Impress the ladies... with fish sauce

I found a killer recipe for pad thai on Chez Pim and made it for dinner tonight. The tamarind pulp experience was unappealing on a lot of levels, and the simmering fish sauce concoction smelled like--well, like the nether regions of 99 Ranch, but in the end it was well worth it. With the exception of the tamarind step (not difficult, just gross), it was surprisingly easy to put together.

Reading Log: January

January was the month of anti-heroes...

Shalimar the Clown by Salman Rushdie
Grade: A
Visceral, full-bodied writing + an unstoppable plot + sassy characters you probably wouldn't want to run into in real life + well-executed magical realism... it's no wonder the LA Times Book Review drew comparisons to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Quentin Tarantino. Really, really amazing.

Atonement by Ian McEwan
Grade: A
I loved this book about as much as Rushdie's, but for opposite reasons (Shalimar the Clown : a juicy Zinfandel :: Atonement : a grassy, crisp Sauvignon Blanc ::*). McEwan's book is all about a controlled unveiling of a carefully architected plot, but it somehow manages to be very passionate throughout, even in its restraint.

Villages by John Updike
Grade: B+
After reading a novel set in a disputed area of Kashmir and another novel that centered around Victorian England and World War I, what better way to lighten up the month than to bear witness to the tribulations of a adulterous computer programmer in Connecticut? I really did enjoy reading this book, as hollow as it sometimes felt compared to the previous two novels, but it lost big points with me for two reasons: (1) pardon the ageism, but it was disturbing to read extremely graphic sex scenes written by a 75-year-old man, and (2) female characters were consistently simple-minded fools who serve as supports to Updike's simple-minded generalizations about women.

*Sorry for the lame wine analogy. I couldn't resist. Paired with the nerdy analogy structure, I should really be ashamed--but it's funny, right? Please continue being friends with me.

Soul Train 2.0

Loving this video.

MSTRKRFT - Street Justice

Cupcakes for Eli

The KitchenAid is awesome--it's quick and efficient and makes a cute whirring noise as it cheerfully does my bidding. I chose to make buttermilk cupcakes as my first baking project. I promised they would be fluffy and sweet, and they were...

What failed me this time was not the KitchenAid. Nope, it was my inability to read labels. I mistakenly bought whole grain pastry flour instead of normal processed white cake flour. To be fair, Whole Foods chose not to carry any cake flour because they hate freedom, so what I got instead of tender, fluffy cupcakes was tender, fluffy cupcakes with some residual grain particles to chew on at the end. Oh, and colon health, because I really care about that at the age of 24.


There are ten whole cupcakes left. Eli's got his work cut out for him this week (I don't think these are suitable for bringing to work; it would just make me sad). But there will be many more baking projects to follow--Eli recently started studying for CFA Level II, and I'm always happy to whip up some extra brain food.

Meet Sheena Bear

As part of a work activity, Keyvan created a frighteningly accurate stuffed animal likeness of me.

My lofty goals

My excuse for not blogging, not going to yoga, not reading, not studying Chinese: I was very sick, then overwhelmed with work, then had a fun ski weekend, only to come back to even more work. Case in point: today I was in the office from 8:30 to 6, and will be on a phone meeting from 7:30 to 9.

When the pendulum does swing back the other way, though, I will be free to watch twenty recorded episodes of Fruity Pie, a Taiwanese childrens' show with a musically inclined cross-dressing main character.

Look what I got in the mail today!

I've wanted one of these since I was a little girl. From now on, fluffy cakes. And pictures of them.

Reading Log: December

Happy New Year, everyone! Having some time off for the holidays has been great--I got a chance to celebrate Christmas with my family, run around Point Reyes with Eli and his parents, catch up on Six Feet Under (4th season now), bake macaroons, and sleep in most days. New Year's Eve was spent enjoying the triple threat of brunch, shopping, and Keyvan, followed by some Chinese takeout, Korbel (Ronni, we thought of you), and a shockingly graphic History Channel documentary. Though I can't say I'm quite ready to go back to work, I've had a pretty good run.

I also got a chance to read! I really didn't think I was going to make my four-book goal this month--I blame caffeine withdrawal and the glacial plotline of Never Let Me Go--but a chunk of sweet, unstructured time came in and saved the day.

Bad Girls of Japan, edited by Laura Miller and Jan Bardsley
Grade: A- A fascinating collection of essays on how traditional female gender roles have been turned on their heads in Japan, from the cannibalistic mountain witches of Japanese folklore to the brand craze that had modern-day shoppers hooked on luxury goods. I did find some of the analysis to be a stretch (schoolgirls making ugly faces in photo booths equals subversion?), but academia must be indulged here and there.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Grade: B- Creepy and atmospheric, yes. "Wrenchingly desolate", no. This book got great reviews from critics, but I should have known it was going to be less than awesome when Amazon recommended it to me. :)

The Basque History of the World, by Mark Kurlansky
Grade: A-. I have always wanted to travel to Spain, and to San Sebastian in particular, but I never knew very much about Basque or Spanish history beyond a few proper nouns seared into my memory from my high school Spanish textbooks. I was totally drawn in by Kurlansky's obvious love of his subject (Basques are cool, seriously--did you know they were expert whalers and were the first to bring chocolate to Europe?) and his cheerful attention to detail.

The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama
Grade: A- Obama lays out his stances on "the issues" with elegant, emotive prose. I found myself unsatisfied at times with some positions that appeared precariously balanced--in seeing both sides, the cynic in me alleges that he's simply trying to stay marketable to as many people as possible. But one of Obama's core themes that resonated with me is that the real world's complex problems demand nuanced treatment and substantive, empathetic debate, in place of the stark and oversimplified polarizations that are so common in today's politics.