Posts by dyan campbell
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Ah student cooking - the horror, the torture, the humiliation. Oh the inhumanity!
You poor thing... I am beginning to realise how lucky I was in my student house (in Vancouver... nearly 30 years ago). Our student house was huge and owned by one of us, Michael, who charged next to nothing. All of us had travelled, some had lived in other countries and all of us could cook, most of us rather magnificently. Ah, where to begin?
Gord had spent the ages between 10 and 16 in India (his dad was a civil engineer) and he had not only learned to speak pretty competent Urdu and Hindustani, he had also learned to cook like a master chef.
Gord was a lanky, sweet faced blond and at 10 was taken under the loving wings of all the women who worked in his parents' house who not only lavished adoration, praise and gifts on him (for liking their food, he told us) they taught him how to cook. So Gord could make just about anything you could possibly imagine, but my favourite dish was called "The Priest Fainted" as in he fainted in ecstasy as it was so delicious. It's a small ball of puri dough, stuffed with a small amount of dahl (Gord had countless dahl recipes) and then, when deep fried, the puri puffs up and the dahl makes a delicious spicy filling. He'd serve these with homemade chutney and a yoghurt/coriander/mint dressing. He used to make all sorts of desserts too, especially the best rosewater and pistacio kheercas I've ever tasted.
Both myself and another student, Carol were brilliant, competitive bakers. Between us, as we were always trying to outdo each other, there were always cakes, cookies, blueberry buttermilk pancakes, cinnamon buns, brownines, tortes, tarts, fools (raspberry, huckleberry, gooseberry), Napoleons, Copenhagens, Bear Claws, the wonderfully named Cold Shape, old fashioned ice cream (frozen custard) waffles, vaucharin, bars, trifles, cheesecakes, pies, cobblers, loaves, muffins... I am also an excellent jam maker, Carol a first class marmalade maker. Name a dessert and I bet one of us made it
Between us we also covered the field of Chinese/Thai/French cooking.
Robyn and Richard, Tony and Paula were also excellent chefs of Indian food, having also spent time there, but Gord was better than any restaurant chef, so they left that cuisine to him and capitalised on their strengths in Italian, Lebanese/Greek/Turkish, and took care of barbeque duties, with a particular proficiency in salmon of every style.
Michael had become very proficient in Mexican food, even making his own hot sauces, tortilla chips and pickled jalapeneo peppers. He also used to make 20 loaves of truly famous bread a week for the house, though these were quickly devoured and we were reduced to the store bought stuff for about four days of each week anyway.
I still use several hundred recipes from my student days... Carol's simple marinade for all vegetables:
olive oil
crushed garlic
pepper
tabasco
worstershire
white wine vinegar
saltsteam any suitable vegetable: beans, asparagus, artichoke, mushrooms, cauliflower, etc for only 1.5 to 2 minutes, shake off any water and plunge into marinade piping hot. Cover and let sit for at least 4 hours, will keep for up to 4 days. Delicious as a side dish or to as an addtion to a hero sandwich...
I'm going to make my chocolate-raspberry Napoleons with vanilla custard.
My mother in law and I bonded mightily over the sheer pleasure of cooking for her son. We swapped recipes and tips and lamented the fact that really Paul will eat anything and that it would be good if he were in fact just a little fussier.
His early school days were filled with homemade bacon and egg pie (first class homemade puff pastry) exquisite sandwiches, excellent cakes, lamingtons and tarts (Neenish was his favourite). His friend Phil said he used to turn up at primary school with vegemite and lettuce sandwiches, a fejoia and a couple of wine biscuits while Paul would have this incredible spread and never fewer than 2 homemade desserts. Phil says he became quite skilled at making Paul feel guilty enough to share... Paul says he was born into a food God Realm.
Does loving to cook for men make me a bad feminist?
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From David Cauchi's strange manifesto:
What is known is that there have been at least two major outbreaks of the transdimensional avant-garde thought virus in the recent historical past: in northern Italy during the early 15th century
Ergot.
and in Europe during the early 20th century.
Absinthe.
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From David Cauchi's strange manifesto:
What is known is that there have been at least two major outbreaks of the transdimensional avant-garde thought virus in the recent historical past: in northern Italy during the early 15th century
Ergot.
and in Europe during the early 20th century.
Absinthe.
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RB,
With respect, the only thing you've proved this afternoon is your own prejudice. It's like a straw man factory in here.It's not prejudice. It's an opinion you might wish to discuss. What do you think about the potential for a society with no elected leaders, law enforcement or commerce? How would you achieve it? Would anything but a tiny minority of people really embrace it of their own free will? How do you deal with people who insist on being capitalists or armed robbers?
I'm interested by the ideas outlined in those two manifestos, just not particularly impressed by the thinking.
This conversation reminds me of Stephen Pinker's account of an argument he had with his parents when he was 13:
"As a young teenager in proudly peaceable Canada during the romantic 1960s, I was a true believer in Bakunin’s anarchism. I laughed off my parents’ argument that if the government ever laid down its arms all hell would break loose. Our competing predictions were put to the test at 8:00 A.M. on October 17, 1969, when the Montreal police went on strike. By 11:20 A.M. the first bank was robbed. By noon most downtown stores had closed because of looting. Within a few more hours, taxi drivers burned down the garage of a limousine service that competed with them for airport customers, a rooftop sniper killed a provincial police officer, rioters broke into several hotels and restaurants, and a doctor slew a burglar in his suburban home. By the end of the day, six banks had been robbed, a hundred shops had been looted, twelve fires had been set, forty carloads of storefront glass had been broken, and three million dollars in property damage had been inflicted, before city authorities had to call in the army and, of course, the Mounties to restore order."
Doesn't anyone read Hobbes anymore? In Leviathan he writes
that " life without a social covenant" or anarchy as such a condition is otherwise known, would result in "no arts, no letters, no society and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". -
That child has a very, very, impressive squalling howl, with a terribly distressing top note of anguish. You should mark it NSFW. You should also market it, for car alarms.
Colic? Reflux?
A paediatrician at Starship once told me said he was forever giving new parents earplugs... he said they would think it was a joke and laugh, but he was quite serious that they were a valuable parenting tool... "it's not like I want parents to use them and leave to another part of the house" he said "it's just something that takes the edge off the screaming at 4:00am when you're right there anyway".
Another paediatrician at Starship, Dr Cameron Grant, has done excellent research into the very bad effects of cows' milk on babies. He linked the protein in the milk to the terrible iron deficiency in children to the cows' milk -I think you can google his paper on Pub Med still - but the gist of it was, I think, that the protein causes the baby's stomach lining to bleed slightly and this in turn, over time causes an iron deficiency that is carried over though childhood (and from which a whopping 75% of children suffer)... one of the most common defiencies in children. And women.
As for colicky babies - if you can find a Thai or Vietnamese mum to show you this method it would be better as I am not sure if I can describe their technique well - but hold the baby upright against your own body, support under the baby's armpits with one hand, and then they support the baby's feet with their other hand, and keep the baby's knees bent slightly, about 45 - 55 degrees. Then you both... bounce gently, sort of gently bouncing up and down on the spot. I have seen a Thai mum offer to take my friend's screaming (and screaming and screaming) colicky baby to show her, and in about 5 seconds Danny stopped screming and looked very contented. Relieved even. My friend Helen used the technique after that, always saying "I sure wish I'd known this trick for his older brother Jesse..."
The Thai woman said the upright/bent knees posture takes the painful pressure off the kid's digestive tract, and it must, because it can certainly turn a screaming baby into a relaxed baby in a matter of seconds.
Good luck. Hope you get some sleep in the next 2 years.
And I think the Romans just over extented themselves in their campaign to extent their empire - didn't they neglect life back in Rome at the expense of expansion?
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One is rather reminded of when homosexual Bloomsbury author Lytton Strachey was tried for pacifism during WW2. When asked what he would do if he encountered a German soldier about to rape his mother, he replied "I would endevour to interpose myself."
Lytton Strachey had the best dying words of all time:
"If this is dying, then I don't think much of it."
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Ha, I nearly forgot about this:
Keith, do have a look at the site for the school my sister runs in Nepal:
As I say, Shirl lived in Tokyo for about 10 years before moving to Nepal - she's been there about 10 yeas as well.
The school is quite interesting - Jane Goodall has recently become a patron and stayed at the school last year. For those of you who don't know who she is, Jane Goodall is (as she calls herself) the chimp lady, though she has turned over most of the primate work to her son Grub and her daughter in law, and is now running UNICEF's Roots and Shoots program. The school my sister Shirl runs is one of the Roots and Shoots project schools.
And I understand from my sister that the Maoist Rebels are scary and unpredictable, but less so than the Army - both my sister and my Dad (who's been over there a couple times doing projects for Engineers Without Borders) say the Army is far more intimidating.
But if you do find time to visit, I think you'll find it interesting. And for those of you in mourning about the rugby, the section on "Why Our Kids Don't Go Home for the Holidays" may put your grief and despair into perspective.
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Hi Keith
If you are going to Kathmandu, maybe you would like to visit the school my sister (Shirley Blair) runs there?
[www.himalayanchildren.org/ ]
By the way Russell, I am not having any luck with this linking thing: the process is:
1. type an ppen square bracket
2. paste url
3. type a closed square bracketor am I reading this wrong?
Keith - my sister also taught in Tokyo for 9 or 10 years before moving to Nepal.
Enjoy your travels!
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I would so have gone out with him.
You say that now, but if you'd seen Jimmy, who had this whole James Dean look going on you'd have made the same choice I did, even if he was a waiter/math student and Bryan a rock star. Jimmy was just so... incredibly cute. And a math geek, and I liked that kind of thing, still do. Plus he was English, which as I say, was exotic at the tiem. Though he did become kind of a rock star (in Canada anyway) years after I dated him. the math came in handy eventually... Jimmy quit Sons of Freedom (the band unfortunately shared the name with a religious sect in Canada who are keen on naked arson, no kidding, though this was not the reason for them splitting up) and he became an engineer while Trent Reznor joined the rest of the Sons of Freedom and they became Jakalope.
Though English-ness can work against a guy. I remember seeing an episode of Friends and someone said of another character "Is he gay?" and someone else said "No, he's English" and my NZer husband asked me "Why do North Americans always think English people are gay?" and I said "Do you remember my boss Brian at AIDS Vancover?" to which Paulu replied "Yes" and I said "Well, he wasn't English" and Paul said "Yes he was" and I said "No, gay" and Paul said "But he wore a Burberry raincoat... he drank Earl Grey Tea, he collected antiques... he listened to chamber music for god's sake... " and I said "From Winnipeg...". Paul still can't quite get over that, but has experienced the phenomenon of finding Englishness indistinguishable from Gayness in North America.
Jimmy was working class though, which seems a bit more hetero to Canadians. Interestingly he completely identifies with Canadian-ness now, and doesn't consider himself English at all.