• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Exterminating Angel Press

Exterminating Angel Press

Creative Solutions for Practical Idealists.

  • Home.
  • Our Books.
  • About Us.
    • What EAP’s About.
    • Why Exterminating Angel?
    • Becoming Part of the EAP Community.
    • EAP’s Poetry Editor Speaks!
    • Contributors.
    • EAP Press.
  • EAP: The Magazine.
    • EAP: The Magazine Archive
  • Tod Blog.
  • Jam Today.
  • Contact Us.
  • Cart.

Exangel

Smothering Broccoli instead of Smothering a Friend.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

A perfect example of how cooking can work to relieve aggression.

So a really good friend of mine came over. We don’t have much time to see each other and talk this time of year, since she’s really busy at work. We miss that, or at least I do. Anyway, she brought her significant other, also a friend, though, as can happen, one who drives me out of my mind from time to time with their cluelessness to the needs of others. And the significant other sat in my friend’s usual chair, as if by right, and proceeded to be more than usually clueless. Meaning my friend had to keep interrupting our conversation to try to make the S.O. feel included. Since the S.O.’s idea of being included can be that everyone needs to stop what they’re talking about and listen to the S.O.’s monologue, this can sometimes be a trying event. Which on this particular evening it was.

At least for me. Who is not the most patient of persons. Especially at the end of the day when I’m looking forward to a real conversation and a glass of wine. Especially AFTER the glass of wine.

At one point, our dogs acted needy too, her dog and mine, and my friend asked if I wanted her to put them outside. I suggested the S.O. be put outside instead. My friend cracked up. Now we both love the S.O. But this was not the moment for their monologues. I suggested we go over to the kitchen area instead and leave my husband with the S.O. Gratefully, my friend accepted. “I need to get our dinner started anyway,” I said loudly to make our excuses, as we both made our way over, and poured out two more glasses of wine.

Now I had a small conundrum. I had planned on making baked eggs and toast for supper, with roasted broccoli on the side. In preparation, I’d trimmed a head of broccoli and cut it into small florets. But I wanted to pay close attention to my conversation with my friend. And also I wanted to drink more wine. Baked eggs need their own close attention. Very close attention. More attention than I wanted to give them while I listened to my friend. And drank more wine, which tends to interfere with precise timing.

What to do?

I idly considered what I had in the fridge as my friend explained a particularly knotty and interesting problem she’d solved at work. I had a bowl of grated parmesan left over from the night before. This suggested pasta. I can always chop onions and garlic no matter where my attention is. This suggested a pasta sauce of said onions, garlic, and broccoli, with parmesan at the table to scatter on top.

Then I heard the S.O. in the living area holding forth on something or other, and my husband patiently responding. I had a moment of wanting to go over there and hold a pillow over the S.O.’s head. In a friendly way, of course. Even a loving way. Sort of. I felt guilty, but there it was. And then, in a flash, it came to me! Smothered broccoli pasta sauce!

Now smothered broccoli pasta sauce is a bit retro, given our present love of barely cooked veg. And also kind of a muddy green color when it’s properly done, since properly done means simmered in some red wine, which does nothing for its attractiveness but everything for its taste. I hadn’t made it in a long time, even though I love it.

But there I was, drinking red wine and idly laughing at myself for wanting to smother the S.O. All at once it came together. So as my friend and I chatted and laughed, relieved to not have to prop up another person for a few moments while we did it, I made smothered broccoli pasta.

Like this (for two):

 

–A head of broccoli, broken into small flowerets, coarse skin removed from stems, chopped.

–A sliced onion.

–3 cloves of minced garlic.

–A bit of olive oil to cover a sauté pan.

–Heat olive oil with a medium flame. Add veg to heated olive oil, stir to coat. Add a little salt.

–Attend to your friend. Pour you both out another glass of red wine.

–The veggies are now making cooking noises. Add a few glugs of wine from your glass. Lower heat when bubbles appear. Simmer away.

–What you want here is for the veg to be soft and well done. Doesn’t really matter if you cook it too long, as long as the pan doesn’t get dry. As it does dry, add more glups of red wine until it’s saucy again.

–Put on a pot of water to boil.

–When the sauce is done to your liking, and the pot of water boils, if your conversation continues, simply turn off the heat.

When your friend gets up to leave with the S.O., go and hug them both, the S.O. especially with a guilty but affectionate peck on the cheek.

Then return to the kitchen. Turn the pot with the water back on. When it boils again, add a half pound of pasta, which is enough for two people and a bit leftover to have for breakfast if one of you is so inclined (I was). Spaghetti, linguine, penne, any of those are nice—I had spaghetti, so I added that.

When the pasta is just about done, turn the heat on under the sauce to warm it up again. When they’re both at the right point, combine (in either pan, or in another bowl). Serve out.

Observe critically and realize you want a little color on top. I just scissored a bunch of chives I had to make a bright green sploot atop. Scattered some parmesan on the sploot, called the husband to table, and had at it.

Boy, was it good. And leftovers good cold for my breakfast, too. Best of all, I had made myself laugh and made myself something good to eat rather than going over to the living room and smothering my friend.

Life can be great that way sometimes. It’s kind of like making lemonade from lemons, isn’t it?

I always like a way to do that, don’t you?

Thanks for You All. Seriously.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

Really, I’m so grateful for you all in this community. You’re every one of you, if I can distill it, writers who envision a different way of being, a different way of seeing, thinking, living than we get in the general mass media. When I get a new contribution from someone like that (I’m allergic […]

Person Number Twelve.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Jim Meirose. So this random example of the typical human creature, raising their head to ‘he window barring out th’ invasion of ‘he outsides but which, luckily for most normal humans, th’ invention ot see-through “glass” which could be cheaply manufactured, made being cabined in to be safe from what may lie outside, but […]

A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Joel Glover. In conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra – author of The Erstwhile Tyler Kyle (TETK), The Wings of Ashtaroth (WoA), and So Sing the Barrows (SSTB).   You’re originally from the UK, right, but moved to Canada? How does that background creep into your writing and cultural contexts? That’s right! Now, it’s important, […]

A Tale of Persistence.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Tom Ball.   I, Gordon, said to Lucille, “One way or another I will get your love.” She said, “It’s impossible, I already have a lover.” I said, “I thought monogamy had disappeared long ago and we now live in times of free love.” She said, “I guess I seem backwards, but I am […]

Her.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Zary Fekete. How old was she? Some thought late 60s. Others said more than 75. She lived on the old street since the war ended. Her row house was not among the few with two stories that were on the street corners. It was a simple house, a single story with two largish rooms […]

The Screaming Baboon.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Matias Travieso-Diaz. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. — Robert A. Heinlein   Papio Ursinus (commonly referred to as “Pappi”) was an old male Chacma baboon, raised and grown to maturity in the mountains surrounding Cape Town, on the southwestern tip of Africa. […]

Those Evil Spirits.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Brian Griffith.   Besides avoiding physical or social sources of corruption, many ancient people feared losing their souls to spiritual enemies. Demonic spirits could poison the mind or possess the body. “Mental illness” seemed to indicate control by alien entities, and all illnesses were like invasions of negative forces. Perhaps that’s why the English […]

Who Was Dorothy?

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Bruce E.R. Thompson. My father was a collector of rare books, although he had very specific tastes in what he collected. In particular, he was a collector of science fiction novels, and he spent a great deal more on this hobby than my mother thought was strictly within his means. After he died, she […]

1966, NYC; nothing like it.

March 31, 2025 by Exangel

by Diana Morley. Walking down Broadway on a sultry June evening going to an off-Broadway play with a few friends. I wear a long white cotton nightgown with embroidered yellow flowers. We sweep by two guys weaving, waving bagged bottles when one stares at my gown and says, “Oh, I do believe an angel has […]

Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Cart.

Check Out Our Magazine.

In This Issue.

  • Who Was Dorothy?
  • Those Evil Spirits.
  • The Screaming Baboon.
  • Her.
  • A Tale of Persistence.
  • A Conversation with Steve Hugh Westenra.
  • Person Number Twelve.
  • Dream Shapes.
  • Cannon Beach.
  • The Muse.
  • Spring.
  • The Greatness that was Greece.
  • 1966, NYC; nothing like it.
  • Sun Shower.
  • The Withering Weight of Being Perceived.
  • Broken Clock.
  • Confession.
  • Francis Coppola’s Apocalypse.
  • Sometimes you die, I mean that people do.
  • True (from “My Life with Dogs”).
  • Fragmentary musings on birds and bees.
  • 12 Baking Essentials to Always Have in Your Poetry.
  • Broad Street.
  • A Death in Alexandria.
  • My Forked Tongue.
  • Swan Lake.
  • Long Division.
  • Singing against the muses.
  • Aphorisms from “What Remains to Be Said”.

In The News.

That cult classic pirate/sci fi mash up GREENBEARD, by Richard James Bentley, is now a rollicking audiobook, available from Audible.com. Narrated and acted by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio, you’ll be overwhelmed by the riches and hilarity within.

“Captain Sylvestre de Greybagges is your typical seventeenth-century Cambridge-educated lawyer turned Caribbean pirate, as comfortable debating the virtues of William Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, and compound interest as he is wielding a cutlass, needling archrival Henry Morgan, and parsing rum-soaked gossip for his next target. When a pepper monger’s loose tongue lets out a rumor about a fleet loaded with silver, the Captain sets sail only to find himself in a close encounter of a very different kind.

After escaping with his sanity barely intact and his beard transformed an alarming bright green, Greybagges rallies The Ark de Triomphe crew for a revenge-fueled, thrill-a-minute adventure to the ends of the earth and beyond.

This frolicsome tale of skullduggery, jiggery-pokery, and chicanery upon Ye High Seas is brimming with hilarious puns, masterful historical allusions, and nonstop literary hijinks. Including sly references to Thomas Pynchon, Treasure Island, 1940s cinema, and notable historical figures, this mélange of delights will captivate readers with its rollicking adventure, rich descriptions of food and fashion, and learned asides into scientific, philosophical, and colonial history.”

THE SUPERGIRLS is back, revised and updated!

supergirls-take-1

In The News.

Newport Public Library hosted a three part Zoom series on Visionary Fiction, led by Tod.  

And we love them for it, too.

The first discussion was a lively blast. You can watch it here. The second, Looking Back to Look Forward can be seen here.

The third was the best of all. Visions of the Future, with a cast of characters including poets, audiobook artists, historians, Starhawk, and Mary Shelley. Among others. Link is here.

In the News.

SNOTTY SAVES THE DAY is now an audiobook, narrated by Last Word Audio’s mellifluous Colby Elliott. It launched May 10th, but for a limited time, you can listen for free with an Audible trial membership. So what are you waiting for? Start listening to the wonders of how Arcadia was born from the worst section of the worst neighborhood in the worst empire of all the worlds since the universe began.

In The News.

If you love audio books, don’t miss the new release of REPORT TO MEGALOPOLIS, by Tod Davies, narrated by Colby Elliott of Last Word Audio. The tortured Aspern Grayling tries to rise above the truth of his own story, fighting with reality every step of the way, and Colby’s voice is the perfect match for our modern day Dr. Frankenstein.

In The News.

Mike Madrid dishes on Miss Fury to the BBC . . .

Tod on the Importance of Visionary Fiction

Check out this video of “Beyond Utopia: The Importance of Fantasy,” Tod’s recent talk at the tenth World-Ecology Research Network Conference, June 2019, in San Francisco. She covers everything from Wind in the Willows to the work of Kim Stanley Robinson, with a look at The History of Arcadia along the way. As usual, she’s going on about how visionary fiction has an important place in the formation of a world we want and need to have.

Copyright © 2025 · Exterminating Angel Press · Designed by Ashland Websites