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Ukraine wood nymph uses up eastern European dry ice quote. Also, big guy in filched plaid. #eurovision 20:45:17 Whoops, X-men White Queen look. #eurovision 20:51:24 Think these two may need benefit of clergy shortly. #eurovision 20:57:48 Ok. Go Ireland! #eurovision 20:58:49 Visit Ireland. We have Knotwork. #eurovision 21:00:37 Tight pants, oiled tats, fountains of fire. [...]

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Previously at Out of Ambit...

Thinking it’s time to make this cake again…

Schwarzwälder kirschtorte is named for the Schwarzwald or Black Forest region in southeastern Germany, so it’s often known outside the German-speaking countries as “Black Forest Cherry Cake” or “Black Forest Gateau”. This cake is possibly one of the most famous of German desserts… which is interesting when one considers that it (or the inspiration for [...]

Year 26: Status: unchanged

On this day twenty-six years ago, I got married (for the first time*) to the coolest man on Earth. There he is in a pic I took of him some months previously, by the boathouse on Central Park Lake. That afternoon seems like about ten minutes ago, some ways. And even after two and a [...]

“Uchenna’s Apples”: New children’s / young adult fiction from Diane Duane

Writing projects sometimes get started in unusual ways. Some time back in early 2007 I was chatting electronically with an old friend and former neighbor, the gifted Somtow Sucharitkul — a splendid writer and (at least) equally splendid musician and composer, now the artistic director of the Bangkok Opera. And somewhere along the line, Somtow [...]

Dude, where’s my Apocalypse?!

Does anybody have an 800 number for the ancient Mayans? Because I need to lodge a complaint. Seriously, 2012 has been something of a wash all around. Tragedies. Mass shootings. Anguish of all kinds. Local cataclysms of the flood-and-earthquake variety. Wars and rumors of war (well, yeah, we always have those, but this year has [...]

Too Many Linens (And We're Going To Have A Sale)

Before Peter’s Mum died some years back — before she went into the hospital — she and I were sitting around together in her little back-of-the-house sitting room, and she was complaining to me about the state of her attic. “It’s full of linen,” she said. It took some explanation of Morwood family history to [...]

Noted in passing...

Note the European dates for Janis Ian's fall tour... (Sooner see her in AMS than in Milton Keynes, I think.) #
Via PM: "Esteban Fragances: Still in existence. The English-language version is a bit spartan (maybe new?) but they have the ceramic fragrances as pot-pourri and 'good-luck charm' pendants (en française, "gri-gris porte-bonheur".) #
That homemade ricotta recipe... #
Re the Games Wizards Play cameo role contest: ...So Lee has consulted the magic number-generating website, and having used some obscure formula involving matching random numbers to tweeting times (or something...) has chosen our five winners. In no particular order, they are: Moggie (@zz9pzza) The Sharklord (@thesharklord) Tony Kyle (@TonyK50) Octopus Gallery (@OctopusGallery) N. Kolyfoides (@placebetween) I'll be contacting everybody individually over the next day or so and we can start sorting out the details. Congratulations, all! #
From SeriousEats: How to grill skirt steak. #

Welcome to Out of Ambit

A blog more or less evenly split between writing, cooking, tales of travel, and random musings on life events and whatnot.

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At Tumblr

latimes:

The story behind Sriracha

With a distinctive bottle and taste, Sriracha has gone from an unpronounceable challenge to a staple sauce for many Americans. In the U.S. alone, $60 million worth of the sauce was sold last year alone.

But it wasn’t always such a prevalent item on store shelves. David Tran, the man responsible for popularizing the hot sauce, had a long journey beforehand:

When North Vietnam’s communists took power in South Vietnam, Tran, a major in the South Vietnamese army, fled with his family to the U.S. After settling in Los Angeles, Tran couldn’t find a job — or a hot sauce to his liking.

So he made his own by hand in a bucket, bottled it and drove it to customers in a van. He named his company Huy Fong Foods after the Taiwanese freighter that carried him out of Vietnam.

Read more via our profile of Tran, and his beloved hot sauce.

Photos: Gina Ferazzi, Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

This stuff makes a dynamite Bloody Mary.