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On our recent trip, we did some antiquing and I found several fun old cookbooks. I think I will present some of my most interesting findings over the next couple of weeks. If you like cooking, eating, history, or goofiness, it should be enjoyable. Of course I am easily amused Let's begin our old cookbook adventure. I started collecting these chestnuts from history because I love eating, the past, and of course reading. Soon I found so many interesting things about how food, cooking, and the interaction with technology and sociology shape culture. My first example I present from this past vacation is a tome entitled 'Housekeeping in Old Virginia'. This book was first published in 1879. The copy I purchased is a reprint, but it's the content that matters to me most. This book is a compilation of many cooks' contributions much like a church cookbook from today. What's unique about this collection is the depth of its study into the recipes. Until this point, previous cookbooks were concerned about managing a household along with general food preparation. This book almost exclusively deals with actual recipes and not how much it costs to employ a maid or what silver to use with oysters. From Marion Cabell Tyree: "It will be seen that she is indebted to near 250 contributors to her book. Among these will be found many names famous through the land. Associated with them will be discovered other of less national celebrity, but who have acquired among their neighbors an equally merited distinction for the beautiful order and delightful cuisine of their homes." I find this fascinating for several reasons. Perhaps one of the most important is the author felt compelled to support her writing with celebrity endorsements. She is also concerned with pleasing others with her cooking. Not too much different from today, it appears. Anyway, here is a tasty recipe if you'd like. Brunswick Stew About four hours before dinner, put on two or three slices of bacon, two squirrels or chickens, one onion sliced, in one gallon of water. Stew some time, then add one quart peeled tomatoes, two ears of grated corn, three Irish potatoes sliced, and one handful butter beans, and part pod of red pepper. Stew altogether about one hour, till you can take out the bones. When done, put in one spoonful bread crumbs and one large spoonful butter. - Mrs. M.M.D. Now, I don't expect most of you to run out and trap or hunt down some squirrels for stewing. I also think it speaks powerfully of the era. Keep in mind, chickens for stewing weren't the nice, tender spring chickens we see in the grocery store today. A stew chicken would be an old bird that needed as much cooking as a stringy and bitter squirrel would to become tasty. Brunswick stew is a recipe to redeem rather marginal ingredients to become something sustaining. In addition, I love the fact we are using both butter and bacon in this recipe. Delish!!! Until later...

My latest short story That's Where You'll Find Me plays with the concepts of identity, reality, and memory. As many readers know, I am a fan of science fiction and these themes were made famous by authors like Philip K. Dick among others. Yet, I wanted to bring my love of science fiction into contemporary gay fiction. For me, I wanted to create a short story based on the concept of framed false memory from the perspective of an LGBTQ victim, who was traumatized and brutalized into forgetting themselves. Life can get really hard for folks in our community, but some of the worst issues are faceareby those who don't conform to the binary gender identity. It's not difficult to imagine someone who goes through a psychological break and becomes a different person with memories re-oriented, so the new reality fits their new life. A famous psychological issue called the Mandela Effect harnessed this severe psychological break with reality to rewrite history to suit personal needs. The Mandela effect, in short, was a phenomenon encountered by people, who claimed they had heard, seen, or witnessed the death of Nelson Mandela in the 1980s, when in fact he would not die until 2013 after serving as President of South Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_memory#Mandela_Effect It's a fascinating concept about how cognitive reasoning and personal views shape "perceived reality" versus "factual reality". My protagonist in this short story is a conservative Christian college student, who has spent most of his life, as far as he knows, being a devout Christian who crusaded against everything from abortion to LGBT rights to promoting Conversion therapy. Yet, his entire reality and structure of truth are put to the test, when he hears a girl play and sing the famous song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which seemed familiar to him and incites a deep-seated need for protection from him. As the story progresses, I show readers why this need to protect exists and break the multiple layers of false memories that created his reality. In the end, I wanted my character to reclaim their identity and reality, despite the trauma of accepting what had happened or what they have done in their life afterward. Not everyone is a strong survivor after a trauma, many people will look within themselves and change themselves to be something else to adapt. This happens to a lesser degree when people enter new surroundings like college or workplaces, but in my story, the protagonist had to re-orient their entire life history to make sense of their life experience. There's also a culpability factor in my story, for this illusion to continue, the closest people around the protagonist like his parents and best friend must accept his new reality as well. They did it out of guilt and obligation, but it actually compounds psychological issues from the protagonist's sense of reality and his self-identity. Reality is a tricky concept, there's factual reality, implied reality, and self-actualized reality. Some sidenotes: 1. The title is based on a line from Somewhere Over the Rainbow, along with the last names of two main characters being based on the names of the actual writers. 2. The fictional fraternity my protagonist belonged to has a famous Christian Greek prefix, "Chi" and "Rho" Greek letters combined in Christian iconography represent the cross in early Christianity. I know not many readers will know this little textual detail, nor care, but I did it intentionally. Most people know I have a grasp of Christian history and languages.