Another technological disaster and a chorizo risotto to start off the weekend in a very good place - and mood!


It's Friday and I should maybe say this with a smile because Friday means risotto here at my place, and you know me, I love a good risotto, but I have had the darndest week all around, know what I mean? I can't say I've had a bad week, none of that, no, but it was a weird week where everything seemed to be taking ages to acomplish and get done. All my writing seemed to be stuck and I wasn't making nearly any progress at all, through the week. So because of that, I decided I needed to just focus on research, which at this point was really minor, just a little about Helsinki and its neighbourhoods and streets, so I could better place part of the action there. I mean, if you've read Unnatural you kind of knew I would eventually be taking the story to Finland, right?


I also felt like I needed to re-read the second draft of book four (Supernatural, still unpublished, of course) to freshen up my memory about certain things that happened and thoughts that were had and words that were said between characters. I mean, I wouldn't want to be writing something from a certain point of view only to finish up the whole series and find out that I couldn't have gone there because the character's point of view was the exact opposite. Or have someone say something that was quite contrary to what they might have said or done before. You know what I mean. So I also focused on reading through Supernatural, and that brought about this silly feeling that I might have stuff missing from Preternatural (book two, to be published soon). And I had to go back to it, all the while doing my research and writing it down, as well as a couple of lines everyday.


This time I wasn't even bothered with having a file for my research. I was jotting things down as I wrote the chapters that took place in Helsinki, as it was only first drafts of those chapters and since I knew they would be edited pretty soon, I was only preoccupied with writing down the crux of things, the juice, the most important parts. I always tackle embelishments later, if I have my head filled up with parts that need to be put down in paper straight away. Only I'm not putting anything in paper, and in the end, that turns out to be the problem. I'm only putting them down on a file inside a laptop, right? Right. Remember this post? Well, something similar happened smack in the middle of this week. My laptop shut down suddenly and all I had written and all the research I had jotted there was lost. For good. Ten pages of work. Unretrievable, unexplainably so. You can imagine how I felt.


It wasn't as serious as the previous mishap, I know, and this one was due to no fault of mine, but it got me mad. It got me really frustrated, angry even. Work was being hard enough, this week, writing wasn't coming easy for me, and to top everything off, the little I had managed to do gets lost in technological ether? Man! It was down right frustrating. But I have become so much more patient, and I have been taking these things in stride, not sweating it, there's no point to it. So I simply took a deep breath, grabbed an apple, went back to re-reading book three and doing the researcha gain. As it happens, I also went back to re-writing those ten pages that got lost, and frankly, I'm glad they did. The writing came out better and the storyline sounds way better, it feels more cohesive and makes a lot more sense. So, yeah, somethings when they happen may seem like the worst, but they turn out to be the best. Like a chorizo risotto. You stop to think of it and it sounds bad but then it's good. It's actually more than good, it's great. It's delicious, in fact!


Here's how you can get it, because it's Friday and on Fridays I like risottos:
  • 1 cup carnaroli rice
  • 1 L stock - either chicken or vegetable, you choose your poison
  • 1 cup white wine - actually, red works better but I used white because sometimes I'm that thick
  • 2 small chorizos - I used two different varieties for texture and flavour
  • 1 leek
  • 1 small onion
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • olive oil
  • salt, pepper, freshly grated parmesan or grana padano cheese
Start by slicing one third of the chorizos into thin slices and roughly chopping the rest. Also slice the onion, leek and the garlic. On a frying pan, without using any fat at all, fry up the thin slices of chorizo until they are crunchy. Take them out of the pan and place over kitchen paper on a plate so they loose all the extra fat. Use the fat that's left on the bottom of the pan and pour it into a large pan along with a small glug of olive oil. Stir fry the veggies in it until tender, then add the rest of the chorizo and allow to cook for a couple of minutes. Now add the rice, and stir it around the bottom of the pan, making sure it's completely coated by fat. Add the wine and allow it to soak up the rice. Place the stock on another pan and heat it up, lower the heat and then start addin laddle after laddle of it to the risotto pan. One laddle must follow as soon as the previous one has been completely absorbed by the rice. Keep stirring all along. Once the rice is nearly cooked, check the seasoning and adjust, add some pepper to it, some salt if needed, but keep in mind the grated cheese will also be salty itself. Once the rice is cooked through, brig it off the heat, stir in the cheese and allow to rest for about ten minutes. Serve with a good, full bodied red wine that can take the chorizo, and you're good to go. Hope you give it a try, really!



Comments

  1. Engraçado que realmente quando vi risotto de chouriço achei estranho, mas se tu dizes que é bom, tenho de experimentar! Aliás tenho o arroz arbóreo à minha espera há umas boas semanas...mas acho que vou atacar umas das tuas receitas antigas primeiro! Isto dos "chouriços" não é bem a minha cena! :')

    Ainda bem que neste caso o desligar do computador foi um "mal que veio por bem"...força nisso! Estou a ver se termino o Admirável Mundo Novo que me aconselhaste para atacar o teu menino! Estou ansiosa! :)

    beijinhos, Nádia
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    1. Pah, quero TANTO saber o q achaste do Admirável Mundo Novo, quando o li marcou-me imenso em termos de me pôr a pensar numa série de coisas que mais tarde se encadearam com outras cenas que tb me deram pano para mangas em que filosofar - o Matrix, p ex. apesar dos filmes serem uma caca, e um certo conto do Stephen King. Eu filosofo muito para dentro acerca da rise of the machines theory e cenas assim ahahahahh. Olha, começa p um risotto de cogumelos, é TÃO delicioso. N sei é se tenho aqui alguma receita, lol, é aquele q mais faço cá em casa e acho q nunca aqui pus uma receita mas posso mandar-te p FB se quiseres.

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    2. Ah manda, por favor, risotto de cogumelos parece-me perfeito! <3 Que conto é esse?

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    3. Trucks, é o nome do conto. Pah, nada a ver com o livro do Huxley, sim, mas encadeou-se-me na mente n sei pq, e sempre senti ligações entre ambas as histórias, o 1984, o Matrix e agora o Westworld - série. Rise of the machines, baby.

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    4. O 1984 deixou-me absolutamente perplexa, chocada, revoltada...sabes, sou uma eterna romântica e apaixonada, e mais rapidamente me convence uma utopia, do que uma distopia...no que ao sentido de concretização diz respeito... Não sei, por algum motivo cresci a acreditar na bondade humana, e por isso recuso-me a aceitar futuros destes, em que o valor da vida humana seja próximo de lixo, em que a individualidade é inexistente. Recuso-me... E, no entanto, se olharmos para o nosso passado tão pouco distante, é fácil perceber que o ser humano é capaz disso...e de muito mais...!

      Quanto ao Admirável Mundo Novo, chocou-me de uma forma diferente...fiquei apalermada com a forma subtil como a identidade humana foi roubada, não com repressões e perseguições, mas com atracções infantis...

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    5. Fogo, eu então sou o contrário nisso, eu vejo o 1984 cada vez mais próximo, então agora que se juntou a tríade de malucos no poder, tremo de medo. Qto ao Admirável Mundo Novo eu achei chocante sim, como se pode manipular a mente humana tão fácilmente, e confesso que acho q o li demasiado nova para conseguir ter algum distanciamento da coisa, tudo o que aprendi com esse livro foi mm a ser uma master manipulator ahahahah!

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