I was invited to this restaurant to meet up with some friends that I had come to know through our study abroad trip to Tianjin in 2009. I keep in touch rather regularly with Lisa using Gchat, but I had not seen or talked to Quincy since that trip. The setting for our reunion was a delightful place up near Sugarhouse at 21st South and 21st East. The owner knew Lisa since she was a regular visitor to this place.
We ordered the hotpot (火锅) without spicy, thus avoiding my lifelong war with 花椒*, or Sichuan peppercorns. We had both chicken and beef with assorted vegetables and tofu. I asked the owner if she had any 木耳, literally woodears or black tree fungus. She did not but did recommend some tasty shiitake (香菇) mushrooms.
When we received the bill, I was quite surprised to note that the experience only cost $19 for each of us. Lisa stated that the more people there are, the less the bill for each person. This so reminded me of China. All in all, this was a great restaurant where I was able to enjoy delicious food and practice my very poor Chinese.
*I do not hate huajiao but only the frequency that it is used, especially in Sichuan. Having lived in Chengdu for a year, I was inundated with the stuff. While most of my friends love it, I never quite caught the bug. I do like it in small portions, though.
I initially approached this series a little hesitantly. Working as a librarian when the movie was being released made it and its sequels hot items at the time. Despite recommendations from both co-workers and patrons, my level of enthusiasm was about nil. Two weeks ago or go I decided to finally watch the movie. I was very impressed. I find the dysotopian nature of this future a tad bit undeveloped, but the individual emotions that were brought out made a deep impression. The main characters of the Hunger Games performed by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson were great and gave added visual depth to the books when I read them. Woody Harrelson was cast in a role that suited him well as all of his roles seem to be high on something.
Ah, the Avengers. Like always, my frugal nature rarely allows me to spend money on something so frivolous as a movie ticket. Ok, the truth is that I am usually broke. This means that I often get to watch movies long after the rest of the world has moved on, with the only consolidation being that I can enjoy them in my own home with both bathroom and refrigerator close at hand. Plus, there is the almighty pause button. It is hard telling a theater full of people that the movie must be paused because you were shortsighted in not going to the restroom before curtain rise. Doesn’t work that way, does it?
Last week I decided to go to the theaters and watch the movie Act of Valor. This is pretty unusual for me as I usually hate going to the theater. Yes, I am that cheap. Also, I do not prefer to go alone but that weekend I went. I really wanted to go and support a pro-military movie. Hollywood has put out too many movies that are in my opinion “unpatriotic.” If that offends, tough. Act of Valor did very well, in fact better than even I expected, with a weekend haul of 26 million dollars.
Tea Party Patriots starts as an early history of the grassroots political movement. It then evolves into a systematic call to arms (figuratively for now) for addressing what a good many people see as fundamentally wrong with our current American system. These issues run the gamut from executive overreach to cultural rejuvenation. As a manifesto, its strength is its ability to clearly lay out possible solutions to very complex problems while maintaining the realism needed to understand that this is a process and will not be accomplished overnight. Mark Meckler and Jenny Beth Martin both stay true to their grassroots in this work by stating that real change will come through influencing every level of government – restating the classic line that “all politics are local.” As our next political cyle looms, it will be interesting to see what impact these concepts will have on both state and national levels. Hopefully, change will occur and I am not taking of the type that President Obama endorses. If you are interested in taking back your country, this is one of the books to read.
In the past, I have often felt that historians transitioning from academic writing to fiction have difficulty in maintaining the flow of plot over details so beloved in academia. Victor Davis Hanson, previously at the University of California – Fresno and currently Senior Fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institute, has in my opinion suffered from this same difficulty in his inaugural novel, The End of Sparta. Displaying his wide expertise and depth in Greek historical minutia, it would seem that he has left the general layperson behind in a novel no doubt intended for a wide audience. Although my own knowledge of Greek history, literature and language have increased to maybe the level of a sophomore in Classical Studies due to reading this fictionalization of the Boeotian War, I believe that it would appeal mainly to those who have at least a superficial knowledge of such topics.
It represents the memory of my youth. Sliced pork loaded with sauce on a toasted bun accompanied by a side of chips and root beer in the bottle. Anytime my family got anywhere near to Hammond, Louisiana, we had to stop in for a Hi-Ho BBQ sandwich. My mother ate there during her time at Southeastern Louisiana University back in the 1960’s and I ate there as well during my stint at SLU.
How can I describe my most loved burger? When I stepped off the plane from China after having been there an entire year, the first thing I did was look for the shuttle at LAX that would take me to the nearest In & Out Burger. My love of this place was consolidated around a decade ago during my mission to California for my church. While I enjoyed Cali, In & Out in a sense capstoned the experience for me. The burger was delicious, the fries were quite good, and in the days before I recognized my inability to process lactose, I downed it with their signature shake. This review is not about In & Out though.
I love trying new cuisuine as anyone who knows me could well attest. So, several months ago during a visit to my brother in Biloxi, I heard about a great Caribbean restaurant from my sister-in-law, DeAnne. Since I have never tasted food from this part of the world, I thought I would give it a go. It turned out to be a great decision.
As you may know from reading this blog, I am a fan of Korean food. In addition, I love Korean movies – the romantic ones, the comedies, the dramas, and especially the gangster ones. Korean gangsters, from this film at least, deserve a special little corner of hell reserved for pedophiles, mass murders and the generally more common asshat. They are not just bad, they are real scum. I just got through watching the Man from Nowhere, a film that resembled Léon very much. Except they left the building. A man scarred from his past befriends a young girl. Her idiot, junkie mother steals a great deal of heroin from two really bad brothers. They use little kids as a delivery system for their drug empire and when they are of no more use, harvest their organs for blackmarket donors. Like I said, special place in hell.