Pork Buns @ BaoHaus

Taiwanese pork buns at BaoHaus for about $4.

{nytimes}

Miso Orange Glaze Cod w Shiitake Pea Brown Rice

lots of food posts today...

{...vanilla latte}

Homemade Wontons

I want to make this...

{...design*sponge}

Askash Nihalani

FatBlooded - Following Aakash Nihalani from William Zoe FitzGerald on Vimeo.

Balkan Food

I enjoyed reading Jane Kramer's various thanksgiving adventures abroad in the New Yorker (rather belatedly...just read it this past weekend).  She recounted some of the worst Thanksgiving dinners and named the Sodertalje dinner the absolute worst.  Her dinner guests that year were from Yugoslavia, working in a local factory in Sweden.  She figured a dinner with all its heartfelt intentions and loving physical labor could set aside ethnic conflicts between the Serbs, Slovenes and Croats.  It turned out to be very awkward and the turning point for this was when a Slovenian woman boasted that her people made the best cake.  Such a innocuous comment, but it goes to show how food is so important to our culture and identity.

Anyway, I had Yugoslavian food in Croatia and then again at Kafana in the East Village.  It's rich and I definitely want to try the other ones listed in a NY Times review of the Balkan Burgers:

[...nytimes]

BOSNA EXPRESS 791 Fairview Avenue (Forest Avenue), Ridgewood, Queens, (718) 497-7577.
BROTHERS PIZZERIA 30-50 14th Street (30th Drive), Astoria, Queens, (718) 777-1111.
CEVABDZINICA SARAJEVO 37-18 34th Avenue (38th Street), Astoria, (718) 752-9528.
KAFANA 116 Avenue C (Seventh Street), East Village, (212) 353-8000, kafananyc.com.
PASHA 31-01 31st Street (31st Avenue), Astoria, (718) 726-0230.
STARI MOST (OLD BRIDGE) 28-51 42nd Street (28th Avenue), Astoria, (718) 932-7683, oldbridgeny.com.
EMPLOYEES ONLY 510 Hudson Street (Christopher Street), West Village, (212) 242-3021, employeesonlynyc.com. The restaurant has an untraditional (but delicious) “Balkan burger” on the late-night menu.

The List: Cheap Eats in NY

There are so many places I want to try from this collection of affordable restaurants in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens.  Like Crown Heights' Trini-Gul's bake and shark, a roti (fried bread) packed with seasoned fried shark bits.

[...NYTimes]

Trini-Gul: 543 Nostrand Avenue (Herkimer Street), Crown Heights, Brooklyn; (718) 484-4500.

Creamy Shrimp Rolls

Winter's barely begin but I'm ready for summer already.  Mostly because we had a dreary, rainy summer.  I'm on a mission for summery things to do indoors and this shrimp roll is perfect.  I'm going to don my shorts and play cheerful music and make this Shrimp Roll Sandwich.  No oven required!

[...Real Simple]

Sweet and Spicy Asian Pork Shoulder

This is a slow cooker recipe.  Looks very simple.

[...Real Simple]

Butternut Squash and Pomegranate Galette

Brooklyn's Sunday-Suppers created this recipe for Design*Sponge.  A simple one dish recipe for vegetarians.

[...sunday supper]

Butternut Squash + Pomegranate Galette
Makes two 12 inch galettes or one large

Ingredients

• 3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 20 twist of a pepper mill
• 2 sticks cold butter cut in cubes
• 1/4 cup ice-cold water
• ½ butternut squash – halved and deseeded, and sliced
• ½ red onion sliced with root end still intact
• 3 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp chopped sage
• Handful of pomegranate seeds
• 4 tbsp chopped toasted walnuts
• Salt
• Fresh pepper
• Good quality extra virgin olive oil

Preparation

1. Measure out flour, salt and pepper into a food processor. Mix well. Add the butter and pulse till butter resembles small pea size pieces. Add water while pulsing processor. Stop once the dough becomes a ball. Lay out a piece of clear wrap, lay the dough on it, flatten to a thick disk (or two) while wrapping. Allow to rest for at least ½ hour. (Dough Recipe by Camille Becerra )
2. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
3. Slice the squash and cut the onion into equal width wedges—about ½ inch thick. Mix with butter, sage, salt and pepper and toss.
4. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface into 12 inch round and transfer to baking sheet. With each wedge beginning at center of the dough, fan squash and onions into pinwheel shape, overlapping and covering entire center of the round—leaving a few inch border. If you are making a large galette, you can form an outer row of veggies. Gently fold remaining dough over the edge of the filling, forming a freeform tart crust. Beat egg with a splash of water and brush over the crust. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes or until crust is golden brown and squash pierces easily with a fork.
5. While tart cools, sprinkle toasted walnuts and pomegranate seeds over top.
6. When ready to serve drizzle generously with very good extra virgin olive oil. Crack fresh black pepper and sprinkle coarse sea salt.

Time

[...xkcd.com]

Roger Ballen

Discovered Roger Ballen's art through Flavorwire.  Very creepy and intriguing.

At Gagosian Gallery until 12/23/2009.

The Origin of Mass

by Aleksandar Rodic


The Origin of Mass from Aleksandar Rodic on Vimeo.

Time Travel

“For those of us who believe in physics,” Einstein once wrote to a friend, “this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion.”

From NYTimes article on particle colliders.

Andy Gilmore & Dropular (sights)

Andy Gilmore has some cool designs and photographs.

Also, check out this animation of a dancer. From Dropular, sorta like a visual version of Digg. It's a good source for inspiration. (from World Famouse Designe Junkies)

Always Ask These 5 Questions

Sneer not, everyone needs a little guidance in their lives

(from the Huffington Post)

5 Questions That Will Change Your Life
Tim Browning, Professional Life Coach and sometime contributor to Pick The Brain has penned a lengthy and highly recommended screed on the 5 questions he believes will change your life.
He writes:

If I could offer you free of charge 5 questions guaranteed to improve the quality of your life, make you happier, less likely to get into arguments, more likely to reach your goals and be more popular with other people, would you be interested in hearing them?
Of course you would, who wouldn't? After all, they're free and it doesn't get much cheaper than that.
Well actually there is a slight catch. Yes they're free and yes they'll do all I claim and more, but only if you commit to embedding them so deeply into your neurology by constant and conscious repetition that they become second nature.
Then and only then, will they allow you to make the kind of quantum shift in your life that has your friends thinking your body has been invaded by a very clever, charismatic and slightly easier to get along with space alien.

The questions:
1. "What Else Can This Mean?"
2. "Who Can Help Me?"
3. "What Am I Grateful For?"
4. "What's My End Game?"
5. "What Can I Learn From This?"
(you can go to his blog here)

microculture

i'm being courted...by marketers:

So my friends are having a bachelorette party this coming weekend. Disappointed that I will be missing out on seeing people and the fun so I'm resorting to getting my thrills from some work-related travel research and came across this advertisement for a new website, Girlfriend Getaway. It's the web version of a semi-annual magazine (put out by Budget Travel). Its articles range from trips to parties--general things of leisure...it seems pretty standard but the topics are nicely packaged for women. Anyway, they have planning tips for travel and events that women would exclusively get together for...like a Bachelorette Party Guide! I also found a spa directory called SpaFinder.com which could come in handy for future use. Perfect, thanks marketing geniuses of Budget Travel! Also, related, The Onion, with some breaking news.

Another on my radar, the gaming culture but for women. Particularly, the Nintendo DS. Is there a growing trend of women playing video games? I don't know much about this field but I'm looking into this subculture. Which sorta reminds me of this New York Times article on web trolls...those who victimize people using the power of the web. While we're talking about ultra esoteric worlds, let's get into typography. Design Observer talks about the debut of Futura and the attempt to socialize the two cases by doing away with capitals (or maybe it's more of a coup). Someone likened typography to music once and I can see the comparisons of rhythm and contrast being used but it's a bit of a stretch. While we're down on the micro level of dissecting type, here's another take on capitalization from the New York Times Magazine. I wonder if I can wiki a story on capitalization, or knol it (as google would love for us to work into our regular lexicon). Or if I cuiled something, as opposed to googling it (Cuil claims they won't use your information to advertise things to you because they're not evil like google, as google once honestly tried to live up to), what sort of information wormhole I would fall into.

Yay, stuff that i'm excited about

New York City: This Sunday they're closing off car-traffic on certain streets for bikers! The details here.

Design: sound clip of buckminster fuller on dwell.com.
(directory of Dwell's podcasts)

Politics: VoteGopher offers information on both parties.

Olympics: NBC Olympics site

Stovetop

Some things I have on the front burner today:

1. Beijing: With the opening ceremony a little over a week away, the media is squeezing out different angles on this...from national policies like drastic measures to contain the pollution to the cultural overspill, everything is soaked in this algae tainted water. And I'm sopping it up!

• Beijing in Flushing
• lady artists

2. Bacon: Lately, I'm been compelled by the power of pork. I'm seeking out ham sandwiches, BLT's, pork milanese at Shorty's.32, Kimchee chigae. Um, why?! Maybe to help detract my attention away from bacon and give other foods a chance, I'm going to look into other things, like fancy restaurants that I can't afford...but reading a review on Scarpetta is justifying this current obsession with pork! Chef David Chang is with me on this (his pork wraps are also so good). I think I just gained 10 pounds from this post. Who cares though...bacon, good.

3. Justice Department: More alarming than clogged arteries: the clogging of the justice system with politically motivated hiring practices in the justice department. the latest take on that story here.

4. Vladimir Mayakovsky: Night wraps the sky, a book on him and his work. a sound clip of that poem here.

5. The Superclass: My ideology tells me to hate elitists, the superclass. When I'm making bulk dinners to have leftovers to take to lunch or feeling overlooked and ignored, i can't help but feel seduced by the possibilities this superclass world has access to. Fortunately, as I dig deeper into the complexities of the global economics, I'm brought back to my original stance; however, not so much a hatred, but--to risk sounding like a bleeding heart liberal--a stronger adherence to a the notion that metrics for progress is not measured by economic gains. And then sometimes, I feel compelled to travel and see the places I'm reading about while sailing less chartered waters with a small and modest crew (my neurosis tells me to include in my fantasy that they are super competent) while I'm sipping champagne.

Anyway, to add to my long list of books on this topic: Superclass

Then the stuff on the back burners...

6. People of interest:

Roger Ailes,


Abraham Lincoln (an eloquent and progressive hero but also an intriguing character, who was melancholy and conflicted).

"There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite."
--Abraham Lincoln Herndon's Life of Lincoln by William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik (New York, Da Capo Press, 1983), p. 354.


Louise Bourgeois: The Guggenheim has an exhibit going. There was also a documentary, The Spider, The Mistress, The Tangerine, which was pretty good.

"Everywhere in the modern world there is neglect, the need to be recognized, which is not satisfied. Art is a way of recognizing oneself, which is why it will always be modern."




7. I need to gear up for winter...does anyone have good recommendations for sturdy, waterproof boots, like Frye? Plain ones, I'm going for minimal chic.

national weird correspondence day

http://commonwealthparanormal.net/index/news.php

stories from a funeral home director.