The fortunate town of Green River, Wyoming appears to be safe from the crab rangoon, at least for now. Myself, I ate a hot turkey sandwich for lunch here. My old truck stop favorite, since early childhood.
Green River
schmindigo
the antelope didn’t
Dang. I spend a week alone in utter peace & quiet, just me & assorted antelope, listening to the wind & memorizing poems (I memorized poems, the antelope didn't -- at least I don't think they did -- unless they did it very quietly), & then I come home to total fucking chaos. Donna got in a car accident just before she was supposed to pick me up at the airport; she's okay but her car ain't. Amy came to the rescue, scooping me up at curbside & then picking up Donna from the intersection where she'd been hanging out for hours, dealing with cops & tow truck & so forth. Thank you Amy!
Then, the leaking bathroom that was fixed before I left turned out not to be fixed, & our house guy showed up this morning to work on it again before I was even dressed. So he's here ripping stuff up & I can't really unpack & I'm not even sure where my hairbrush is. He uncovered yet another fine example of Outrageously Stupid Construction Tricks from the house's wretched past. Let's just say that roofing shingles do not belong inside your shower walls, & leave it at that.
Yikes! Lessons in flexibility. I'm trying not to have a cow or anything. I do have some Chinese restaurant stories from the road, though... will post soon. After I figure out how to brush my teeth.
Then, the leaking bathroom that was fixed before I left turned out not to be fixed, & our house guy showed up this morning to work on it again before I was even dressed. So he's here ripping stuff up & I can't really unpack & I'm not even sure where my hairbrush is. He uncovered yet another fine example of Outrageously Stupid Construction Tricks from the house's wretched past. Let's just say that roofing shingles do not belong inside your shower walls, & leave it at that.
Yikes! Lessons in flexibility. I'm trying not to have a cow or anything. I do have some Chinese restaurant stories from the road, though... will post soon. After I figure out how to brush my teeth.
5%
Well, kids, despite the fact that I'm going to be in a little cabin out in the middle of nowhere, this next week for me is only 5% Chinese restaurants. The rest of it isn't exactly vacation, but close enough to it. So if you're wondering why your emails seem to fall into a vaccuum, that's why.
Hint: the 5% includes a restaurant I have already encountered once before.
Hint: the 5% includes a restaurant I have already encountered once before.
Perseids
Don't forget to check out the meteor showers, y'all. They're supposed to be good this year. I saw a couple of nice bright streaks last weekend, & I wasn't even looking for them!
abroad
Some Chinese restaurants abroad: C.Y. Joe pointed me to Sopot, Poland & here is Sisimiut, Greenland courtesy of Robert Yu. Thanks for the emails, guys!
transport
Very unlikely lust object for me. But in the context of my vintage car fetish... ya know, it doesn't make any sense for me to own a high-maintenance old ride like the 1954 GMC pickup truck of my dreams, but one of these babies for $280? Hmmm.... (Never mind that I can barely even ride a bike.)
Now that we're on the topic, though, it's not like I'd insist on a pickup truck instead of this stunning thing:
lucky
Last night at the Creative Work Fund reception I got to meet & greet all the other lucky grant recipients. One guy said it was the first grant he'd ever applied for, whereupon the whole room would have pelted him with produce, except it was clear we'd rather eat than throw the very yummy hors d'oeuvres.
Quite a groovy crowd. Someone was trying to sell me on the idea of renting an RV for the Southern trip, instead of doing the car & motels thang. Can you imagine?! I was pretty excited about it until I saw the prices -- like, over $200/day! Oh well, it was a nice fantasy. I'll stick to the rental car & cheap motels, thanks.
Quite a groovy crowd. Someone was trying to sell me on the idea of renting an RV for the Southern trip, instead of doing the car & motels thang. Can you imagine?! I was pretty excited about it until I saw the prices -- like, over $200/day! Oh well, it was a nice fantasy. I'll stick to the rental car & cheap motels, thanks.
still good
The blackberry pie has been made, but I still need to make another one, this time not slacking off on the crust. In my impatience I used less-than-frozen butter & flour, & paid for it with a substandard crust. It's still good pie, but it is not The Blackberry Pie of my dreams.
The pelicans of Pt. Reyes, however, are perfect, & so is the blackberry picking on the way home from there.
In the mail today I got menus from Iowa & Indiana! Thank you, menu senders! Those were two states I didn't have anything from, until now.
The pelicans of Pt. Reyes, however, are perfect, & so is the blackberry picking on the way home from there.
In the mail today I got menus from Iowa & Indiana! Thank you, menu senders! Those were two states I didn't have anything from, until now.
China Panda
This is a test, but a pretty exciting one... finally figuring out how to blog images. Whee!
duh
One little step at a time... take a sec & sign this petition to change the name of "Jap Road" in Texas. DUH!!!
On the other end of the intelligence scale: I finished reading The Book of Salt last night. It made me cry, & I can't remember the last time a novel did that to me.
On the other end of the intelligence scale: I finished reading The Book of Salt last night. It made me cry, & I can't remember the last time a novel did that to me.
blackberry pie
I have such a jones for blackberry pie right now... I just won't be satisfied until I can go out & get all scratched up picking mass quantities of blackberries, & then come home & make the pie. Oh, & eat it, of course.
I was thinking I would do this on my birthday, but maybe I can't wait! Maybe I'll have to do it tomorrow instead of getting any work done. Isn't blackberry pie a perfectly good reason to play hooky?
What food would seduce you away from work? Something to contemplate. (Well, I guess your relationship to your work is also a factor here. I've had jobs that stale m&ms could distract me from!)
I was thinking I would do this on my birthday, but maybe I can't wait! Maybe I'll have to do it tomorrow instead of getting any work done. Isn't blackberry pie a perfectly good reason to play hooky?
What food would seduce you away from work? Something to contemplate. (Well, I guess your relationship to your work is also a factor here. I've had jobs that stale m&ms could distract me from!)
Gim’s
Happy ending for the campaign to Save Gim's Chinese Kitchen! The most disturbing thing about this whole story is the fact that I only heard about it from one person. What's wrong with my grapevine? Yeah, yeah, I know, it wouldn't kill me to keep up with the news myself like most mere mortals.... oh, except that most people in this country don't actually keep up with the news, or read anything. Myself, I've been having a book splurge this past couple weeks: ZZ Packer's Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, Monique Truong's The Book of Salt, Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife, the aforementioned Deep South guidebook, & then there's nice little bedtime installments of Dan Leone Eat This, San Francisco! See? Who had time to find out about Gim's?
if it were real
People are always coming up w/ this stuff: "We update you on every Chinese Restaurant, as it opens" If it were real it'd be quite useful.
quote of the day
Quote of the day comes from Efren, on the topic of why crab rangoons are appearing in otherwise-respectable Chinese restaurants: "It's a sign of the apocalypse."
unpopular
Today I went shopping for travel guides. Once again, just like when I was gonna go to Minnesota, I feel like I'm going someplace really unpopular. The bookstores of Berkeley are stacked high with travel books for destinations all around the world, but slim pickins indeed for Mississippi & Alabama. I found a Lonely Planet guide for Louisiana & the Deep South, from 2001, & the helpful guy at my friendly local travel bookstore called Lonely Planet for me to find out if an updated edition was forthcoming. Quite the opposite: they're going to discontinue that title. Doh! So I bought it.
Despite all this fun-filled art activity, sometimes I just feel like nature does a much better job.
Despite all this fun-filled art activity, sometimes I just feel like nature does a much better job.
on the down low
I stayed up late last night mapping out the Chinese restaurants of Mississippi & Alabama. As expected, they are well-sprinkled throughout, so that one is never too far from the nearest egg roll... except for this one big chunk of western Alabama that appears as a vast wasteland, bereft of any Chinese restaurant. Hmm.... Know what I think? There's gotta be Chinese restaurants there, alright, but they just aren't the kind you can find on the internet. Must be the secret-to-the-outside-world, known-only-to-locals kind that can't be bothered with web listings. Strictly on the down low. That's what I think. I'm gonna go find out! <-- (determined)
plum sorbet
Plums, plums, plums.... it's all about plums right now. If you, too, have a tree raining plums upon you, try my plum sorbet recipe. Someone at our plum party the other day called me a genius for coming up with it. Aw, shucks.... This recipe is based on our own backyard plums, which have very sour skin & very sweet flesh. They are also very liquid, meaning that any attempt to chop or slice them is pointless; they just sort of mash themselves.
Plum sorbet
4.5 cups plums, pitted. Remove the skins of about 1/3 of them
1 large slice watermelon
1 cup sugar
Put it all in the blender. You should end up with about 5 cups of liquid. Adjust sugar & watermelon to taste. Chill thoroughly, then stick it in your ice cream maker & crank away!
Plum sorbet
4.5 cups plums, pitted. Remove the skins of about 1/3 of them
1 large slice watermelon
1 cup sugar
Put it all in the blender. You should end up with about 5 cups of liquid. Adjust sugar & watermelon to taste. Chill thoroughly, then stick it in your ice cream maker & crank away!
light blue
I don't have a whole lot to say lately.
The swimming pool is murky with the diluted sunscreen of a million marco-polo-playing kids.
La India at Pride. Blueberries! The pineapple-based cocktail I shared with Amy the other night when we were matching by mistake, both carrying light blue purses. Oops. Hee hee....
The swimming pool is murky with the diluted sunscreen of a million marco-polo-playing kids.
La India at Pride. Blueberries! The pineapple-based cocktail I shared with Amy the other night when we were matching by mistake, both carrying light blue purses. Oops. Hee hee....
Creative Work Fund!
Woohoo!!!!! All that torturous grant-writing has finally paid off! The Creative Work Fund is dropping some serious bucks on the Southern leg of the Chinese Restaurant Project. I'll be collaborating with Chinese Historical Society of America for this part of the project, visiting Chinese restaurants in Alabama & Mississippi later this year. Work generated from this trip will be shown at the CHSA gallery in 2005. Details to follow! Very exciting! I can't quite believe it's real yet....
“Chinese Eyes”
It's been a while since I posted any "earliest memory" survey replies. Here is an excerpt from James, self-described Honky:
My parents and I went on vacation to San Francisco where we went to my first Chinese restaurant. I was about 6 or 7 years old (so it must have been 1960 or so) and I loved going out with my folks to restaurants and having fancy meals and this was the fanciest yet. I remember it being a dark room with accenting table lighting and white table cloths and black suited waiters. I think the decor was a lot of black and red. There were chop sticks, but none of us had a clue as to how to use them. When we got back home I was determined to master them.
After the meal we went back to the hotel and in the middle of the night my eyelids swelled up so tightly that I could barely see out of them. We assumed it was an allergic reaction to the "strange" food we had eaten at the Chinese restaurant. The irony of the connection between eating Chinese food and getting "Chinese Eyes" did not escape me. It became a running joke in my family for years to come.
Remarkably, my eyes still swell up from time to time and for years I couldn't figure out what was doing it. I've only recently (after 40 some years) figured out that it was from the preservative many restaurants use on raw shellfish that was doing it. In fact, it was never the Chinese food at all but a crab cocktail I'd had on Fisherman's Wharf earlier that day.
Always the scapegoat! This little memory is really packed w/ all kindsa, uh, deep stuff, wouldn't you say?
My parents and I went on vacation to San Francisco where we went to my first Chinese restaurant. I was about 6 or 7 years old (so it must have been 1960 or so) and I loved going out with my folks to restaurants and having fancy meals and this was the fanciest yet. I remember it being a dark room with accenting table lighting and white table cloths and black suited waiters. I think the decor was a lot of black and red. There were chop sticks, but none of us had a clue as to how to use them. When we got back home I was determined to master them.
After the meal we went back to the hotel and in the middle of the night my eyelids swelled up so tightly that I could barely see out of them. We assumed it was an allergic reaction to the "strange" food we had eaten at the Chinese restaurant. The irony of the connection between eating Chinese food and getting "Chinese Eyes" did not escape me. It became a running joke in my family for years to come.
Remarkably, my eyes still swell up from time to time and for years I couldn't figure out what was doing it. I've only recently (after 40 some years) figured out that it was from the preservative many restaurants use on raw shellfish that was doing it. In fact, it was never the Chinese food at all but a crab cocktail I'd had on Fisherman's Wharf earlier that day.
Always the scapegoat! This little memory is really packed w/ all kindsa, uh, deep stuff, wouldn't you say?