Lynn Strong

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  • Rahat’s namesake sweets: Rahat-al-hulqum / Lokoum / Turkish delight

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    (This original post was from December 2023, but in a couple more weeks I’ll have a part 2 with a lot more history available!)

    This story started with Ashar’s rose chai and the idea that there should be more Prince Charmings in the world of different ages and colors and body types and confidence levels, but I needed something for Ashar to call him other than his own name. (Ashar is still pretending that as long as he never says Rahat’s actual name aloud, there is some resemblance of plausible deniability.)

    I’m also absurdly fond of rosewater in sweets ranging from my friend Kathleen’s amazing chocolate-cardamom-rosewater truffles to ice cream toppings to medieval-to-modern confectionery like rahat al-hulqum. And while the stuff doesn’t always come in rose-reds, I loved playing with the imagery.

    As a person with multiple disabilities, though, it’s often hard to cook anymore. So I haven’t personally cooked Yumsome’s variation on rahat/lokoum, but I loved the story they told about their encounters with it throughout their life and why rose is their favorite variation too.

    For those of us who are low on spoons but still interested in tasting it, Liberty Orchards sells them in winter (though they’re currently out) and Koska also sells it through Amazon.

    The origins of the phrase go back to 9th century Arabic medicinals for sore throats, though the candy version is mostly traced to a particularly ambitious confectioner who made a viral hit long before there was social media.

    (The image here is from When Feta met Olive.)

  • Asharan’s Rose Chai

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    I originally came up with this chai recipe in 2019, for the last all-together role-playing session my friends and I had before one of us moved to Chicago.

    (And if anyone is wondering, the character I played, whom Asharan is built from, is a D&D 5e glamour bard. 😀 That’s how I’m keeping myself honest with spell power levels, and not having level 12-ish glamour bard Ashar pull off magical tricks that would be more in scale for the level 18-ish Archmage I hope folks will meet in the sequel!)

    The modern version that’s published in Wyngraf came first, and then because I am just that much of a nerd, I took my medieval spice collection from the SCA and reconstructed the way it might have been written in a cookbook from this world, complete with Arabic measurements.

    Here’s the medieval fantasy edition, lightly edited to suit Asharan’s world rather than our role-playing game.

    A masala-chai scented with roses

    Begin always with the spices whole; for while this could be done with a bit of magery in company, our company are soon to be somewhat parted, and I fear my wishcraft cannot enchant a taste of memory from half the realm away. 

    So instead, begin with the spices whole, chosen by hand of a trader you trust, and share first a cup of that trader’s family’s chai, to have also the tale of whence it came and of the family’s health; in order that the life-spark be conveyed with the spices, in a bond rooted in the earth in which it grew, through the lives of those who live by trading it from hand to hand along the spice-roads, unto those who partake of it in camaraderie, because chai is best to be taken among a company such as ours.

    In a pot of five ratl or more, take two ratl of cream and another two of clean water if you can have it, or if not three ratl of the milk entire, and set it to a gentle fire lest it burn; or if your company have need of haste, set a fiercer flame and a friend to the stirring that it not scorch.

    For that pot take from your spice-store a dirham of black peppercorns, cinnamon of the size of your small-finger, half a dirham of green cardamom pods, and the same of idrifil-i-sagir, which I believe you name grains of paradise for reasons which elude me entirely, and about which I must enquire of his Highness on some future occasion; it seems this definition of ‘paradise’ differs in some dramatic measure from my own. 

    Take an uqiyya also of ginger-root and galengal together, fresh if you have them, or sugar-preserved if not. Grate in a nutmeg until the scent please you, and perhaps a few dried cloves, but no more than a few, because of the strength of it. 

    Take an uqiyya or two of camellia-leaves, a cupped-palm, dried brown for the trade-travel, and at the end sweeten to your pleasure with a knob of gur if you yet walk the spice-roads, or perhaps honey instead if you are settled in a land of greenery. 

    Simmer it for so long as you can bear to leave it un-tasted, at least a candlemark unless your company finds some need of haste. (I once thought there always to be time to linger over chai, but I have since encountered owlbears.)

    Ladle the chai through a mesh into a beautiful pot, and sprinkle in a few drops of rosewater to scent it. Save the spices for a second infusion if it be desired. 

    And at the last, if you live in the green-realms and have nearby a jasmine or a rose of the old families, gather the petals yourself and scatter them atop the cups you serve. If they were dried instead, add them earlier that they may infuse, but a fresh petal atop a cup of chai is not to be cooked limp and then presented to honored guests. Instead, make of it an art: a joy to behold as well as to taste. 

  • Cozy fantasy with a splash of rosewater, and many cats

    Lynn Strong (who uses any pronouns, or none, with the pen name) has been a professional nonfiction writer for over 25 years. But Lynn had never ventured beyond fanfiction until Wyngraf Magazine accepted a story for the February 2024 edition.

    Well, Lynn thought, I guess I need a website, then.

    (Hi!)

    Rahat al-Hulqum

    Rahat al-hulqum is both a tasty confection that’s often flavored with roses and the nickname of one of the two main characters of Lynn’s Wyngraf story. Lynn hasn’t seen enough fairytales where Prince Charming wasn’t an athletic young white guy with gleaming teeth and confidence in spades; the main difference Lynn saw between Prince Charming and Gaston was who held the camera.

    So Rahat, this story’s Prince Charming, is a sweet, shy, fat, middle-aged bureaucrat, with a tendency to wander off chasing visions without telling his devoted staff where he’s going. (And Asharan, who also insists to his author that he isn’t anything like a Disney princess, adores Rahat despite his insecurities about how such stories usually go.)

    They’re both men of color in a world that takes a page from Ancient Egypt and another from the Mughal Empire, where the language of power isn’t based on French or Latin; it’s based on Arabic with occasional nods to Farsi. Tel-Bastet’s name (though possibly not its geography) is based on Bubastis aka Tell-Basta aka Per-Bast, an ancient city that worshipped the Egyptian cat goddess… though obviously the real Tel-Bastet came with a lot fewer magical cat-people. (But possibly just as many actual cats!)

    Lynn is gleefully working on a sequel that seems to be aiming to become a novel, and we’ll see where that goes. In the meantime, this site may see some recipes, some musings on how to make life cozier with multiple disabilities, possibly the occasional preview… who knows? (There’s a reason these stories have so much cat in them.)