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  • An Amorous Route: Love and Laughter Along Germany's Romantic Road
    An Amorous Route: Love and Laughter Along Germany's Romantic Road
    by Scott William Donald
Tuesday
Dec132011

Collective Nouns for Sweets: A.K.A. Musings While Grocery Shopping

So, yesterday was Chocolate Tuesday. As I was selecting my weekly chocolate I came to the startling realization that there is a distinct lack of collective nouns for sweets in the English language. I mean, we have such things as a donut of data, an embarrassment of parents, an Immersion of Baptists, a Jackson of Gloves, a mug of narcissist and, classically, a murder of crows. Why not collective nouns for the humble Mars Bar or Tootsie Rolls?

As I pondered this deficit in the English language while I continued grocery shopping, I came up with a few suitable collective nouns to get the ball rolling. Later, with the help of my friend, Geoff, I came up with some more. We really should make amends to this and create something to stand side-by-side with that first glorious book of collective nouns, The Book of St Albans. More suggestions are welcome.

 

Note: some of these sweets are distinctly Australian. I am relying on you to help fill in the blanks in my international sweets market knowledge.

 The list include lollies (Candy for the Americans), chocolate bars, mints and ice creams. 

A brain trust of Smarties.

An adolescence of Snickers.

A murmuring of M&M’s.

A mammary of Milky Bars.

A caravan of Wagon Wheels.

A vortex of Twirly Whirly’s.

A dandruff of Flakes.

A Wonka of chocolate.

A mental health day of Time Out’s.

A pride of Kit Kats.

A croak of Freddo Frogs.

A cinema of Jaffa’s.

A beach of Life Savers.

A sidewalk of Hubba Bubba.

A strategy of Tic Tac’s.

A romance of Tim Tams.

A super nova of Starbursts.

A tread of Tootsie Rolls.

A considerately bit more than a Bit-of-Honey.

A treasury of Minties.

A standard of Goldbars.

A Goldilocks Zone of Mars Bars.

A dynasty of Meiji.

A Blue Oyster of Golden Gaytimes.

A Manhattan of Mr Bigs.

An all girls college of Cherry Ripes. (Okay I felt a little dirty after writing that one.)

A land slide of Wonka Mud Sludge.

A decay of Violet Crumble.

An Australia Day of Picnics.

A main street of Goodbars.

A Gummis of Gummi Bears. (you need to know the cartoon to get this one)

A Mohammed Ali of Jawbreakers.

A deck of Snaps.

A distruction of Warheads.

A dungeon of Black Licorice Whips.

A blunt of Mary Janes.

A Chipmunck's of Big Hunk's.

A backdrop of Extra's.

An accident of Chrunchies.

A crusade of Cup-o-Golds.

An obesity epidemic of Eat-Mores.

An harem of Turkish Delights.

An exhaustion of Marathons.

 

And some from Geoff:

              A clumsy attempt of Butterfingers.

              A herdful of Jolly Ranchers.

              A double time of Twix.

              A gobsmack of Goobers.

              A low-down of Hi Chews.

              An Haven of Hershey.

              A nervous jitter of Skittles.

 

Enjoy.

 

Scott.

 

 

 

Saturday
Sep172011

Time Zones, Containers and Three Square Meals a Day - Maria Staal

 

 

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel the world on a container ship? What would the food be like? How would the ship staff treat you? Would there be anything to do but watch the endless rolling sea? Maria Staal's book, 'Time Zones, Containers and Tree Square Meals a Day,' is for you.

 

Staal is a veteran container ship traveler. For this adventure she has been commissioned by a shipping company to sail with one of their container ships as a tourist and document their travels at sea and compile information on the ports that she travels to from Asia through the Middle East and the Mediterranean and to the Americas. Her book tells an insightful journey recording the daily lives of the ships crew, the interactions with her fellow travelers on board and the ports she visits along the way.

 

Staal uses a classic fictional hook to keep you turning pages through the first chapters before you settle into her unique style. The purely unusual concept of traveling by cargo ship is enough to keep you reading on, but Staal accentuates this with her blow-for-blow recounting of her conversations the crew and travelers on the ship. This style enabled the reader to develop an intimacy and affection with all that were on board.

 

When she describes her surroundings she does so beautifully with rich detail. Her description of her first departure from La Spezia and her visit to a cathedral in Valencia are intriguing. Unfortunately these moments are rare and I would have liked the have seen more in-depth description of the other ports she took shore leave on. However, this may have be a result of her limited shore leave connected to the Container Ships busy schedule.

 

The book has been formatted professionally and is on par with any publishing house. On rare occasions her narrative comes across as a little awkwardly formal and almost fictional in the detail of her recollected conversations. However, the cadence of her book progresses along fast enough for you to over look these nuances and be wondering what would be happening next.

 

When Staal writes about the history of Suez Canal her penchant for history comes to the fore and you can follow her enthusiasm as she describes the earliest plans to construct the canal in 600BC right through to its reopening in 1975 one year after an agreement was made between the occupying Israeli forces and Egypt which later lead to the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty.

 

This is the third book Staal has written. Her other two books are based on the history and architecture of York in the United Kingdom. 

 

'Time Zones, Containers and Three Meals a Day' is a fascinating insight into the relatively unknown world of container ship travel. Staal's insights and easy flow keep you turning the page.

 

Her book is currently sold in e-book format but you can also find a paperback version on her website www.onacontainership.com . You can find her book at Smashwords or any good online E-book retailer. 

Friday
Sep162011

An Amorous Route paperback is now on amazon.com and Createspace.

Great news!

My book, An Amorous Route: Love and Laughter Along Germany's Romantic Road, is now in paperback currently for sale at Amazon.com and Createspace

If you like the book, like me, like laughing at me or feel sorry for me, I would love a review on Amazon. I am not below grovelling. 

I can honestly say that I loathe admin,  and this experience has not improved my feelings about it. Nevertheless, it is good to see the book up and running and I think when it comes time to publish the Vietnam book life will be a lot easier. 

 

Cheers,

 

Scott Donald

Tuesday
Sep062011

Limes Love Lost – Missing Limes From Vietnam

Limes Love Lost – Missing Limes From Vietnam

 

I know, I know. After I returned from my holiday to Vietnam I was supposed be pining for the Vietnamese Green Orange, the cam sánh, with their green thick green skin and sweet dark orange flesh. I will admit that these oranges were indeed nice but to be perfectly honest, I missed limes from Vietnam most.

Perhaps I need to explain. I live in Japan and the price of limes in this country is prohibitive. Up until today, I would never have dreamed of buying a lime in Japan, but I just wanted to prolong my romance with that oh so sweet floral citrus, the lime. I decided to follow this affair to the bitter end by juicing out a few facts about the lime (Do you think that was cheesy? You should have seen the lime-punned Facebook conversation I had).

After a bit of research I discovered that limes are not generally considered a species or subgenus of the Citrus genus. In my simple primary school mind I believed the basic grouping of Citrus were oranges, mandarines, lemons, grapefruit and limes. How wrong I was.

Lime seems to be a generic term for a number of citrus fruit that are green to yellow in colour, generally sourer than lemons and exhibit a floral aroma particularly from the zest[1]. This type of loosely explained definition seems to be pandemic of Citrus classification. As Scora in his 1975 [2]paper, On The History and Origin of Citrus, attests, “much confusion exists regarding the classification of the genus Citrus, and this confusion is not likely to be resolved soon.” The scientific classification, Citrus aurantifolia, seems to be appropriated for the limes however this seems to more strictly refer to the Key Lime species.

The word lime originates from the early 17th century and might come from the Spanish lima or Arabic lima meaning citrus fruit.

nuoc cham with fresh spring roles

One amusing little nugget of information I found was that limes were used for a time instead of other citrus by the British Royal Navy to prevent scurvy. This was because limes were easier to grow in the tropical climates of the Caribbean where the British had many colonies. This is where the pejorative for the British sailor, limey, originates.

As I was researching my way through limes I was beginning to wonder which particular variety of lime I had tried in Vietnam. It seemed that every where I went the same type of lime was used. They all seemed to be small and slightly oval shaped no bigger than a large hen's egg. It had a very thin rind and was incredibly juicy, the combination making it perfect for squeezing by hand into drinks. There were few seeds and the aroma was rich and floral. The taste was reasonably bitter with no oily aftertaste that some limes have. From what I could gather from a few websites[3] this resembled a Key Lime (Citrus aurantifolia) and the most commonly produced lime.

The lime infused Nuoc Cham with barbecue skewers

These limes were used in a number of food and drink recipes in Vietnam. Most notably is the use of limes in their famed dipping sauce nuoc cham. Nuoc cham is a table condiment used as an accompaniment for many Vietnamese dishes. It can be used as a dipping sauce for dumplings, small barbequed meat dishes or spring roll, or it can be poured over fried rice or stir fry. While it seems that every region, every town and every household has their on special recipe for nuoc cham the general ingredients consist of fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, garlic and fresh chili. The lime juice blends well with the salty fish sauce and mellows its pungency. The taste is generally light and permissive to other flavours which it is matched.

Equally as pervasive in Vietnamese cuisine is simply a wedge of lime on the side of a plate. I've seen it with pho, grilled meats, stir fry, fried rice, casserole and salads.

One of the most unusual delights I discovered in Vietnam was Lime and Soda[4]. The first time I tried this drink was on an exhaustively hot morning in Hoi An. We were give a glass full of ice, a bottle of soda water, a slice of lime and a small mound of white sugar on a plate. Our guess was that we were to mix the ingredients together to produce the desired drink. The result was refreshing. It was not cloyingly sweet but well balanced with that definite hint of lime.

In the front the basic ingredients for Nuoc Cham, minus the fish sauce

In Hanoi I ordered the drink another time and discovered that this time instead of a small mound of sugar on a plate I had a small mound of salt. The unfortunate thing was that I had assumed that the white grainy thing on my plate was white sugar like the first time only to find out that it was salt when I took a first swig. No, I didn't spit it out but I did need some time to adjust my palate. However once I had, I discovered that the soda, lime and salt mix was not too bad. I didn't prefer it to the sugar mix but it was still refreshing and a little unusual.

My favourite use of limes in Vietnam was not in any particular traditional drink or dish but in my summer drink, the gin and tonic. The extra acidity, that the lime provides, along with the floral aroma, bind well with the juniper bitterness of my gin.

Me with a bowl of Pho and come salad sides including lime.

 A little over a week after I returned home from Vietnam I finally surrendered to my lime craving and made a special trip down to the supermarket to buy my expensive lime. It cost me a little over $2.50 USD.

Was it worth it? Well, sadly no. The only lime my supermarket had was a Persian lime produced in Mexico. These limes are not quite a juicy nor do they have the bouquet of the Key limes and its acidity seemed a little lower and left a slightly oily after taste that wasn't to my liking. I guess these are the preferred lime to ship internationally because of their thick durable rind.

The most expensive lime I have ever bought. The Persian in Japan.

So now I sit deflated, missing the limes of Vietnam and a little sleepy from my sojourn into the world of the lime. Perhaps it's time for a refreshing drink.

 

 

 


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lime_(fruit)

 

[2] Scora, Rainer W.(1975) On the History and Origin of Citrus, Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, http://ww.jstor.org/stable/2484763

 

[3]  http://www.innvista.com/health/foods/fruits/limes.htm , http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/fruits/types-of-lime.asp

[4] Not to be confused with Soda-Lime a chemical used to extract carbon dioxide from the air in confined spaces. 

Friday
Sep022011

The Proof - An Amorous Route 

Huzzah! I just received my proof from Amazon today. This writing thing is great. You get all these little feel-good moments along the way. The first was when I finished the first draft. The second was the final edit. The third was when I uploaded An Amorous Route on Smashwords. The fourth was my first sale. The fifth and most recent was receiving this proof. 

I have had to learn a lot about formatting and cover design along the way. And I can tell you that you defiantly need a proof before you get your book out into the market.

The main problem I found was with the front cover formatting. I hadn't used a high enough DPI. Yep, I had no idea what that meant either. Apparently dpi means 'dots per inch' or the number of pixels that occupy a square inch. My mistake was using my ebook image that has a small dpi of 97. When you take this to print it comes out all grainy because a printer prints more finely can handle much higher dpi. I had mistakenly though that if I just increase the dpi of my cover image then that would fix the problem.

Misquoting B.A. Baracus, "Wrong Fool". What I needed was a cover image with a dpi of at lease 300. I was way off and there were no shortcuts to fix the problem. I had to spend today going back to the original high resolution images and copy my design from scratch. I was a pain but now I have a high resolution cover that I can reduce if need be or keep to make posters.

So now I need to get back to Amazon with the new high dpi cover and then I should be ready to release 'An Amorous Route' into the market. I'm thinking that it should be out around late September early October. 

Wish me luck.

Scott