Tchoupitoulas

When we were in Texas for Scott's wedding, we had dinner at Razzoo's in Fort Worth. I'm not big on cajun, but it was cold and rainy, and we were on vacation, so what the heck? Vicky and I both ordered the tchoupitoulas (chopa-2-las) and liked them so much that we talked about finding the recipe. I meant to look it up, but honestly I couldn't remember how to spell it and forgot all about it. Vicky was more innovative. Or maybe she's a child of the Internet Age. Anyway, she found the Razzoo's website, which had the menu, which gave her the correct spelling to look up the recipe. We made it for dinner last night, and while it was fairly high maintenance, we all agreed it's a keeper.

Basically, it's chicken, sausage, corned beef hash, potatoes, green onions, and mushrooms with a Bearnaise sauce. Here's a recipe for anyone interested; not the exact one we used but darn close. It's not exactly a beginner dish. It calls for clarified butter, which I had never done before, and the sauce wasn't the toss-together white sauce I usually make, but a lot of it can be done ahead of time, and I think it could maybe adapt to the crock pot. At the very least it can be assembled ahead of time and baked fairly quickly. I see us doing this a lot this winter and adapting it to make it our own.

Glassy-eyed

I'm nearly half-way through the final "Sword And Scabbard" typo check. I started from the back to try to catch more of the evasive little buggers and it seems to be working. I also find myself wanting to read forward again occasionally, which I think is a good sign.

Numbers from the book signing weren't as dire as I thought. When I sifted through the numbers this morning I discovered I made $25 more than I spent on the books to take with me, and I still have a few copies left. Of course, gas money is still out of pocket but I did get free room and board, and I'd have had the gas expense just going to visit anyway. Plus there's the whole 'finished Christmas shopping' thing. ;-) I love it--it's not even Halloween yet! I literally have about nine people left to buy for. Eric and the kids and I are doing 'token gifts' this year--stockings and small things under the tree, and then taking the rest of the budget and going shopping after Christmas. That will allow us to take advantage of the sales, plus it will take a ton of pressure off me--less shopping, wrapping, debating style/color/size, etc. Between that and probably only having to sing at one service this year, I'm actually looking forward to Christmas this year! I *might* even get some baking done this year!

So that's the excitement here: edits done this weekend, hopefully off to Lulu next week, and on to new things.

Getting back to work

I got home yesterday afternoon. The book signing was a let-down. The five press releases I sent did not get published. The sum total of publicity was a pair of computer printed signs in the book store windows amongst several others (some of which were color, which made my signage that much more pitiful). Thank goodness my family showed up, and a big thanks to my mom for reminding everyone that it was going on. I still managed to sell a few books and left some with mom to foist off on her friends. Mom has promised to handle publicity for me if I decide to do another signing there in the future.

We did do some shopping while I was there; we both finished our Christmas shopping for that part of the family. I had some stuff for Mom already, but that's all I have to wrap and ship for them.

Next up is printing "Sword And Scabbard" (after I stop buy more printer ink) and the final typo check before I send it off to Lulu. I don't go to work tomorrow, but my work is cut out for me here.