My Immediate Thought Was Of The Sarpenthyn Shallan Saw At The Not-a-zoo That One Time! These Critters: https://coppermind.net/wiki/Sarpenthyn

J is for Jella tree.

"The basin was fairly well sheltered, the slopes covered in Jella trees.  Their strong branches grew spindly leaves – long spikes of pink, yellow and orange, so the trees looked like explosions of color. Shallan had read in one of her father's books that the trees drew in crem, the used it to make their wood hard, like rock." … "Jella trees here rose high, their hardened trunks colored the light brown of crem. The needles sprouted like a thousand tongues of fire from each limb, though the nearest ones pulled in as she approached." From Ch 45 of Words of Radiance

PSA: Brandon Sanderson is holding a T-shirt design contest for the release of The Lost Metal. 

There are 3 design prompts to choose from:

*  Wayne’s Haberdashery 

* Take anything from the books and give us an Art-Deco design 

* An in-world product (you can also make up your own in-world product for Mistborn)

More details on Sanderson’s site at: https://www.brandonsanderson.com/design-contest/

Rithmatics digression

We've talked about 9-point circles.  Here is a further exploration of 9-point conics in case you are curious:

brightlord-kholin replied to your post: Hello and welcome to Cooking with Kaly...

I’ve gotta find a way to substitute the meat with a vegetarian fake meat thing because this looks delicious and I need to try it.

Hmmm... I would probably start by playing with a falafel recipe, but  I could also see tempeh working well. Fake meat is also a decent interpretation of “soulcast meat,” so you can even claim you are sticking to canon :D.  If you decide to try it, I would love to hear how it goes!

Last Chance to Pledge for Full Negative Book

Friends. Readers. Fellow nerds with impeccable taste. We are officially in the home stretch. The final 24 hours. The last lap. The dramatic climax of the movie where everything explodes in slow motion and the music swells and someone says something heroic right before punching a fascist in the face. (Okay, that last bit’s just wishful thinking, but after the week we’ve all had, I think we…

Last Chance to Pledge for Full Negative Book

Hi, I'm auditioning for the role of Spook, Survivor of the Flames, and I'll be singing "Village Lanterne" by Blackmore's Night.

Oathbringer Speculation: Timbre

The descriptions of Timbre would fit with the name “lightspren”. We know that she communicates with Venli by pulsing to different rhythms. During the first shadesmar boat trip, Shallan speculates that the Reachers/lightspresn are using vibrations (ie pulses) to communicate.

This suggests that Timbre is a Reacher, but I suspect that she’s not just any Reacher. We meet Ico in Shadesmar and learn that his father is a deadeye and his daughter “ran off chasing stupid dreams”. Then Timbre tells Venli that her own grandfather was lost to human betrayal. Putting all of this together, I strongly suspect that Timbre is Ico’s daughter. I’m not sure what implications this will have for the future. But it’s a thing.

Citations: (Note: Page numbers come from the Kindle edition.)

What was that small spren that had crept out from beneath Eshonai’s corpse? It looked like a small ball of white fire; it gave off little rings of light and trailed a streak behind it. Like a comet. (pg 340) 

“The copper vibrates,” Shallan said. “And they keep touching it. I think they might be using it to communicate somehow.” (pg 931)

 “Wait!” Adolin said. “Ico, I saw something moving back there.” Ico locked the door and hung the keys on his belt. “My father.” “Your father?” Adolin said. “You keep your father locked up?” “Can’t stand the thought of him wandering around somewhere,” Ico said, eyes forward. (Pg 946)

Ico speaking:  “My daughter used to work there, before she ran off chasing stupid dreams.”  (Pg 948)

Timbre pulsed to Irritation, then the Lost. “That many? I had no idea the human betrayal had cost so many of your people’s lives. And your own grandfather?” (pg 1196)

I live near Atlanta and Labor day weekend is approaching, aka that time of year that Atlanta turns into nerd central - we get both Dragon Con and the Decatur Book Festival on the same weekend.

I love the idea of Dragon Con. I love seeing all of the amazing costumes people make for it. But as a person who is easily overwhelmed by large crowds and who has a distinct preference for books over tv and movies, the Decatur Book Festival is much, much more my speed.  Sadly, there is a distinct lack of anything fantasty/scifi on the book festival talk schedule this year. And Sanderson is going to be at Dragon Con... It makes it tempting to consider...

Realistically though, I’m going to be happier at the book festival. 

If anyone else is going to be hanging out in Decatur that weekend looking at books and wants to meet up for ice cream (there are a couple of great ice cream shops in Decatur) or tea or something and chat about the Cosmere, or Imperial Radch, or Wayfarers or... let me know :-)

Hello and welcome to Cooking with Kaly.  I decided I wanted to make chouta. It was an adventure. 

We know that the meatballs are made by mixing flangria with ground lavis, forming it into balls, battering it and frying it.  To create these meatballs we therefore need something to represent flangria, something to represent lavis, and a way to put it together without egg (since eggs are unlikely to be used in cheap street food on Roshar.)

I happened to have ground turkey in the freezer that I had gotten on sale at some point. It seemed like a reasonable stand in for flangria. Given the range of ways lavis is used, I feel like corn is a reasonable earth analogue, so ground lavis gets to be corn meal.  I mixed the 1.5 lbs of meat with 1/4 cup of cornmeal, 1 Tbsp chili powder, 2 tsp cumin, and 2 tsp oregano, formed it into small balls (maybe a heaping Tbsp of meat per ball?  I didn’t measure), then covered them and put them in the fridge for a while to let the flavors meld.  

Before cooking them, I rolled them in cornmeal, dipped them in water (some but not all of the cornmeal will fall off), then rolled them in the cornmeal again.  I fried them in a thin layer of canola oil in a cast iron skillet until they were golden brown.  The cornmeal gets all crispy and the flavors are great.  I’m a big fan of these meatballs. (note:the plate in this picture is small, the meatballs are not giant. There are also a lot more meatballs not shown)

For the flatbread, I mixed 1 cup mashed potatoes (since tubers seem to be common on Roshar) with 1/4 cup cornmeal, a heaping 1/4 cup flour and 1 tsp baking soda. I kneaded the mixture until I had a dough that I could press out into a decent sized flatbread.  This made enough for 2. Transfer the pressed out flat bread *carefully* to the frying pan and make sure you don’t try to flip it too soon or it will tear and be a mess. This made a decent flatbread. I think the recipe needs work though.

I used the pan drippings from frying the meatballs to make the gravy, but I didn’t have any good broth to use so it came out a little bland.  I think drippings gravy is the right idea here, I just didn’t do it well.

Overall verdict: This definitely feels like street food. It was tasty and has the potential to be amazing once I get the flatbread and gravy right. Nomnomnom. It’s not going to win any awards for being good for you, but that’s not what this is about.