Last Friday was National Doughnut Day. Last Friday was also a part of SFWA’s Nebula Awards weekend. Surely there had to be some way to celebrate both?

There was!

Since there was no programming that morning I felt like witnessing, I took off—with Wayne Rambo, husband of incoming SFWA president Cat Rambo—in search of some of Chicago’s best donuts to bring back to for several hundred of my closest friends. And to see some of the city at the same time, of course. It was a walk meant to be around 2-1/2 miles, but thanks to the vagaries of National Doughnut Day, by the time we were done, we’d hiked nearly five.

First stop—Firecakes, at which my favorite donut has always been their butterscotch-praline variety.

But, this being National Doughnut Day, they were sold out of them. Still, I bought as many donuts as could fit into one of their boxes, and then it was off to our second stop—the Doughnut Vault.

Which is where the weirdness began. (more…)

The first reservation I made for dinner during the Nebula Awards weekend way back when I started planning my trip to Chicago has a science fictional connection of which you’re probably not aware—because Beverly Kim, co-owner of Parachute with husband Johnny Clark, is the sister-in-law of Wesley Chu, author of The Lives of Tao.

So a John W. Campbell Award-nominated writer is related to a James Beard Award-nominated chef. See, the Venn diagram of food and science fiction overlaps even more than you thought!

So last Friday night, Barry Goldblatt, Kate Milford, Fran Wilde and I headed over to Parachute—a Korean American restaurant named Restaurant of the Year by Eater Chicago in 2014 which recently celebrated its one-year anniversary—to find out what all the fuss was about. That’s Fran Wilde and me (and a little bit of lens flare) above. I wish Wes could have joined us, but he had to head off to the Cayman Islands with his wife so they could celebrate their anniversary. What kind of priorities are those?

And the meal was pretty much perfect, with but a single flaw—due to competition from that night’s mass autographing (the early part of which I skipped in order to be able to make this dinner), our party dropped from six to four at the last minute, which meant we couldn’t eat ALL the food on the menu! I guess that will have to be our goal when the Nebulas return to Chicago again in 2016. (more…)

As Balticon wound down last month, I was interviewed by Dave Thomas and Brian Keene for their podcast, The Horror Show, an experience which left us smiling (well, grimacing maniacally anyway) once it was all over.

That episode is now available for your listening … dare I call it … pleasure?

Click on the embed below to hear me (at least according to their write-up) yammer on about —

… his work at Marvel and DC Comics in the 70s and 80s, his memories of creators such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Steve Gerber, how today’s diversity discussion echoes the past, his work for The Syfy Channel, Hanna-Barbera, and Tales From the Darkside much more.

And it seems before I could even get this post live, others have already given it a listen and found it interesting.

Perhaps you’ll find it interesting, too.

Because I was certain the food served at the Nebula Awards banquet in Chicago Saturday night would be barely edible at best and not at all edible at worst, I was determined to at least have a decent—nay, superior!—lunch so not all my meals that day would feel wasted. And I found that superior lunch at Big Jones, which I discovered thanks to a post which ran two weeks ago over at Eater.

Chef Paul Fehribach (whose food I was so taken with that I bought a copy of his cookbook as soon as the meal was over and had him autograph it) has long been in love with Southern cooking, and has dedicated his life to tracking down historic recipes and presenting food as it originally was. No molecular gastronomy or deconstructed dishes here! Not that there’s anything wrong with those, as visitors to this blog know, but I love the idea of experiencing the cooking of early last century, and even the centuries before that.

So I took off from the Nebulas with Jaym Gates and Lee Whiteside and headed over to Big Jones, where we were joined by Chicago local Eden Robins, with whom I’ve been trying to share a meal for years. Well, it finally happened (as you can see above) and, as it turned out, in one of her favorite restaurants, too.

It took Big Jones to bring us together. (more…)

I hate, hate, hate eating in hotel restaurants. And given the number of hotels I overnight in while traveling the convention circuit each year, I’m given many opportunities to do so. But I scorn those restaurants with the heat of a dying star.

There’s only one meal a year I’m forced to eat in one of those usually little more than competent dining establishments which tell you nothing about the city in which they’re located but instead represent both everywhere and nowhere. And that’s to breakfast with an elder in the science fiction field (because the conversation is worth it) whom I can never seem to dislodge from the site where the convention is being hosted. But other than that lone annual encounter, I bolt from hotels for all other meals.

Some have said to me, hey, aren’t you missing out on the convention itself that way? But I don’t see it that way.If I wander off for multiple meals with three or four different con attendees each time, I see myself as taking a part of the con with me while experiencing food that represents a city, rather than a chain.

Which is how I ended up Sunday afternoon at the Pilsen Food Truck Social, which was being held about three miles from the Palmer House. I’d found out about it from a squib in Eater, which is a site I always hit before visiting a city to make sure I miss nothing I’d regret. I wasn’t sure who’d end up joining me for that roving lunch, but five of my friends ended up tagging along—Greg and Astrid Bear, Francesca Myman, Arley Sorg, and Jacob Weisman. (more…)

Though the majority of my posts about last weekend’s trip will end up reporting on various foodie expeditions (such as my already-shared visit to Next), I should note that food wasn’t the main reason I was in Chicago. (Though it sometimes seemed as if it was.)

It was SFWA’s annual Nebula Awards that brought me to town, where I got to hang with old friends, make new friends, and channel Groot.

So for those who would rather focus on the people than the food porn, I’ve uploaded all the non-culinary pics here.

As, for example, this one, in which Matthew Kressel and I posed post-ceremony, each cradling a trophy that wasn’t ours—me, the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation which I’d accepted on behalf of Guardians of the Galaxy; him, Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Best Novelette Nebula.

Sadly, we were not allowed to keep these. OH, SFWA, YOU TEASE.

Up until Sunday, I’d been to Next—the restaurant that reinvents itself three times each year—six times for five different menus—Sicily, Kyoto, The Hunt, Vegan (twice!), and Bocuse d’Or. For a variety of reasons, I had to miss out on Next’s 2014 cuisines, but once it was announced that the Nebula Awards would be held in Chicago this year, I knew I’d have a chance to go back, and was thrilled.

It will give you a sense of my priorities that the first thing I’ve decided to share with you (well, after my acceptance speech as Groot) is the weekend’s dinner at Next, for which the cuisine was Tapas.

Once I was seated at our table with my three dining companions—Kate Baker, Eugene Fischer, and Barry Goldblatt—the first thing I noticed was a postcard, supposedly sent from Barcelona, because the chefs had travelled to Spain for inspiration.

Also on the table were three varieties of cocas—a type of flatbread—which we found difficult to resist nibbling on before our server could describe them. (more…)

I just arrived home from the Nebula Awards weekend in Chicago, which was—because I was around friends old and new—about so much more than only the Nebula Awards. I’ll tell you of what mischief I got up to once I recover, but for now … hey, how about that banquet?

I had an unexpected role to play Saturday night, because I was chosen to accept the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation on behalf of the creators of Guardians of the Galaxy. And my acceptance speech was somewhat … unconventional.

If you weren’t one of those in the room that night, or watching the lifestream at home, you can see what I mean below, starting at 56:34. Make sure you hang on after I’m done to see how Toastmaster Nick Offerman interprets what I’ve said.

‘Tis a good thing to be Groot. I’ve always wanted to branch out …

I love to time travel, but since I can’t do it in real life, I have to fake it. Which is why each year, when the Nebula Awards weekend rolls around, I take a look back at the one that occurred exactly ten years earlier, to see who we used to be back then.

So in 2013 I travelled to 2003, and last year, I relived 2004.

This year, with the Nebulas being held in Chicago, let’s take a look back at 2005, when the Nebulas were held in … Chicago. (And, as you’ll see, there was more of me than there is now.)

Joe Haldeman and I smooch that year’s SFWA Grand Master, Anne McCaffrey

(more…)

It’s that time again! Another month is gone, so I’m gathering together all the dreams I shared on Twitter during May to see whether they make any more sense collected in one spot than they did individually.

Last month, I dreamt of Robert Silverberg, Bob Hope, H. P. Lovecraft, Elizabeth Taylor, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Joan Collins, and more …

MAY 2015

Napping, I dreamt I visited a shop that sold “pregnant” donuts — that is, donuts stuffed with other donuts’ donut holes. Make this real! May 31

I dreamt I searched for my wife while wearing an extremely lush and feathery chicken suit. Why? I have no idea. But I looked AMAZING. May 31

I dreamt I hosted a Worldcon room party, and served fresh churros. Kept worrying the hotel would shut me down because of the fryer, though. May 31

I dreamt I spotted my father through a crowd, and as we locked eyes, I thought: So it was all a mistake! He isn’t really dead! And we wept. May 31

I dreamt I checked my phone messages, and there was one from my wife shouting, “Wake up!” So I did. Her words, after all, are law. May 31

I dreamt my train was delayed because two pterodactyl-sized birds were battling on the tracks immediately in our path. So we had to wait. May 31

I dreamt I was a drunk Don Draper, sleeping it off on an office couch. When Bert Cooper invited me for lunch, and I knew it was to fire me. May 30

I dreamt a dog I was playing with smiled a human smile, only instead of being creepy, it was actually kind of endearing. May 30

I dreamt I was camping out with friends, but it quickly turned into a horror movie situation, as one by one they turned up dead. May 30

I dreamt I took part in a downhill bicycle race on a road along a mountainside. Things got so fast I was surprised I stayed on the road! May 30 (more…)