| Remembering things past | 11:45 PM |
I helped a really close friend of mine go through her belongings in storage so that she could prepare to sell, give away, take back, or store elsewhere a room full of things accumulated over years and years of her life in San Francisco. You can imagine how emotional that might be. I learned from my mother to never throw anything useful away so not only do I have a lot of potentially useful stuff like boxes and paper and a million ribbons I'll never use, but I also horde emotionally meaningful stuff.
I cleaned out the guest room the other day and happened to run into a card from an ex-boyfriend. It was so sweet and made me think fondly back to that person. I have no connection with him anymore. We didn't stay in touch and we aren't friends but for a few moments I felt affection for him again.
But it's the past in the present -- do I really need that? Do I really care to remember those times? What difference would it make if I never remembered them again?
The thing is that I have an awful memory so I probably won't remember those times without the physical reminders -- the ticket stubs, the journal entries, the cards I save in shoeboxes. I found a small photo of my son from when he was just a baby -- a cutout of his head I must've meant to use for some craft or photo album. It was just the head, but I remember distinctly the photo it came from and it took me back to his babyhood. Nowadays I look at him and there's no trace of that baby in him. He's way too old and mature to spark that memory in me. But that's what the photo albums are for.
I need to be a better purger of stuff. Because it's not the things that you miss, it's the memories that you associate with those things. And maybe you're afraid without them those memories will disappear too -- at least I am. But maybe if my memories only surface when I look at certain things, they're not really worth recalling?
| Brushing your teeth, you're doing it wrong | 11:18 PM |
Had my regular 6 month dental cleaning this week. I <3 my dentist and am sad to have to find a new one in the city. But on my last visit my dental hygienist told me I should be using a soft toothbrush (which I normally do -- my sister taught me that!) and to brush the gums gently. Hold the toothbrush lightly with just two fingers, angle the brush against the gums at a 45° angle and make little circles. Little, gentle circles. She emphasized the circles. And the gently because otherwise you'll wear your gums away and make your teeth look all long and we all know long teeth = old age. No one wants to be old.
| Why Twitter? | 4:37 PM |
I saw this video today and it cracks me up because it makes you realize how stupid your tweets are.
I don't know why I tweet except that it's faster than blogging and I can make inane comments about...well, inane bs I wouldn't bother to put on my blog. When I read other people feeds, I find myself often thinking to myself, I must stop following this person because I find him/her incredibly uninteresting, but never follow through with the unfollowing. My favorite tweeters are those who a) use whole sentences and express complete thoughts. Each tweet is short, yes, but I don't want to read something no matter how short that doesn't freaking make any sense about anything! And I like tweeters who b) are funny, and c) don't tweet too often. Not every single tweet is interesting, but as long as the good ones are really good, I can overlook the lame ones. I really need to stop following about 80 of the 90 or so people I follow.
Here's a really short list of my favorites (btw, you can view my inane feed at http://twitter.com/sfkat) in no particular order:
- @Steve_Buscemi: he is usually quite hilarious
- @yahoo: don't care about most of their tweets but the "Spiking in search" ones are interesting (wonder if Google does this, too?)
- @trent_reznor: the only famous person I follow simply because he's Trent Reznor (I follow other famous people but usually not for long because believe it or not, famous people can be boring -- or at least their tweets are). His tweets are actually usually pretty funny and he's a tech geek too so bonus sexy points.
- @PenelopeTrunk: she's funny and writes well formatted tweets (i.e complete sentences and thoughts). Plus she's a little neurotic and I like her.
- @dooce: same as Penelope Trunk: she's funny and writes well. Plus she's pregnant and bitchy and I like her for it.
Wow, I can only come up with a list of five. I need to follow some new people. But there are a variety of reasons I follow people. I know them (e.g co-workers and friends), they're local, tweet news, or are industry related (tech geek news/people), etc. So no, not every person I follow makes me laugh but they're interesting for other reasons.
| I <3 Sex Ed | 10:54 PM |
I'm half way through my SFSI (San Francisco Sex Information) training and I absolutely love it. They've been doing it for a really long time (decades) and they've got their shit down. The days are 8 hours long, but they don't seem like 8 hours because they've structured the day so well that each one just flies by.
They have training twice a year and hold an orientation/interviews for prospective students. I knew what it would entail, but when I got there I was actually much more nervous than I thought I would be. I think there were about 60-65 people who wanted to attend and about 25-30 got chosen. I'm not entirely sure why I got picked but am pleased as hell. Most of my classmates are either working in the field doing therapy, teaching, counseling, or are in school getting undergraduate or graduate degrees. I think (IIRC from our introductory class) there are a couple of other people like me in the class -- we work regular, non-sex or education related jobs and are just personally interested in the information and want to do volunteer work.
I'm doing it because I'm fascinated by sex and want to help educate people about it and really want to volunteer answering questions from people that contact SFSI. But I've also learned a lot from it. Before I would have said that I was fairly open minded and comfortable talking about sex, but even with what I consider my "open minded-ness", I've realized how many pre-conceived notions I've had or how much mis-information I've gathered and relied upon over the years.
Their non-judgmental communication style is not just good for giving out unbiased sex information, but it's good for general communication as well. So is the ability to really listen to what someone is saying and getting what that person needs, not assuming what they need. I can't say enough good things about this class and am thrilled that I'm taking it. I can't wait to man the switchboard and take questions. I think it'll be really educational, but it'll also feel good to help empower people with information.
| Writing on the interwebs | 11:34 PM |
I love this current trend towards a grass roots type artistic movement -- self publishing, self producing, self promoting. A friend of mine published her own book on lulu.com (which contains dark and fantastic stories -- she has an amazing and diabolical imagination). I was amazed at the speed at which she wrote her book and continue to be fascinated with what she is doing to promote her book (you can follow her on twitter if you're interested in what she's doing too).
Just recently, Neil Strauss had a "search for writers" for his and Anthony Bozza's new publishing group, Igniter Group. I loved this because it gave the average Joe/Jane Schmoe the very real opportunity to possibly write a book with an established author. It was a specific book and the challenge was to listen to an interview and write a compelling chapter based on that interview. I submitted, but wasn't a finalist, but the mere fact that it was a possibility is awesome.
The internet has allowed this. Much as it has allowed self publishing of film and music and writing of all forms. It gives every person a means to self promote and have a global audience. This isn't a novel concept -- in fact, it's a well established concept by now, but I think because lately I've noticed trends that touch so closely on what I really care about (writing), it's reminded me what a wonderful place the internet can be.
| Fear & Paranoia...run in the family | 10:10 AM |
My uncle called me this morning at 5:47am. I only have a fuzzy recollection of the conversation, but it went mostly like this: Is Jess ok? I got a call just now from D's phone and when I checked the message there was nothing but the sound of running water. Ok. Did you try calling her? Yes, but her phones don't work. A little bit of panic creeps in...They don't work or she's just not picking up? She's not answering. Whew.
He was genuinely concerned. He was thinking about driving down to her house to check up on her. I told him I'm sure D (Jess's husband) just butt dialed his number while he was getting ready for work (though it did seem awful early to be getting ready for work). My uncle: No, I don't think so. D never calls me. On the message...all it was...just the sound of...running water. Water, like from a faucet. He was so upset about that running water.
I told him that I thought she was fine. He asked when we'd last talked, I said we'd just texted a couple of days ago and she sounded totally fine. Ok, but if he doesn't hear from her soon, he's driving down there...then, How are you doing? I wanted to tell him I wanted to go back to sleep, but I told him I was fine instead.
After we got off the phone, it occurred to me that this jumping to the worst conclusion when something slightly awry occurs and strikes a chord of fear, or even just a twang of fear, must be a genetic thing in our family. Just a couple of weeks ago my sister texted me to say she thought someone was going to kill her. I've thought the same thing before in the same irrational way where the fear isn't based on any real threat, just the imaginary one I've built up in my head. And I myself have done the same thing my uncle has done -- a good friend of mine butt dialed me early, early one morning and left a message that was nothing but street noise and of course, I immediately thought she'd been kidnapped and raped. And I too called her immediately and got no answer.
All of these situations turned out just fine -- just products of overactive imaginations. But it makes me start to wonder about the genetics of paranoia...
| Bootie is bootie | 12:17 AM |
I kind of have a big ass for a short Asian girl so I love bootie songs. Every time I see this commercial, it makes me giggle!!
| Oh look! MY groceries came with a mouse! | 11:02 PM |
I can't figure out how this little mouse got into the bottom of my re-usable grocery bag. I am pretty sure I didn't take the bag off my shoulder or leave it anywhere once the groceries were in it until I got home. I set it down on my kitchen floor when I got home and left it there for over an hour while I chatted with Marg and then got the dog outside.
When the dog and I came back up, he kept sniffing the bag, but I assumed it was because there were groceries in it. When I finally opened it to take out the remaining items -- there it was! An itty bitty mouse! There's nothing quite like the surprise of seeing some wild living creature when you least expect it to drive a little panic into you -- spiders, maggots, little field mice. The size doesn't matter -- just the sheer fact that it shouldn't be there triggers some primal response. I grabbed the opening and clasped it tight so it couldn't escape. Then I got my camera and a flashlight and went out the back to take a couple of photos before I released him. He is awful cute, isn't he?
But either the bunch of lettuce I bought at my corner market had been harboring a mouse, or it was somewhere in my house and snuck in there while I was busy -- there wasn't anything else in my grocery bag it could have hidden in. The other possibility and the only one that makes sense to me is that I must've put the bag down somewhere outside and don't remember doing it? I'll take any answer that reassures me that the mouse came from outside the house.
He piddled urine all over the bottom of the bag (so I had to vigorously wash all my fruits and veggies). And even though it looks like he's eating this lettuce leaf in the photo, he's actually pretty scared (probably because I keep shining a flashlight on him.)
| I <3 ventriloquists | 7:52 AM |
I think I found this linked off of someone's twitter feed. A cute ventriloquist with an accent, a tiny little monkey, and some dirty sexual jokes...how can you not enjoy it? And it has Dutch subtitles!
| Google indexes itself really, really fast | 9:31 PM |
I was writing a blog entry on my health blog last night and I use Blogger for it, and blogger.com is a Google property. I posted the article, then made a couple of tweaks to it, then wanted to re-fact check something -- the glycemic load of cantaloupe. I googled it and the blog entry I had just written came up as the first result. It had been about 5-10 minutes since I first published the entry and pushed it live. That was all the time it took for Google to crawl and index it. Holy cow. I wonder how long it takes this website to get added to the index...
Hmm...I just checked and last night's blog entry is already in the index. Not bad...I'm totally impressed: Google search for the last blog entry.
| The Moth | 12:17 AM |
I don't know if this should get catergorized in "writing", but there's no place else to put it and it is inspiring for me so it seems appropriate.
And old friend of mine turned me onto the The Moth Podcast. The Moth is a nonprofit storytelling organization and every week they put out a story (sometimes 2) of the best stories told at one of their shows.
The podcast is fabulous. They're real stories told by people with no notes. A lot of the storytellers are writers, some are comedians, some are just normal, average folk. Most of the stories are funny -- I only recently heard my first mournful Moth story.
We almost always have at least one big, lazy breakfast on the weekend and I look forward to my cleaning up ritual in the kitchen afterwards because it includes listening to the Moth podcast stories. If you've never heard of it and you love stories, go subscribe to the (free) podcast. Now that I've been hooked on their stories for a while, I'm looking forward to checking out The Moth website and finding out what else they do and where.
| Can You Guess the Author? | 7:40 PM |
I saw this on a mailing list last week and was immediately interested. One page of fiction, you guess the author. I read all the pages first without looking at the available authors in the pulldown menu. I wanted to see what I could glean from just the text.
I didn't recognize the first couple at all, and after reading a few, I classed the books someplace between literary fiction and trash fiction. My interpretation of literary fiction is something beautifully written, something that makes me think beyond just the book's narrative -- usually about my life, society, culture, happiness, grief, and anything and everything else. Trash fiction is only a good story. The plot moves fast, there's usually lots of action. It doesn't resonate and is easily forgotten. I consume it quickly because I want to know what happens, but I don't think about it, I don't want to savor it. Literary fiction can move fast too, but even if it does, I don't read it as fast because I might lollygag in my enjoyment of it, roll the words around in my mouth, taste them, sniff the pages...you know, that kind of lollygag.
Then there are a wide array of books in the middle by authors of varying skill. If you're lucky they'll have interesting plots and characters. Maybe you think about them for a little while, maybe you don't.
It wasn't until I got to the last page in the list that it clicked for me. I immediately recognized the author and selected from the menu. And when I saw the other authors, I recognized the two above because of their pop culture value, and could guess the rest based on what I thought they might write from what I've seen of them in the bookstore. Of the 7 pages, I'd only read one of the books and two of the authors before, but I guessed every one of them right on my first try (go me! :)
There's another page of authors here. I haven't done the 2nd quiz yet, but suspect it's similar to the first.
| Poe Apologizes for Being Drunk | 11:52 PM |
I saw this on Danan's status message. Desperate for money, he wrote to his publishers in 1842 to ask them to buy his article and apologized for drinking too much.
His birthday is on the anniversary of my mom's death: January 19. Poe was an amazing writer of the macabre and as a big fan of dark and psychological fiction, I have a great deal of admiration for him.
The exhibit in celebration of his 200th birthday (of which the above letter is but one piece) is called "From Out That Shadow: the Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe" and is at the Univ. of Virginia until August 1st, then at the U of Texas from September 8 - January 4, 2010. I think it'll be worth a trip to see it.
| Pulp Fiction | 11:34 PM |
I love this BBC article about trashy books. It's interesting to note that the article claims that people often pretend to have read literary books in order to be more sexually attractive, not to seem more intelligent which implies that intelligence is sexually attractive. Which of course, all of us geeks know.
I am an admitted book snob, but I'm not ashamed to be caught reading erotica in public (I'm a big fan of the Best American Erotica series which has been discontinued as of last year -- but it's actually not trashy as in not worth the paper it's written on -- most of it is actually quite well written). Nor am I too proud to pick some trash fiction at the airport. I like Neal Stephenson, have read several Stephen Kings, and Dan Brown can turn an interesting tale. Sometimes I purposely read something that's immensely popular but lacking in eloquence just so I can be like the cool kids and stay up on reading trends. And I love graphic novels.
I didn't recognize any of the books mentioned in the article, but now I've got a reading list of trash for my next trip! Oooh! I can read them on my Kindle!
| Technology is all about love and hate | 11:38 PM |
G1: I spend more time on the toilet because I read twitter on my G1. I used to read it on my blackberry, but the G1's twidroid app is a far better user experience than the blackberry's browser. And I can reply to tweets.
I wish the touch screen wasn't so goddamn slow. Sometimes I have to hold my finger down on a button to ensure it gets pushed. I also wish you could see the numbers you punched when you're on a call.
Twitter: I love twitter because they limit their messages to 140 characters so I'm constantly up to date (who wouldn't be if they went to the toilet as much as I did?). But seriously, because the posts are short, you can skim past the ones that aren't that interesting, stay on top of the lives of other people, and see what the current internet buzz is about.
I wish it would thread messages and replies -- it's awkward to see @ replies that have no context to them. It looks like when you @ reply to a particular message they pass the message id so maybe they plan to add this in the future?
Google Reader: I wish the UI was a little nicer, but now that I've been using it for a little while, it's hard to give up because of the social networking part of it. I like sharing news items with other people and I like reading other peoples' shared news items. In fact, I probably read more shared items than I do feeds I'm actually subscribed to.
One downside is that I have so many feeds, it's literally impossible for me to stay on top of all of them. I skim a lot of news -- if it doesn't catch my interest immediately, I scan the headline and move on. I suppose that's always been true, but now I just have a lot more stuff I'm not reading but feel like I should.
The UI problems are mostly about the terrible scrolling. It's jumpy and unevenly slow then fast so sometimes I have no idea how many news items it's scrolled past and have to constantly scroll back up.
Kindle: Got a Kindle for my birthday/xmas (but with the back orders, it only arrived recently). Such a beautiful, slim little device! I love that I can carry around multiple books with this little thing.
But why the hell doesn't it have a back light?! It's an electronic book for god's sake. I had been looking forward to reading in the dark. And, at least with PDFs, it destroys the page layout -- not having more visual chapter/story separation is weird. And I feel like I should be allowed to upload my own files to the damn thing without having Amazon charge me for each attachment I have to send myself to get data to the device. Lame.
| Times are tough | 12:18 AM |
I am a little stress bunny lately. I realized this morning as I was driving into work that my four year full time anniversary date was the 22nd, and next month I'll have been with my present employer for 5 years. Five years is the longest I've done anything in my adult life. I've never been in a relationship that lasted 5 years, I've never lived in any apartment for 5 years (though I lived in SF for 5 1/2 years straight before I left and came back). So 5 years at one company is pretty impressive.
I'm lucky to work for such a great place and lucky I have job security, but now that I'm fully vested, I'm somehow more stressed about the future than I was before. Originally I thought I'd have enough money to go back to school for a couple of years and move on to something else, but I realize now that a) I don't and b) even if I did, I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my job right now.
Having a partner complicates matters too. It's one thing to look after myself and only myself, but I worry about the German boy who's still looking for a job in pretty bleak situation -- bad economy and no visa. The near term future is uncertain so the long term future is too, and all of it makes my head whir.
| They don't make 'em like they do in Germany | 12:16 AM |
I don't talk too much about the BF because I suck at relationships and never know when one might end, but this one is special and always has been (even if I fight against it out of sheer habit). I'm looking forward to this Valentine's (romantic dinner, hot springs getaway) -- I almost always do whether I'm with someone or not because...well, let's face it, it's a really well marketed event.
We didn't exchange xmas gifts this year because we focused on the holiday trip to Germany and getting gifts for our family so we decided Valentine's would be our xmas gift exchange. I love clothing boys but have only gotten to do it with my father so this year since the BF, aka German boy, is looking for a new job and is also doing this wardrobe makeover thing, I thought I'd buy him a cute little outfit for xmas (I told him he wasn't allowed to read the blog until after this weekend so Wencke, erzähl' Lars nichts!).
The darling is tall and thin. I checked his pants before I left and couldn't really find anything in his size at the mall. Levi's are the only jeans I could even find in that size. Other pants had sizes like waist 40, inseam 30 -- that's 10 inches more in the waist than is tall! What kind of short fat guys are we producing here for god's sake?! Everything I looked at didn't look like it'd fit him: shirts were too narrow in the shoulders and too short in the arms, and pants were like for midgets compared to him. I think I might have to come up with a new xmas gift.
| Kids These Days... | 11:14 PM |
I'm sure you've all read about the teenaged girls that got charged with disseminating child porn because they sent nude photos of themselves to other kids. Think that was about mid January. When I was in socal on the weekend just after that news broke, I asked my fifteen year old son if any of his female friends had ever sent naked photos of themselves to him. He said no.
The next day I get a random email from a teenaged girl. I ignored the first one -- she just sent a head shot, no message. Then she sent me a blank email. Then she sent me three photos of her. One of her just lying on a bed, one of her pulling her shirt up to her chest, then the last one of her in her underwear. I emailed her right away and told her she had the wrong email address. She replied she was sorry and embarrassed. I told her I'd just delete the photos, but did she really want to send them to whoever she meant to. Sorry, but it's the mom in me I added.
Seriously now. I'm all for healthy sexual expression, but you have to be aware of what you're getting into -- you have to accept the risk that those photos are most likely going to be shared with someone other than the intended recipient. And if you're careless, they're going to end up in the wrong inbox entirely.
I was telling a friend of mine the troubles I've been having lately with the 15 year old. His other mom called me last week to pretty much just yell at me that I wasn't strict enough. And she's right but that's my reactionary response to the super strictness I grew up with -- and where did that lead to?! Trouble. I don't get what he's going through though. Maybe it's just being that age. He has so much that I didn't have -- a family that expresses love and open communication. Maybe those are the things I fixate on having missed. Maybe there are other things he's missing that I'm not that aware of. All I know is that parenting is hard -- and I think my kid is generally a good kid. I don't know what I'd do if he was more troubled.
One of the things I've realized recently is that parents aren't any more mature than their kids. Sometimes they're less mature. You grow up looking to these adult figures for guidance and support, then you become mature and you look at them and think...huh...I'm more responsible than that! I wonder what Josh'll turn into it, but whatever it is, I hope it makes him happy. And if he's more responsible and settled than me, I'd be even happier.
| There's always a good side | 11:17 PM |
The upside to a funeral (at least for us) is that you get to spend time with your family and see people you haven't seen in a while. I wish I'd gotten one good photo of my aunt because the only one I posted doesn't do her justice. She sat with us night after night to hang out and enjoy each other's company. We only gave her the tiniest sip of bourbon or scotch, but she drank it with us and we ate and talked and spent time together like we never do otherwise.
I don't get to see my cousins that often. A lot of them are married now, some of them have families. We're all adults with our own lives. In the last few years, we only get to see each other at weddings and funerals. I guess that's probably normal for many families.
Whenever I get together with my cousins and their kids, it makes me want a bigger family. My cousins' girls are so incredibly sweet and wonderful. I got to do homework with my 7 year old 2nd cousin on Sunday night -- something I never got to do with Josh -- and I loved it.
I'm lucky I have such a large family. I'm glad we get together when we do. It's not always the happiest of circumstances, but the fact that they're there for us and for each other is beautiful.
In a year and a half, my grandmother will turn 100. Now, that'll be a party to be remembered :)
| My Brush with Picasa Web | 11:38 PM |
I really want to love this product, I do. They finally released Picasa for the Mac which I've been waiting for forever. My girlfriend uses Picasa for the lovely photo collages on her blog. And she uses it to edit the photos and pretty do everything she needs to with them. But then she uploads them to Flickr.
Tonight I tried to edit my German Boy photos and thought I'd create a collage. I ended up deciding to skip the collage, and just export the photos. Well, for some odd reason, the flickr uploader tool doesn't recognize the jpg files that were exported from Picasa. So I uploaded them to my picasaweb album. Except they don't have multiple sizes for photos like flickr does. The UI isn't as intuitive, and just doesn't look as nice as flickr. I like that all the thumbnails are the same size and make a nice even grid on Flickr. I like that it shows you the most recently uploaded photos on the home page. I like the navigation options on the right hand side when you're looking at a photo. I like that you can add notes to specific parts of photos on Flickr. And flickr is still way more popular than picasaweb. I'm sorry; it's true.
My cousin once told me to "quit pushing my corporate products on [him]" when I teased him about Google Maps. I'm not a pusher, I'm really not. I love good products. I love open source software, and free software most of all, but I'm all about good, useful products. I pay for the unlimited uploads and sets and collections for my upgraded Flickr account, but it's worth it. I push the products we make that I think are good and Google Maps is definitely one of them -- I couldn't live or get anywhere without my Google Maps. Picasa, though, is a whole 'nother story.
| Ransomed | 11:18 PM |
I told the German boy earlier in the day that after drinking w/my writing group, I'd want some of those hot tamales we have left over. So after dinner I go hunt for them, and find a box filled with junk and a ransom note: "Your hot tamales are being held for ransom! Promise sexual favors! Don't call CSI! You won't find them! (the tamales)" I asked him where he got the little letters -- an Astound flyer! They even had the photo of the CSI Miami crew. Those Astound people spend a fortune on mailers -- I get one almost every week!
| Dead people don't look right | 1:50 AM |
I've only been here for less than two whole days and it feels like an eternity. This intense grief I feel isn't for my uncle -- it's for my mom. And my cousin and aunt. I know exactly what my cousin is feeling and it reminds me of losing my mom. And my aunt reminds me so much of my mom.
My cousin's eulogy was so touching. I was sobbing by the end of it thinking about three years ago. We, my sister and I, weren't even able to give a eulogy. I don't even know what I could've said because I knew so little about her. And at the time, I don't think either of us was clear headed enough to write one.
Wednesday night I pictured my mom in my head -- alive and moving and breathing. And I realized why it is I don't think about her much because when I do, it makes me sob for missing her.
My favorite aunt tonight was telling me how she thinks my mom died of loneliness. And I can believe that. My mom liked to swim and jacuzzi with my aunt and uncle. They'd drive up from their place to my mom's to go to the pool with her. And my aunt told me how my mom said she was afraid to go home because there was no one there. So they'd take her home. She missed my dad so much. She was so heartbroken. So heartbroekn. And I didn't understand. I wasn't understanding.
You can't regret the past, right? Because there isn't anything you can do to change it. But it can haunt you.
| Feeling useless | 2:26 PM |
I'm feeling sort of useless over at my aunt's house, but at the same time I feel guilty if I try to work or read or do anything else and it's only because she's resting in her bedroom now that I feel comfortable blogging. She has her ups and downs. Today's the wake so I know she's not feeling either emotionally or physically well. When I first saw her yesterday she immediately reminded me of my mom and I started bawling.
I wish I could be a little more comforting to her, but it's hard to do that with anything other than my presence and what little help I can offer around the house (and that's not much since the daughter-in-law takes care of that). I don't speak Korean fluently and she doesn't speak English fluently. I'm starting to feel like time is starting to chip away at my family and I'll lose them for good and lose their stories and I'll never know them. I should really learn Korean.
I missed the night where they told stories about my uncle, but I heard one of them yesterday. He came from a well to do, established family in North Korea and just before the demarcation and closing of the DMZ between the South and North, he left home and went to South Korea all on his own. He was completely penniless, but he studied and worked and established himself as a reputable pharmacist. I didn't know he had such strength! He always just seemed sweet and quiet and gentle to me. And he was that, too. My cousin says his dad was the steady one, that he married his father -- his wife is gentle and steadfast in the same way.
Not being able to do much and sitting around I feel a weird boredom combined with guilt. I'm watching a lot of Korean TV though. And eating enough pickled vegetables to last me the next six months. I need some industrial mouth wash to get the kimchi off my breath, but at least it's yummy!
| Compounding Loss | 10:26 PM |
Another year has passed since my mom passed away. This year, my uncle passed away on the day before my mom's anniversary (on my sister's birthday, poor sweetie). I didn't know him that well, but his son is probably the cousin I'm closest with out of all my cousins. I feel immensely for my aunt and my cousin. Especially for my aunt because she's been with her husband for I don't know how many years -- at least 40+ years and I can't imagine losing someone after spending most of my life with that person, and just before the anniversary of the day I lost my youngest sister, too.
I know exactly what my cousin is going through -- the guilt about not spending enough time with your parent, the wondering and worrying about what his/her life was like at the end. No matter how much time you have, it's never enough. And when you start having your own life, everyone else's diminishes a little. It doesn't mean you don't love them; you just have other, more immediate family members and concerns to think about.
Parents are so complicated. Just like love is complicated and life is complicated with a richness and variability in flavor and warmth combined with the rawness and vulnerability of new skin getting sunburnt. Real, genuine love will always break your heart. It can fill you to the rafters, but is the only thing that can also disappoint and hurt with the same intensity with which you love.
I think about my mother sometimes. Not all the time. Not even that much on the anniversary of her death. Ineke sent me and my sister this poem and it was probably the most heart wrenching part of my day. That, and thinking about my aunt. Because love for your parent isn't the same as the love you have for a partner. Your life partner. I look at my SO and have no idea if he'll be my life partner or just my partner for the time being. I don't know what loss like that must feel like, but I can imagine. And even just in my imagination it's heartbreaking.
| Bird "Strikes" | 1:24 AM |
I'm sure you've all heard about the plane that landed on the Hudson Thursday. I saw it on the TV at the gym yesterday, but I'm a little behind on my news so I didn't read the articles about it until today and kept hearing about these "bird strikes". Sometimes I have a bit of gullibility and take things literally so in my head I was thinking that birds were purposely and maliciously attacking planes. You know strike as in to strike back.
So I Googled it and found the wikipedia article on bird strikes and was elucidated (that's not a word). I think it's a misnomer. We should call them airplane kill or bird crashes or bird bumps -- anything that would make clear the fact that these are unintentional. Birds are not actually trying to sabotage planes and kill humans.
That wikipedia article has some gruesome photos -- the worst one is of a deer caught in the landing gear (I don't even have the heart to link to that photo). I'm so disturbed by it, I can't stop looking at it!
The fascinating thing is that I fly a lot -- probably at least 12 times a year I take a round trip flight somewhere. Most often to southern California to visit my son and sister, and I've been doing that since I moved to SF about 9 years ago. All those trips and this is the first time I've ever even heard of a bird strike. I'm ok with that. In fact, I should probably consider myself lucky (or blissfully ignorant :)
| Why Reading Makes You Better | 11:29 PM |
This sort of piggybacks on the last paragraph of my last post. I love that books expose you to things you might never get a chance to experience in real life. I might never get to live in another country, but I can read about other people that do and get a feel for what that would be like. That's why books make you more empathic because you read about other peoples' lives and how they feel and you learn to understand people better because reading literary fiction extends your empirical knowlege of human beings with theoretical knowledge of human beings and their motivations and behaviors. And when you can emotionally understand why people do what they do even if you've never experienced it yourself -- well, there you go, that's empathy!
Years ago when I was traveling through Costa Rica, I went on a weekend trip with a bunch of people I had met at the Spanish school. There was one girl in particular that I thought was a little prejudiced and it made me dislike her. But after spending a few days with her I realized that she wasn't a bad person or an unlikeable person, she just didn't know any better. Her experiences in life were so limited she honestly didn't know how else to be. I gained empathy for her and with that new knowledge of her, I realized that there wasn't anything cruel about her naive notions of the world -- she just needed to learn more about it.
| Graffiti is not a form of Writing | 11:49 PM |
I have a weekly Wednesday night writing group that I've been meeting with for about a year and a half now. To get to the pub I get off the shuttle at Civic Center and have to walk through the Tenderloin. Normally that walk is interesting site seeing but pretty tame. Tonight was more entertaining.
First off this young guy with his baseball cap askew and wearing baggy pants and a huge long sleeved t-shirt (all the rage in apparel these days) comes up to me and starts walking and chatting with me. Just making small talk at first, then says something about getting together at Starbucks which I laugh off. Then he asks where I'm going and I tell him I'm headed to a bar to meet with my writing group.
"So what, like graffiti?"
Which made me laugh! "No, short stories."
"So for reals, can I call you up sometime to meet at Starbucks?"
I tell him I have a boyfriend and he says he's not going to disrespect that and we part very amicably.
No, for reals though? Is graffiti seriously considered a form of writing?! I might consider it art depending on the graffiti, but writing, no. And is Starbucks some de facto first date joint? If I was single I would've been one of those old ladies that says, "Kid, do you have any idea how old I am?" He wasn't that much older than my son.
Right after that I had some drunk guy point somewhere at my middle and say, "Are those real?!" And I thought to myself, what is he talking about because it certainly is not my breasts. The he said something vulgar, but it wasn't just rude, it was completely and utterly baffling to me -- so much so that I couldn't even respond, I just walked away trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about.
Anyway, I won't bore you with more stories from tonight, but let me share with you this New Scientist article on how novels help to uphold social order which says that storytelling serves an evolutionary purpose. It claims literature conditions people to be social creatures concerned more for communal benefit than individual gain because these classic stories (the ones in the study) tend to stigmatize and punish those characters that are power hungry and selfish. Well that seems like, duh, to me. This reminds me of that study that said that people that read fiction were more empathic than those that didn't. Duh.
| Seven Things About Me | 9:48 PM |
I don't know why I'm doing this because I hate chain mail. But since I've been reading a lot of blogs lately, and I find this particular thing interesting since it's been around for over a month (maybe even longer -- I only did the quickest of searches) I thought what the hell. My friend and co-worker, Marcus Börger tagged me so here I go. The few of these things I've read have been really long. So I'm going to do one short and sweet and only list things that I don't think are posted elsewhere on this particular blog.
- I left home when I was 17 (and moved back when I was 19 with a baby)
- I almost named my son Mountain (I spared him the potential torment and used it as his middle name). "River" and "Leaf" were also on the short list.
- In high school I won a summer scholarship at a local art college -- my teacher entered one of my drawings in a contest. But I ended up spending that summer in rehab and never really drew again.
- From the time I was little, I always thought I'd grow up to be a surgeon -- I even had the tattoo picked out for when I finished med school. But then I went to my first day in my first college level fiction writing class and it was all over.
- I'm really fascinated with and enamored of extreme bondage.
- Charles Gatewood once asked me to model for him. But I was more impressed with the fact that he remembered me and where he met me over 5 years later when I ran into him at Writers with Drinks in 2008.
- I love making crafts: beads, cards, knitting, sewing, jewelry. In my new home, I have a little room entirely dedicated to crafts :)
Now I'm supposed to paste these rules and the next 7 bloggers I wish to torment:
- Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
- Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
- Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
- Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter. (I just emailed them -- hope that's not cheating)
My seven people are mostly people I know, and a couple I don't know at all, but would love to hear 7 things from:
| Do I really have to go home?! | 2:44 PM |
It's been cold here with temperatures ranging from 3°C to -11°C in the tiny town of Stubben, Germany. It's one of the coldest winters they've had in 22 years. And I'm a California girl. It don't snow in San Francisco, or in Southern California.
It's been a different vacation because of how ill I handle the cold weather. Normally I'd want to walk around for hours, but here after an hour or so, my toes are frozen and I can't stay out. Yesterday I was so cold that it made me cranky all day long. So less walking out of doors, but still a wonderful time. And now that I'm finally used to the cold (I didn't even wear my jacket today!) I have to go home tomorrow. Bleh.
Quick list of things that I love here:
- Lighting a wood fire in the stove at grandma's place as soon as we get home
- They don't give you bags at the grocery store; you have to buy them. Most people bring a basket or keep one in the car.
- Snow! I'm an East Coast girl in heart; I miss snow.
- The tiny fridges (ensures that you only buy what you need and eat fresher foods)
- The open fields near here and seeing bucks wandering them
- Chocolates and cookies and liverwurst
- Brick houses
- Centuries old buildings surrounding city centers
- Trains
- Double beds with two mattresses (it means that each of you get your own blankie and you don't have to share!)
- Fresh bread
- There's always a (relatively clean) public toilet available everywhere you go. You probably have to pay for it, but there it is!
I do miss freely given tap water at restaurants, not freezing my toes, and slightly less heavier meal options. But I can live without those things. I love Germany. Whenever I'm here I think about living here. It's too easy to go home and get comfortable and not think about leaving. It's only when you leave that you realize how wonderful it might be to live somewhere else.
| Christmas | 3:18 PM |
Wencke w/her new hat
(click on photo to see album)
I got Wencke (Kiru's sister) the cute, knit donkey hat above from one of the boutiques in Hayes Valley. Kiru had mentioned she liked funny hats and I saw that hat and thought it was perfect. I thought it might be over the top but he said it wasn't so I went for it.
His brother wasn't at Christmas Eve with us and has been in the hospital for some days because of some complications with his diabetes, but we visited him on Christmas day. I guess his blood sugar level got really low earlier that day, and he said when that happens he's a little woozy and can't see clearly and he's out of it. And in walks his sister with the donkey hat and he was confused for a moment. I thought it was hilarious -- imagine being all out of it and someone walks in with two heads and one of them's a knit animal.
Christmas Eve was lovely. His dad looks like an adorable Santa Claus and is very jovial. He kept giving Josh alcohol. Josh got wasted for the first time in his life (much to my chagrin -- I had no idea he was drinking so much!) His mother and sister are sweet. His sister is funny. His father has never studied English in his life, but knows a few words and pronounces them perfectly (thanks to the fluent Plattdeutsch of his youth).
Today we went to the wild animal park. Kiru was excited to tell us that they have a very nice restaurant at the zoo that serves wild game. I thought this was hilarious. My sister was a little horrified that they serve animals in the park at the restaurant. They were too full to let us eat though.
It is hella cold here. My feet were frozen all day today. There was frost all over everything this morning. Even with layers and layers and layers on, I can't manage to stay warm. We're going to Berlin tomorrow and it's supposed to be even colder!
| First Day in Germany | 8:03 PM |
Our first day has been hilarious. Well, first though, let's start with the not so hilarious story from Sunday where Jess called me to tell me I'd bought Josh's international ticket in the wong name! In my defense I buy domestic airline tickets for him all the time with his dad's last name. Somehow, no one bothered to tell me and I didn't bother to ask about what was on his passport. Hilarity at the airport ensues.
Jess got a lecture from the airline customer service rep at the counter, calls me and tells me I can't get a refund or exchange the ticket I've bought, and it might cost me $7000 to get Josh to Hambug and back and that's if I'm lucky and can get the flights. I freaked out, started sobbing on the phone with Josh thinking, oh my god...I'm seriously going to have to leave him at the airport!
Almost two hours later, they get it all sorted out, only costs me an extra $250 and they're on their way to security. Holy fucking shit. That hour of waiting was like the worst hour of my life.
This morning, German boy promptly gets up at 8am to run to his parents house and do errands and get breakfast ready. I didn't roll out of bed until 2:30pm (he came to the room just before then and I asked him why hadn't he woken me up?! to which he replied -- just rest some more if you want). When I woke up Josh, he said, what?! 2:30?! How'd that happen?
After breakfast, Kiru tells me, I like that reaction -- Josh looked outside and said, oh shit! that's beautiful. Last night Kiru was giving us a tour of the house and there's a telescope in one of the bedrooms, and someone says, are you spying on the neighbors? He says, no that's for the pastries. And I'm thinking to myself, what? He's spying on a bakery?! Turns out he meant pastures! That's what Josh meant too when he said it was beautiful.
Kiru's father dropped off the car for us to use. But unfortunately, he parked it in the sloped driveway and didn't engage the handbrake and left it out of gear (in his defense, it's not the car he usually drives). When he left, the car had drifted down the driveway and angled into the wall of the garage denting the trunk and ripping a hole in the exterior. Oh shit....happy holidays. Thank god the tires were angled because it would've ended up in the pastries if they hadn't been.
| Your Corduroy Jacket Makes Me Cry | 12:37 AM |
I'm fascinated by this article in New Scientist about the discovery of the first cases of touch-emotion synaesthesia. Synaesthesia is when you experience a concurrent sensation along with the sensation you're supposed to be feeling. So in this case, these two subjects feel emotions along with tactile sensations. So AW feels denim and gets depressed. HS touches dry leaves and feel disgusted -- not disgust for the dry leaves, but a general feeling of disgust.
I'm always interested in how the brain processes its input. This sort of cross wiring is fascinating. And as a writer, is pure poetic fodder. I just read a novella about a color-sound synthaesthete in the current issue of Santa Monica Review called "Time Trials" by Gregory Spatz which was great so finding this article felt especially timely.
The thing is, that it's something we all do -- combine sensations. The proximity of those brain centers helps faciliate this. Those connections between the part of the brain that processes emotions and the part that processes tactile sensation are in our brains too, except ours are dulled and pruned away. Most of us have a fear of sharp objects, cuddling of soft pillows feels good, and silk feels sexy. But for us, these are just metaphors.
Can you imagine though, having some piece of fabric or some other material that you can just touch and it would make you happy. Not just feed good because it's soft or pretty, but actually make you feel emotionally happy. That would be a hell of a rabbit's foot.
| I need a drunk blogging babysitter | 8:56 PM |
I need one of those drunk filters like gmail's Mail Goggles that makes sure you really, really want to send that late night email that you probably shouldn't. I need one that'll prevent me from blogging when I'm wasted and keep me from saying embarrassing things. The thing is that I want to say these things, but hold back because they're just a wee bit too personal for my taste. Which I suppose might sound like a weird thing for someone who blogs about her life to say, but there are lots of things I don't write about on this site.
I left last night's post up anyway, though even as I'm writing right now I'm itching to delete it. It's more about research that I've been doing and the things I've been reading than anything else.
Maybe what I should be writing about is how I've been worrying again that I drink too much. I think 2 of the 3 pictures of me in the header are of me drunk or passed out. But eh...I've still got a job, a house, and a boyfriend, so I can't have spun too far out of control. And I obsess about this drinking question every year so what's new, eh?
| I Lied | 11:33 PM |
Personal blogs do still interest me. Second thanksgiving and Kerry's telling us she updated her blog and I made a mental note to check it (and I did and I love that her 92 year old grandma has a new boyfriend. I checked Ineke's blog too while I was at it, but I'd already seen the latest update). I've been reading like crazy lately. Blogs, news, RSS feeds of *all* kinds of shit. That last article I blogged about obsessed me so much, I blogged about it again.
| Sex is last | 11:49 PM |
This was eye opening. An article in the current W magazine talks about how plastic surgery patients used to care about how soon they could hit the sack again, and now it's not even a question the plastic surgeons get asked about anymore.
That's not the most interesting part. The most interesting thing is the women's priority list: work, working out, and forever looking young.
"Interest in fitness and nutrition has supplanted sex as the No. 1 concern in many patients' minds."
That's their no. 1 concern?! What about, will my face heal? Or how long will it hurt?
Patients get upset if they can't go back to work after a few days, but are relieved when they can't have sex for two weeks. For these women, their sexual identity is less tied to actual sex than it is how attractive other people find them -- and we all know, youth is sexy.
Plastic surgery "...is such a totally self-oriented procedure most of the time. It's not necessarily related to the other people in their lives." Women don't go to have face lifts and tummy tucks because their husbands or boyfriends ask them to, they go because they feel like they need to in order to stay desirable. Which used to be associated with sex, but is apparently less so nowadays.
I found the whole article bizarre -- I don't read W and found the link to it off another website. I can't imagine being so constrained by some pre-fab notion of beauty that I virtually spend my entire life trying to attain it. And from what it sounds like, at the cost of my human relationships, too. Those patients didn't ask any questions like how soon can I pick up my child again, or have a cocktail with my friends again, and are relieved if they can't have sex with their partners. Nope, they just want to go back to the office and the gym as soon as humany possible without destroying all the beautifying work the surgeon did.
| Bettie Page: Pop Culture Icon / Bleeding Edge Feminist | 12:33 PM |
I love Bettie Page. I loved her as soon as I discovered her back in college when I was intellectually, though not physically, exploring my sexuality by soaking in as much information as I could, including a lot of visuals. I love her because she is unabashedly sexy. She's not shy or reserved about being nude -- even after her Christian conversion, she never felt any guilt or awkwardness about it.
I love that she was just being herself because she didn't know who else to be or any other way to be than herself. She posed for pictures sometimes in little outfits that she made herself and thought it was a hoot the things men wanted photos of her doing. She didn't think it was pornographic or disgusting -- she found it amusing. She had fun! Completely herself -- unreserved and lacking self consciousness, she was herself, and I think that's what makes her so incredibly sexy.
In an era when women didn't have the freedom we do now, she did her own thing. And she was way ahead of the curve with her attitudes about nudity and sexual desire. I wish everyone felt so comfortable. I hope she got the financial reward she deserved in her later years when she finally realized the cult following she had. And will always have. RIP Bettie Page.
| I <3 H&M | 10:28 PM |
The first time I ever saw an H&M was in Germany so I still call it the "ha & em". I bought a sweater there (I still have it and wear it sometimes). This past weekend, I was on a mission to buy new jeans and tops. I haven't bought new clothes in a while and I've been wearing the same old ragged shit for...I don't know, ever. I've lost a couple of pounds so I thought I'd treat myself to some clothes.
I only spent an hour in H&M, and I got 4 shirts and a pair of pants for $100 plus tax. So freaking cheap! That's like almost a whole week's worth of outfits (if you're like me and not too picky about how many times you wear the same pair of pants to work in one week :)
Anyway, lately I've been more interested in fashion. I've been searching for a good fashion blog for a little while now. Once I get a good list, I'll post it here. It's funny to think all these years I never really gave a crap about it and now, mid 30s, I start to be interested. I've been wondering if part of that is just getting older and feeling like you have to compensate for age with external means of beautifying yourself.
I don't feel old usually and I'm not embarassed about my age, but I work with a lot of younger people and sometimes I realize...my god, I'm like 8 years older than this person!
But you know, your body changes, your skin changes, your hair turns white. You can't help age. Aging's been great for me and my girlfriends though. A good friend of mine pointed out last night when I was whining about my fashion fetish that our girl friends have gotten more and more attractive as they've gotten older. I hope he meant me too :)
| Been out of touch (but you shouldn't care) | 11:54 PM |
I know it looks like I had a blog explosion happen last night, but I'd been sitting on those two blog entries (Oahu and noodle bar) for almost a month and a half or longer. I decided last night I had to birth them or they'd never get posted.
I've, again, seriously been considering dropping this blog. I was poking around on the Alexa site the other day and looked up my three websites. This one is ranked the lowest. The one that's ranked the highest of the three (at just below 600,000) hasn't been updated in six years -- six years! And my old blog is between the two and it hasn't been updated in 4-5 years.
Which only seems to validate my new theory that personal blogs are insanely boring. I've virtually stopped reading personal blogs. And when I do get the energy to visit one, I almost immediately give up and surf away. It doesn't matter how great or shoddy the writing. It doesn't matter if I know the person well or don't. The funny thing is that I used to be fascinated by personal blogs.
Now I'm interested in content blogs. The reason my old websites rank higher than this one is because they actually have real content. And it seems that even though it's ancient and oudated content, it still drives traffic. More traffic than my puny little life ever will.
All this thinking though has generated enough energy in me to start a couple of new blogs (cause one just isn't enough!). A health blog, and the blog I've been wanting to do for years now. My top secret, money making cash cow as it were. It's not live yet, but goddamn it, it will be. I'd link to the health blog, but it's my food diary and workout log -- it's even more boring than this blog so I'm not even going to tempt you into visiting it.
| Mmm...homemade enchiladas | 9:38 PM |
I baked a chicken last week and there's only so much chicken one person can eat on her own and I've been craving enchiladas. I couldn't find a recipe I liked online so I mixed it up a little. I love veggies so I added them though I don't think enchiladas usually have veggies in them. But each one of these has protein, veggies, carbs, and fat!
Ingredients
- shredded chicken (I used the equivalent of one whole leg - thigh and drumstick)
- 1/4 sliced onion
- 1/4 sliced large orange pepper
- 3/4 fresh corn (boiled it for a few minutes and cut off the kernels)
- 4 yellow corn tortillas
- 1 Tb butter (or oil)
- oil for the tortillas
- salt and Spanish Blend chili powder (or regular chili powder) to taste
- 1 can Las Palmas enchilada sauce (I had a 19oz can, but only needed about 3/4th of it)
- 1 c shredded cheddar
- 1/2 c shredded monterey jack
You'll also need:
- 7 inch by 11 inch baking pan
- 2 saucepans: 1 small (big enough to fit one tortilla); 1 medium
Makes
4 little enchiladas
Prep
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.
Chicken and vegetable filling
In a medium saucepan, heat butter (or oil) over med-high heat and sauté onions until they're translucent. Add the peppers and sauté until they're soft. Then add chicken and corn and season with salt and chili powder (I put a light dusting of salt on top, and plenty of chili powder), and about 4 Tb of enchilada sauce. Stir until seasoning is evenly distributed and the filling is warm (about 5 minutes). Turn off heat.
Warm and fill the tortillas
Warm the tortillas so they're easy to fold (you can also use hot water to make the tortillas soft if you want to use less oil). In the small saucepan, add 3 Tb oil and warm over medium heat. Add one tortilla. You just want to warm each tortilla on both sides so they are pliable and don't rip but don't want to fry it-- about a minute on each side (depending on how hot your pan is). It'll soak up oil so you can use more or less oil to taste. Do one tortilla at a time and add more oil if you need to. You can fill the first tortilla while warming the second. Fill the center with about a 1/4th of the mix (don't overfill it). I filled it almost edge to edge and about 1-2 inches wide in the middle so the ends overlap easily when you close them. Put them seam down in a baking dish. I left about 1/2 inch between each enchilada so sauce would get in between them.
Pour sauce and bake
Pour the enchilada sauce over the enchiladas. I filled the pan so that some of the sauce reached over the top of the enchiladas, but didn't drown them. Evenly distribute the cheddar cheese, and then the monterey jack across the middles (so it melts all pretty)
Bake for about 20-25 until the cheese melts. I love it -- I got the hot enchilada sauce so it's got a little kick, and I like the texture mix -- the crunchy corn and the thick tortillas, and the mix of peppers and chicken...mmmm.
If you have leftovers
Don't let them sit! Cover them immediately so they don't dry out. I ate one and left the rest in the oven -- bad, ugly move.
| Chinese Noodle Bar at Home | 9:30 PM |
Every Tuesday they offer a Chinese Noodle Bar at work. You choose from a variety of fresh vegetables (enoki mushrooms, shitake mushrooms, spinach, been sprouts, broccoli, pickled cabbage), tofu, small pork dumplings, noodles (thick Shanghai noodles, Lai Fun rice noodles). They dip it in boiling water for a few seconds, put it in a bowl, then you pick your meats which can change week to week. Last week it was tripe, grilled beef steak, pork in Peking sauce, curry seafood. Then they pour your choice of broth on it: a veggie broth and a meat broth (last week, veal broth).
Chinese Tripe Recipe
I wanted to make the tripe at home and had a hard time finding a Chinese tripe recipe online, but I did manage to find a recipe someone had posted on Chowhound from an old Chinese cookbook. I followed the suggested changes and it was delicious -- even friends who didn't like tripe enjoyed it. It was tender and the sauce was very good -- slightly sweet. It was almost exactly like the one they serve at work at the noodle bar.
I've copied the recipe here the way I made it:
- 2 Tbs peanut oil
- 4 slices fresh ginger
- 1 small onion, sliced
- 1 clove garlic, smashed and peeled
- 1 lb parboiled beef tripe, cut in pieces 3/4" x 2" (note: parboil just means to cook before the final cooking. boil it in water for 30 minutes -- the final cooking happens in the oven below)
- 1 Tbs Shao Xing rice wine
- 1 Tbs light soy sauce
- 1/3 cup hoison sauce
- 1/4 tsp salt
- dash 5 spices powder
- 1 cup water
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Mix rice wine, soy sauce, hoison sauce, salt and 5 spices in a bowl
- Heat oil in wok (or saucepan). Brown ginger, onion and garlic 30 sec.
- Add tripe and stir-fry 1 minute.
- Add the sauce mix
- Add water, bring to a boil and let boil for about a minute.
- Transfer to a small oven dish and cover with foil. Bake for 1.5 hours.
You can eat this over rice, or you can put it in soup like I did. It's very tender and yummy!
Chinese cooking
I learned a lot about Chinese cooking trying to put together this noodle bar at home (which went well -- my guests were happy). I searched online to find out more about noodle bars in general and what they normally offer, but didn't come up with much other than reviews of restaurants. Either this topic is really obvious or not that interesting -- I'm guessing by the number of restaurants that it's just obvious :)
I looked in a couple of bookstores (one used; one new) for some helpful Chinese recipes. I found one new book called Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China
Things I learned about Chinese cooking:
- Sichaun (Szechuan) peppercorns: aren't called that in the store and Chinese people don't refer to it that way. Sometimes they just call it pepper. Or sometimes it's packaged as Prickly Ash. You don't use the seeds, just roast the outer shell and stems unless fragrant, then crush or grind them (I've read in some places not to use the stems). They're supposed to leave a slight tingling sensation in your mouth and are often an ingredient in Chinese five spice powder.
- Star Anise: I'd never heard of it until this weekend, but used often in soups and broths and other slow cooked dishes, as well as a variety of other uses. It's shaped like a star and smells like anise (hence the name). Just throw one in per 6-8 cups of water/broth.
- Five spice powder: A mix of all sorts of flavors, this spicy, sweet, hot, mild, pugent, fragrant powder is used on virtually everything from meat to veggies, soups, and even breads.
Modified Pork Jerky (from Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China
The original recipe in the book (p. 294) is super simple and eaten on top of white rice with some veggies. I modified it to be slightly less dry, then sliced them into even thinner, smaller pieces and put them in the soup broth. It was perfect for soup.
- 2 lbs pork butt (or other pork roast)
- salt (I used coarse sea salt)
- freshly ground pepper (the recipe specified black, but I used a mix of peppercorns)
- Cut the pork against the grain into 1/4 inch slices
- Spread them thin on a broiling pan, sprinkle salt and pepper on them
- Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the pieces over
- Bake for another 15 minutes and remove
- Once cooled, slice with the grain as thin as you like
I threw in some small, leftover pieces of pork into a frying pan with a little bit of oil and salt and pepper and oh my, that was yummy, too! Make sure to get fresh pork from your local butcher.
