. When I got home last night and checked out the ingredients list, I was fortunate enough to realize that I already had most of the other items, with exception of carrots and celery. Now… a moment. I have never… ever liked the idea of celery in potato salad. It just doesn’t seem to fit texture-wise and taste wise with the other ingredients. While most everything else is soft (with exception of the onion), celery is crunchy and adds a very watery taste to the potato salad. So, I was kind of glad that I didn’t pick any up. I had garlic already and I have tons and tons of dried parsley. Whenever I try to buy fresh parsley, I only end up using a little and then let the other stuff dry out until its crispy… because I never use it!

I decided that while making my potato salad, I needed some music that would put me in the right “zen” mood. And what’s more zen than some music by Tan Dun, best known for composing the soundtrack to “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” Laugh… you may. However, if you’ve never heard this music before, you are sorely missing out on something wonderful. I happily moved into the kitchen with my tranquil music as accompaniment. The first thing was to peel and cut the potatoes. My vegetable peeler had a much more difficult time with this than usual, but instead of cursing at it and hucking it across the room, I kept calm (thanks to the music, see) and continued. Once that was done, I dumped the pieces in a pot filled with water and put them on a burner on medium high so that they would boil for fifteen minutes. While waiting for the halfway mark, I did the dishes… something that sorely needed to happen.

I got lost in doing the dishes and when I finished, I noticed that I had missed the halfway point. I was supposed to throw in the beet (uncut and unpeeled) to cook for the remainder of the time. I cut the ends of the beet off and tossed it in anyway, letting it boil with the potatoes for the remaining couple of minutes. When the timer ran out, I knew I had to take the potatoes out, lest they turn into a mushy white mess of goo. I took them out with a slotted spoon and put them in a separate bowl, then added more water to the pot and allowed the beet to boil. It was also at this point that I discovered that I was supposed to have added an egg to the water to hard boil for the last ten minutes. I snagged one out of the fridge and plopped it into the water with the beet and let them languish there together for the next ten minutes. The time went by and when the timer went off, I was disheartened to discover that the beet was still as hard as a rock. However, I didn’t throw my hands up in the air and holler, “You damn dirty beet!” I remained in control. I breathed. I let it boil another five minutes, remaining in my oddly new-found tranquility with the music. At some point, I switched it over to Thomas Newman’s The Horse Whisperer Soundtrack, yet another amazing soundtrack.

Finally, I was able to remove the beet and the egg from the water and dumped the pink water out into the sink, listen to it gurgle in the drain disturbingly. It was almost as if it was its own entity, waiting to bust out of the sink and attack. Again, horror writer. And I like to attribute that to the fact that I read WAY too many Goosebumps books as a kid and watched my brother play WAY too many horror games. Thank you, R.L. Stine and Tim.

As I was saying, I cut up the beet into half inch cubes and tossed them into the potatoes. I realized later that I probably should have diced them up smaller so that it wouldn’t be such a chore to chew the pieces but, I personally prefer my potato salad to have some substance and not taste super mushy in my mouth. Then, I did the same with the egg, first peeling its crackly shell away, then tossing it into the potato and beet mix. I looked at the directions and realized I wasn’t supposed to do that. Crap. I never screamed out loud though, lest I ruin my perfectly zen cooking adventure. I didn’t slam the egg into the tiles and say, “Quit messing with me, egg!”  I grabbed a separate bowl from the cupboard and picked out the egg pieces from the potatoes, missing quite a bit of the yolk which had crumbled all over the place. I was supposed to mix the egg with a diced onion, chopped garlic, parsley, mayonnaise, and mustard. I wasn’t about to chop up an entire onion because I knew that would be asking for it. I decided to just use half. But, as I grabbed my onion from its spot on the rack under the counter, I discovered that it had already gone bad… and I’d only had it a couple days. This almost cracked my perfectly soothed head. Almost. But it didn’t. I prevailed.

I decided to not add any garlic either not wanting it to overpower the taste of the beets. The recipe honestly could have used two beets, in my opinion. One can never have enough beets. They are just so freaking divine! I ended up mixing in a couple tablespoons of parsley (the original recipe calls for a cup of it… in my opinion… that’s A LOT of parsley), 1/2 cup mayonnaise, and a tablespoon of mustard (it’s supposed to be a teaspoon but hell, I like mustard.) Then, after stirring it all together, I dumped this into the potatoes and beets and mixed everything until it turned a lovely pale shade of pink. Granted it was much lighter than in the original recipes (which was almost purple), but it tasted awesome! I ate it warm, which is apparently the traditional way of eating this and it didn’t disappoint. Yum. I want to make my potato salad like this all the time… especially while not screaming and throwing random kitchen utensils around.

Next week, I’ll be trying out a Grilled Balsamic Flank Steak recipe with homemade mashed potatoes. Stay tuned!

~KSilva

I drove to work behind someone who was afraid of slight bends in the road. He’d slow down whenever he came to one… and he wasn’t even going the speed limit.

All day at work, I kept saying the opposite of what I meant to say. It got so that I couldn’t even get one sentence out without something not sounding right.

But when I got home, I received some of the best news I’ve ever had. My second novel, Aequitas: Book 2 of The Monstrum Chronicles was nominated in the speculative fiction category at the 2013 Maine Literary Awards. I’m blown away… completely blown away. They said that there were a hundred entries for the various categories. To be one of the finalists in the Maine Literary Awards along with such names as Paul Doiron and Monica Wood and countless others is a tremendous honor. A fellow author with whom I’m thankful to have been introduced to, Jeff Foltz, is one of my fellow nominees. I’m so glad that I can share that category with such a wonderfully talented author.

The awards ceremony is May 30th! I’ll be there to rub elbows with some pretty awesome people and sit trembling as they announce the winners. Words can’t describe how excited I am. Seriously. Excited.

Haven’t checked out my Monstrum Chronicles series yet? Aequitas can be found here on Amazon! Give it a peek!

~KSilva

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelysanders/people-worse-at-cooking-than-you-food-fails

Didn’t see the latest Cooking Adventure? Scroll down. Much fun awaits.

~KSilva

Hey, I’m a horror writer. You had to expect me to do something like this at some point…

Let me be clear: I made a batch of these delicious muffins last week. So why didn’t I write a Cooking Adventure then? Because I ate them all and didn’t take a picture. Yup, you heard right. I ATE THEM ALL. It also literally took me ten minutes to whip up the batter and a half an hour to cook them the first time… so I didn’t really think there was much narration that could happen from there. But, I knew I had to stick with it and if sticking with it means that I have to make another batch of scrumptious muffins… well, who can say no to that? I probably should have. This 2nd batch as it turns out was the more difficult of the two, resulted in more errors, and was for all intents and purposes, a true “adventure”. The one before? A mere frolic. I will say though, these muffins were to die for. I will most definitely be making these again in the future. One is a perfect amount to take with you in the morning on your commute to work. And… it’s pumpkin. It rocks because of that fact. Need I say more?

I had been dying to make some pumpkin muffins ever since I picked up a couple from the local supermarket the other day. They were amazing, moist, but cakey, and didn’t fall apart… the perfect consistency. I figured that I was going to have to find a pretty kick ass recipe if I wanted mine to be as good as those. And while I didn’t find one that was quite as moist, the one that I did happen upon only used one egg which was ideal for me… because I only had one egg.

The first time I made the recipe it was before work last Wednesday morning. I literally put all of the ingredients together and baked them just before I had to be off and there was nothing better than bringing a warm, just-out-of-the-oven muffin to work. But as I said, I loved them so much that the fact that it had been a cooking adventure at all completely slipped my mind. Before the end of the week, I’d eaten them all and realized I’d have to make another batch. So on Monday afternoon, after doing the ridiculous pile of dishes in the sink, I set about doing the task.

I managed to injure myself before doing any kind of measuring, mixing, or cooking. If you’ve read other cooking adventures, you know that I seem to have an affinity for doing this.

My kitchen is pretty small. The drawers that hold all of my kitchen utensils are above a set of cupboards that have my mixing bowls. There’s about a 1/4 inch space between the two. I had rested my thumb on the top of the cabinet and pulled out the drawer over it with significant force in order to get to my measuring cups. Instant burning pain ignited the base of my thumbnail on fire. I ran to the bathroom and immediately dowsed it in icy water. It bled. It reeeeeeaaaallllly hurt.

After taking care of the injury, I returned, somewhat timidly plucking the measuring cup from the open drawer and pushing it closed. Into one glass mixing bowl, I measured 1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour, 1 1/3 cups white sugar, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp baking soda (which I managed to spill all over the place), 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp ginger, and 1 tsp cinnamon… and then some. The original recipe calls for adding pumpkin pie spice… but I’ve already stated in an earlier cooking adventure that it’s pointless to buy a bottle of spices that you already own. While I sifted all of these things together, I listened to an enthralling episode of “Destination Truth” in which they searched for a yeti. Little known fact, I am very, very into cryptozoology and love all of the corny reality television shows where people try to prove that they exist. But mostly, I watch Destination Truth for the humor of Josh Gates. Sexy adventuring guy searching for a yeti. That’s what fueled my muffin mania that day.

After I had all of the dry ingredients mixed, I pulled out a smaller glass mixing bowl and mixed together 1/3 cup of oil, 1 egg, and some canned pumpkin. I say “some” because I have no idea what the exact measurement was. The original recipe only calls for a cup. That’s not NEARLY enough for me. I added probably 2 to 2 1/2 cups of it and then whisked it all together. Then, dumping (I originally wrote “dumpking”) that pumpkin goo into the dry ingredients, I carefully stirred everything together until I got a smooth paste, that smelled of fall. I’m one of those people who misses fall all year round. Even if its autumn I miss it because I know it will be gone soon. Don’t judge me.

Retrieving my muffin pan from the cupboard below the devilish drawer, I put it on the stove and began spooning my batter into each cup. The first time I made this recipe, I made just enough so that all of the cups were full to the top with batter (I like it when my muffins are bigger on the top. (Why did that sentence seem strange to me?) This time however, I had just enough to fill ten of the cups leaving two empty. I put it into the oven at 350 and baked them for 30 minutes.

While I waited, I decided to test out some of my new tea that just arrived from Adagio Teas. In an earlier post, I talked about how I’d come up with some Monstrum Chronicles inspired tea blends for my book series. I have ten, each one based on a character from the series. I’d ordered three of them to test out. I was really excited to try Torrent’s blend which is a honeybush/blood orange blend with notes of coffee and chocolate in it. I let it steep for about five minutes which is the recommended time for a red tea.  But after tasting it, I was sad to discover that it tasted kind of bitter. However, after adding a bit of honey to it, it turned the tea around and it tasted 100% better.

Soon, the timer went off and I opened my oven to a warm rush of heat, allowing the scents of nutmeg, cinnamon, and pumpkin to invade the kitchen and the rest of the apartment in a matter of moments. I let them cool for a few minutes before prying one out of the tin and tasting it with my tea. The top was crispy which is one of the things I love about muffins. The rest of it was warm and kept its shape well. Just the right amount of spice to really heighten the pumpkin flavor. I would really love to get a muffin tin with bigger cups so that I can do some bigger pumpkin muffins at some point. That would just be incredible.

Next week on Cooking Adventures, I’ll be attempting a daring Panamanian Pink Potato Salad recipe from the Foy Update blog. Stay tuned!

~KSilva

Ever have a morning where you can barely crawl out of bed? What am I saying… of course you have. Everyone has. That soft velvety feel of the sheets and the warmth call back to you as you trudge toward your bedroom door and out onto the always cold kitchen floor. Don’t fear, my friends. There is music that can help that feeling. And that music is Celldweller. In most cases, I have a little bit of time first thing in the morning to get some writing done before I have to start getting ready for work. Those are the reasons I rip myself out of bed at six a.m. every morning. This morning, I had some trouble though. I was very, very tired and almost just wanted to stay in bed. But, I knew that I had an action scene that was waiting for me to write and that in order to do that, I’d have to call upon the services of one of my favorite rock groups, Celldweller.

Celldweller is a music project by Klayton based in mixing electronic rock and orchestral music. I first was introduced to them when I saw a commercial for one of my favorite television shows, CSI, a few years ago. The show was doing a series of character arc episodes for one of my favorite actors, Liev Schreiber, who was a guest on it. They had used snippets of their well-known song “Switchback” for the clip. I fell in love with this song hard and fast. It was everything that I needed to hear and more. A few years later, when I started working on “Vox”, that song came back to me for the climax of the book. To me, the lyrics, the pacing, and the over-all sound all reminded me of my protagonist, Torrent. Since then, I’ve enjoyed digging through some of their past albums and finding inspiration in them for current and future projects. I’ve been listening to them quite a bit while working on Book 3 in The Monstrum Chronicles. Today, I have five of their songs that I’d like to share with you. This time, I’ll talk about why these songs inspired certain parts of my Monstrum Chronicles series. Enjoy!

Unshakeable: This is a song that I’ve envisioned being used in my latest novel, “Memento Mori: Book 3 of The Monstrum Chronicles”. It works for a couple of the protagonists who are beginning to question everything they’ve ever known. One has just been introduced to the fact that there is another darker realm and dark things dwell within it. The other has been a part of that realm for years and is just discovering that he’s been misguided ever since he joined it. These two characters act as opposites of one another which I really enjoy because they are on opposite sides fighting against one another and neither one knowing the real reason why. The title of the song is actually seen as more of a mockery because the things they once perceived to be “unshakable” have completely turned on their heads.

Switchback: Switchback was one of three songs that helped inspire the climax of my first novel, “Vox”. Torrent who is the main protagonist of that book, has been on a mission for the last two hundred and some-odd years to try and change time. He wants to find a way to go back and discover his origins and, hopefully, not become the monster that he now is. He has been trying and fighting to find a way to do this and every time he’s hit a wall which has made him more and more angry and frustrated. The song draws on the rage he feels as well as his hopelessness to be able to do it at all. For me, this song has pretty close ties with Map of the Problematique by Muse which is the other song that I used for the climax.

Blackstar: Probably my new favorite song by Celldweller, this song is an inspiration for Book 5 in the series. It’s theme is very similar to Switchback, except that this time the song isn’t just for Torrent but for Reid as well. I can’t, of course, get into the details of the novel without giving away spoilers… which we wouldn’t want. So I’ll just say that the characters continue to encounter obstacles in which they have to make tough decisions to get passed. Some of those decisions aren’t made with the others consent or are in total violation of their own opinion. Torrent and Reid, while working together, are also very different. What one might have done in a certain situation, the other might have had a much different solution for. This becomes more apparent in the later books of the series.

So Long Sentiment: I was introduced to this song through a fan video that someone made for the PS3 game, Heavy Rain (one of my favorite games). This struck me as being the perfect song for characters who when forced to do whatever it takes for someone they care about, can be capable of doing crazy things. I liked the idea of that and wanted to use it in a later novel, of The Monstrum Chronicles, particularly Book 4. The characters that we met in Vox and grew to love in Aequitas will be up against even greater odds, ones that will ask very great things from them. And each one learns just what they are willing to sacrifice in order to make things better. The dynamic of these choices between the characters and how they affect others is really how the last couple novels in the series are shaped. When I wrote “Vox” and “Aequitas”, I had planned things out ahead of time, wrote the novel and changed it as I wrote it. I’m hoping that Book 4 and Book 5 will be more loosy-goosy in that I let the characters take me where they want to go.

La Puerta Del Diablo: This is the song that I listened to while crafting Harper’s character in “Memento Mori”. Harper was a character that was introduced in “Aequitas” and was seen only through the eyes of Reid and Torrent. In Book 3, Harper is one of the four protagonists that we follow and the only one that is a lilitu. The song is more ambient and less electronica, which plays well as an atmospheric piece. While I listened to this, I began imagining Harper’s origins in a foggy rainy Victorian England and tried to build on the points that make him such a haunted character. Harper shares a lot of Torrent’s anger and frustration because of the way that he was turned. But Harper is also a very curious individual. And he always is wondering what might be someone’s motive for why they are doing something. He frequently questions whether what he himself is doing is for good or not. He can’t quite find a balance between his human and monster qualities.

Next week on Inspiration Through Music, we’ll be checking out trip-hop, break-beat band Kosheen! Stay tuned!

~KSilva

Yup. You’re standing there, tapping your foot at me, waiting for your Inspiration Through Music or Cooking Adventures… and I have neither one. However, I have tea. I have Monstrum Chronicles-inspired tea blends from Adagio Tea. I think this is a worthy fill-in.

The other day, I discovered this wonderful website where one can basically create as many tea blends as they want and can do so after their favorite characters in television, books, and movies. Needless to say, the website is overwhelmed with LOTR, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, Sherlock, and Downton Abbey inspired teas. I was psyched to discover that I, too, could create some tea blends inspired by my favorite characters in my own book series. And so, for the last couple days, I’ve been feverishly pouring over my characters trying to decide which ones are worthy to have a tea made after them.

I’ve got 9, folks. I’ve already made 9 tea blends. A lot more work than it seems because I had to come up with the graphic art to go on the packaging as well! And it had to be different for ever character. Still, it was well worth it. Torrent has a powerful black tea with orange, hibiscus, and chocolate, Reid’s is a mix of mate and earl grey with some blackberry hints, and Eileen has a vanilla/almond Ceylon tea with the faintest hints of pineapple and coconut. I tried to stay as true as I could to each character and what I felt would work for them. I’m going to do a tenth blend and then cut it off until the release of Book 3 where a bunch of other characters are introduced.

I’m having a facebook poll on which character fans would like to see have that final tenth spot. I put a few suggestions but you can also add your own. Or comment here if you don’t have facebook. https://www.facebook.com/katherinesilva.author

And here, you can find all of the different Monstrum Chronicles blends! Enjoy! http://www.adagio.com/signature_blend/group.html?group=2204&SID=bc07f667cd397baac6620999bf6c4add

Tomorrow, I will have your Inspiration Through Music for you. Sorry for the delay.

~KSilva

It’s taken me some time to do get up the nerve to write this Cooking Adventure. I say this because I’ve recently been battling with the nastiest stomach bug known to man. Everything that could possibly seem delicious is immediately revolting in my mind. I’ve been subsisting on a diet of crackers, bananas, and muffins. Whenever I try to eat anything else, I immediately become nauseated. It seems to be closely tied to the migraine that I’ve been fighting the last couple of days. So you can imagine that it hasn’t been easy for me to relive the experience of a meal with so many strong flavors, some of which just don’t mesh with an upset sensitive stomach. It’s quite sad because this really is a wonderful recipe. A friend from work had made it several weeks ago and gave me the recipe to make. I made it twice. The first time, I had no issue. The second time however… well, that’s when this stomach bug popped up. I have the feeling that I will be avoiding asparagus and goat cheese for quite some time after this episode. I can’t even say their names without getting sick. Urgh.

You will notice that at the header of this Cooking Adventure, I’ve added “Quick” in parenthesis. There is a reason for this. I cannot recount all of the details of this adventure without getting massively ill. You may be laughing but I swear it’s true. I’m having a hard enough time just naming several of the ingredients. And looking at the photo… just… don’t… you don’t even know. So, I apologize ahead of time for the truncated Cooking Adventure. My stomach thanks you all for your understanding.

A few weeks ago, a co-worker and I were having one of our usual discussions about food. Both of us like to cook and she, being more experienced than I, has been sharing with me a few of her recipes. This latest one smelled amazing. She’d been having it as left overs at work and I knew that I’d have to give it a try. So, after getting a detailed recipe list from her, I went to the grocery store and purchased the ingredients for it. I bought some fresh pasta (which I’ve never used) from the refrigerated specialty food section at the grocery store. I’m calling it the “specialty” food section because I can’t think of its proper name. I also bought some garlic flavored chicken sausage and a small package of goat cheese from the deli.

The dish is quite simple to make. In a pot, you bring some water with salt to a boil. I had so much other preparation to do before I was ready for it to boil that I purposely put it the heat on a low setting so that I’d have time. Little did I know this would come back to bite me in the ass later. I then turned my attention to a different pan where I dribbled some vegetable oil into. As that began to heat up on the stovetop, I got out a garlic bulb and began tearing all of the crispy layers from it until I got to the inner cloves. I went all out. The recipe says to use lots… and lots of garlic. I used about six cloves. Hey… that’s extra garlicy for me. And I usually love garlic. I suspect that if I hadn’t used as much, it might have been a little easier for my stomach to tolerate though. I crushed each one with a knife and then minced them. I threw them into the hot oil. In mere minutes, the ENTIRE apartment (and probably my neighbor’s, too) smelled like a garlic field had gone up in flames.

While my nose was being assaulted by this strong aroma, I was busy slicing up a couple links of my chicken sausage. I added those into the garlic and oil, and allowed those to brown while I turned my attention to the asparagus. Or would have had I not remembered that the water was still on low and wasn’t even looking hot. I turned up the heat to Medium and resumed my work with the asparagus. To save myself as much trouble of remembering this green stalk of a vegetable, I washed them, and cut them into two inch long pieces with a knife. The recipe calls for steaming them. I have a steaming piece that lays into my pot that the water was supposed to be boiling in. It wasn’t though. It was just… steaming. I once again turned up the heat and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Meanwhile, the sausage was browning in the pan along with the garlic. My eyes were watering. The asparagus was lying limp and sad in the steaming tray.

Waited.

Waited.

Finally, after what felt like forever, the water came to a boil. I threw in the pasta, placed the tray with the asparagus on top, and put the lid on. And within ten minutes, it was all done. I had to turn off the sausage part of the way through though, because it was already done.

When all was done, I put the asparagus tray on the stove top and drained the water from the pasta pot.  Then after adding in the garlic, sausage, and asparagus, I took my package of goat cheese and added about four tablespoons of it to the pot. Then, I mixed everything together letting the heat melt everything.

…Oh. Hang on. Feeling kinda gross. *drinks water* Okay.

That’s the meal. That’s the super wonderful dish that should have been delicious. Oh how I hate it when your mind makes an association between something gross and an ordinary kind of food. Ever had that happen? There are things that you’ve loved before but just suddenly can’t stomach? Happened with hot dogs for a while. And peanut butter. And Spaghettios… but that last one, I never actually had again. Trust me, this recipe is worth it to make, and if I wasn’t dealing with whatever this Satanic stomach bug is, I’d be backing it completely.

Ugh. Now I can smell my neighbor’s cooking dinner. Oh no. And it’s seafood….

Next week on Cooking Adventures, I’ll be creating some moist and scrumptious pumpkin muffins that can be a treat for your mornings on the go. Stay tuned!

~KSilva

Ambient music can be one of the most inspiring genre’s of music in my opinion. It’s filled with various sounds and instrumentals in some cases all constructed in a way that ask for you to look beyond the melody and rhythm. You can see things happening to each and every unusual noise that happens. The music is meant to be background noise, it’s meant to keep your ears on alert. What I’ve always found with listening to ambient music is that my ears are able to recognize a lot of these various sound effects and translate them into scenery for my writing. When the ambient music is mixed with classical, it trancends a level of beauty that I find very hard to describe. Any piece of music that can stimulate my inspiration but also be enjoyable to listen to on its own is always, in my opinion, brilliant. Very recently, with Spotify as my tool for finding new music, I was introduced to the works of Bersarin Quartett. I’ve never been so excited about ambient music so much.

Bersarin Quartett is a German ambient and neo-classical artist. Their most recently released album, II, has literally been playing non-stop on my Spotify for the last several weeks as I work on Book 3 of The Monstrum Chronicles. The works off this album hit me on a very emotional level. I can sense so much while I listen to these and in turn, translate those feelings into the characters I write. I like to joke with my friends about how dark the book series is and that each book gets a little darker as the series goes on. Book 3 will be darker than Book 2, “Aequitas.” This is in part to Bersarin Quartett’s music as it has been the inspiration for the prologue and first two chapters of the book. Without revealing too much of what’s to come, I’m going to share with you four songs from Bersarin Quartett’s II album and tell you about what I see when I listen to them. Enjoy.

Perlen, Honig oder Untergang: (Pearls, Honey, or Demise) – She walked down the long narrow hallway, her shoes tapping on the stone floor. The walls seemed to show a ghostly shadow following her in their metal surface. For several moments, she tried to tell herself to turn around and go back. It wasn’t worth losing her sanity. She could still move on. There was time to heal. But for somereason, she just couldn’t see being in a world without saying good bye to her sister one last time. She reached the door at the end of the hall and pulled it open, straining with the weight of it. It was as if she’d entered a tunnel then. The light was gone and the sealed hall was much colder than the rest of the building had been when she’d arrived. There was a long window at the end of the hall; the viewing window. Her steps became smaller and once again the inkling that she shouldn’t do this rose up in her. What if seeing her sister’s body was the final thing that split her sanity, her grief forever tormenting her? But what if it set her free?

Der Mond, der Schnee und Du: (The Moon, the Snow, and You) – Snow had finally come to their little town that evening. The first dash of winter on the blisteringly cold November day. He knew that he should have been home hours ago. But, given the opportunity to walk her home, he couldn’t pass it up. The way that the snowflakes danced around her head, the way her smile seemed to brighten up the darkness… it could have all been a dream. He wanted to pinch himself just to make sure it wasn’t. He had watched her every day at school in his math class. It wasn’t what everyone said about her, that she had received a full scholarship to Berkeley, that she got the best grades out of the entire senior student body… It was something about her quietude, something that just seemed to radiate from her whenever no one’s attention was on her. Something in her eyes had him curious to learn more. And now it was his chance. He smiled as they both wrapped their coats closer around themselves and trudged along, the snow flitting through the air in the lights from the streetlamps.

Im Lichte Des Anderen: (In the Light of the Other) – As the first traces of light spilled over the horizon, her mind finally slowed down. It had been racing all night, never once slowing in the sheet of darkness. But now she could relax, she could finally sleep. Light was here. The sun was ascending into the deep blue sky and soon would overtake the earth. She took a long deep breath and tried to think of the night before. She’d almost not escaped it. To be killed in that darkness would have been the most horrific thing imaginable. She had seen things in the darkness that shouldn’t exist. She’d felt the claws of death as it had tried to pry her soul from her. It had almost been inescapable. She opened her eyes to the daylight, stood from her makeshift bed on the floor, and walked to the window, allowing the orange beams to engulf her. Bathed in that warmth, a new-found strength revitalized her. This was only just the beginning. But she’d survived. And she’d learned enough from the experience. She could survive this again.

Zum Greifen nah: (Minute Away) – An old clocked ticked away as he closed the door. The antique shop was a strange place. He’d only ever been inside once… when he shouldn’t have been. But now that he was here, alone and in the dark, he began to question his reasons for returning here. There were so many things inside, old dusty contraptions, broken parts, rusted tools. Things that were important to someone, somewhere but here were just collected pieces of junk. He felt nothing particularly special about any of them. As he picked his way through the aisles, searching for that one thing, he began to feel a large sense of unease. This was the last place he wanted to be. But he couldn’t go home. And he couldn’t leave town. He had unfinished business. If he didn’t make sure it was taken care of, people could die. Something glinted in the moonlight coming in the window. He zeroed in on the item and picked it up. An old skeleton key. Funny how something as simple as this could bring something so sinister to an end.

If you are interested in learning more about Bersarin Quartett, check out their bandcamp website here or check out their facebook page here.

Next week on Inspiration Through Music, I’ll be looking at the works of Celldweller, one of my absolute favorite rock bands. Adding a unique combination of orchestral and electronic influences to their works, their songs have been huge inspirations while working on The Monstrum Chronicles. Stay tuned!

~KSilva

Two weeks. I’ve been waiting two weeks to make this damn meatloaf. This heavenly concoction wrapped in celestial bacon, and coated in a divine ketchup brown sugar glaze has been on my mind day and night. And while I underwent my search for a new vehicle, I kept hoping that I’d be lucky enough to have some time here to get groceries and time there to actually make the meatloaf. Well, finally tonight, my time came. And the finished product didn’t disappoint one bit. I allowed it to bake as I tuned into the live coverage of the manhunt for the last suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings. It was a tense, edge of your seat evening in more ways than one. I’m just glad that everything turned out okay in the end. As the crowds in Boston cheered as the suspect was apprehended alive, I, too, cheered as my meatloaf came out of the oven looking like the best thing I’d seen all week (besides my new car, of course.)

It was Monday that I was finally able to get to the grocery store and shop after a day of testing out car possibilities. I tested everything from a ritzy Saab with all the bells and whistles imaginable (including headlight wipers, heated seats, and dual climate control) to a plain jane Hyundai that reminded me too much of my Kia, and a zippy fun little Mini Cooper that I probably had way too much fun driving on the back roads of Wiscasset. But, in the end my heart bonded with the fuel efficient, comfortable, and reliable Nissan Versa which in the end took up the latest title of IZZE 4.

I got home from work this evening, after a smooth pleasant drive, checked my mail, found an email from an obnoxious salvage yard that had called me eight times at work earlier. After deleting that, I moved over to facebook. It was here that I learned about the manhunt currently in progress and that the suspect had been sighted in Watertown, Massachusetts  Following a link to a live broadcast of the situation, I sat enthralled for a time before I turned my attention back to the meatloaf calling my name from the future. The recipe for this comes from the Pioneer Woman’s blog and can be found here.

I turned the oven up to 350 to preheat and then started with something I hadn’t expected to go into the meatloaf… bread. The recipe originally calls for six slices of white bread (sandwich size) to be soaked in 1 cup of milk. I didn’t have as much hamburger meat for the recipe (only a pound, the recipe calls for 2). So I used 4 pieces instead of my usual sandwich bread… which is about half the size of a regular slice and soaked it in about 1/2 cup of milk. The bowl I was using is a glass measuring cup/bowl… I guess we’ll call it a measuring bup. Anyway, it’s tapered at the bottom and gets wider at the top. So, I couldn’t quite let the bread soak evenly. I had to take a spoon to it and mix everything up… which in turn, mushed up the bread and shredded it. Oh well. It was going to get torn up in a few minutes anyway.

Next, the recipe calls for you to add the hamburger meat to the soaking bread. I pulled it out of the fridge and looked at it. The meat had begun to take on a grayish brownish tinge. Now… this had me a little worried. I checked the sell by date and was disheartened to see that it was the 16th… Tuesday. I had about a good five seconds of consideration before I decided to rip open the package and smell it… just to be sure. And I was surprised to discover that it didn’t smell bad at all. I searched online, wanting to make extra sure that I wasn’t going to double over and die of food poisoning if I went ahead and used the meat. Apparently the turning grayish brown on the outside is just a result of oxidation. The inside was still pink. Every website said that it was okay as long as it didn’t have a bad smell and the inside wasn’t grey. Good enough for me. I ripped the meat piece by piece and threw it into the bread milk mixture. Then, I added the various spices… which I didn’t measure. If we want to get technical about it… 3/4 tsp. salt, 1/4 tsp. seasoned salt, a few dashes of black pepper, and some crinkled dehydrated parsley… which has been sitting in my refrigerator’s bottom storage area since the Tabouli Predica-Mint.

Then, I took my spoon and mashed everything together for a few minutes. The original recipe also calls for parmesan but I hadn’t bought any and I had nothing to substitute. I grabbed a separate bowl to crack a couple eggs into. Except when I cracked the first one, I ended up doing it into the bowl with the meat and bread. I nearly facepalmed as I tried to scoop the yolk out with a spoon and plopped it into the other bowl. Then after cracking the second egg into it, I whisked them until they were blended and dumped them into the meat/bread/spice bowl. The recipe says to mix it all together with your hands. Sorry. No. I used a spoon. Call me lazy but after standing and sizing racks of clothes all day and fighting off multiple persistent auto salvage secretaries all day, I didn’t want to stick my fingers in some eggy meat goo. It didn’t much matter what I wanted though because a few minutes after I’d finished mixing everything together with a spoon, I realized I’d have to get my fingers in it anyway in order to shape it into a loaf. Drat.

I pulled a baking pan out from the cupboard and lined it with tinfoil. Then, I scooped all of the meat mixture out onto it and precariously poked, prodded, and smooshed it until it looked like a meatloaf. Now was the time for the best ingredient of all to make its appearance; bacon. I pulled out my bacon and realized within seconds of sliding a piece out that I’d made an error. The bacon I had was pre-cooked. I was supposed to use raw so that I could actually wrap it around the loaf. Damn. I bent the bacon as much as I could and tucked it in underneath. I got to the middle when I realized I only had one piece left. I placed it in the middle of the other half and suddenly, my meatloaf looked indecent. Had I the energy to run to the store and buy more bacon, I probably would have. But I didn’t.

Now it was time to make the glaze to go on top. In a bowl, I squeezed some ketchup, some dijon mustard from a bottle that’s plastic seal wouldn’t come off without needle-nose pliers, and some brown sugar which was chunky and didn’t mix well. I kept adding various amounts of each until I had what I felt like was enough to coat the top and sides of the meat loaf. The original recipe calls for making a lot of this stuff… its almost as if you could make five meat loafs with it. I took a spoon and scooped it onto the loaf, then spread it around until I felt it was evenly coated. Into the oven it finally went… for an hour. ;(

This hour was well-spent though. After finishing the dishes, I once again tuned into the drama that was unfolding over the live broadcast about the police cornering the suspect on a boat in someone’s yard in Watertown. I even got really into it by checking out the Twitter feeds about it as they came up. It was definitely a tense hour, listening to what the police were doing and all the while hoping that nothing else bad happened. And like I said above, when it was announced that the suspect was in custody, the dinger in my kitchen went off to signal that the meatloaf was finally done.

It was a beautiful sight. That liquid bronze finish over the top and a scent so intoxicating it would make you forget your place in space and time as you know it. And if that’s just how it smelled, you should have tasted it. It was everything I could have hoped for and more. The only thing that I think would have made it better would have been some onions in it for crunch… and some mashed potatoes to go with it like the author of the recipe suggested. This was a fantastic recipe, one that I know I’ll be returning to on nights when I need the perfect comfort food, something that will remind me of triumph in the face of adversity. Mmm-mmm. However, the moment I decided to transfer it from one piece of tinfoil to another, there arose the problem of scraping it from the bottom of the first. And when some of the bottom came off, it appeared like a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach as I precariously balanced it on a knife to move it. I’ll work on that method some more.

Next week on Cooking Adventures, I’ll be attempting a recipe that a friend at work told me about recently. This recipe has boocoo garlic… that means it has a potential to be a favorite. And, it did smell pretty amazing when she had it day after day as lunch at work. Oh yes. I’m excited about this. Garlic Chicken Sausage Pasta with Steamed Asparagus is next week! Stay tuned!

~KSilva

Apologies for those who have been sitting on the edges of their seats in anticipation for a new Cooking Adventures blog. The last thing I wanted (or needed) right now was for my car to go and die on me. When I’ve had it less than a year. And after I’d finished replacing half of the other parts on it. Let’s just say that they guy who sold it to me is a REAL piece of work and hopefully won’t be selling cars to anyone else because he knows absolutely NOTHING about how to properly fix them. And when I say “piece of work” I mean it by the number 3 definition: this definition.

*clears throat* Now that I’ve vented a little bit, I feel slightly better. Slightly.

Stay tuned tonight for Cooking Adventures. Meatloaf. It’s going to be amazing…because of bacon. If it’s not, I’m going to curl up in a fetal position and cry.

~KSilva