Two more people at work lost loved ones. This is turning out to be an awful year.
In a Dae Jang Geum inspired moment (I just found out about thetheme park), on Thursday the gang went to NY Kom Tang Soot Bul Kal Bi House, one of the few Korean BBQ restaurants that still use real wood charcoal. Yes, I kind of still have that smoky smell, but it’s all good. Afterwards, we went to La Lanterna Caffe for dessert. P- and I miss hanging out in the Village.
The secret to perfect roast beef? First, the ingredients are really simple. According to Cook’s Illustrated The New Best Recipe, there are only 4 ingredients: a good cut of beef (I had about 4 pounds of bottom round), salt, pepper, and vegetable oil. The critical technique is pan browning, followed by slow cooking at 2 temperatures. Using the Polder Cooking Timer and Thermometer‘s continuous reading probe, it is really painless to pull it off — you just set the internal temperature desired (250 degree oven until 110 degree internal temp, followed by 500 degree oven until 130 degree internal temp). You don’t even have to peek in the oven and mess up the temp. The results came out perfect – good crust on the outside, medium pink on the inside. Totally succulent, and good eating for the next few days.
This entry: hearing — from people, by people, for people.
Great news! I heard from one of my old friends from college; she’s having her first baby next month in Hong Kong. So many of my friends and family are having babies this year!
As the Asian American International Film Festival centerpiece film, Michael Kang’s The Motel is a wonderful coming of age film. A Chinese family runs a seedy New Jersey motel; the 13 year old Earnest Chin, played by Jeffrey Chyau, explores the ways he can express himself and be heard prodded by a Korean American guest with a clouded background. I originally saw the workshop reading at NYU during the 2001 AAIFF; being able to see the final result after its four year evolution was very rewarding. Recommended.
Today, P– and I went to see my co-worker’s appearance in an off-Broadway play called Top Ten. Ten actors are only initially identified by number, but gradually we learn about who these people are, and how they live, calculate and interact with each other, providing political and social commentary in the process. My co-worker was “Nine”, who served the narrator’s role, somewhat like El Gallo in The Fantasticks. The double entendre of the play’s last line is the moral that we need in these uncertain times:
“Hope… it’s good to hear from you.”
Recommended. It plays until the end of the month, so catch it before it ends.
Anybody notice that there are a lot more interstitial ads on the New York Times website?
Coincidence between having Jamaican meat patties for lunch and this article?
I was taking out the garbage last night, and a cat ran inside and scared the heck out of P–. Apparently the cat is the upstairs neighbor’s just out for a little wandering in the hallway. Tabby with a red ribbon and a little bell – cute! The cat didn’t mind me too much, although I chased it out of the bedroom at P–‘s request ’cause she’s allergic. The cat ended up napping on the stairs. Now P– wants her sister’s dogs to have sleepovers here. Yeah, I know all about the patron saint of animals and all – I do generally get along well with animals, but this is getting silly.
OK, I bit YC, and I got the United Nations “But your heart is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York”, and Virginia Wolf: “Your life seems utterly bland and normal to the casual observer, but inside you are churning with a million tensions and worries. “
I’ve been watching a lot more TV ever since P- hooked up the full package of Time Warner Cable (thanks, P-). The thing I’ve been hooked on (other than Battlestar Galactica and the reruns of Amazing Race on the Game Channel) is a Korean period series called Jewel in the Palace, a.k.a. Dae Jang Geum 대장금 or 大長今 which is now playing on the AZN channel (channel 500 on Time Warner) subtitled in English. It’s one part Hong Kong TVB soap opera and one part Iron Chef. Based on a true story, the main character Jang-Geum is a kitchen lady in the Korean royal household that aspires to become the chief doctor. A lot of the time is spent looking at traditional Korean cooking ingredients and their methods of preparation, which are mouthwatering. The series is shot on location so the visuals are fantastic, too (I’ve been to Changdeokgung Palace in Seoul on my Malaysia trip). I’ve read that the series is very popular in Taiwan also. Catch it if you can.
In this entry: random film crews storming the city, a storming Asian American activist storming around a movie, and Bastile Day tourists storming a food fair. It was also storming pretty hard: torrential downpours cleared the air.
Sunday we saw two sessions at the 28th Asian American International Film Festival: the 72 Hour Shootout, and “What is Wrong with Frank Chin?”
The Shootout is a contest where teams have to produce a 6 minute film in 72 hours based on a secret theme, which this year was “AKA”, i.e. “Also Known As”. The winner was “Mister Kiss” by Team Kiko, which was a Blade Runner-esque film where a filipino bounty hunter also known as Mister Kiss has to hunt down and deactivate female androids by kissing them. The second place film was “A.K.A. 084 94 ####”, where the subject exposes her identities by reciting all of her numerical stats (stuff like the social security number and her taiwanese ID card number are bleeped out). The third place film was “Zappka aka The Space Rocker”, which was a parody of old Flash Gordon films. I liked them. We saw 15 of them in all, so after a while, some of them kind of blended together, though.
The feature “What is Wrong with Frank Chin?” genuinely humanizes someone who has been perceived as an opinionated and uncompromising radical orthodox Asian American that likes to disparage Maxine Hong Kingston and Amy Tan. He is an unsung founder of modern Asian American literature, Asian American theater and the Japanese internment reparations movement. I won’t give away the ending, but much of what drives Chin according to the movie is his personal seeking of his own family identity. Recommended.
Sunday was the Bastile Day festival in NYC, and the food was out in full force on E 60th St. We had a baguette with duck sausage cold cuts and truffle butter, 2 crepes, an eclair and an lemon tart. When the fair closed, we picked up some free pate baguettes and merguez sausage. Yum, yum, yum.
All through the day, I was SMSing MJ who was in town and we just couldn’t get it together. She had dinner with her bro, and after the fete, took a nap and slept through her bar get together. Sorry, and next time we’ll be more organized.
Finally finished jury duty on Friday after 7 days!!!! OK, now I can say that the case was about an auto accident — actually three auto accidents each separated by several years — and we had the task of figuring out how much injury the plaintiff sustained in the second accident, separating that from what was sustained from the first and third accidents. It’s probably one of the hardest things a jury could be asked to do.
I have to say that being on the real thing as a juror really opens your eyes on what is really good and really bad lawyering. The defense sweeped on all 7 of the jury questions, with only one juror holding out for the plaintiffs. I never really thought that a closing statement could really make such a difference, but I was shown to be wrong when the defense addressed all of the questions that the jury had in their mind about missing pieces of evidence and totally trashed the plaintiff’s attorney. I wish I could get a transcript — it was brillant.
The plaintiff’s closing was wasted, because he spent all of his time attacking the experts instead of connecting the back problems the plaintiff had to the accident we were asked to examine. He couldn’t explain why he didn’t call the surgeon to the stand in his main case. He badgered the defendant, a kindly old man in his 80’s. To top it all off, he asked for $1.3 million. The best he could do was say that the defense attorney was young, did procedural tricks to keep things away from the jury, and didn’t know the law of evidence. I doubt that the defense was ignorant, because he had a copy of New York’s tome on evidence, Prince, Richardson on Evidence, on the table, and the plaintiffs didn’t.
Quite frankly, for me it was all over when the plaintiff walked off of the stand to show her scars to the jury, and she was able to twist left and right without her cane.
I didn’t know, and I didn’t try to find out until after the trial was over, but the plaintiff’s attorney went to a certain downtown law school in Chicago, and the defense attorney was a 1998 graduate of a certain law school that the writers of this blog are well acquainted with. Goes to show…
It’s been raining every day this week except today, and often times torrentially. Last Friday, there was a warning to boil water because of unusual amounts of sediment washed into the water system from those downpours.
As a practical matter, I noticed that in the past week, the tub has been noticeably scummier. I like to use Dr. Bronner Castile soaps because I find that they are economical, gentle to the skin, and are the most effective in dissolving dirt, but being real soap, as compared to the inorganic detergent surfactants in your typical bath bar, Dr. Bronner’s will react to the minerals in “hard” water. I take the “scumminess” to indicate that the water is probably harder than normal.
I saw this month’s Wired magazine on remixing in the bookstore, and thought about the events of this week. History is remixing. Live 8 recalls and validates the original Live Aid by bringing an Ethopian survivor. The bombings in London recall earlier terrorist attacks. The search for missing persons by loved ones mirror the flyers after 9/11.
The difference this time around is that there is a consciousness of making the connections to the past, which were not there even 10 years ago. I think this gives us the chance to be more effective in our current decision making by having a more complete idea of what is going on.
In the New York Times article, “Longtime Haven for Arabs Now Must Ask: Why Us?” states:
“Someone has to show them the boundary,” said Sabah al-Hamdani, who had been listening intently. “We need to stand in their way.”
We may not be the G8 leaders or any one of note, but civic duty today means making sure that we do that, in every little way that we can.
Gadget: A $250 box called a Slingbox lets you do to location what a VCR does with time. This hooks up to your cable box and an Ethernet connection. Then, using their software on a remote computer, you can control the cable box via IR remote and watch whatever is on. I think it sounds cool; there are mixed reactions on Boardwatch.
The jury trial that I’m serving on starts tomorrow. Should be fun…