I’ve been afraid of the kitchen for the last few years since cooking became a chore a few years back, in Manila, before I came to the States, when it became a dreaded job as I made daily catered lunches for my little venture called “Fat Tomato”. Amid daily food shopping and deliveries and thinking up menus, I lost the cooking mojo a little each day until one day, as I was making monggo (mung beans) with tinapa (smoked fish, a Filipino delicacy) — one of my favorite Filipino dishes — the taste and smell suddenly made me nauseous, so much that I stopped eating the dish altogether for three years. I haven’t made it since. Frankly, I stopped liking anything I made and only enjoyed food cooked by someone else, aka my mom, my sisters or by a chef at a restaurant.
Apart from light salads and simple sautees I really haven’t made anything since.
Last night, New year’s Eve, my friend B stayed over my apartment and we had a great meal of a mix of store bought and simply prepared dishes: cheese souffle popovers, brie and crispbread, olives and white beans, salad and baked salmon drizzled with O & Co Olive Oil with lemon, lava cakes with vanilla ice cream and of course, bubbly.
We also watched “Julia and Julia”, a joyful imagining of Julia Child’s years in Paris as she learned how to cook. The joy was infectious.
Meryl Streep is infectiously joyful as Julia Child.
And because I’m an indefatigable resolution maker, here is no. 1: On Wednesday I am making an Ina Garten dinner for a good friend: Bay scallops gratin, herb salad and crusty bread, and apple crumb for dessert. Good luck to me . I’m excited again 
Can’t believe I haven’t updated this thing in four months. And that I’m back just like that. It’s not because nothing’s happened, the past four months have been incredibly busy, but since catching up would be pretty crazy I’ll just jump right in to Right Now.
I have craigslist to thank for keeping me up and leading me back here. I can’t sleep because I’m in the throes of fleamarketshopping. Sending dozens of emails in the hope of scoring really great furniture/stuff. Backtrack – one cool thing that happened is that I finally bought my own place, and the other cool thing about that is that I can do what I want. I’m really excited to make the entire place as green as possible. And one aspect is to furnish only with used or antique furniture. Well, except for the bed and the TV. (I don’t want to sleep on a used bed and I gave away my old TV so I think that good turns deserves another – for me 
)
Look what I scored tonight, for a third of the price:
Mirrored nightstand
7:30 a.m. Just woke up and made myself a pot of Tea Forte Cocoa Truffle with a teaspoon of sugar. (I ran out of coffee the other day which set me off into a mild panic but I made myself tea instead and that calmed me down pretty quickly. These gourmet teas are so delicious.)
So, checking emails. Did not turn on the TV to my usual rattly bit of morning news. Inbox treat – a few poems from my friend Jam.
This one I particularly love:
The second half of my life will be black
to the white rind of the old and fading moon.
The second half of my life will be water
over the cracked floor of these desert years.
I will land on my feet this time,
knowing at least two languages and who
my friends are. I will dress for the
occasion, and my hair shall be
whatever color I please.
Everyone will go on celebrating the old
birthday, counting the years as usual,
but I will count myself new from this
inception, this imprint of my own desire.The second half of my life will be swift,
past leaning fenceposts, a gravel shoulder,
asphalt tickets, the beckon of open road.
The second half of my life will be wide-eyed,
fingers shifting through fine sands,
arms loose at my sides, wandering feet.
There will be new dreams every night,
and the drapes will never be closed.
I will toss my string of keys into a deep
well and old letters into the grate.The second half of my life will be ice
breaking up on the river, rain
soaking the fields, a hand
held out, a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up.
Isn’t it beautiful. It’s perfect for how I feel right at this juncture, this moment. I’m really happy and peaceful to just be here.
When we’re open to them, poems speak to us — to me – and resonate more keenly and life takes on a poetic flavor. Does this sound mawkish? Not to me. Life set to poetry, music, prayer, the intangibles between the lines and spaces of our daily existence, is just so much more meaningful.
If I imagine my life in two acts, this one is the second, the first act not wasted but a necessary preparation and paving of the way for this exciting, anticipated second. “I will land on my feet this time, knowing at least two languages and who my friends are.”
I am an open hand, a beckoning.
“..a fire,
and smoke going
upward, always up…”
I think it’ll be my theme for the year at least.
I love music, new music, indie music, and often toy with the idea that I need to get satellite radio where all the cool new unknown underground bands and artists are playing. Then I listen to NPR in snatches, in the car, and again and always realize how much I love this old-fashioned radio station playing amazing music by amazing musicians, talking about interesting places and people, in its timeless and old fashioned medium. I love that I may encounter cynics in real life but on NPR, I can listen to real people reflect on small things about life in authentic, decent ways.
Today, Earth Day, the local NPR station WAMU’s show Metro Connections talked about saving the native oyster in the Chesapeake Bay, told the story of how competing guitar companies are working with an environmental group to protect trees”, and featured a wonderful commentary from Lynn Peterson Mobley who says “we should fight the feeling that our actions amount to little more than a drop in the bucket.”
Here’s a lovely excerpt:
…I’m the one who’s a nut about recycling. At the same time I’m well aware that my feeble efforts to make less of a personal dent on the world’s resources are such a tiny drop in such a massive bucket that I should be embarrassed by my own efforts, but I’ve decided not to let that bother me.
Years ago in college I read about Kurt Vonnegut who said that we had to learn to live as if our actions were really important in the face of all the evidence that individual efforts mean nothing in the greater scheme of things. He said that we had to live as if we mattered or there wasn’t any point to being alive. Of all the things that I learned, that is what I remember the most and it has infused what I do in daily life.
I try to tell someone if they’ve done a good job, I smile at strangers, I let people into traffic…Life is tough, and its’ so easy to brighten someone’s day. And I really try not to waste stuff. I compost my coffee grounds and potato peels, I leave leftovers in the woods for the foxes to find, I combine trips for errands, little stuff but it means something to me…”
When she dies, she continues, she doesn’t want to leave behind plastic stuff. She says, “Our beliefs may die with us but our stuff lives on forever.”
I’m also a recycling nut often wearied by the thought that all my puny efforts mean nothing except that it makes me feel and sleep better, and I’m embarrassed to ask others to do the same. And it’s heartening to be reminded that puny or not we can choose to make ourselves matter even in everyday little ways.
I was craving sweet noodles and decided to make chapchae at my mom’s house tonight. I stopped by Fresh World after work to buy the ingredients. (Fresh World is a great international/ethnic market along Wiehle in Reston; vegetables are fresh and inexpensive though not organic. I go there when I crave Asian Food. Otherwise I still like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s for everything else.)
Chapchae, or japchae, a Korean noodle staple
Anyway tonight it was chapchae for dinner, sweet Korean glass noodles that are a snap to make. I added a lot of vegetables to make it more subtantial and two eggs for some protein.
Ingredients:
3/4 pound dried Korean glass (sweet potato) noodles
3 tsps sesame oil (I tend to add more because I love sesame oil)
toasted sesame seeds as much as you like
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
1 big carrot, sliced thinly
4 large cloves garlic minced
a bundle of green onions, ends trimmed and sliced crosswise
2 cup shiitake mushrooms, thinly sliced
(I like shiitake but tradionally, “tenga ng daga” (wood ear)
a bundle of spinach, washed well, drained
a bundle of Chinese broccoli, roughly cut
2 eggs, scrambles and thinly sliced
5 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
5 teaspoons light brown sugar
1/4 cup water
Thai chili paste or red pepper flakes to taste
My nephew Martin eating chapchae straight from the wok
Boil noodles in a large pot for four to five minutes. Drain, rinse, cut into shorter pieces and toss with sesame oil. Set aside.
Blend soy sauce & sugar and water together. Set aside.
This portion is done very fast. In a wok over high heat, saute onions and garlic in oil about 30 seconds. Add carrots, green onions and mushrooms and saute for 30 seconds. Add broccoli and noodles and our soy sauce-sugar mixture. Fry 2-3 minutes until the noodles are cooked through. Toss with sliced eggs and sesame seeds, then drizzle with a tad more more sesame oil. For some spice, toss with Thai chili paste or sprinkle pepper flakes.
My nephews Martin and Miggy like chapchae a lot. So do I.
Little ditty about Jackie and Diane
Two American lesbians fell in love in the heartland
On Tuesday the courts overturned the ban
limiting marriage between a woman and a man
Oh yeah life goes on
such a big thrill
to choose a wedding song
Oh yeah life goes on
such a big thrill
prejudice gone
The liberals have landed. The conservatives must be turning in their narrow beds.
Just this past Tuesday Iowa gave a big up yours to California’s Prop 8 and a big thumbs up to gay couples everywhere when it voided the ban on gay marriage, stating that “the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” (wrote Justice Mark S. Cady wrote for the seven-member court. He later added: “We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law.” Gotta love this justice.
In Iowa’s heels yesterday Vermont legalized same-sex marriage in a unanimous council vote. Then DC followed suit, with the council “overwhelmingly” voting in favor of legislation to recognize gay marriages from other states. The bill would still need to go through Congress as pending city law since D.C. is not a state.
The battle’s not over. Forty three U.S. states still prohibit gay marriages, 29 of which have constitutional amendments that define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Still and all, a milestone week for civil rights. Not bad.
I’m beginning to really like living hereabouts.
Great poems are like great friends, and vice-versa. Rare, precious, and if one is lucky, full of empathy and imagination. My good friend Jam is like me, poem-passionate, poem-stricken, poem-fatally attracted. She and I used to message each other endlessly with poems on Facebook and the ones she sends always speak to me. Now that I’ve gone FB-teetotal (for Lent, for my sanity, for job security!), she emails me from time to time. This is what she sent me today:
Untitled (this is what was bequeathed us) by Gregory Orr:
This is what was bequeathed us:
This earth the beloved left
And, leaving,
Left to us.No other world
But this one:
Willows and the river
And the factory
With its black smokestacks.No other shore, only this bank
On which the living gather.
No meaning but what we find here.No purpose but what we make.
That, and the beloved’s clear instructions:
Turn me into song; sing me awake.
Hahahaahah!!!
You have to watch this video. It’s so much fun. Who wouldn’t want to dance to Julie Andrews’ “Doe a Deer”?
I tried to go vegan a couple of times but never have been able to pull it off. The main culprits holding me back: cheese and chocolate, two of my most favorite foods in the world. The stinkiest, agiest, tangiest cheese in the world. And the richest, most decadent milk chocolate in the world. The dark stuff just doesn’t cut it you know. It’s the cream, milk and butter that produces the “silken, melting delight” European chocolates are famous for. (Don’t get me started on European chocolates. Also, read Diane Ackerman’s unforgettable “A Natural History of the Senses”.) Sigh, yummm. I had a long heart-to-heart with myself and decided life would be decidedly very sad indeed without these two wonderfully happy foods.
Heart-Healthiest (and in my opinion, yummiest) chocolate chip cookies in the world
Chocolate is the reason why, no matter how healthy I make my diet, I will always fall off the wagon. I eat massive amounts of the stuff. It’s probably in my genes. I come from a family of serious chocoholics. Growing up my brothers and sisters had hidden places where they kept their stash hidden from greedy siblings; one of my brothers still does it because his wife curtails his “habit”. And it’s not just fancy chocolate that gets us going; at one point in Manila years ago I couldn’t find a single Milky Way bar in any store — and no kidding I went to dozens — and I feared the Mars company had stopped making them. When I finally found them in one stinky store I bought up several boxes. My brother Topel later told me he was also frantically searching for the chocolate caramel yummies at the same time I was. Family trait.
It must be the “psychopharmacology” of the stuff that has us coming back for more. Chocolate releases feel-good endorphins which promotes a feeling of well-being; it also happens to contain phenylethylamine (PEA) which triggers the same “amphetamine”-like rush of falling in love. In short, chocolate is an awesome upper that tastes so darn good, but unfortunately, eaten in
Healthy ingredients from 100% wind-powered MOM's
rampant immoderation as I’m wont to do, is so darn bad for me. Yada yada yada. Which gets me to the point of all this rambling, which is that in the interest of keeping healthy I wanted to get a grip on my addiction. How can I satisfy my chocolate craving in a healthy way? At the gym a couple of weeks back I was reading the Vegetarian TImes and found this recipe for “The Heart-Healthiest Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World” and the picture looked good so I decided to give it a try. That weekend my friend Brittny and I schlepped to My Organic Market to buy all the heart-healthy ingredients (total, $19) and I made the cookies just this last Saturday night to bring to a picnic with my family.
Oh.My. God. The cookies were a hit. The crucial judges: my 10 and 12-year old nephews, who pronounced them “really good.” And surprisingly, they are. Very good. Especially when I tell you that the cookies contained no eggs, no dairy, no wheat flour, pure dark chocolate chips, and only three tbsps. of vegetable oil. That’s right, it’s vegan. In lieu of white flour it suggests ground oats (oat flour) and ground walnuts (packs a protein punch). The 1 1/2 cups of choco chips make every bite a chocolatey delight (this is really bad copy…) My friend Elaine who is anti-health food wouldn’t try them, she said they look like “wheat-germ” cookies, yes well, I haven’t gotten the hang of making food real purty yet. (For the record toasted wheat germ on oat bran is delicious.) But Brittny, my sister Aileen and my mom said they were really good, happily chomping away.
Recipe from the Vegetarian Times
Yes I heart the cardigan. And yes I heart her arms. Mostly I heart Michelle Obama — I’ll have to get in line behind half the world it seems these days (and who can blame them?) — because she is such a warm, positive force for good. Not to mention the fact that she and that husband of hers have somehow made stodgy, power grubby D.C. the cool, hip, happening place to be (though they haven’t quite managed to scrub off the power grubbiness).
First Lady Michelle Obama spoke today at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Language School in London. (Yes, I want the Junya Watanabe cardigan!)
In London today she spoke at the Elizabeth Garret School where according to this Time article, 55 languages are spoken by a 95% ethnic student body. Watching her speech on CNN tonight, I was struck by how accessible, real, and completely confident she was in her own skin, as she talked about her childhood, about growing up in the south side of Chicago (not the good part), raised by working class parents, neither of whom went to university – a stay at home mom and a dad “who never complained…he just got up earlier and did the job.”
“Nothing in my life’s path would have predicted that I would be standing here, the first African-American first lady,” she told the students. “I am an example of what is possible when girls, from the very beginning of their lives, are loved and nurtured by the people around them.”
Watching her got me to thinking about Malcom Gladwell’s book “The Outliers” which I just finished reading. (Definition of ”outlier in Wikipedia: “In statistics, an outlier is an observation that is numerically distant from the rest of the data.”) In people terms Gladwell says “An outlier is the person who doesn’t fit into our normal understanding of achievement. They are men and women who do things out of the ordinary.”
Microsoft’s Bill Gates and The Beatles are outliers. By that definition so are Michelle and Barack Obama. Gladwell argues that our commonly held notions of success against all odds, of people rising above difficult circumstances through their own merit and effort, are in a word, “wrong.” “People don’t rise from nothing,” he writes. “The people who stand before kings may look like they did it all by themselves, but in fact they are the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and opportunities that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways that others cannot.” He goes on to describe story after story of successful people who were amazing, yes, but whose lives and successes were shaped by circumstance, age, family life, heck, even a particular month of the year in which you were born (in the case of Canadian hockey players, if you had the bad luck to be born after April then tough, you’re not likely to go pro.)
The book’s an engaging read populated by lots of interesting anecdotes but very little hard data — ironic since “outlier” is a statistical term — so it doesn’t quite make the case for me. It’s very interesting nonetheless. And it does apply to the Obamas who both came from humble beginnings and somehow got to where they are now, standing before royalty on the “world’s stage.” Their advantages? Not so hidden. As Michelle says it, she had loving and nurturing parents who valued education. In Barack Obama’s case, he had a dedicated mother who woke up with him at 5 am daily to take him through his lessons before he went to school (Read his wonderfully written “Dreams from my Father”.) It doesn’t take much common sense to know that a nurtured child will do better than one who isn’t.
Outliers. Obamas. The Story of Success.
