Asian fast food

Pre-Elliot, I would try a million different recipes.  I would tear them out of magazines, borrow them from  websites and hound BigD for directions of how to make whatever it was that I remembered from the dinner table when I was eight.

These days, while I will try new things occasionally, I have gotten into a bit of a rut. Along with a few surprises every now and again, our staples are Husband's favorite tacos, the BigD classic*, Jenny's wok recipe and crispy chicken wraps.  Most of these are not created from scratch.**

But even as my head is still clouded with Elliot-things: like getting to know each other and helping him learn important skills, I am slowly trying to get back to cooking meals that are a little more fun than what can be found on the packet aisle at the grocery store.

Last week, we ate lunch with a friend from Singapore.  She served us soup that was so good and so pretty that I asked for the recipe.  She said that it was "just Asian fast food."  That it was nothing special and that in Asia you could buy it on the street for just a few dollars, but it was special and a few nights later, I made it for Husband.

And it was good...

Here's what you need...adjust the amount of each ingredient for the amount of soup you'd like to make.  Keep reading...I think it will make sense...***

And, depending on your level of skill and time, you can create every single bit from scratch or cheat a bit and get it from cans and jars.****

Pork filet

Cha sui marinade, which is kind of like Asian BBQ sauce, sweet and a little tangy

Kernels of corn

Chopped green onions

Cooked udon Noodles

Medium boiled egg sliced in half

Miso soup

Marinate a pork fillet in Cha Sui sauce for a few hours.

Bake it in the oven at about 250 degrees C until it's done (flipping and spooning the sauce over it about every ten minutes or so).  Make sure it's still a little bit rare in the middle...the timing depends on the size of the piece of meat.

In the meantime chop the vegetables or pour them out of a can.

Boil an egg to medium (about 8 minutes)

When the meat is cooked, set it out and when it is slightly cooled, slice in disks.

Cook the miso soup to boiling.

Put noodles in bowl about 1/2 way, then pour boiling soup over top.

Add in slice of egg, disks of pork, onions and corn.

______________________________

*Awesome pasta with zucchini and squash. If you've ever eaten dinner at my house, you probably have had it.  It's one of my absolute favorites and no one cooks it better than the BigD herself.  But I try.

**I didn't know that "from scratch" was a good thing until I was about 25.  My elfin grandmother, who was not an elf, but was about the same size as an elf, was a fantastic cook (Her fried chicken is unparalleled to this day).  But she was sadly lacking in baking skills---with the exception of pound cake and chocolate cake...those were TASTY.  She was not aware of this and often would proudly present her brownies, proclaiming that they were "from scratch." We would take a bite, praying not to chip a tooth. For years afterward, I was certain "from scratch" was polite code for "tasted horrible" and would avoid it at all costs.


***There is a talent to writing recipes. I am pretty sure I don't have it, but hopefully you'll understand it anyway.

****Guess what I did?  And really, it's Asian fast food.  Also, I'm not in the business of judging.

Emily Post

This weekend the cover story of the New York Times Magazine is "Exposed," a personal essay by a writer named Emily Gould.

As an avid follower of Gawker.com, I followed her posts during her tenure, which true to Gawker's tone, were snarky and insidery with a heavy dollop of schadenfreude.

In her own blogs, she was ultra-revealing of the details of her own life, as well as of many of the people around her.

And, about six months ago, I interviewed her for an article I wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (the AJC) called "Plugged in For Life."*



The story explains how Google works and that its memory is forever, if not longer. The portion of the interview with Gould that made it into the story was:

"We are all responsible for how we present ourselves online, " says Emily Gould, Gawker editor and author of the posts chronicling Page's story. "Shame is the new fame. People come to the public attention because of the things they do. It's really a culture of narcissism."


And, in the last paragrapher, in reference to the subject of the story, a man who earned internet noteriety...

Page is left with only two courses of action, said Gould at Gawker. "It's scary that it's out there for perpetuity, but put it into perspective: It's not easy to erase, but you can always do something bigger. And at the very least, the pace of the Internet turns over quickly.

"Just remember you're not the center of the universe."


"Exposed," this weekend's article in the NYT Magazine, chronicles her experiences blogging and the effects it's had on her psyche, her career and her personal life.

I would have liked to see it as less of an essay and more of a serious magazine article, a real in-depth look into blogging, buoyed by her own personal anecdotes.

But make no mistake; the article is well written and details the personal ramifications of a cultural phenomenon.

For the most part, the commenters have ripped her apart as self-centered, selfish and invasive, and deemed her words a waste of trees, and oxygen.

They've decided the cover forum should have been used for "more worthy" subjects such as the war in Iraq or the earthquake in China, which inarguably are worthy subjects.

But to decry blogging as an unworthy subject is wrong.

The magazine is not the newspaper.

Put simply, the newspaper is a quick turnaround medium for the news, with a time frame made even shorter by the ever quickening race to get it online and first.

The magazine, while a part of the NYT, is a general interest magazine, with a much more thoughtful lead-time, comprised of short and long-form articles, Q&As, essays and commentary. It covers a variety of subjects, which include politics, and culture, which also includes "pop" culture.

Right now, while blogging could arguably be called "pop" culture, it is just about three minutes to becoming "actual" culture, if it's not already.

According to data complied by Technorati, a company whose business it is to follow what's happening online, "there are over 175,000 new blogs (that’s just blogs) every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second."

And that's just what is happening today. That is not counting all the ones that existed yesterday or the ones that will be created tomorrow.

Blogging, in its most simple definition, is merely writing in an online forum.

And to that point, more than sixty years ago, George Orwell wrote an essay called "Why I Write."

And his essay is exactly that and well, well worth reading.

In it, he identifies the four reasons that any writer writes:

1) Sheer egotism: "a desire to be clever" and "to be remembered after death."

2) Aesthetic enthusiasm: "words and their right arrangement."

3) Historical purpose: "to find out the facts and store them up."

4) Political purpose: "a desire to push the world in a certain direction."

Orwell also said, "It can be seen how these various impulses must war against one another, and how they must fluctuate from person to person and from time to time."

Because you're reading this, on my blog, perhaps you wonder, why I write...

So the answer (in a attempt to organize into a semblance of order) is:

1) Historical purpose:

Chronicling our life for readers (family, friends and clickers) who are thousands of miles away and many time zones helps me feel more connected. And it helps them feel more involved and intouch with our day-to-day.

It's also a kind of picture diary/memoir of our life here, in both the adventure and the mundane.
_______


2) Aesthetic enthusiasm/Sheer egotism:

In my past life, I practiced daily deadline journalism.

Now as I morph into whatever career or life as it is unfolding, I need to keep my fingers limber and my perspective fresh.

Also, I think of one of Big D's mantras, which can be applied to almost anything, "If you don't use it, you lose it." So whatever it is that I "have," I don't want to lose.

Plus, one day, I want to be in a card catalogue. Seriously. One day, if they even still exist, I want to look up my name, check my shelf number, wander through the stacks and search for my book.
_______


3) Political purpose:

This one is a bit foggier, but it's solidly there...And it's wrapped up in community and perception.

To be clear: I wouldn't change a thing about my life. I love Husband and our pack more than anything in the entire, whole world. I couldn't have a better partner and family. We're on a great adventure and it's only getting better.

But make no mistake, over the past six months, we've gone through a lot...marriage, global move, job changes, family illness half a world away, just to name a few.

It's occasionally been a momentary challenge, but here's the thing: We're not the only ones. All over this town and the world, there are people in their first year of marriage or with sick parents or living as expats or wondering "what" they are when their roles have changed.

So that's a big part of "why I write." Before I moved here, I followed blogs of the day to day experiences of people in similar situations to help me gauge what was about to happen and it helped.

So while I'm still thinking about this one, it's a big part.
_______



So, saying blogging is a self-indulgent exercise and, by extension, to vilify Gould, is a rash over-simplification.

All over the world and the internet, blogging has changed the face of journalism. Now on every major newspaper staff there is at least one "mojo," which is short for "mobile journalist," a real-time reporter, who in a very real sense, writes by blogging. Then there is the "citizen journalist." Note the captions and bylines on some of the CNN photos of the earthquake. Those are from real people out in the world.

All over the world and the internet, bloggers are connecting through prayer groups and religious affiliations. Still others discuss the minutiae of the worldwide economy and how to fix it. Others contribute to computer code to make our machines run faster and better. Others dissect Man United strategy in their win over Chelsea.

And others detail their lives, which, if put on paper, would be shelved under "memoir."

So judge the flaws as you see them in Gould's essay, but don't judge Gould.

She's just a microcosm of what is really out there.

Every single day, every single second, millions of people blog. Millions more read their words.

Whether or not you may approve of the content is a personal decision. Hang out until the very last word or click away, it's up to you.

And if you don't like what someone is saying in their blog, get your own.


+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


*In case you want to read "Plugged in for Life"

AJC Main Edition
Date: Monday, 11/5/2007
Section Name: Living
Section Letter: C
Page: 1
Label:

PLUGGED IN FOR LIFE
Take care: 'Shame is the new fame' in the online world, and your public humiliation could last a long, long time.

ELIZABETH COBB / Staff
ecobb@ajc.com

When Atlantan John Fitzgerald Page fired off a scathing e-mail to a would-be online suitor at match.com, he couldn't have imagined the repercussions.

Page's e-mail wound its way through cyberspace, landing last month in the in-boxes of "The Bert Show" at Q100 and finding a high-profile home at the New York-based media gossip site Gawker.com, where it generated 285,000 page views and more than 3,000 reader comments, most of them attacks on Page's hubris. The AJC story about Page, which appeared Oct. 12, generated more than 135,000 page views.

A cautionary tale of the Internet age, Page's story is proof that everyone is game where scandal or public embarrassment is concerned, and the fallout can last into perpetuity.

Page's note to the woman who rebuffed him accused her of being out of shape and berated her for rejecting him despite his many qualities, which he listed as: "8.9 on [hotornot.com], Ivy League grad, Mensa member, can bench/squat/leg press over 1,200 lbs., has had lunch with the secretary of defense, has an MBA from the top school in the country, lives in a Buckhead high rise, drives a Beemer convertible, has been in 14 major motion pictures, was in Jezebel's Best Dressed, etc."

The simple stroke of the "send" key wound up getting Page branded "The Worst Person in the World" by Gawker. Offline it would have been a fleeting moment of shame forgotten in a matter of weeks. Not so online. In a world where 70 percent of North Americans are Internet users, according to InternetWorldStats.com, and the Google search engine is so pervasive it is now a verb, nothing online is ever completely forgotten. And in an era when potential employers, romantic suitors and friends Google each other as a first step in getting acquainted, a negative post can having a resounding effect. Today, when Page's name is plugged into the search engine, the Gawker post pops up second in the list of sites that contain his name. Unless he tops the scandal in popularity, that is most likely where it will stay.

"We are all responsible for how we present ourselves online, " says Emily Gould, Gawker editor and author of the posts chronicling Page's story. "Shame is the new fame. People come to the public attention because of the things they do. It's really a culture of narcissism."

Public scandal was once more commonly the domain of celebrities and politicians. And with the advent of Internet culture, their sins may be forgiven but never forgotten.

Paris Hilton has starred in a reality TV show, had a chart-topping record, written two best-selling books, walked thousands of red carpets, done a stint in jail and is great-granddaughter to the Hilton hotel founder. But Google her name. A page detailing her infamous sex tape, "1 Night in Paris, " leaked online in 2003, pops up third in the list.

Former N' Sync member Lance Bass says in his new book, "Out of Sync, " that his mother discovered he was gay by Googling her son's friend, reality star Richard Lehmkuhl. When rumors popped up that the two were in a relationship, he was forced to come out to her and then days later on the cover of People magazine.

Removing a Google link to embarrassing material can be an almost insurmountable task. Google will remove content if it contains personal information such as Social Security numbers or credit card numbers, but it can take days or even weeks to investigate each case and remove the offending item. The only other course of action is to ask that the content be removed from each individual site that contains it.

"This is to protect the integrity of the Web, preventing people from capriciously pulling content lawfully posted by others, " says a Google spokesman.

Jerry Portwood, a former Atlantan who's now managing editor of New York Press, recalls a phone call he received from a former intern who had written a personal essay about his mother convincing him to reconsider a surgical procedure he'd planned to have. It was titled "How mom saved my manhood."

"He called begging me to take it down, " says Portwood. "He was trying to get a corporate job and every time an employer Googled him, that was the first thing that popped up. I told him that it was a good piece and also that it's part of our archive." The story stayed. Portwood says he's gotten at least six similar calls --- from both writers and subjects of stories --- over the last year.

Let this be a lesson: Nothing electronic is totally private, not even personal e-mail, the source of Page's public shaming. Page added to the maelstrom by posting responses and comments on gawker.com and his personal Web site, maintaining that the message was private and intended for one person only. He requested Gawker remove the e-mail from its site, adding, "I really don't want to get my legal team involved." Gawker refused.

One attorney thinks Page may have been wronged.

"E-mail can be protected by copyright law just as an article, book or work of art is protected, " says Atlanta attorney Doug Isenberg, of the GigaLaw Firm, who's been practicing Internet and technology law for more than a decade. He likens Page's situation to a 1987 copyright infringement case won by author J.D. Salinger against Random House, which had planned to publish lengthy quotes from letters the author had written. According to the ruling, quoting a few lines of a letter may be permissible, but publishing long passages or complete letters is not.

So does Page have a case? "At this point, proving damages would be difficult, " Isenberg says. "Really you can't put the genie back into the bottle. Right now it's out there in so many place that it wouldn't be worth it."

Page is left with only two courses of action, said Gould at Gawker. "It's scary that it's out there for perpetuity, but put it into perspective: It's not easy to erase, but you can always do something bigger. And at the very least, the pace of the Internet turns over quickly.

"Just remember you're not the center of the universe."

WHAT WILL GOOGLE REMOVE?

Content containing personal information such as ...

> Social Security or government ID numbers

> Bank account or credit card numbers

> An image of a person's signature

> Explicit content that violates Google's guidelines, which could include pages that install viruses, contain hidden text and other manipulative and deceptive practices.

Author:
Graphic Info:
ID: 0007403974
Type: Graphic
Name: 0007403974FinalGoogle102507
Date: 11/05/2007
Page: C1
Edition: Main
Pub: AJC
Caption: JEMAL R. BRINSON / Staff
Illustration features a man imprisoned and on display in an electronic device with a Google logo.

Or Maybe It's a Gnome...

This weekend I was talking to Big D who is back in Gainesvegas, of course. While we were talking, Bill walked into the kitchen and asked D to tell me to send him one of the those giant sets of Viking ears.

I think he meant this....



But, surprisingly enough, those are pretty hard to come by

But trolls...we have plenty of those...

What I Say When I am Tired

My friends Chris and Mindy are well traveled. They've been places all over the world, particularly Mindy, and they can talk intelligently about it.

I cannot when I am tired.

To be fair, the list of where I haven't been is much much longer than where I have, but I'm working on changing that. And I do think I have the journalist's eye for detail, so usually I'm pretty good on the storytelling front.

But on this particular night, I was exhausted, but I hadn't seen them in forever and hadn't had a good visit with them in longer than that, so I was doing my best to be positive and rally for the experience.

And this is how it went...

Since I am now the worldly expat in Europe, they asked about where Husband and I have been lately. The answers are: Skiing a bit north in Norway and traveling a bit around Scotland.

Chris knew all about Scotland, the castles and history and fighting.

I desperately wanted to tell them about Edinburgh Castle


(To be fair, we didn't feel like waiting in the line to go in, but we did admire it and read all the plaques on nearby walls...)

and the train ride south through the countryside from Aberdeen to Edinburgh


(Lovely countryside and miles of almost blooming goldenrod...)

and The Hudson, our fabulous hotel


(Go to Edinburgh, if just to stay there.)

and wandering around the city


(Gorgeous architecture everywhere)

and the brown sauce that was suggested with every single thing we ate


(Think A1 with a dash of worcestershire)

and the very best job ever


(One pound, one photo. The money goes into a little bucket labeled "Children's Leukemia Fund." I took this photo and deposited my pound. It wasn't until we were a few blocks away that it dawned on me that it was likely that "Children's Leukemia Fund" was a euphemism for "How I Stay Off the Dole Fund." Husband had already figured that out. Smart Husband.)

and haggis


(Surprisingly good...)

vs.

blood pudding...

(Unsurprisingly yuck...)

But I did not tell much of that at all, if any.

I cannot quite remember because I was semi-bleary in my sleeplessness...but I do remember that this came out of my mouth....

"I have never seen so many condom machines and so much dirty hair."

In my defense, it's true, particularly the part about the condom machines.

They were EVERYWHERE.

From the minute we got off the plane.

There was one in the airport bathroom (which will from now on be referred to as the loo since I am discussing the UK.)

They were in the pub loos. In the loos in dodgy restaurants and in swanky ones. One in the loo in the art gallery and in most of the shops.

Usually they were three for a pound with a choice between all sorts of varieties.

It got to be a joke.

No matter whether I had to use the loo or not (which who are we kidding, I always have to use the loo), I'd check the facilities for the condom machine.

And with the exception of one restaurant, which had a teeny-tiny-almost-not-quite-enough-space-to-go-in-and-close-the-door-completely loo, every single place...if there was a loo, there was a condom machine.

Seriously.


(This is one with one of the more vanilla selections. I did not have my camera on the evenings I saw the ones that included the choice of a whiskey flavored one.)

A few weeks later, back home, Husband and I were having Friday evening cocktails with some of his work people. I walked outside for a minute to visit with some of the people on the front porch.

While I was chatting on the wicker couch, I heard a Scottish burr to my left.

Recognizing a reporting opportunity when I hear one, I turned, introduced myself and after a moment or two of conversation, I mentioned that Husband and I had just spent a few days in his home country.

As many Europeans do, my new friend asked how did I find it.

This time I remembered to mention the train ride and golden rod and castles in Edinburgh.

But I also added, "What's up with all the condom machines? Do Scots just have loads more sex that anyone else?"

When he and his crew were done laughing, they confirmed that they also thought there was an overabundance of condom machines as well. And that they asccribed it to drunken wishful thinking.

I didn't ask about the dirty hair. I thought that would be rude.

What I've been thinking on...

A cheerful heart is good medicine.
--Proverbs 17:22



That is all for now.

Goodnight

I should be sleeping.

Yesterday I made a 22 hour door to door trip from Litle Skippergate to Wessell Drive.

Then after five hours of rest, we caravanned back to Atlanta with my family. We waited all day and now while the treatment was happening and now it's midnight.

The original plan was for my sister and I to switch off spending the night with Big D. But then we noticed that she has been touching the edge of her bandages. We worry that, in the night, D will pull out a tube or disturb one of her dressings, so are taking turns staying up to watch her for this, the first night.

I took the first shift because for whatever reason, I cannot sleep.

Langston Hughes Was Writing About Big D

There are very few things better in the entire state of Georgia than Big D's bed. Giant, king-sized, four-poster---It's just the right amount of firm and always has the exact right amount of pillows.

Best of all, it's big enough for Mom, my sister and me to pile into to watch television, play Scrabble or just hang out and visit.

And we do, almost ever single time we stay over at D's house.

But, no matter how late it gets or how big and comfortable her bed is, my sister and I rarely sleep in it for just one reason:

Big D snores.

For such a small person, she could easily pass, on a particularly good night, as the subject of a Langston Hughes poem, specifically one called "Morning After."*

But right now, I sit in her hospital room and listen to her snore, tonight much more faintly than usual, I love the sound.

She's had a tough day.

The surgeries were long and brutal, but went the best they possibly could. All the cancer has been removed. The lymph nodes are clear. And the initial phase of the reconstruction went well.

The next few weeks and months of recovery are going to be tough, starting with tomorrow.

We won't know for sure what, if any, the follow-up treatment will be until the pathology report comes back next week.

But right now, today, everything sounds about the best it can.




*Morning After
By Langston Hughes

I was so sick last night I
Didn’t hardly know my mind.
So sick last night I
Didn’t know my mind.
I drunk some bad licker that
Almost made me blind.

Had a dream last night I
Thought I was in hell.
I drempt last night I
Thought I was in hell.
Woke up and looked around me—
Babe, your mouth was open like a well.

I said, Baby! Baby!
Please don’t snore so loud.
Baby! Please!
Please don’t snore so loud.
You jest a little bit o’ woman but you
Sound like a great big crowd.

The Hitchin' Happened

Yep, I have a husband, a ring and a marriage certificate, but I don't have a completely clear memory of the entire events of our wedding day. It came so quickly and then was over.

There are things I remember with complete clarity:

Being so excited to see Husband on that morning when he was waiting for me at the alter, I hitched up my dress and ran just so I could get there quicker. Which is only fitting because I always said that I wasn't going to get married until I found someone just right. Someone who when I saw him at the end of the aisle, I was going to be so excited about it that I was going to skip to him at the very least. And, without really thinking about it, that's pretty much what I did.

Though I was really disappointed in my father for deciding not to take part, especially at such a late moment, I couldn't have been more happy to have mom walk me down the aisle. If we're going to follow the tradition of "giving away", then the person who is doing the giving should be the one person with the authority to do it. And there is no one in my life who has more authority in that capacity than my mother. She raised my brother, sister and me, mainly on her own, and we wouldn't be half whatever it is that we are without her guidance, then or now.

Being so touched (and I mean that in the non-Hallmark card, shot though a fuzzy lens, way) at the generous out pouring of love, time, effort and genuine good spirits from the very first moment that Husband and I received from the minute we announced we were going to get married. And further, that we'd like to get married in just under two months.

That almost every single person who was really important showed up. They traveled from California and New York and Atlanta and Colorado and all over the country to be there. The ones that couldn't were just too pregnant or had life events that couldn't be rescheduled. And even those called and supported and were there from far away.

But for the rest of it, much like any couple on any wedding day, we didn't get a good chance to visit with many of our guests. We didn't hear all the Vivaldi we chose for the ceremony or drink a bloody mary or eat more than one bite of the fancy cream cheese pound wedding cake.

And there were little moments, dancing with my stepfather or having my new nephews get sugared up and tap me on the back and pop around the other side or looking across the room and seeing friends from different areas of my life start to be friends with each other....but I guess it was a little bit like not seeing the forest for the trees.

We missed a lot of it, so we have been so excited about seeing the photos and watching the video, if just to prove it really happened.

And according to the email I got last night, it did.

Elizabeth and Anthony's Wedding Slideshow