While trying to distract yourself from yesterday’s heartbreak, did you happen to catch last night’s Z Nation? If so, in the Season 2, Episode 10 episode titled “We Were Nowhere Near the Grand Canyon,” you’d have seen one of my favorite writers zombified.

No, I don’t mean George R. R. Martin! Besides, that was a couple of episodes ago. I mean this guy.

That’s right—me!

So how’d that happen? (more…)

While I was at the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, I was asked by dozens of my friends what awesome dining plans I had that weekend, for they know I always do make such plans, taking great care not to waste a meal when traveling. What I told them is what I already told you here —that the peak culinary experience of my trip wouldn’t be at the con, but after, at the eponymous Damon Baehrel.

What makes Damon Baehrel so special is not just its amazing food, but also its close relationship with a specific plot of land, a relationship which I don’t believe is replicated anywhere else in the world, as these words taken from the restaurant’s site prove.

In addition to the cultivated and native ingredients from our Sagecrest Native and Organic Gardens and property, all of the cheeses, cured meats, flours, vinegars, pressed oils, breads and butters (including cow, goat and sheep varieties) are hand prepared by Damon. Chef/Grower Damon partnered with a nearby organic farm long ago to raise these and other livestock, and whole animals have been utilized for the charcuterie and meat courses since day one. East coast seafood is personally selected by Damon for the popular seafood and vegetable courses. Damon also make all of the so-called “pantry” ingredients…including Fresh pressed Grapeseed oil, Sunflower oil, Nut oils. Flours: including Cranberry Bean Flour, Fava Bean Flour, Acorn & Hickory Nut Flour, Spruce & Pine Flour. (just to name a few) as well as over 60 Homemade Vinegars. Hundreds of powders & flours he creates to highlight his original Cuisine, Partridge Berry, Wild Fiddlehead Ostrich Fern, Smoked Cedar Berry, Wild Sorrel, Gem Studded Puffball Mushroom, Dandelion Root, Hickory Bark, etc. are just a few of the many ever changing tastes you will get to experience.

Now that I’ve experienced what turned out to be a seven-hour meal there, I’m being asked, “Well … ?”

And words fail me. Because in trying to explain what it’s like to have the privilege (and yes, that’s what it felt like, a privilege) of eating what Baehrel has dubbed “Native Harvest” cuisine, I feel as if I’m being tasked to describe the indescribable. I’ve been tossing out adjectives, which really explain nothing, and have been tempted to resort to one of the worst cliches of all—”You had to be there.” Which, while for the most part true, is tremendously unsatisfying for both of us.

So let me try to avoid that “You had to be there” cop-out and take you along on my journey as best I can.

It all began on January 7, 2014, when I was reminded by this Eater post that Damon Baehrel, located in Earlton, New York, was within striking distance of the World Fantasy Convention to be held the following year in Saratoga Springs. So on January 17, I shot off an email and hoped for a miracle.

Why would it be considered a miracle to get a reservation at a restaurant more than 22 months before the desired date? Because at the time I began my quest, there was a five-year backlog in place, and on April 1 of that year, just a few months later, Damon Baehrel stopped taking any new requests entirely, as there were already 100,000 reservation requests from 67 countries. Keep in mind that’s table requests, not just the number of diners, and that’s for a restaurant which only handles approximately 12-14 guests per seating, five days each week.

By May of 2015, I was informed that number had increased to 200,000 table requests from more than 80 countries, and with that increase, my hopes diminished. But (to make a long story short) eventually, miraculously, Chef Baehrel was willing to rearrange his schedule and open his restaurant for us the Monday after World Fantasy, on a day when he would normally be closed, a fact which I learned just two weeks prior to our meal.

And so, at around 3:40 p.m. on November 9, I pulled up to the locked gate at the mouth of the drive, filled with anticipation. And some justifiable fear as well. For how could anything possibly live up to that kind of hype?

(Spoiler alert: This anything did.) (more…)

How terrible is the bandwidth of my Internet provider?

So terrible that the following video of Sarah Pinsker reading a short story on October 17 at Capclave would have taken me 20+ hours to upload at home, while at the same time choking all other Internet usage.

Which meant I instead waited a month to share it with you, until I was at the World Fantasy Convention hotel where I could use 21st Century Internet to upload the 1.22 Gigabyte file in a tenth of the time as my apparently steam-powered Internet.

Enjoy!

If you want to see more of what Capclave can offer, here are some videos from 2014.

This year’s World Fantasy Convention—which you may or may not have attended—ended Sunday. Even if you were among those present in Saratoga Springs, I doubt you were with me for all of the following 14 readings, which I recorded with a Flip mini-camcorder (mostly balanced on my knee), because I hate for history to vanish.

If you’d like to replication my experience, watch the first three (from Friday) one day, the next eight (from Saturday) another day, and the final three (from Sunday) the last.

Enjoy your virtual World Fantasy convention!

Carrie Cuinn

(more…)

I never got around in October to harvesting all the dreams I had in September, so this post gathers two months of dreams which I’d previously shared on Twitter. I was so busy getting a new story written that I didn’t have time to do this before. Also, oddly, I think I had fewer dreams remembered the past two months that usual. Too much travel affecting my sleep, I guess.

In any case, let’s see whether these dreams gain any additional meaning from being gathered together this way, shall we? Last month, I dreamed of Stan Lee, Jay Lake, Robert Redford, Robert De Niro, John F. Kennedy, and more … and who knows? Maybe even you!

October 2015

I dreamt I chatted with 1960s’ Stan Lee, explaining to him the economics of kids buying comics. He was wondering how many we could afford. Oct 30

I dreamt I saw an ant inside carrying a tiny ant egg, so I smooshed it. Then I saw many, many others doing the same. So I smooshed them ALL. Oct 30

I dreamt that, at a mall, I came upon swing-dancing cosplayers. They were putting on a show to celebrate some (unknown) patriotic holiday. Oct 25

I dreamt my wife and son and I were swimming with sea lions, which was joyful, until we saw one chewing on a duck, which turned my stomach. Oct 25

I dreamt @BrianKeene was writing for the Flash TV show, and when I tossed out an idea, he suggested we should collaborate on a script. Oct 25

I dreamt I was sitting with Roz Chast and @RoseFox discussing “What’s the worst that could happen?” We were all being VERY pessimistic! Oct 24

I dreamt I wound up mechanized time bombs in the shape of small birds and set them to circling me and my parents. Woke before they exploded! Oct 24

I dreamt @IreneVartanoff and I were moving into an apartment at the same time the previous occupants were moving out. A confusion of boxes! Oct 22

I dreamt I bumped into @YvonneNavarro and @WestonOchse at a con, and we agreed to meet up on the way home in Annapolis. Why? I have no idea. Oct 22

I dreamt @EllenDatlow asked me from a panel if I’d read a certain book. I lied and said yes, so she pulled me onstage. Where I had to BS. Oct 21 (more…)

My wife‘s first novel, Temporary Superheroine, a comic book style adventure, was just reviewed by Publishers Weekly, and the verdict was, well … read it for yourself.

Considering PW hated, hated, hated my zombie short story collection What Will Come After, it seems to me that by comparison this reviewer is (to switch around a cliché) praising her with faint damns.

After all, considering a PW reviewer felt the authorial voice of the stories in my collection created “a monotony that undermines any excitement,” for Irene to be told that “the work fails to deliver any new insights or ironic commentary” is almost a compliment.

Regardless, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, right?

So why not discover for yourself whether you agree with the reviewer’s judgment of my wife’s insights and commentary by ordering a copy her book right now and reading it for yourself?

And while you’re at it, grab a copy of the sequel, too!

(Ain’t nepotism grand?)

Thanks to Tom Heintjes, I just learned that Roy Crane’s comic strip Buz Sawyer debuted on November 1, 1943 … that is, 72 years ago today …

Though, as he reminds us, Buz himself didn’t make an appearance until the following day.

Why am I telling you this? (more…)

Last night, my local Alamo Drafthouse hosted a Dr. Phibes Feast, with an appearance by Vincent Price’s daughter Victoria and a five-course dinner prepared from recipes out of the 50th anniversary edition of Vincent and Mary Price’s cookbook A Treasury of Great Recipes. From the moment I learned of the event, I knew I’d have to be there. After all, if you created a Venn diagram consisting of Food and the Fantastic, for me those two circles would surely come close to a complete overlap.

Check out the announced menu above, lacking only the alcoholic pairings accompanying each course, which as those who know me already know, I eschewed. (more…)

I’ve been teasing you for months about my seemingly impossible quest to dine during this year’s World Fantasy Convention at a particular restaurant, one which I’ve avoided mentioning by name so as not to jinx my efforts. I first reached out to the restaurant on January 17, 2014—yes, 21 months ago, and even then I worried that wasn’t enough lead time—as soon as I realized Earlton, New York was only an hour away from Saratoga Springs.

What’s in Earlton? I received word a few hours ago from an extremely helpful and patient reservations manager that I was able to get a table for six the day after the con ends, so now it can be told—next month I’ll have the privilege of paying a visit to a place Eater called “what might possibly be one of the toughest reservations to get in the world”—Damon Baehrel. Some have waited as long as five years for a table, and as the restaurant site reveals, they’re so backlogged they’ve decided to no longer accept new reservation requests.

Since April 1, 2014 Damon has given me the OK to take a break from accepting NEW reservation requests for an extended period in order to process/organize the huge influx that came in by that date. Recent National/International media coverage has resulted in us being completely inundated and overwhelmed with requests from around the world. As we will not be processing any new requests for the time being, we will not be keeping your contact info/reservation request details on file if you do send one. Please check back here every few months as we will post here when we will begin accepting new requests again.

That day has not yet come. (more…)

With my wife’s attendance at the New Jersey Romance Writers annual conference acting as the catalyst, she and I took an extended weekend trip that led us (but mostly me) into Manhattan, Brooklyn, and out onto Long Island for get-togethers with friends seen far too infrequently. And those reunions (of course) involved food.

Here’s what we ate and where we ate it along our journey.

Hometown Bar-B-Que

The first thing to pass our lips once we reached New York was BBQ from Hometown (which I first visited back in July), with a beef rib so amazing it remains one of my favorite bites of the year. New for me this time around was its pastrami bacon, which was sold out last visit. I could eat that all day. (more…)