Chocolate banana ice cream dressed up with everyone’s favorite “accidentally vegan” cookie! (And my “everyone” I mean “me.”) Of course this recipe will taste delicious with any vegan cookie – but I scored a package of Fudge Striped Shortbread Cookies on a recent trip to the Dollar Store, thus sealing my fate.

(Also: filling my pantry. They had Westsoy Soy Milk! A buck a quart! We damn near emptied the shelf…or does that go without saying?)

Top with extra cookies, chocolate sprinkles, chocolate chips, and/or chocolate sauce for a decadent, oh-so-chocolatey treat – or eat it straight from the container. No judgements here.

Striped Shortbread Cookie Banana Ice Cream

(Makes just under one quart of ice cream.)

Ingredients

3-4 overripe bananas, peeled, sliced and frozen
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)
2-3 tablespoons cocoa powder
5-10 “accidentally vegan” Fudge Striped Shortbread Cookies, broken into small chunks
sugar to taste (optional)
a splash of non-dairy milk or creamer, if needed

Directions

1. Put the bananas in the food processor and pulse until smoothly blended. Most likely you’ll need to stir them by hand several times, as the frozen chunks tend to gather and become “stuck” on one side of the bowl. If necessary, add a splash of non-dairy milk or creamer to get things moving!

2. If the bananas aren’t sweet enough for your taste (sometimes this happens if you freeze them before they’re sufficiently ripe), add a bit of sugar to taste. Any sugar works fine – white, brown, etc. – but I find that powdered sugar results in a smoother blend.

3. Add the cocoa powder and vanilla extract and pulse until blended. Sample the batter and add extra cocoa and/or vanilla if you’d like. Toss in the cookie chunks and pulse the processor a few times, just enough to mix the cookies in (longer if you’d like smaller pieces of cookies).

4. Transfer the ice cream to an airtight container. Enjoy immediately as soft serve, or pop the ice cream in the freezer for an hour+ for a firmer dessert. Store any leftovers in the freezer in an airtight container. If the frozen banana ice cream proves too hard to scoop, microwave it for ten seconds to help loosen it up (or let the container sit on the counter for ten to thirty minutes prior to eating, depending on room temp).

5. Serve with sprinkles, chocolate chips, or extra pieces of cookies to garnish – or sandwich a scoop between two Fudge Striped Shortbread Cookies for a special snack!

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You had me at “Maureen F. McHugh”!

I first picked up this book because it contains a piece by one of my favorite writers, Maureen F. McHugh – “Special Economics” which, as it just so happens, I’d already read (it appears in 2011’s After the Apocalypse: Stories) – but ultimately enjoyed all but one of the sixteen essays in this diverse collection. With elements of horror, fantasy, post-apocalyptic fiction, alternate history, and the supernatural, The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy – masterfully curated by Ellen Datlow – has a little bit of something for everyone. Especially if you prefer your speculative fiction on the dark side.

In addition to Maureen McHugh’s “Special Economics,” an arguably feminist tale which takes place in a future China devastated by the bird flu, my favorites include:

* “Jimmy” (Pat Cadigan), whose eponymous (anti?-) hero is a young boy coming of age in the 1960s (the bulk of story takes place the day JFK was assassinated). Granted “enlightenment” by an alien species, Jimmy is shunned by those who can sense his difference – and want nothing to do with it. Ignorance is bliss, or so the saying goes.

* “The Passion of Azazel” (Barry N. Malzberg), a revenge story told from the point of view of a goat, sacrificed to the gods one long-ago Day of Atonement and then reincarnated as a (human) rabbinical student who fashions a golem who is quite possibly his long-dead brother goat.

* “The Goosle” (Margo Lanagan), a fittingly bleak retelling of/sequel to “Hansel and Gretal,” in which lone survivor Hansel escapes from the witch’s cage only to find a world more brutal than the one he left behind. (Strong trigger warning for rape.)

Some of the stories – most notably “The Passion of Azazel” – can be interpreted from an anti-oppressive vegan perspective, which I especially appreciate.

For what it’s worth, I just discovered Ellen Datlow’s adult fairy tale anthology series. Wishlist ALL the books!

An excerpt from “The Passion of Azazel.”
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(Crossposted on Amazon and Library Thing.)

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While the characters fall flat, the backdrop steals the stage.

With the exception of Mothers & Other Monsters, I’ve read all of Maureen McHugh’s novels and anthologies. (“Devoured” is more like it, having consumed them all in the space of just a few months.) While somewhat enjoyable, Half the Day is Night is not McHugh’s best work.

Perhaps the lackluster reviews I saw previous to reading the book colored my perception of it, but I had trouble empathizing with – or even caring a whit about – the characters who inhabit the story. With the (marginal) exception of David Dai, the denizens of McHugh’s undersea cities are at best bland and boring; at worst, downright unlikable. For example, I found female protagonist Mayla Ling sheltered, spoiled, self-absorbed, and completely lacking in common sense. (When David calls her a tyrant for taking advantage of her employee/ex-boyfriend Tim, Mayla simply shrugs indifferently. “Too bad.”) I cared less about whether she survived the story’s end than whether her selfishness would prove David’s downfall. Described mainly through Mayla’s eyes, poor Tim hardly gets a chance at becoming a well-rounded character.

The real star of Half the Day is Night proves to be its setting – the intricate undersea cities created by McHugh. Dark and dank, and marked by poverty and sharp class inequities, one can almost feel the oppressive weight of the ocean pressing down from above. As always, McHugh’s imagination is a thing of beauty; her detailed depiction of Caribe will stay with you long after the story is done.

If you’re already a fan of McHugh, Half the Day is Night is well worth a read. Otherwise, begin your journey with another of her works. Mission Child is my personal favorite, and Nekropolis, China Mountain Zhang, and After the Apocalypse are all outstanding as well.

(Crossposted on Amazon and Library Thing.)

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Jayne decided to make me some paper art for my birthday, ‘cause she knows how much I love books. Such a thoughtful girl!

(Incidentally, I started a post about the first story in this collection of fairy tales yesterday, but I guess it’ll have to wait. At least I was already planning on treating myself to an Amazon used book shopping spree. JUST TOSS IT IN THE CART!)

A portrait of the artiste! Don’t mind her, she’s a little shy. A real J. D. Salinger, this one.

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I made this at the husband’s request and he so liked it that he ate a heaping bowl of it for dinner. Also, he had a sore tooth, which may have had a little something to do with it. But no matter! This dessert is so healthy that you can eat it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner! Stir in a little chocolate protein powder (vegan, of course) for an extra nutritional boost. Or top it with extra nuts for even more protein. Much like that bottomless pit I call my stomach, the options are endless.

So close you can practically taste it!
——————————

Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Ice Cream

(Makes just under one quart of ice cream.)

Ingredients

3-4 overripe bananas, peeled, sliced and frozen
1/2 cup peanut butter
2-3 tablespoons cocoa powder
sugar to taste (optional)
a splash of non-dairy milk or creamer, if needed

Directions

1. Put the bananas in the food processor and pulse until smoothly blended. Most likely you’ll need to stir them by hand several times, as the frozen chunks tend to gather and become “stuck” on one side of the bowl. If necessary, add a splash of non-dairy milk or creamer to get things moving!

2. If the bananas aren’t sweet enough for your taste (sometimes this happens if you freeze them before they’re sufficiently ripe), add a bit of sugar to taste. Any sugar works fine – white, brown, etc. – but I find that powdered sugar results in a smoother blend.

3. Add the cocoa powder and peanut butter and pulse until blended. Sample the batter and add extra cocoa powder or pb if you’d like.

4. Transfer the ice cream to an airtight container. Enjoy immediately as soft serve, or pop the ice cream in the freezer for an hour+ for a firmer dessert. Store any leftovers in the freezer in an airtight container. If the frozen banana ice cream proves too hard to scoop, microwave it for ten seconds to help loosen it up (or let the container sit on the counter for ten to thirty minutes prior to eating, depending on room temp).

Optional: Add some chocolate chips or peanuts before step #1 for a chunkier dessert – and/or stir in some extra peanut butter by hand for that “swirly” effect (after step #4).

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People! I’m giving away a copy of Jo Stepaniak’s The Nutritional Yeast Cookbook over on tumblr! There are three ways to win, and you don’t need to have a tumblr account to enter. Click on over for the deets. You have until next Monday morning, so get to it.

ALL THE NOOCH COULD BE YOURS.*

* Helpful hint: if you use a ton of the stuff like moi, order nutritional yeast online by the pound for extra savings and guaranteed availability. Those dinky bulk bins at Whole Foods only hold a fraction of the nooch I buy in one order!

Just a quick note to let y’all know that I’m slowly but surely transitioning the blog from a category to a tag-based system for organizing blog posts. So if you notice anything wonky or suddenly see tens or hundreds or even thousands of old posts showing up as “new” in your blog reader, this is why!

I’ve got some other changes planned too; after the tags are squared away, I’m going to import all the old posts from my non-AR blog, Smite Me!, so that all my writing is in one place. Since I mostly write about vegan issues – or occasionally about non-vegan issues from a vegan perspective – it just doesn’t make sense for me to maintain two separate blogs anymore. Plus there was a ton of overlap that should be super-fun to sort through during the merger. Not!

There may also be a blog redesign down the road, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. (I blame Mary! Her Animal Person Redux has got me feeling all restless. Or at least more than I already was.)

And now, so that I haven’t totally wasted your time: Ralphie photos! These were taken last week; we had some incredible weather, and I took him digging down by our pond on a few especially warm afternoons. The previous owners didn’t do much to maintain it, so most of the shoreline is overgrown with trees, scrub, and poison ivy. (Oh, the poison ivy! I can feel my eyeballs breaking out in a rash eery time I look at it.) With the help of a family of beavers, we’ve cleared a 50′ section so Ralphie can dig for critters and wade on down to the water when he needs to cool off. Good times.

Check out all the dirt in his mouth and the muck covering his harness. He climbed over me several times, staining my white shirt beyond repair. This is why I always wear black, people!
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Look who dropped in during my reading of “Cold-Blooded”!
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“The good bones are in here.”

I snagged a used copy of Good Bones and Simple Murders (Margaret Atwood, 1994) on Amazon, whilst shopping around for some of Atwood’s older novels. A slim collection of short stories and poetry, Good Bones is an eclectic mix, with illustrations by the author peppered throughout. The stories cover a little bit of everything: fantasy, mystery, science fiction, speculative fiction, feminism, rape culture, gender wars, dating, death – you name it.

Many of the pieces are hit and miss; my favorites are the scifi stories that hinge on an environmental or animal-friendly theme:

- “Cold-Blooded” – An alien race of matriarchal moth people visit planet earth – or as they call it, “The Planet of the Moths,” a nickname owing to the fact that their moth cousins outnumber us by billions – and find humans sorely lacking in both culture and intelligence;

“To my sisters, the Iridescent Ones, the Egg-Bearers, the Many-Faceted, greetings from the Planet of the Moths.” A page from “Cold-Blooded,” which also appears in In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (2011).
——————————

- “My Life As a Bat” – A series of reflections on the narrator’s past life as a bat, including a disturbing (and, as it just so happens, true) anecdote about WWII-era experiments in which bats were made into unwitting suicide bombers;

- “Hardball” – A piece of dystopian speculative fiction in which humans, having decimated their environment, have retreated to live under a giant dome. Since space is limited, the population must be kept in check: for every birth, one person is chosen to die via a lottery. Care to guess what becomes of the remains?

Also enjoyable are those stories which reimagine classic literature: “Gertrude Talks Back” gives voice to Hamlet’s long-suffering mother, and “Unpopular Gals” and “Let Us Now Praise Stupid Women” celebrates those villains and “airheads” without which fairy tales would not exist.

“He’s a carnivore, you’re a vegetarian. That’s what you have to get over.”
- page 84, “Liking Men”
——————————

While at times difficult to read, “Liking Men” is another standout; this is the piece that deals with sexual assault, vis à vis a woman’s journey back to coping with – and even loving – men (or rather, one man in particular) again after her rape.

A must for fans of Margaret Atwood!

(Is there a nickname for us, like HDM’s Sraffies? Atwolytes, maybe? Mad Adams and Angry Eves?)

PS – Dear Margaret: Fishes are indeed animals.

“My eyes are situated in my head, which also possesses two small holes for the entrance and exit of air, the invisible fluid we swim in, and one larger hole, equipped with bony protuberances called teeth, by means of which I destroy and assimilate certain parts of my surroundings and change them into my self. This is called eating. The things I eat include roots, berries, nuts, fruits, leaves, and the muscle tissues of various animals and fish. Sometimes I eat their brains and glands as well. I do not as a rule eat insects, grubs, eyeballs, or the snouts of pigs [what, no hotdogs? - ed.], though these are eaten with relish in other countries.” – page 133, “Homelanding”
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Can we please stop pretending otherwise? xoxo – A vegan feminist fan.

(Crossposted on Amazon and Library Thing. Please click through and vote me helpful if you think it so!)

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