The Culinary Habits of Elves

Once upon a time I had an elfin grandmother.

She was not an actual magical creature like a dwarf* or a woodland sprite, but she was short and round and mischievous.

Also that is not some cropped out ex-boyfriend.  It's one-half of my brother, but he is not germane to this story, so he didn't make the cut. He won't mind. 

Seriously, look at the photo.  I am short-ish person, but I am hunched over and folded up on the sofa.  She is sitting up straight and tall.  And her feet were so small, that I always wondered how she didn't topple over.

My point is, I've been thinking about her lately, for a variety of reasons, but also because she could cook.**

She did "farm to table" when it was just called "dinner."

She was such a good cook that the day before her funeral, we gathered in the minister's office to talk about her, so he would have stories to tell from us to use in his sermon.  The first thing any of us said was, "She sure could cook." And we talked about her fried chicken and her lemon pies. About how she would always want us to eat.  And how most of the time*** it was so good that if you had one bite, you would eat every single bit.

I should have written down more of her recipes or at least learned the name of what I loved.****

For years I have been looking for little green peas or purple butterbeans.  And a about a month ago, I found small tubs of what they called "cream peas" in the Whole Foods.*****

So I bought the entire stock and came home and started googling for recipes.  I found this one, which is not exactly how I remember Meme's (I highly doubt she would use garlic, for instance), but it's sort of close.  So I've been playing with it and modifying it and below is what I've come up with.  It's not exactly Meme's peas, but it's close and it's good.

Elfin Cream Peas
Buy what you can, then you'll need the following for each pound of peas. (I highly recommend starting with at least two pounds.  They only get better each day.)

- 4 slices bacon
-1 small onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 1 cup water

Chop the bacon, onion and garlic.  Rinse the peas.

Toss the bacon, garlic and onions in a big pot.  The bacon will provide enough fat to cook the onions and garlic.

Stir around until the onions are translucent and the bacon is cooked.

Then add the peas, salt and pepper.

Then add water, which should just cover the peas.  (Below is probably just a little too much.) And don't be shy with the salt and pepper. Taste it all occasionally and add more.  The amount of salt and pepper is just a starting point.

Bring it to a rolicking***** boil for about 15 or 20 minutes. Then let it simmer for at least an hour.  Good stuff, I promise.

Meme would make you eat at least two helpings.

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*Not to be confused with dwarves, woodland sprites or any other actual magical creatures.

Bonus points for recognizing one of the dwarves.

Though, on the subject of woodland sprites....Would you know one if you saw one? Googling comes up with this.  But for years, I've always thought of one as more like this.  No joke.  Then shrink him down just a little bit so he's about as tall as I am, shave his mustache, put him in loose overalls, douse him in pachouli, take away his shoes, make him a mega-fan of the Grateful Dead and "natural substances," circa 1995 or so.  Then make sure when he gets hyper or excited, he hops sideways from foot to foot.  I know this because I am 98% certain that I met an actual woodland sprite once at a friend's mountain cabin.  We had sneaked off after exams to take a day off before holidays with our families. And our own personal woodland sprite showed up for a little visit.  Trust me on this.  It freaked me out. 

**I am still pregnant and hungry.  And along with Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls, chocolate milk and peanut better sandwiches, I want Meme's cooking. Elliot was made almost entirely of pickled vegetables, chocolate popsicles and mandarin orange slices.  This baby girl has a serious sweet tooth. 

***Her skills did not extend to all foods, though. You could always trust anything fried, vegetable based or if it had Cool Whip or frosting as a component.  But with any baked goods, it was wise to check twice before eating.  Based on her brownie making skills alone, I was in my early twenties before I realized that "from scratch" was not "synonymous with 'tastes like shite."  No joke.  But really, as long as you remembered to stay away from the brick-like brownies, you'd be all good. 

****Let this be a lesson to write it all down...also, to snag the cast iron skillet while the snaggin's good.  I don't know where her skillet ended up, but I hope whoever has it, appreciates that it is seasoned with six or more decades of goodness.

*****Another Southern raised friend of mine says they are called young field peas and I think she may be right, but cream peas was printed on the sticker, so that's what I am going with today.  She stared at me blankly when I said purple butterbeans.  But I know they exist out there somewhere.

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.

No Matter Where You Go, There They Are

This was on the front page of one of Norway's biggest papers yesterday.



As an American journalist, my first inclination is to say "Must have been a slow news day."

As a American expat, my first inclination is to say "Husband was totally right. Weather here, especially sunny weather, is a big deal."

Weather is such a big deal that pretty much the second thing Norwegians ask any newcomer is "How are you finding the weather." *

(Here's a tip: Always say something positive. Even if it has rained for 40 days and 40 nights. Even if you are wishing you lived in an ark and not a renovated sardine factory, say "It's great to get such use out of my galoshes." Or perhaps, "It's going to be so green and lovely come spring.")

Right after you answer whatever it is you'd like to say, (Keep it positive. See tip above), a Norwegian will usually laugh and say, "Have you heard our famous saying?"

(Here's a tip: Say no and let them tell you. It's fun for them. Seriously. If you just want to say it anyway, make a joke about it. Perhaps, say "Of course I have. It's practically part of the entry process. If you don't know it, you can't come.")

Then, if you wait and let them tell you, they will say "There is no bad weather, only bad clothes."

Next you laugh.

But it's true, the weather here lately is gorgeous.

And, according to Husband and other people who know, it's summer now.

Spring happened on about ten days last month. And for the curious, I do not mean ten consecutive days. Just ten days and they happened in April.

But now it's summer.

These are a few things that Lillie and I have seen over the past few days.

From the top of our hill on Sunday afternoon, the actual day the newspaper said Summer arrived:





But this morning, we walked Husband to work. And after we dropped him off pretty close to his office, we walked onto a pier that extends out into the middle of the harbor.

This is what we see to our left.



During the summer, loads of ships park in the harbor. Sometimes they are giant tour boats. Sometimes commercial fishing boats or oil boats. And other times just private boats filled with people hanging out.


This is what is happening behind us.



The morning activity is in full swing. Cafe workers are putting out the tables. People are heading to their offices and the flower vendors are setting up.


This is what we see to our right.




And a little closer up, there is Husband's office.


Look at the lowest row of windows. He is sitting on the other side of the wall next to the third window from the left. He is working. Lillie and I are still sitting on the pier in the middle of the harbor. We're just hanging out.


This is what we saw on the way back home. Next to the oil museum is the Geo Parken. It's a playground with all the necessary things, swings and bouncy places. School must be on holiday this week because it was packed.



But along with sure signs of summer---the boats and the blue skies and the temperatures--- guess what else I saw last night? Really, I saw about six, right on our back porch...


(Ignore the insanity you see on our neighbor's back porch. Concentrate on the flying object in the top center.)


Yep, it's a mosquito.

Dammit.






*
The first thing they say is "How are you finding Norway?"

A Masters in Expat Housewifery*

Though we just got here eleven days ago and we've only been hitched for a little more than three weeks, I'd been researching the Expat life for months.

I'd been reading blogs written by Stavanger wives who had moved here for their husbands' careers...(look to the right for Victoria's Guide to Norway, for example.) I'd researched the Norwegian lifestyle. Husband had been prepping me and we came for the house-hunting visit. So I thought I was pretty versed up on the Expat aspect.

Then there was the marriage aspect of it all. I have been a bridesmaid 14 times, so that should count for something. I've been talking to my friends about it for years and finally found someone I wanted to marry.

And,most importantly, even with all the unknowns, I'd been gathering advice from all sorts of sources. And, the best advice of all, came from the infinitely wise DaAnne...

A few weeks before the hitching, she and I went shopping for the skinny jeans immortalized in the title of this blog. We were sitting in some restaurant outside of some giant mall outside of Atlanta, having a few glasses of wine, engaging in a little pre-shopping strategizing.

And, feeling a little sentimental, I said, "Mom, do you have any marriage advice for me?" It must have surprised her because she started laughing, even spewing a bit. Finally, after several long moments and attempts at humorous deflection, she said, "Why don't you two just try to always be nice to each other. Then see how it goes."

So, armed with my jeans and a resolve to always be nice, I thought I was about as ready as possible.

And, for variety of reasons, both personal and professional, I intended to take good notes about the experiences along the way.

And of course, I knew there would be challenges ahead, but that no matter what, Husband and I will handle it happily and well.

And we have and we will. It's been a great amount of fun, with more to come...

But just based on the sociological discoveries thus far, I suspect this experience is really the structure for a Masters Program...

Some planned core courses:

Get Your Mind Right, Girl 601
The Psychological Economics of Work In and Out of the House

Conversion 702
It's Not Just Fahrenheit to Celsius

Cultural Ideology 601
Just Because Your Bra Size is Now 75D Does Not Mean You are Fat

Anti-Math 508
You Just Might as Well Quite Converting Kroner to Dollars

I'm still working on the rest of the curriculum.


*hous wif-uh-ree, preferably pronounced with a Middle English accent.