gwyn | Dec. posting meme day 15

Last day!

reginagiraffe asked: What your favorite hors d'oeuvre to make and/or eat?

So, I've mentioned I'm a terrible cook, but I am a very good eater--basically, I hate onions, but everything else is mostly fair game, within reason, and I LOVE me some finger foods. And one of the few things I can make well is hors d'oeuvres, as long as they're not terrifically complicated. I don't do it much anymore, though.

Once in a while, however, I make this really amazing artichoke spread with a nice little kick of hot pepper sauce that's way, way better than the usual kind of stuff you'll find at a store, though I'm sure that at least two of my arteries are closed now because low-fat it is not. But what I'm really good at is deviled eggs--standard, basic deviled eggs just will not do for me when I'm making them, they have to be interesting and there must be lots of different flavor combinations on the vintage midcentury modern deviled egg plates I've collected. One of my favorites is one I had amateur!chef!Bucky make for Steve in my fic Dream of Caramel: an applewood smoked bacon and brown sugar (or maple sugar, it works just as well) one that is just…to die for. I also really like a dill and capers one I've tried, and last year I made one with a pulled pork topping for the deviled egg mix that had a bit of smokey barbecue sauce in it. I love using different flavored salts in them, or things like smoked paprika or five-spice, and really there's no end to the kinds of stuff you mix up with egg yolks, plus it's really simple and largely idiot proof. It's also fun to bring to gatherings because people always give you this look like "how nice" and you know they think blah, deviled eggs, but then they eat one and they're all "what is in this OMG."

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So Yuletide reveals were today but I am not posting about mine, because I just don't have the spoons for more shittery about it, at least not for now. I might at some point put it on my page with my name attached, or might orphan it completely, I don't know, but in the meantime I don't have to think about it.

I did have fun tonight, though, reading

minim_calibre's amazing and often hilarious posts about writing two of my three Yuletide gifts (she was the author of the astounding 32k What's Your Number? fic I got, as well as the incredible pun-filled, brilliant Android Rock Paper Scissors commercial fic). It's hilarious because she had to be so super sekrit the whole time--we were texting constantly during the Yuletide process, doing write-ins together, discussing source material, and I was at her house on Boxing Day waxing rhapsodic over the stories while sitting right next to her. I had a sneaking suspicion she'd written my main story, but I didn't guess the Android treat--I wondered, a couple time, because I honestly don't know that many people who could make such deep-level puns about paper and paper-making history or name that many types of scissors, but I thought, no, what would be the odds? Pretty good, apparently! because she wrote both. But she was very good at being stealthy and sekrit and keeping me at arm's length for all these months.