Fermented food

"Rule 36: Eat Some Food That Have Been Predigested by Bacteria or Fungi"
~Food Rules (Michael Pollan)

This sounds slightly absurd until I realized that foods that have been transformed by microorganisms include soy sauce, kimchi, yogurt, sourdough bread, sauerkraut, etc. Thank you Asian cooking! Which reminds me of that one time we drove to Vancouver, Canada to board our Alaskan cruise but found ourselves frantically driving through the foreign streets in search of Chinatown or atleast an Asian grocery store to buy a bottle of soy sauce for the trip. If grandma was going to be trapped on a boat for a week eating someone else's food she definitely needed to at least top everything with a couple splashes of soy sauce. Thank goodness our trek didn't take too long, we were in Vancouver.

Fresh Air recently had a story about fermented foods.
The Art of Fermentation

Foods with probiotics are supposed to help with digestion and your immune functions. At least that's what yogurt commercials advertise. This might conflict with Rules 8 and 11. You should read this book (the version with pictures!).

Bag Lady Inspiration

 

Inspiration can be found in the most unexpected of places. 

I haven't found a tablecloth that contrasts with white plates without turning the setting too dark. I considered purchasing burlap and cutting it into placemats but that might be to scratchy on the hands. No scratchy scratchy thank you!

 

Image Sources: oliveloafdesign, texturezine

The Bag Lady Papers: The Priceless Experience of Losing It All

 By Alexandra Penney


After purchasing some thick brown packaging paper I almost gave up on all wrapping paper (until I recently realized it is a nice way to get patterns/pretty colors in a banner and other paper crafts, much more economical than scrapbook paper.Brown packaging paper on the table might feel slightly Macaroni Grill, but I LOVE doodling while eating there. Tablecloth for next dinner party has been determined. Thanks Bag Lady!


Actually Alexandra Penney is anything but a bag lady. 

Quite an adventurous life. She spent a year in her twenties living in Europe traveling the continent. Other titles included beauty editor at Glamour magazine, Editor-in-Chief at Self magazine, painter, photographer, professor at FIT, fish mongerer, one of the originators of the Pink Ribbon campaign for breast cancer awareness, author, sexpert. After this book, I am convinced she was Candace Bushnell's inspiration for Carrie Bradshaw. This book was actually about a woman who had invested all her money in Bernie Madoff, lost it ALL when the truth about his Ponzi scheme came to light and confronting her lifelong fear of becoming a bag lady.

One of freelance jobs she picked up after realizing her financial stability had been pulled out from under her amidst the great recession was writing a blog for the daily beast. Link.

You can read most of the book on Google books. Link.

Thank goodness my mom is a horse

I finished reading Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I consider myself a terribly slow reading but even I was able to finish this book in two sittings. It's a quick read.

This woman sounded crazy and over the top at times. Bah! I first thought- what stereotypes! Asian children are all two years ahead of their peers at math and never attend sleepovers?!? I LOVED sleepovers. But then I remembered how my parents quickly wrote up pages of math problems for me whenever I made the mistake of saying I was bored. I must have said I was bored quite a bit because I whizzed through multiplication problems while my fellow first-graders were still counting on their fingers to do addition. I think I was always ahead in math when my dad was around because he would check out various textbooks from his college library so I always had ample practice problems and every time I had a question about my current homework he would also make me to do the next two lessons I haven't learned yet. (reading and english were a completely different story.) Also, there were plenty of times my grandparents and parents called me what translates to "bad egg" or "stupid egg" and my mother told me I was garbage more than once. But Chua was right. Though it sounds like totally crazy things to say to children in English in a "Western" country, it was acceptable and I didn't hate anyone or really think I was stupid or garbage. My family loved me and I thought I was just stuck with a lousy nickname.

My craziest realization was that the prestigious pre-college Julliard program that Chua and pushed her violin music prodigy daughter Lulu to audition for, that hyped up super-selective program, leading to more out-of-the-way violin lessons that she probably sacrificed more vacations to pay for, the program that was dominated by Asians, that foreigners moved to America for, the one that her daughter ultimately did not get accepted into... my cousin was in that. Her family moved from Taiwan to New Jersey with the goal for my cousin to one day attend Julliard. And she did. For violin. (FYI, all that hard work and sacrifice was well invested because she sounds amazing.)

As outlandish and fantastical as her story may seem, it happens. Asian families really do sacrifice a lot to push their kids to be what seems the best and often times do get great results. They say behind every great man is a great woman, behind every outstanding kid is probably at least one strict, extremely dedicated parent.

Although I must say I was pretty aghast at some of the things she said and did to her kids. Not accepting birthday cards because they aren't up to her standards? Eek. I would have cried too.

Things that have made me smile this week

 1. Finding my Hello Kitty glasses. They were wedged in the car seat.

They look like this.
Source: Bonanza

2. Barley milk tea from Tea Era.

3. Watching my tulips bloom.

4. Spending time with people I like.

5. Discovering Ten Ren has hot grass jelly with sweet beans and taro (no tapioca, thank you).

6. Discovering a book store next to Ten Ren that sells asian magazines I like.

7. Attempting to read Dr. Seuss in Mandarin.
(Ee tiau yu, liang tiau yu, hong duh yu, lan duh yu. haha.)

8. Helping my friend with her wedding invitations. I am excited (even though I will probably have to learn photoshop at light speed.)

9. Adventures at the library.

Did I mention I recently started volunteering at the library? I help with Special Outreach Services which is a fantastic program that allows patrons who are home-bound for various reasons (illness, pregnancy, caretaker, etc.) to still have access to most of the library. Each person makes a list of material they would like to checkout (baroque classical cds, tom clancy novels, etc.) then a volunteer, like me, picks out recommendations for them and once-a-month a library staff person delivers the material and picks up the previous month's items.

I thought this would be a super simple monthly service project because I only have to go in 2 hours a month and I LOVE telling people what they should read and who they should listen to. Unfortunately, I only tell people what I have already read and listened to before. So this assumes you must be interested in novels that have been made into movies (such as Disney classics), books ranked as top picks by the staff at Powell's Books in Portland, books involving a shopaholic, and memoirs, especially memoirs by comedians and people who go through some life-changing, possibly crazy, fantastical experience or just think differently (augusten burroughs comes to mind). It turns out... the genre preferences of the people I was assigned to and my own don't overlap much. Bumbumbum. I know almost nothing about romance, westerns, thrillers, and science fiction (separate from fantasy). NOTHING! I cheated and looked on Amazon for reviews.

For the most part I used Amazon or just followed the authors they lsited. There was one book for which I deviated off the preferences. I threw in Devil in the White City by Erik Larson book for a person who wanted science fiction books by authors I have never heard of and Agatha Christie mysteries (which I think are a bit boring, although I haven't given her a real chance since middle school). Devil in the White City is categorized as a nonfiction biography because it's the retelling of the real events of a serial killer at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. I remember attempting to read it in college and not getting very far because it spooked me. I didn't get far enough to have nightmares but far enough to appreciate Larson's storytelling skills and recognize the fact that if I read further I might have nightmares.

This was a long intro to get to my happy moment...

There is no communication between the volunteers and people on the receiving end. I don't get to chat with the patron and ask how they liked what I picked or discuss anything. They are mysterious bookworms I must cater to via another mysterious third-party.

Today, I stopped by the library to pick up a hold and noticed my patron had put their own hold on Erik Larson's newest book.

I think they liked it!

Perhaps I will start throwing in more books that I liked even though they aren't quite what was requested. Perhaps next up will be The Professor and the Madman.


(By the way, you should read Ready Player One and listen to Mumford and Sons.)

Nookie cookie

I'm still working on a name. Usually a name jumps into my head when I first see it, but this time, nothing.

Anyways, I got a refurbished nook color on black friday for almost half off. So far so good.

features
It has downloadable apps, can play music, connects to wifi, and I can almost download books from the library. Soon it will be TaTa to late fees... now if only one of these darn books would open.

bad
I didn't want to give it my credit card but I haven't found any good free paint apps so I might have to give in.

free ebooks
I am having issues downloading books and audio books from the library (my original intention for the purchase) but one of the books I wanted was offered free from barnes and noble. Barnes and noble books download great. They have lots of classics for free. I tried to download some from Project Gutenberg. They download and open fine, but they aren't recognized as book so I can line them up on my digital bookshelf or rename the files. Right now the files look like pg11.epub and pg2591.epub. That translates to Alice in Wonderland and Grimm's Fairy Tales.

what am i reading?
Can you guess the first book I am reading? I've been meaning to read it because it's a classic and I keep hearing friends say it's their favorite book. That's a weighty statement. I'm not even sure what my favorite book is...

Ready?

Clue #1: "Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how..."

Clue #2: "Hi brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend, Mr. Darcy, soon drew the attention of the room..."

Clue #3: Written by Jane Austen.

How many clues did it take you?

Special soap

"I've been to a play... Even though I never wanted to act mysef, taking a girl to a play was a good move. My date sat so close to me I could hear her nose breaths. She felt like sunlight and soft like she used special soap."
~Blue Like Jazz

Myth: Librarians are quiet folk

My dad was the youngest of six children... six girls. He never had to watch younger siblings and entertain them. Thus, when he had to watch me and my brother, we were usually left at the library like the babysitters to entertain ourselves while he went back to work. Good thing I liked the library, I spent a lot of time there.. One summer my brother and I spent practically every single day at the library. My brother was in middle school and many of his friends were serving as volunteers in the library. We helped them shelve books. I liked to pick up lost books and help them find their way home. I probably read at least half the picture books in the children's section (it wasn't THAT big). This also helped us have high book counts for the summer reading program. I liked seeing my name on the strings of colorful construction paper.

At some point I told my brother I wanted to be a librarian.
His response was something along the lines of

"You can't be a librarian! You're too loud!"

At some point I must have run out of Brian Jacques books to read and paid more attention to studying and other things rather than hiding in my closet to read and raiding the school library every other day.

But I always thought it would be fun to talk about the adventures and mischief of characters in children books and recommend more titles to another greedy pebble of a kid trying to carry a boulder-size stack of  books. I remember thinking it was such an accomplishment reading Dr. Doolittle in 3/4th grade all on my own. It seemed like such a BIG book at the time. I don't remember much about the content of the book anymore. But I do remember the bright pink cover and picking the fattest book on the shelf of my school library and being completely lost in his world.  There is something magical about books. The library is just a portal.

Myth: Librarians are quiet and reserved.

Tonight I went to hear a panel of librarians discuss their profession.
What a chatty bunch. Most of them didn't even need the microphone. Each passionate about shepherding others towards desired information with a clear love for their profession. Clearly from their plethora of things to say and the volume of their voices.

Myth Busted.

The wonderful world of books.

I was in a terrible mood the other day for reason I'd rather not go into. 

I headed straight to Borders and picked up a memoir.

My favorite genre.

For some reason, whenever I'm frustrated with my life or feel like life just isn't going my way it always help to read the thoughts of someone who has had it much worse. When I put down the book I have a spring in my step and the world looks much cheerier and hopeful than when I first sat down.

Jbear looked at me terribly shocked when I confessed this to him.

It isn't that I enjoy comparing myself to other people with wretched lives and deciding I have it much better, it's that the people who are able to write about the darkest times of their lives are those who are able to laugh it off and somehow find comedy in the whole ordeal. Quite the feat. It's difficult to find something to smile about when you're upset, but these authors are able to turn their tragedies into interesting, amusing anecdotes that teach you're never going to be able to enjoy life and feel free until you are able to laugh at yourself a bit. 

They are inspiring stories of hope.

I actually walked into Borders to look at travel guides but ended up reading though the entirety of Carrie Fischer's Wishful Drinking in one sitting. The title reminds me of Augusten Burroughs's Wishful Thinking (he is one of my go-to's in times like these). Both rather similar, alcoholics who meddled with drugs, lived through some outrageous ordeals and survived to tell their tales in the most humorous fashion.

 

Bee mentioned it last week so I decided to give it a try.

Around 2 years ago, I was sitting in a dreary room in front of a telephone trying to persuade some rather irritable strangers to buy tickets to her show (on which the book is based). Unfortunately, no one listened to me, not even myself. Now I really wished I attended the show! Drat! This exact same feeling flooded me when I realized Passing Strange moved onto Broadway before I could finish up midterms and see the show everyone was raving about. I must buy season tickets to the Berkeley Rep so I will never feel this way again.

To summarize what I got from the book:

*Carrie Fischer, best known for her role in Star Wars, was a product of Hollywood inbreeding.
*Poor Carrie had a very complex family scandal tree which she conveniently draws out in the book. *Her mother is Debbie Reynolds, best known for her role in Singing in the Rain (moses supposes his toeses are roses, moses supposes erroneously... that one. oh yes, with Gene Kelly.), sounds like a delightful woman. 

*Her father is Eddie Fischer, a crooner that husbands should keep their wives away from.

*Carrie has a knack for turning men bald and gay.

*One of George W. Bush's many talents is farting on demand.

*Carrie was diagnosed as manic depressive and has more recently undergone ECT, electroshock therapy, which has made her forget many things so the book is filled with bits of rediscoveries about her life. 

*Hollywood ain't so great.

*Her show was a smash and I missed it.

So.... Berkeley Rep Tickets?
Rita Moreno (Anita, West Side Story)
has a show May 13-June 12, 2011.

This one.