Look, Mom, No Posts!

I missed a couple days of posting because Mom was in town for an unexpected visit. More on that later. But while she was here, we took the opportunity to go see Patricia McConnell at the Tattered Cover, our local independent bookstore.

We went with my friend Jenny (above right), and we were all color-coordinated in teal and black. Completely unintentional.

Patricia McConnell is an animal ethologist or behaviorist (she prefers the former term, but most people understand the latter better). She taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for a number of years. Jenny was one of her students, and recommended that I interview her when I needed to write a paper about someone interesting. (This was when I was in gradual school, as I like to call it.)

Dr. McConnell was very gracious and gave me some good stories, which I remember to this day, more than 20 years later. She has also written a few books since then, had a public radio show ("Calling All Pets") and started her own blog, "The Other End of the Leash," which should should read if you're interested in dog behavior.

Her previous books have been more specifically about dog behavior and training, while her newest, "The Education of Will," is as much about her as about Willie, the best and worst dog she's ever had. Though she got him as a puppy from a reputable breeder, he turned out to exhibit PTSD-like behaviors. He was severely noise-reactive, and aggressive to other dogs. In trying to figure out how to help him and train him (and even whether to keep him), Dr. McConnell was forced to confront her own past traumas and issues. This book is the story of that process and journey.

The presentation was fascinating and engaging and moving. I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to reading the book.

There were a few canines in the audience, too; assistance dogs in training. That's Specter on the left and Talent on the right.


It was a good turnout; I think the Tattered Cover underestimated how many fans would turn up. Jenny and I got our books signed; and Dr. McConnell even remembered Jenny, or at least recognized her as someone she knew once upon a time. Mom was happy to go, too, as she used to listen to "Calling All Pets" on Wisconsin Public Radio.

If you have a chance to see Patricia McConnell speak, you should go. Or at least read her book!

Collect 'Em All!

I was excited to get Andrea Nguyen's latest, The Pho Cookbook, in the mail yesterday. I've watched her Craftsy classes (on pho and on dumplings) and enjoyed them a lot. Her cookbooks help round out the experience of, well, Andrea's experience with all aspects of Vietnamese cuisine.

If I were really ambitious, I would try cooking my way through all of them in a systematic fashion and blog about it. Once upon a time I thought I would do that with Donna Hay's cookbooks, of which I have many, but the makinghay.com URL was taken. So I didn't do it. Really, that's the only reason.

That kind of blogging would be a serious time commitment, though. Time that I don't have right now. I'll just try to report on a recipe or two in the pho book, once I've dived into it.

Meanwhile,  dinner tonight was a winter squash gratin to which I added diced ham, and a big salad.

One kabocha squash yielded the 2 cups of roasted squash needed. I roasted it over the weekend, and diced the onion and grated the cheese yesterday, so it was all pretty easy to throw together when I got home from work ... with another bag full of produce from the CSA.

I can see that the amount of lettuce they provide each week is going to be an issue. I'll need to up my salad game.

What I'm reading

I'm getting close to the end of the second book of George R.R. Martin's "Song of Ice and Fire" saga, which I started this summer after reading a New Yorker piece about his fans. Many of them were angry over how long it was taking him to write the next installment in the series (the fifth and latest came out this summer; he projects there will be seven total).

This hugely elaborate project is all about the machinations of those who would be king in a made-up country that is a lot like Arthurian England. Each chapter focuses on a particular character (and usually ends with a cliffhanger); you get the overall arc of the story by following each of the characters' threads.

It's quite engaging, and there are some good plot twists. I am going to try to spread out my reading of it a little and hope the author can finish the series!

A little bit of fluff I whipped through in a couple of days was "And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You" by Kathi Kamen Goldmark. The protagonist is a backup singer in a country band who starts to achieve some fame of her own while also dealing with the vagaries of love and family drama. If you like country music and entertaining lyrics, this would be a fun book for you to check out.

I also finally tackled "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski. It's set in Northern Wisconsin and has dogs, so I was predisposed to like it. (I grew up in Wisconsin and, well, you know me and dogs.) I don't want to outline the plot, since I think it's better to discover that on your own.

I did like the book, a lot, until halfway through, when there's a moment of deus ex machina that really ticked me off. I found the story really interesting and believable up until that point, but this little twist just threw me right out of the story. I finished it, and I still liked some aspects of it, but I found it fundamentally flawed.

It made me really miss my old Sophie dog, too. She was smart on the level of the dogs in the story. If you love dogs, this book will make you cry.

Looking North

North Korea fascinates me, so I'm looking forward to reading these two books I just got: Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick, and The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters by B.R. Myers.

Why am so interested? It's hard to articulate, but the place is just so bizarre. Here's this whole country full of people living according to the lies their leaders tell them, with no access to news of the outside world. It's a bit like China during the Cultural Revolution, but it's happening now.
(One of my Chinese students told me something that perfectly illustrates a paranoid regime: Remember how American parents used to say, "Eat all your dinner; there are children starving in China"? What they meant was "Be grateful for what you have," right? In China, the government interpreted that for the people as "Eat all your dinner so the Chinese children don't get any.")

In North Korea, children are starving today, but we don't hear about it. The government recently cracked down on independent food vendors and farmers' markets operating outside of official channels. But these vendors were a vital source of income and/or food for many North Koreans. The government outlawed them and it devalued the national currency, wiping out people's savings overnight. Reportedly panic buying and near riots ensued. That led to unprecedented government backpedaling and at least one execution of a state official.

And the family of that state official is likely now in the North Korean gulag. If you sin in North Korea, your family will pay.

But we only get this information in dribs and drabs and hints and innuendos. There are people who build their whole careers around trying to suss out what the North Koreans are up to.

It matters what they're up to because they've got nukes. And they're working on building rockets that can carry those nukes a long, long way – across the Pacific, if possible. And they're sharing what they know with Iran and who knows whom else.

There are many more crazy things about North Korea that interest me. Kim Jong-Il is a piece of work, let me tell you. And his kids! (One of them got nixed as a successor because he got caught trying to sneak into Japan with a fake passport. Why? He wanted to go to Disneyland!) It's ludicrous and really, really scary at the same time.


A couple of books I've already enjoyed are The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Chol-hwan Kang and Pierre Rigoulot, and The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea by Charles Robert Jenkins. Two fascinating memoirs that sparked my interest to learn more. You might try them, too. And do pay attention when North Korea is in the news; it may be more important than you think.

Good haul

I went bowling for produce and scored big! It's been almost a year since I last (and first) visited Berkeley Bowl Marketplace. Though the weather was fine and sunny in both the Bay Area and Denver, it's still winter, so a little fresh produce therapy seemed like a good idea.

This is just a representative sample of the citrus and artichokes I picked up, along with spring ginger, mangos, papayas, feijoa, fennel bulbs and celeriac, all of which are either nonexistent or way pricey in Denver. I also got a few snacky treats at Trader Joe's.

No, I probably didn't need to get all that, but I was having fun shopping, and I had room in my bag, especially with the addition of a sturdy Berkeley Bowl shopping tote (available at the checkout for 99 cents).

The place was a bit of a madhouse, maybe because it was a holiday. Though if some people are to be believed, it's always that way. (Hence the nickname Berkeley Brawl.) Certainly, there was an assertiveness of cart- and stroller-maneuvering that spoke of priorities more important than my own little foodie-tour.

The pet parrots parked outside in the "no pet parking" zone are a pretty good symbol of the ethos.

Then we went to Moe's Books and I didn't buy a thing.
I was not remotely tempted by the Alinea and elBulli coookbooks, unlike the rest of the food-blogging world. Seriously, I do not understand their attraction. Maybe one of you can explain it to me?

I was tempted by a signed copy of Marilynne Robinson's latest novel, "Home." She's only my all-time favorite author, but I don't need to be spending $20+ on another book. A more affordable copy will come my way eventually and I'll read it then.

Yes, I've come a long way in the self-restraint department. At least when it comes to books.

Grooming report

First Sophie didn't want to get out of the car.

Then she didn't want to get back in.

The latter reluctance is because she now expects me to lift her in. I oblige her because of her arthritis. Luckily she's only about 42 pounds. The bulk you see is all hair.

Back at home she gave me the stink-eye when I asked her to pose for a photo.
But a marrow bone made everything better.

Every good dog ...

... deserves a bone.
Sophie had just enough time for a quick gnaw before I left for work. She looks good, all clean, brushed out and fluffy. The groomer didn't clip her body, just face and feet, with a little tidying of ears and tail. She's building up a good winter coat to keep her old bones warm.

Soothing sips at Seven Cups teahouse

I'm fortunate to live in a neighborhood that is chock-full of interesting shops and restaurants within easy walking distance. When one business closes, what takes its place is usually not a disappointment (unlike the bank that replaced the mom-and-pop hardware store near my old house. Boooooo).

The latest addition is Seven Cups, a Chinese teahouse in what was previously a yoga studio.
I first noted the place under construction back in May and took pictures through the window (you can click on them to see them larger).
Now it's all fixed up nicely and has been open about a month.
The owner taught in China (in Hangzhou and Shanghai) and developed a love of Chinese tea there. He wasn't in on Saturday when I stopped by, but I'm sure I'll meet him one of these days.

The space is quite prettily done up, with tea displays at the front and about nine tables in the back half. It's a peaceful space, and not too chock-a-block with tchotchkes (easy to overdo with Chinese decorating). The Guan Yin sign seems a little silly, but serves as a gentle reminder not to eat the dried fruit and nuts at her feet.

Their tea list has 90 varieties! Green, yellow and black.
Some of the pu'er teas are sold as pressed cakes.
The gal who was there when I came in seemed a little scattered, but she got me settled at a table with a cup of Little Rose Tuocha. "Tuo cha" means "block tea." It's a smaller compressed pu'er, in this case with some rose leaves added.

At each table is a little bowl of rock sugar. I enjoyed savoring pieces of it between sips of tea.
The tea is served in steeping pots. The pu'er is in a little rice-paper ball that opens up as it steeps.

I passed the time with my book, "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell. It's a sweet memoir-style novel narrated by a 13-year-old boy in 1980s small-town England. A brilliant read, very engaging. It captures the era and the pangs of adolescence beautifully. I highly recommend it.

The tea was tasty, and I had a nice chat with the girl who started her shift just after I sat down. She had her hands full with a large party that came in for a tasting, but wasn't too harried to tell me about her interest in all things Chinese (she's studying Chinese medicine, and martial arts, and Mandarin). I'll go back and chat with her some more (she would like to practice her Chinese) and hopefully meet the owner, too.

Their website (which is a little wonky in Firefox) doesn't say what their hours are, but they do offer free tastings on Fridays at 3, and you can also schedule tasting parties for six or more people that feature multiple teas along with snacks of fruit, nuts and little cakes for $6-$8 per person. That would make for a fun gathering!

Seven Cups
1882 S Pearl St
Denver, CO 80210
303-777-2877

The books of wine club

Though my book group really does seem to be more of a wine-and-food group, we do read and talk about books, however briefly. The book we read for this last meeting was Per Petterson's "Out Stealing Horses," a novel that combines the experiences of a Norwegian man who has retreated to a secluded cabin after a family tragedy, and his reminiscences about summers spent as a youth at a similar cabin with his father. It's a very contemplative book, at times on the slow side (I found myself skimming over some of the longer descriptions), and with a few surprises. It reminded me a little of Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" in form and feeling, though her book is vastly better. I enjoyed reading "Out Stealing Horses," but in the end, I can't remember much of its details, just its feeling.

It was up to me as host to offer up a handful of titles to vote on for our next book. It can't be a book anyone's read yet. I suggested "Black Swan Green" by David Mitchell, "Origin" by Diana Abu-Jabber and "The Man Who Loved China" by Simon Winchester. Another member also suggested Tana French's "In the Woods."

But the winner was my final suggestion: ""Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex" by Mary Roach.

The group read Roach's "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" a few years ago and loved it. It's a super-funny book, which of course isn't what you'd expect, but if you want to know more about what happens to bodies ... in anatomy labs, at the FBI's body farm, at funeral homes, well, this is the book to read. Yeah, you'll be grossed out, but you'll laugh while grimacing.

So you can guess that when I brought out "Bonk," which combines Roach's funny and informative writing with a topic near and dear to, well, many people, the consensus was, "We're reading that."

Let's hope it lives up to our expectations!

Well-stocked

One problem I ran into last week with the new camera was filling up the memory card faster than I was used to. With more megapixels, each photo is a larger file size at the highest resolution. I knew I had a couple more 1 GB memory cards somewhere. It was just a matter of finding the right box.

Yes, there are still boxes. But all of them are in the garage or the office closet, awaiting some day of reckoning. Probably not this week.

Meanwhile, I'll be making some cheese soon. Several big bags of goat milk had to come out of the freezer to make room for 50 pounds of marrow bones. I also ordered an 800-count bottle of glucosamine capsules on eBay. I tell Sophie she has to live at least long enough to use up all these things I buy for her.

What I'm reading:"Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper"by Fuchsia Dunlop

How lucky I am to read two excellent food memoirs in a row. "Amarcord" by Marcella Hazan was a very satisfying journey through her life, and you should definitely put it on your list when it comes out in October.

Tonight I finished yet another fascinating read, "Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China" by Fuchsia Dunlop.

Fuchsia first went to China in the early '90s (right about the time I left) on a grant to research Chinese minorities. But she soon found her interest straying to the marvelous food of Sichuan. She was studying in Chengdu, which was then a laid-back city of teahouses and hotpot restaurants. She and her friends, ex-pats and Chinese, would seek out good cheap food, and she would pay attention to how it was prepared, quizzing the cooks and exploring the markets.

Somehow she talked her way into a Chinese cooking school, which offered not only the challenges of rigorous courses but the barriers of language (everyone spoke the Sichuan dialect rather than the Mandarin she knew) and of culture (many of her classmates – mostly male – were baffled by her presence and less than friendly). But she persevered, and found a new career.

She went on to author a cookbook of Sichuan cuisine, and became a food writer for magazines and newspapers, exploring the many regional cooking styles of China.

This is a book I wish I could have read before I went to China, as it explains so many things I wondered about (like why everyone insisted on serving sea slug on special occasions, even though it's flavorless and has the consistency of a bicycle tire).

I think I would have appreciated some of the food a lot more, knowing the details she provides. Her writing really took me back, reminding me of many of the dishes I did enjoy. I would kill for a skewer of street mutton right now.

You don't have to be an old China hand to enjoy this book, though. Her adventures in travel and eating are well-told and entertaining, and she includes some recipes you can try for yourself.

As she notes, the Chinese word for population, renkou (人口) translates literally as "people mouths," and with 1.3 billion mouths, China has a lot of eating going on. You can sample some of it vicariously by reading this book.

Freshly groomed poodle deserves a bone

What I'm reading:"The Produce Bible" by Leanne Kitchen"High and Dry" by Robert Nold"Amarcord: Marcella Remembers" by Marcella Hazan

First, two new additions to my reference library. One is a longtime covet, "The Produce Bible" by Leanne Kitchen (career natural or nom de plume?), which is a paperback but still quite hefty. It's full of great info on all kinds of vegetables, how to choose and store them, plus recipes.

The second is brand-new: "High and Dry: Gardening with Cold-Hardy Dryland Plants" by Robert Nold. I've "known" Bob and his wife, Cindy, for years through a local gardening listserv. Bob would maybe object to my saying he knows everything there is to know about gardening in the high desert (which essentially Denver is), but he knows a hell of a lot more than 99 percent of the gardeners around, and he shares his knowledge in this encyclopedic volume.

Cindy is a fantabulous photographer and watercolor illustrator, and she provided the artwork for the book.

I recently had a chance to visit their wonderful garden, 18 years in the making, and they generously offered me a few plants for my own garden. (I've been meaning to post about them one of these days.) Their garden is very similar to what I aspire to create in my own yard. Bob just start a blog, too: High and Dry.

I'm looking forward to putting these books to use in my kitchen and garden!

And then there's this. Someone who knows I like foodie memoirs slipped me an advance copy of "Amarcord: Marcella Remembers" by Marcella Hazan. The subtitle is "The Remarkable Life Story of a Woman Who Started Out Teaching Science in a Small Town in Italy, but Ended Up Teaching America How to Cook Italian." Which is wordy and (I think) superfluous, but does convey the accidental nature of her fame as a cook and cookbook author.

I'm about a third of the way through and really enjoying it. She has an interesting history of a very early childhood in Egypt, then formative years (including during WWII) in a small town in Italy, then marriage to an American (with roots in that town), a move to America, then back to Italy ... that's where I am now in her story.

Until she married, she had never cooked anything but pig mash! But she has strong memories of all the delicious country foods of her childhood, which helped inform her cooking once she got married and started to learn.

Aside from the food, her story is interesting in itself, and she tells it well. I presume she had someone working with her on the book, as she did not learn English until she was in her 20s. Or if she wrote herself, her English is as flawless as her cooking. Her story flows easily and her voice comes through in the writing.

The book is due out in October. If you like memoirs, good stories and food, this is one to watch out for.

Many happy returns to Readerville

One of my favorite online hangouts is 8 years old today! This labor of love of all things literary is largely responsible for my shelves looking like this:
Readerville consists of two parts: the Journal, which is a daily blog of literary reviews, essays, news and links, and The Forum, where like-minded literary types gather to discuss their favorite books and all aspects of publishing and reading.

Some very cool people hang out there, and when I go book-shopping, I can't help but hear their voices in my head: "Oh, I liked that one! This one has the coolest cover! I adore that author! I wrote this one! Try it! You'll like it!"

If you like books, check it out. You'll return again and again.
But don't blame me if you break your book budget. Or your shelves.