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Old Chicago Culinary Institute Cookbook

07 Tuesday May 2013

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The other day I was looking through the massive Chicago Culinary Institute cookbook I inherited from my mom. I think the cookbook’s about 50 years old. Even if a lot of the recipes are dated (um, meats gelled in aspic? Peanut butter/mayo/pickle sandwich, anyone?)it’s fun to look through.

This spun sugar doesn’t look messy at all, does it? “It’s lots of fun, and the results are a joy forever.”

Yeah, they are. Because that sugar’s going to stick to your FLOOR forever!

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I also discovered that we don’t need to go to the grocery store anymore. Not only are there several recipes for rabbit and squirrel, there’s also some for opossum. It calls opossoum, “peculiarly flavored,” so I’m still unsure what it tastes like. I imagine in some parts it’s widely eaten.

The book also includes instructions for building various things that we have more modern appliances for.

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With all my spare time, I can build a dehydrator. This is one of several plans.

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Did housewives actually used to go around building dehydrators?

I don’t know, but when society finally crumbles apart, I’m saving this cookbook.

We Will Make Sure You Don’t Know How Beautiful You Are

29 Monday Apr 2013

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Everyone’s seen the new Dove ad, right?

In it, women describe themselves to a police sketch artist, who draws them without seeing them.

Then, other people who have actually met the women describe her to the artist.

The sketches are notably different. In the ones where women have described themselves, they end up looking like hideous troll monsters. The ones where others have described them are way more accurate, and they convey their actual physical beauty as well as attributes like kindness and friendliness.

Then it occurred to me how hard I am on myself as well. And it occurred to me that real beauty is not somebody’s outer shell– it’s the soul they show. It’s really hard to take a bad photo of somebody’s who’s happy.

I showed this to Cadillac, and he said, “Why did you need an ad to tell you what I’ve been telling you for 15 years?”

So I thought about that for a little while.

Women learn from an early age that our bodies are commodities. Chop them up, sell them, comment on them, criticize them. We analyze ourselves and other women as if there’s *ONE MALE* left on the face of the earth and we’re all involved in some hyper Bachelor-type competition for his affections.

Here are a few pieces of evidence about how we tear down/objectify women, culled from the news over the past few months– most within the past week, actually.

A CBS Houston affiliate put up a poll asking if this OKC Thunder cheerleader is too chunky to cheer.

The photo of Kelsey S. that ran in the OKC Thunder

Sports Illustrated model Kate Upton has also been accused of being fat.

If Kate Upton and the cheerleader–the epitome of feminine desirability– if those two are fat, then surely the rest of us are hopeless.

Female Olympic athletes are photographed by the part, focusing on how nice their lady-bits look rather than their skill.

Queen Frostine in the Candy Land game looks like this now:

Nick Jr. showed actor Josh Duhamel (copying Katy Perry) in this commercial, between commercials for Mattel and Hasbro commercials, during Sponge Bob (which, by the way, freaked out my kids so much they came to get me).

josh duhamel

Even if you’re smart enough to go to Princeton, a career isn’t what you need. All you really need to care about is catching a Princeton husband.

If you weren’t smart or well-off enough to go to Princeton, then you can have a baby as a teenager and be a star via MTV; and when that star fades, you can put your commodified body to good work and shoot a porno and get a deal for nearly a million dollars. (Also: Exhibit Everything Kardashian).

Check out this short film, which splices together many of the ads featuring women-as-bodies, and also what would happen if men were in the roles.

Okay, I’m done depressing myself. If you want me, I’ll be taking samurai sword fighting classes with my daughters and son.

Spark Anthology Arrives

01 Monday Apr 2013

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I have a short story in the new Spark anthology. I mentioned it before. My friend Brian Lewis, who was at the CalArts summer school with me, founded the journal this year, as a way to showcase CSSSA grads (and others). It officially comes out tomorrow, but you can get an e-copy or preorder right now. It’s a great way to support emerging writers and enjoy some short stories, art, and poetry while you’re at it.

I got the idea for the story a few years ago. I was attending the Honolulu Writers Conference, walking back from lunch, when I saw a young man sitting against the wall of a very high-end store,on Honolulu’s version of Rodeo Drive. He was reading Steinbeck, I think, and he had a box for donations and a very intense, almost angry look on his face.

He looked just like Cadillac when he was 18.

For a second, I felt like I’d gone through a time warp and almost said my husband’s name. But I knew it wasn’t him. Not really.

Then I thought, what if Cadillac and I hadn’t gotten married, and I saw this guy who was his spitting image from 20+ years back?

What would you do?

So…hope that piques your interest.

spark

Grateful for Flats

24 Sunday Mar 2013

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Today I took Eldest to see the musical ASSASSINS at the Cygnet Theatre in Old Town.

It was really good. Solid cast. We decided we liked the guy playing John Wilkes Booth the best (Booth is sort of the star anyway, the guy egging everybody else on) and also decided he is much better looking in person. We talked about the costumes and the wigs and the music, which sounds like music from each era the assassin lived in, but also like Sondheim. They even had a live orchestra.

We also saw some non-play related extra entertainment. A woman in the audience, across from us, had her mouth wide open in shock for a good part of the play. She shut it at other times, so we knew it wasn’t permanently open. We were close enough to see the actors spit, but not close enough to feel it. One actor had an absolute cloud; it looked like he was breathing into freezing cold.

But what I didn’t realize was how limited the theater parking was. I also thought the play started at 2:30, but it really started at 2, which I realized at 1:30. Whoops.

Old Town parking is difficult most days. It’s what it sounds like: the “Olde” part of San Diego. Full of tourist stuff and historic buildings. We lucked out with a spot a few blocks away and speed walked back up to the theater.

Before we left, I was planning to wear heels, thinking, Oh, there’s a parking lot next to the theater that is ONLY for the theater; it’ll be No Big Deal if I wear heels. But I changed to flats.

As we hustled up the hill, I said, “Thank God I changed to flats.” Then I thought, Have I EVER thought, in my entire life, God, I wish I was wearing heels instead?

I don’t think I have.

Mommy Groups: The Power and the Glory

21 Thursday Mar 2013

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The "Pregnant Woman" statue at Irela...

I gave Jeanine Cummins a blurb for her new novel, The Crooked Branch, which just released. It is an excellent, entertaining book, funny and dark in parts (with lots about the Irish potato famine) which everybody should immediately buy and read. You should also pick up THE OUTSIDE BOY (which I just recommended to my daughter), a coming-of-age story about an Irish traveller, and marvel at Cummins’ writing. Anyway, the contemporary main character is a new mother struggling with the  who tries to fit in with some mommy groups, which reminded me of my own experience.

Mommy groups are apparently a universally traumatizing experience among mothers. Everybody has a war story about a mommy group, just like everybody has a war story about poop and vomit.

When Eldest was a toddler, I tried out some Mommy groups. They had age ranges for the groups; she was on the older side. They met at playgrounds and Sea World and the point was for the moms to talk and the babies to play.

Two things happened at the groups: the mothers ignored me, and my kid tried to play with the other kids, but they didn’t play back. The mothers mostly spoke of Their Own Greatness or the Majesty of Their Husbands’ Paychecks, or how they were 100% verified geniuses because they bought a house before the market hit that crazy bubble and, like, THEY TOTALLY KNEW the houses were going to go up.

I tried to stick it out. To get out of the house. But I always ended up depressed and even more lonely than when I first started. Once, we went to a Cry Baby matinee, where you can see a movie for cheap and not worry if the baby cries. I met the mothers at the front and then bought my ticket at the booth. They went in without me.

There was no group for slightly older kids, so I started one. I went to one more playgroup event at the old group, and a mother literally confronted me. “You think your baby’s smarter than mine? Is that it?” she demanded. Such a nice human being.

I’m not sure what it is about Mommy Groups that makes insecure, threatened women even more outwardly uptight and defective. It’s like they suspected I was plotting to steal their husbands or my kid was going to get all the glory (no, and yes, ha ha).

Anyway, that Mommy Group I started went well. In particular, my neighbor Michelle joined and soon another woman, Rebecca, did too. Rebecca and Michelle run their own real estate business now.

After I had Little Girl, I decided to give Mommy Groups one more try through Meetup.

This time, it went well. I found the only group in the United States full of honest-to-goodness, no-bullshit women. I think sometimes dramatic, insecure women join, but they either quit because they can’t take the honesty; or they relax because they know they don’t need to pretend to be the fucking Queen Bee all day and night. And if there is the occasional sneaker who’s still like that, she’s tolerated. And if somebody is really just being unpleasant all the time, they are asked to leave.

In our group, the women talk about the nitty-gritty difficulty of life with young kids. They talk about work and home, how they miss one or the other or how they balance both. They talk about how they’d like to take a vacation but they can’t afford it; but if somebody actually gets to take a vacation people are genuinely happy for them.

In our group, we have married women, divorced women, working women, stay-at-home-moms, work-at-home moms, and combinations of all of the above. There is probably a woman who can give advice about nearly any situation you can think of beyond motherhood. Illness, special education, in-laws, mortgages, jobs, healthcare. Everything and anything.

If somebody has a Martha Stewart-like penchant for Pinterest and crafts, it’s common for women to openly or secretly despise her. But here we do not disparage her talent– we stand back and say, “Go on with your bad self, and make me one of those homemade cheeses while you’re at it.” If somebody loses weight or runs a marathon, I’ve never heard anybody whisper, “That bitch! I hate her!” In other words, I haven’t been witness to the ugly competitive I’ve seen in other groups.

In this group, women seem to understand that another woman’s accomplishment does not diminish you in any way.

For my last two book launches, my Mommy Group friends made up a large contingent of supporters. Nobody’s jealous that I got published. They’re happy. They get the book for their friends and relatives. I never feel like somebody’s waiting to shank me, the way I do with other groups.

So I’m still in this group, though my youngest’s seven. I go to the book club and Mom’s Night Out and bunco and to see movies like Magic Mike. This week, there was Death By Chocolate, which is exactly as awesome as it sounds.

It’s as if we’ve signed a secret pledge, acknowledging the truth that everyone has a unique struggle,  and that we will treat each person with compassion. Which, for some reason, is a quality that’s often buried in others.

Or you can distill it even further: if you’re in a Mom’s group or starting a Mom’s group, begin with the same rule preschoolers must abide by: BE NICE. End of story.

^Note: the picture above was suggested by WordPress, and I thought it was a really haunting, beautiful photo, so I put it in.

Candy Crush Philosophy

08 Friday Mar 2013

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candycrush

Life is like a box of candy…

There’s this game on Facebook I’ve been playing called Candy Crush. You have to line up at least 3 similar “candies” in a row to zap them away (not diagonally). Sometimes you do that and more rows fall down, unseen from above, and line up perfectly and disappear.

Unexpectedly, you win the game.

Other times you click away for days never making progress, and the game offers to let you buy tempting “cheats” to win a level. (Like a carnival game, you could easily drop $20 trying to win a single game, so I stay away from that option.)

Anyway, it struck me that this game is like life, sort of. You can work and work trying to get your candies lined up, so to speak, and have nothing happen. Other times, some concurrence of events makes those candies explode and you rise to the next level with little effort.

Also, I had to come up with a justification for spending all my time playing this game.

Maybe I should make some sort of Jack Handy-style poster…

I guess I was thinking about this because a few irritating things have happened. For the last couple of weeks, I understand Mercury’s been in retrograde, which possibly accounts for it. First Cadillac went to get gas one morning, and his car died. Then the main sewer line backed up, and a plumber had to come out at 12:30 am on a Monday morning to dig out a tree root (sorry, neighbors). Then my car wouldn’t start. Then everybody got sick for some degree, at various inconvenient times.

Luckily, these problems got taken care of quickly, and I have family and friends to call if I need help. When Cadillac’s car wouldn’t start, he texted our eldest, knowing she’d have her phone on for the alarm; and she got her siblings up and made them breakfast and didn’t wake me for another hour, so I didn’t even know about it. I would have totally woken my parent up.

It reminded me of how quickly luck can change, for better or worse.

Star Trek Blanket

22 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in crafts, family

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The day before yesterday, I dreamed we bought a sectional sofa and I bought Star Trek pillows for Cadillac. (Always old Star Trek, never Next Gen).

The next day, I walked into the fabric store and saw Star Trek fleece 40% off.

COINCIDENCE?

It’s NEVER a coincidence.

Thus, it was imperative that I make Cadillac a blanket from the stuff.

Making these blankets is pretty easy. I used 2 yards of the print, and a 2 yards of the yellow underneath, to make the blanket nice and thick.

You line up the corners and cut out a 2- inch square. Then you cut 2-inch long strips every inch along the perimeter. I put a yard stick down to help me cut every inch.

The solid fabric is usually wider than the printed. I just worked on one side at a time, since I did it on the table rather than the floor.

star trek

Does Kirk kind of look like he’s flipping you off? I thought so for a second.

The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns: Literary Tastes Pick

31 Thursday Jan 2013

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I got some exciting news! I happened to glance at my phone and see that my trusty friend Sarah McCoy (author of THE BAKER’S DAUGHTER and all-around awesome lady) Tweeted  that THE CARE AND HANDLING OF ROSES WITH THORNS won the American Library Association’s Best Women’s Fiction award for 2013!

 Every year, the Reference and User’s Association (RUSA) picks their “Literary Tastes” awards across different genres. 

Woot woot! 

ADRENALINE
“Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn (Crown, 9780307588364)
It’s her fifth wedding anniversary: where’s Amy? Assumptions are dangerous in this chilling psychological thriller. The dark and twisty plot, unbearable levels of tension, and merciless pacing will rivet readers.

Read-alikes
“The Talented Mr. Ripley” by Patricia Highsmith
“Before I Go to Sleep” by SJ Watson
“Defending Jacob” by William Landay

Short List
“The Fear Artist” by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime, 9781616951122)
“Into The Darkest Corner” by Elizabeth Haynes (HarperCollins, 9780062197252)
“The Survivor” by Gregg Hurwitz (St. Martin’s Press, 9780312625511)
“The Inquisitor” by Mark Allen Smith (Henry Holt, 9780805094268)

FANTASY
“The Rook” by Daniel O’Malley (Little, Brown, 9780316098793)
When Myfanwy wakes up with no memory, surrounded by corpses, she must immediately impersonate herself in order to unravel the conspiracy at the heart of a secret supernatural intelligence agency. This offbeat debut combines the fast pacing and suspense of a thriller with the gritty, detailed world-building of urban fantasy.

Read-alikes
“The Demi-Monde: Winter” by Rod Rees
“The Eyre Affair” by Jasper Fforde
“The Domino Men” by Jonathan Barnes

Short List
“The Troupe” by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit, 9780316187527)
“The Steel Seraglio” by by Mike Carey, Linda Carey, and Louise Carey (ChiZine, 9781926851532)
“The Killing Moon” by N. K. Jemisin (Orbit, 9780316187282)
“Alif the Unseen” by G. Willow Wilson (Grove, 9780802120205)

HISTORICAL FICTION
“Bring Up the Bodies” by Hilary Mantel (Henry Holt, 9780805090031)
Ambitious royal advisor Thomas Cromwell is at the pinnacle of his power and uses it to subtly engineer the downfall of his enemies, including the Queen, Anne Boleyn, and her inner circle. This intricately plotted character study presents a fresh perspective on the ever popular Tudor Court.

Read-alikes
“Mary, the Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley” by Alison Weir
“A Man for All Seasons” by Robert Bolt
“I, Claudius” by Robert Graves

Short List
“Sarah Thornhill” by Kate Grenville (Grove, 9780802120243)
“The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller (Ecco, 9780062060617)
“Sutton” by J.R.Moehringer (Hyperion, 9781401323141)
“The Cove” by Ron Rash (Ecco, 9780061804199)

HORROR
“The Ritual” by Adam Nevill (St. Martin’s, 9780312641849)
In the remote forests of Sweden, the friendship between four men disintegrates when they wander off the hiking trail and find themselves stalked by an unseen and increasingly violent menace. “Blair Witch” meets black metal in this dark and suspenseful horror novel.

Read-alikes
“The Ruins” by Scott Spencer
“Deliverance” by James Dickey
“Neverland” by Douglas Clegg

Short List
“Breed” by Chase Novak (Mullholland Books, 9780316198561)
“The Haunting of Maddy Clare” by Simone St. James (New American Library, 9780451235688)
“This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, Don’t Touch It” by David Wong (St. Martin’s Press, 9780312546342)
“The Return Man” by V. M. Zito (Orbit, 9780316218283)

MYSTERY
“The Gods of Gotham” by Lyndsay Faye (Putnam, 9780399158377)
The discovery of a mass grave of child prostitutes spurs “copper star” Timothy Wilde to hunt a killer through the seamy underbelly of 1840s New York City. Colorful period slang enlivens this carefully researched story about the dawn of modern policing.

Read-alikes
“The Yard” by Alex Grecian
“The Alienist” by Caleb Carr
“Gangs of New York” (film, Miramax, 2002)

Short List
“Don’t Ever Get Old” by Daniel Friedman (Putnam, 9780312606930)
“Trickster’s Point” by William Kent Krueger (Atria Books, 9781451645675)
“The Chalk Girl” by Carol O’Connell (Putnam, 9780399157745)
“The Beautiful Mystery” by Louise Penny (Minotaur, 9780312655464)

ROMANCE
“Firelight” by Kristen Callihan (Grand Central, 9781455508594)
Bartered as a bride to the masked nobleman Benjamin Archer, Miranda Ellis – a woman with a supernatural secret – becomes his only defender when he is accused of a series of murders. This is a dark and smoldering Victorian paranormal where love redeems two complex and damaged characters.

Read-alikes
“When Beauty Tamed” the Beast by Eloisa James
“Second Sight” by Amanda Quick
The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley

Short List
“The Black Hawk” by Joanna Bourne (Berkley, 9780425244531)
“At Your Pleasure” by Meredith Duran (Pocket Star, 9781451606959)
“Lucky in Love” by Jill Shalvis (Forever, 9781455503728)
“A Lady Awakened” by Cecelia Grant (Bantam, 9780553593839)

SCIENCE FICTION
“Caliban’s War” by James S. A. Corey (Orbit, 9780316129060)
One wants control; one wants vindication; one wants his daughter back; and one wants revenge (and maybe a new suit). The shifting points of view of these four distinctive characters, an electrifying pace, and the threat of an evolving alien protomolecule propel readers through this grand space adventure.

Read-alikes
“Hellhole” by Brian Herbert and Keven J. Anderson
“Gardens of the Sun” by Paul McAuley
“The Ghost Brigades” by John Scalzi

Short List
“The Hydrogen Sonata” by Iain M. Banks (Orbit, 9780316212373)
“11/22/63” by Stephen King (Scribner, 9781451627282)
“After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall” by Nancy Kress (Tachyon, 9781616960650)
“Exogene” by T.C. McCarthy (Orbit, 9780316128155)

WOMEN’S FICTION
“The Care and Handling of Roses with Thorns” by Margaret Dilloway (Putnam, 9780399157752)
Galilee Garner’s carefully managed routine of teaching, rose breeding, and kidney dialysis is disrupted when her teenage niece moves in. Readers will root for the growth of this prickly character as she discovers the importance of cultivating human connections.

Read-alikes
“Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout
“The Language of Flowers” by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
“As Good as it Gets” (film, Columbia Tristar, 1997)

Short List
“Wife 22” by Melanie Gideon (Ballantine, 9780345527950)
“A Grown Up Kind of Pretty” by Joshilyn Jackson (Grand Central, 9780446582353)
“The Secret Keeper” by Kate Morton (Atria Books, 9781439152805)
“I’ve Got Your Number” by Sophie Kinsella (Dial Press, 9780385342063)

 

Fifty/Fifty Challenge 2012

11 Friday Jan 2013

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I participated in the Fifty/Fifty Challenge for 2012. You’re supposed to watch 50 movies and read 50 books. I used Pinterest to keep track of it. I mostly forgot about it, though, until the end of the year, when I tried to remember all the books and movies I’d seen. Whoops! I looked at my piles of books and Goodreads and my Netflix history and mostly asked my husband what we saw. So it’s MOSTLY accurate, though I wouldn’t testify to its veracity in front of a jury of my peers.

We also watched a lot of TV shows and BBC stuff. My daughter forces us to watch a lot of Doctor Who, for example. Boy, there are a lot of plot holes in that show, and whenever I ask Eldest stuff like, “Why doesn’t he just use his Sonic Screwdriver on those alien collars?” she rolls her eyes and says, “Because it’s Doctor Who, Mother. Gosh.” It’s almost like they improv the script.

Anyway, I cannot say for certain whether or not I’ll be able to keep a list for 2013. I can barely remember to take out stuff to defrost for dinner.

A Medical Quibble

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

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I really hate it when I go to the doctor’s office and fill out a million forms, and while I’m leaving and I have to make a follow-up, the admin says, “What’s your name/birthdate/phone number?” Why are those systems not linked? Didn’t I just fill out that crap out? 

The insurance told us to go to a Vons pharmacy to get flu shots. We got flu shots there last year. They didn’t have us in their system anymore, and we had to fill out new forms, which she had to manually type in. There’s a lot of room for error when things are read and typed in back and forth. Why couldn’t she just login to the insurance and get that info?

In Hawaii, our medical people had one computerized system that was all connected. I think Kaiser has something similar. You could also log in and view the results of every single test you took and details of every visit.

Why isn’t there just one big nationwide medical database? Every doctor, no matter what hospital they’re in, should be able to login. Every pharmacy. Like a CarFax for your medical records.

This does not seem like it should be too hard to do. 

 

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