In search of all books Africa in the library yesterday, amidst Out of Africa and Coetzee and the Lonely Planet, I found a slim book, meant for kids, called Facing the Lion. It's the story of Joseph Lemasolai Lekuton, a Maasai warrior from Kenya. What a storyteller. It is humourous and humble and vivid; an hour of pure delight. He seems equally at home in his nomadic village and at Harvard, in worlds we like to call polar opposites.
I think I love Facing the Lion because you can tell Lekuton is happy because he appreciates what's in front of him, it has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the people and beauty of the world. Call me a sap, but I LOVE IT.
1.07.2007
1.06.2007
Christmas Family Dinner Menu
~
Green Beans with Roasted Almonds
~
Oh...it was a good meal.
Finally figured out how to upload photos! My boyfriend and I (tried to) play four-star chefs for Christmas, and treated my family to dinner above. It took A LOT of time, but it's easy enough to do and well worth the effort. Recipe links in the menu will take you to Epicurious, Williams-Sonoma and Martha Stewart. I swear by them for recipes that will knock people's socks off.
Some may remember the days (literally, two of them) when I wanted to BE Martha (ended when I found out she spends two whole days a year on fruitcake). Sigh...
The French Onion Soup is kickass if you can afford the time to make your own stock. And a special mention must be made of the BF's bordelaise sauce - he is quickly carving out a niche as a formidable saucier (all good sous-chefs need a specialty :) But it was the trifle that took first prize: 12+ servings of trifle gone in 2 days - my family fell hard for the tangy, nutty and not-too-sweet winter version. Rhubarb, pistachios, custard and cream - that's love on a plate.
And it doesn't even have chocolate in it!
1.02.2007
Fortunes and the final word on 'The Navigator'
Happy new year!
I rejoice. After years of believing the fortunes of Chinese fortune cookies were obsolete, of thinking they had all been replaced by prosaic, faux Confucian sayings like "A wise man is one who keeps his mouth shut," I have been given hope. Taste of the Silk Road, on the Danforth, gives out fortune cookies with actual fortunes! And my fortune at dinner on Saturday: "Your present plans are going to succeed."
Music to the ears, when one plans on going to Africa for a year without a plan! Without a job! Flight to Cape Town to be booked tomorrow!!
So - last word on The Navigator of New York - I'm lukewarm on the book. What great settings: rough and raw Newfoundland, New York, the city of promise, and the isolation and purity of the Pole. But what a lack of character development. Devlin Stead acts as narrator, and he is used only to channel the story about Dr Frederick Cook's quest for the pole. Devlin, coming of age while besetted by the most trying of emotional situations; challenged constantly to define and redefine family, love, home and trust, and we learn so little of his growth and maturity. Good storyline, but a wasted opportunity to add a human dimension to the book.
My boyfriend's mother recommends Johnston's earlier book, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Any good?
I rejoice. After years of believing the fortunes of Chinese fortune cookies were obsolete, of thinking they had all been replaced by prosaic, faux Confucian sayings like "A wise man is one who keeps his mouth shut," I have been given hope. Taste of the Silk Road, on the Danforth, gives out fortune cookies with actual fortunes! And my fortune at dinner on Saturday: "Your present plans are going to succeed."
Music to the ears, when one plans on going to Africa for a year without a plan! Without a job! Flight to Cape Town to be booked tomorrow!!
So - last word on The Navigator of New York - I'm lukewarm on the book. What great settings: rough and raw Newfoundland, New York, the city of promise, and the isolation and purity of the Pole. But what a lack of character development. Devlin Stead acts as narrator, and he is used only to channel the story about Dr Frederick Cook's quest for the pole. Devlin, coming of age while besetted by the most trying of emotional situations; challenged constantly to define and redefine family, love, home and trust, and we learn so little of his growth and maturity. Good storyline, but a wasted opportunity to add a human dimension to the book.
My boyfriend's mother recommends Johnston's earlier book, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams. Any good?
12.26.2006
A dream: Me skydiving in Antarctica
Christmas 2006 found me buried in Wayne Johnston's The Navigator of New York. Following last summer's reading of The Worst Journey in the World, I must say Arctic exploration is my latest and greatest obsession. Antartica is slowly moving up in the list of places I really, really want to visit, but...
...am I romanticising just a wee bit? Me, who, as everyone knows, HATES the cold. Who feels room temperature should be 22 C -- or higher. I don't skate because I can't stand frozen toes. Hibernation is the way of my life from November to March (we got some long Canadian winters!).
So Antarctica maaaaay be out of my league.
It's kind of like how I badly want to sky dive but am afraid of falling...
...am I romanticising just a wee bit? Me, who, as everyone knows, HATES the cold. Who feels room temperature should be 22 C -- or higher. I don't skate because I can't stand frozen toes. Hibernation is the way of my life from November to March (we got some long Canadian winters!).
So Antarctica maaaaay be out of my league.
It's kind of like how I badly want to sky dive but am afraid of falling...
12.19.2006
Asking Too Much of Fiction?
I love fiction. Give me Atticus Finch and Boo Radley over Donald Trump's or Martha Stewart's bio any day. Someone once said that fiction is often more real than real life. Hear, hear. Fiction, for me, is the richest insight into humanity.
My latest read: Maps for Lost Lovers. It's the story of Pakistani women, families, children and lovers struggling with the clash between Pakistani and English cultures. The book has some very good, complex characters, and a wonderful story line. But there is a lot of lecturing: about the practice of murdering women gone 'astray' to reinstate the family's honour, about the difficulty for women to prove rape under Shari'a law. Whole paragraphs to support the dialogue, to make sure the reader understands just how difficult the situation really is.
Fiction can raise awareness about history, customs, cultures - but it doesn't need to be hammered in. It should, in my opinion, be weaved in subtly: into dialogue, setting descriptions. It can be done very well - a movie example, but Fire shows the juxtaposition of the castigation of girl widows in India against the rise of Gandhi's resistance movement without ever joining the dots for you.
It is not that I dislike the author's message; violence against women makes my blood boil. But I don't like being preached at. I like an author to assume I am smart enough to figure out the background, to make the connection between micro and macro.
Am I asking too much?
My latest read: Maps for Lost Lovers. It's the story of Pakistani women, families, children and lovers struggling with the clash between Pakistani and English cultures. The book has some very good, complex characters, and a wonderful story line. But there is a lot of lecturing: about the practice of murdering women gone 'astray' to reinstate the family's honour, about the difficulty for women to prove rape under Shari'a law. Whole paragraphs to support the dialogue, to make sure the reader understands just how difficult the situation really is.
Fiction can raise awareness about history, customs, cultures - but it doesn't need to be hammered in. It should, in my opinion, be weaved in subtly: into dialogue, setting descriptions. It can be done very well - a movie example, but Fire shows the juxtaposition of the castigation of girl widows in India against the rise of Gandhi's resistance movement without ever joining the dots for you.
It is not that I dislike the author's message; violence against women makes my blood boil. But I don't like being preached at. I like an author to assume I am smart enough to figure out the background, to make the connection between micro and macro.
Am I asking too much?
12.15.2006
My favourite nooks
I really mean nooks here…not just cities I love, or sights that will be permanently stamped in memory (Machu Picchu at sunrise), but small, hidden or enclosed spaces that I would never miss visiting if I was in the area.
Perhaps it might be common sense, but most of these are in places where I lived:
Perhaps it might be common sense, but most of these are in places where I lived:
- The hammock in the front yard of Lida and Francisco’s house, Panama
- Back corner table, the Beautiful Café (officially, La Croissanterie Figaro), Montreal, Canada
- Pages Bookstore, Toronto, Canada
- Any college courtyard, Oxford, UK
- West Village, Manhattan, NY
- Cayo Jutias, the second beach past the mangroves, Cuba
- The Arboretum, Ottawa, Canada
- Los Quetzales Lodge, Guadalupe, Panama
- The “forest” (20 scrawny trees) behind the school near my parents’ house
- Along the Old Wall, Nanjing, China
Flied Lice, the ultimate Chinese comfort food
My boyfriend, his eyes light up when there are mashed potatoes on the table. Me, I don't see what's so great about potatoes. For my family, the staple was always rice. Good, fluffy, warm rice, eaten delicately with chopsticks (OK, in reality most Chinese people shovel in a rather undainty manner). There was always at least 20 pounds of rice in the house (less was considered a shortage), and we ate it every night.
Fried rice was the treat we always looked forward to, a step up from the quotidian plain rice. The dish begged for at restaurants, when my mother would hiss that it was a waste of money (fried rice is how Chinese families use up the week's leftovers). It was the first dish I ever learned how to make, and the staple of my uni years. Very impressive meal for all the non-Asians who'd only ever had the drab, soy sauce drenched, carrot-flecked stuff :)
It's still my comfort food - the one thing I don't have a recipe for, the one thing I could make blindfolded. Even the boyfriend loves it.
So...in honour of my comfort food, here's my attempt at a recipe (approximated - use what's on hand and experiment!).
Fried Rice
Oil (sesame best, canola/vegetable OK too)
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots
2 lap cheung (Chinese sausage), some chicken, shrimp or tofu, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 cups any combo of: snow peas, broccoli, bok choy, chinese cabbage, bell pepper, Chinese straw mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces
2-3 eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups of day-old cooked rice (just cooked rice works OK, but day-old is much better!)
soy sauce
hot sauce (optional)
1. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a large frying pan or wok over medium heat. Add the onions, ginger and garlic and fry for five minutes.
2. Add the carrots and meat if using. (If using tofu or shrimp, see step 4 & 5.) Fry for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the vegetables and cook for another two minutes.
4. If using shrimp: add now. Cook until pink.
5. Empty the mixture into a bowl. Add 2 Tbsp more oil and turn the heat up to medium-high. When the oil is hot, throw in the tofu. Fry on all sides. Empty the tofu, carefully, into the bowl with the veggies.
6. Scramble the eggs in the pan. When they are cooked, turn the heat back down to medium and add the rice. When the rice is warm, add the veggie mixture back in and stir. Add 2 Tbsp soy sauce and some hot sauce to taste, adding more soy sauce as needed (Though beware, you may be labelled a gwei low if you use too much!)
Fried rice was the treat we always looked forward to, a step up from the quotidian plain rice. The dish begged for at restaurants, when my mother would hiss that it was a waste of money (fried rice is how Chinese families use up the week's leftovers). It was the first dish I ever learned how to make, and the staple of my uni years. Very impressive meal for all the non-Asians who'd only ever had the drab, soy sauce drenched, carrot-flecked stuff :)
It's still my comfort food - the one thing I don't have a recipe for, the one thing I could make blindfolded. Even the boyfriend loves it.
So...in honour of my comfort food, here's my attempt at a recipe (approximated - use what's on hand and experiment!).
Fried Rice
Oil (sesame best, canola/vegetable OK too)
1 onion, chopped
1 tsp ginger, minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 carrots
2 lap cheung (Chinese sausage), some chicken, shrimp or tofu, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 cups any combo of: snow peas, broccoli, bok choy, chinese cabbage, bell pepper, Chinese straw mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces
2-3 eggs, lightly beaten
4 cups of day-old cooked rice (just cooked rice works OK, but day-old is much better!)
soy sauce
hot sauce (optional)
1. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in a large frying pan or wok over medium heat. Add the onions, ginger and garlic and fry for five minutes.
2. Add the carrots and meat if using. (If using tofu or shrimp, see step 4 & 5.) Fry for 3-4 minutes.
3. Add the vegetables and cook for another two minutes.
4. If using shrimp: add now. Cook until pink.
5. Empty the mixture into a bowl. Add 2 Tbsp more oil and turn the heat up to medium-high. When the oil is hot, throw in the tofu. Fry on all sides. Empty the tofu, carefully, into the bowl with the veggies.
6. Scramble the eggs in the pan. When they are cooked, turn the heat back down to medium and add the rice. When the rice is warm, add the veggie mixture back in and stir. Add 2 Tbsp soy sauce and some hot sauce to taste, adding more soy sauce as needed (Though beware, you may be labelled a gwei low if you use too much!)
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