The Night of the Chicken

On a recent Friday night, Aaron and I invited one of his grad school friends and wife for dinner and games. I went into this night with some wariness given the wife is pregnant and going through the sudden absence of a gag reflex and a yet to be fully realized list of foods to steer clear of. I like an exciting time when people come over, but not one involving someone becoming ill. After being reassured that my choices in food would not come back to haunt me, I started cooking.

I decided to make red potatoes and sauteed broccoli for the sides as they are simple to make and taste yummy. No special recipe for the potatoes -cut in fourths, boil until tender and let everyone salt, pepper, butter and sour cream to their preference. The broccoli I blanched and let drain and cool while I warmed up some minced garlic in melted butter with a little bit of lemon zest. I tossed the broccoli in after few minutes, squirted some lemon juice over it and let it heat up. Tasty tasty...and I got Aaron to eat lemon. Bwa ha ha!

The main course came together out of an unexpected special at the store followed by a need to free up freezer space. A few months ago I was getting groceries, trying to get a pack of chicken breasts when my endeavor was thwarted by a few ladies in front of the chicken area who were looking at every single whole chicken. What would normally prove a minor annoyance worked well for me as it gave me opportunity to see that the whole chickens were on super duper sale, hence the gaggle of women. So, I bought two, and in my freezer they have sat since. I took the opportunity of guests to bring one out for dinner.

Here is a note for all you people who think they would like to roast a whole chicken. Make sure to read the small print lest you end up like me. Because you do not want to end up like me. My chicken may have been a super duper deal, but it also had its giblets. Attached. To the chicken. Inside the cavity. Just hanging out. Squishy. Gross. And me without a latex glove or boyfriend around to scoop out whatever giblets are. Ew ew, a thousand time ew. It may have lasted only a few seconds, but I have scars to last a lifetime.

De-gibleting completed and after a moment to regain my composure, I was able to move on with my regularly scheduled chicken prepping. This was the first time I brined a chicken, something I have been curious to try. Hard to tell how well it worked, but it got its hour-long soak in salty garlic and rosemary water. After its soak, the chicken got a nice massage of olive oil, garlic and rosemary and then was placed in the oven for cooking. About an hour later, it was ready to eat. So we ate. And it was juicy and tasty and not too garlic rosemary overpowering. Yay!

Our guests brought dessert - chocolate pound cake with cream cheese frosting - which we ate between rounds of Killer Bunnies. It was a fun evening of getting to know them better and eat tasty food. And no one threw up.

(Sorry no pictures - we were too busy eating the food to think about pictures.)

Full and Dim Sum

New food/culture experience alert! I do not know when or how my approach to food changed, but some time along the path of my life, I decided in a "try anything once" mentality to food. Maybe it was all those mission trips where it is best not to ask what kind of meat is in front of you, maybe it was a greater appreciation for taste and flavor over pizza and burgers. In any case, in the past years I have tried out new dishes, spices, flavors and textures with varying amounts of approval and enjoyment. Not so much on the spicy curries, bring on Vietnamese and Cuban.

Recently, I was met with yet another new food experience - dim sum! Before going to eat, I first had to do the required research into dim sum. I may try anything once, but I want to know what I am getting myself into! I learned dim sum is not a dish, it is a meal or type of cuisine. Kind of the Chinese version of Spain's tapas. Aaron and I went with our small group leaders Ben and Rachel to Neo-Asia Restaurant. I was the only one who had not had dim sum before, so I relied on their expertise and knowledge to lead me in the right direction.

How dim sum works is perhaps the largest obstacle to overcome, and one of the neater things, in my opinion. Servers push carts of food around the restaurant, stopping by your table to offer you what is on their carts. At Neo-Asia each cart had a different "theme" - meats, seafood, noodles and rice, desserts, etc. it is kind of like a buffet where the buffet comes to you. Each dish has three or four pieces on it, so it makes it great to share with a couple of friends.

Everything we tried was great. I have no clue what the name of it was, or in some cases the protein, but it was tasty! With four of us, it was great since we could try more things than if two people were eating dim sum. Favorite things were the salted shrimp and this rice...thing that was wrapped in some sort of leaf. Oh, and the Chinese broccoli. I would eat that every day if I could.

We continued our Asian journey with a trip to the Asian market for bubble tea and reading unique English translations for food. We saw lamp meat (aka, lamb) and pork bums (buns). And unique food. As a warning, do not visit the meat section of an Asian market if you have a weak stomach. Do visit it if you wish to scare your roommate when they open the fridge or freezer.

Online Classes for Food Lovers

I just stumbled upon this website via one of the blogs I read and I am so excited to look at it more in depth. It provides links to 50 websites where you can take free classes/lessons to learn about nutrition, food history, knife handling, and various cooking methods and food preparations. The ones that immediately piqued my interest include cooking with herbs/spices, breadmaking 101, knife masterclass, and nutrition: vitamins and minerals. Let me know if you take any of the classes and what you think of them!

***Update: The link to the online class list now works. Sorry about that!

GANC: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

Hmm. The more I consider The Heart is Lonely Hunter, the more I want to read it again and pick up on more of the small moments, the subtlety of it. And I am not even sure how well I liked the book. So I sit here trying to write a review with a furrowed brow and a cup of tea. I will start off safe with the plot, because that usually helps in analysis. See, all those English classes do come in handy!

The stories of this book revolve, but are not focused on, the life of a a deaf-mute, John Singer. After having lost his best friend, also a deaf mute, he begins to be out in the community more and people begin to talk to him and visit his apartment. Four people from the town get the focus in the narrative- a cafe owner, a young girl, a black doctor, and an alcoholic outsider. Each talk with Singer separately, in time believing he agrees and empathizes with their problems. In a way, Singer becomes their sounding board, their affirmation of cause. Each person, including Singer, wishes to be accepted. The cafe owner, not having children of his own, wants to be accepted as uncle by some of the children in town, including Mick, the young girl who speaks with Singer. Mick, in turn, is figuring out how to be herself, a tomboy, and be accepted by the girls in town who are not interested in climbing to the highest tree and rooftops. The black doctor wishes for whites to accept him and his black brethren as equals, and to not expect black to fit into stereotypes whites make for them. The outsider wants to be heard as he goes about town ranting, at times drunken, about socialism and the cause of justice. He wants people to see him as smart and a leader.

Once again, this book lacks a large, singular plot. Instead, it jumps from one of Singer's "friends" to another, with an occasional overlap of characters. I believe Carson McCullers did this intentionally, so the reader too can feel the isolation of the characters. Even the times when they speak to Singer, Singer cannot respond to what they say, much like the reader cannot. The reader must place themselves in the character of Singer in order to comprehend the frustration he feels of understanding parts of these people's conversations, but not being able to contribute to it any more than smiling or offering something to drink. This isolation also mirrors the time the book is set - 1939 on the cusp of the US involvement in World War II, as the policy of isolationism and nonintervention was lauded. McCullers shows that even these isolated people, isolated events, are inextricably linked and force action and reaction upon one another.

Wow. I did not even see that completely until I sat down and wrote it just now. I am beginning to appreciate this book more and more. Even if I did not enjoy the book, I cannot help but tip my proverbial hat to McCullers ability to meld her weaving of the story with the themes of each of the characters. It shows a purposefulness many authors do not attain or even seek to attain.

The question now is - great American novel or no? Yes, I think so. McCullers was able to write in an honest and quietly resounding way about a time in our history where world war was imminent and segregation was simmering about to boil over. Many critics point out that she was able to write about the black culture and tension in the South elegantly even though she was not herself immersed in it. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is a book that, should you read it, you may feel let down at the end. But, as I have found while writing about it, if you allow yourself a moment to ponder and consider the story, it may be found to be richer and more lustrous than you perceived initially.

Great American Novel Challenge Booklist:
July 2009: Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner, publ. 1936
August 2009: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry, publ. 1985
September 2009: Moby Dick - Herman Melville, publ. 1851
October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway, publ. 1940
November 2009: Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston, publ. 1937
December 2009: The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath, publ. 1963
January 2010: Rabbit, Run - John Updike, publ. 1960
February 2010: East of Eden - John Steinbeck, publ. 1952
March 2010: The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton, publ. 1920
April 2010: Giants in the Earth - Ole Edvart Rolvaag, publ. 1927

Nostalgia in Blue

For anyone who questions my fiercely passionate loyalty to Texas, allow the below pictures to speak for me. North Carolina friends, these are for you.

Yes, Texas may have record high summers every summer. Yes, cedar fever can be worse than the flu. No, there is not a substantial amount of snow annually. But where else can you drive a few minutes outside the city and see natural beauty like this? Texas bluebonnets - odes, sonnets and free verses should be written about each one of you each year you return and bless the eyes, hearts, and Easter Sunday pictures of Texans large and small. I miss you!!

What is even more wonderful about Texas bluebonnets is that they are not the end of the Texas wildflowers. The blue landscape rises like the sun with the coral orange of Indian Paintbrush, the two-toned Indian Blanket, and the cheery yellow Black-Eyed Susan. And then, every here and there, are pale pink evening primroses and merlot winecups. Here in NC, all we get is yellow pollen and green grass, the latter of which is a rare occurrence in Texas, but not the same kind of colorful. Texas may have hues of brown happening most the summer, but it makes up for it with the grand rainbow of colors in the spring and early summer.

GANC: Giants in the Earth

Out of all the books I have read in this challenge, Giants in the Earth is perhaps the most honest story of a group of Americans. It follows a Norwegian family's struggle to make a life for themselves in the Dakota Territories in the late 1800s. There are no great over-arching plots or exciting interludes with bandits, illness, or Native Americans. It is a simple, harsh look at a family who has immigrated from their home in Norway to what they hope to be a new and improved life in America. This is not a book of American idealism or conquerors, but one of realistic struggles that many immigrants and westward expansion sojourners faced. Is the land before them the best, or does better lie over the next hill? Are the wagons in the distance friend or foe? Can I rely on my neighbors when help is needed? How does one balance audaciously breaking ground and buying provisions with the risk that a dry season or locusts could strike and lose it all? There is a simplistic beauty in the harshness of the setting and the plain honesty of these Norwegian-Americans.

What is even more the author, Ole Edvart Rolvaag, is himself a Norwegian immigrant who settled with his uncle in South Dakota in the late 1800s, so it is possible some of the stories in Giants in the Earth are autobiographical. Originally written in Norwegian, this novel was painstakingly translated with Rolvaag's close assistance in order to convey the meanings and intention of each word. In this way, this book is unique - written by a European-born author in a European style, but with a distinctly American setting.

The decision on whether this is a great American novel is difficult because I had not heard of the book until my Dad spoke fondly of reading it, and I feel like a great American novel should be somewhat well-known. But maybe that is faulty thinking. This is a wonderful novel. It is not a book that I became enveloped in, but I was drawn in by the lack of wild adventures. Its beauty lay in its tight focus on the beauty of writing down the struggles of a common man. I do not believe Rolvaag meant this as a way of social commentary, but that does not mean it cannot be. It is refreshing to know that a complex journey with a family in a key moment in America's history can be so misleadingly simply written.

Great American Novel Challenge Booklist:

July 2009: Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner, publ. 1936

August 2009: Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry, publ. 1985

September 2009: Moby Dick - Herman Melville, publ. 1851

October 2009: For Whom the Bell Tolls - Ernest Hemingway, publ. 1940

November 2009: Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston, publ. 1937

December 2009: The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath, publ. 1963

January 2010: Rabbit, Run - John Updike, publ. 1960

February 2010: East of Eden - John Steinbeck, publ. 1952

March 2010: the Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton, publ. 1920

Blind Spot & Skiing Down Everest

As in most things, if you try enough of something, you are bound to encounter a dud or two. This concept remains true for documentaries. I know, shocking. By and large, all the docs I have watched have been worth my time, interesting, and educational. And then there were these two. All the hopes and dreams of a good documentary, just did not make it on the execution.

Blind Spot - Hitler's Secretary is not a waste of time and it certainly is educational. However, it is not so much a documentary to me as it is an hour-and-a-half long interview. Because it is that - 1.5 hours of an interview. No World War II footage, no pictures of Hitler in case you forgot what he looked like. No photos or video of where Hitler and his staff were in his last days. Just Traudl Junge (the secretary) talking about how she came to be Hitler's secretary and life in the last days of Hitler. I finished the doc wanting more - another secretary's perspective, reports from others who were with Hitler during that time, something other than Junge alone speaking for this moment of change in history.

And then there was the doc whose title yielded itself to visions of bravery, danger, pushing one's body to the limit. The Man Who Skied Down Everest held such high hopes. Hope that became confused as the film progressed. Why? Because, while I am sure this was meant to be a serious look into a Japanese man's effort to ski down Everest, it came out as a fish eye lens-loving, stained glass streaking color, "does this documentary come with complimentary narcotics" kind of movie. It is weird. Really really weird. I think all the people who lauded this movie on Amazon (see above link) must have all had the same grape KoolAid, if you know what I mean. Kooky. Oh, and it does not stop there. You would think with a title like The Man Who Skied Down Everest he would, I don't know, go to the top of Mt. Everest and ski down. Wrong! He climbs close to the top of Everest and skis down. I felt lied to and taken advantage of. But wait, there's more! Behind door number 3 - it won an Oscar for Best Documentary in 1976! Which made me think of two things:

1) If this documentary won, imagine how bad the other nominated docs must be.

2) Maybe this doc did come with complimentary narcotics to those who select Oscar winners

Need more proof? Here you go, watch at the risk of your mental well-being...