Behind in books

I've been generally dissatisfied with my reading of the last several months (and very helpful that you will return soon to read how you can help me change this), but I've still been reading. Here are some thoughts from books that haven't compelled me to write a full blog post.
Terry Prachet Equal Rites Are puns ever funny? I think very fondly of The Phantom Tollbooth, one of my all-time favorite books, and answer that of course puns can be funny and clever. So it must not be just the puns that make this discworld novel not sit well with me. In any case, clever and fun, but directing me more away from reading more Terry Prachet than toward.
Elizabeth Forsythe A Woman of Independent Means This is one of the few novels I've read in which I thought plot didn't matter. The book was apparently made into a mini-series and I have no idea how that could have worked well, because, while the book is the saga of one woman's life; the interesting part of the book is not what happens to her, but rather how the character describes the events differently to different people and at different points in her life through her letters that make up the book. Incredible how much suspense can be built up just by wondering if and when the woman is going to realize things can't be as she says they are.

Babies born out of wedlock, revengeful old women, poisonings, hot men, small town gossip, woman pregnant by her best friend who impregnates someone else, secret hideouts, blizzards, accidents at the granite quarry, death, disease, dysfunction: Barbara Delinsky's The Passions of Chelsea Kane has them all. And it's not as bad as it could be, given all that. In fact, I found it to be great page-turning fun, but that still doesn't make it a very good novel.
The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop was given to Dianthus for his first birthday (the main character shares his name and it was a gift from one of his Castle relatives). It's about seven years beyond Dianthus's reading ability, but I very much enjoyed it.

Pad thai at home

Due to unpleasant circumstances, my mother is paying us an unexpected and very pleasant visit (thanks Mom and Dad!). Once is became clear that M did not need to be a full-time nurse for the time she is here, nay, well before that became clear, our conversation turned to eating. Eating turned to noodles and noodles to unfinished resolutions and on to pad thai and spaetzle and other delicious treats.
Mother was dubious that people (people being Caucasian American cooks living in the middle of the country) make pad thai at home.
What's a noodle resolution good for if it doesn't make one up for the challenge of cooking pad thai at home on short notice, just to demonstrate to one's mother that it can be done, even if one is not well, has never used one's Thai cookbooks, and lives in the a small town in the middle of the country?
We cooked noodles last night and our pad thai ("Phat Thai" in the cookbooks we used) was very good. I'm pleased to report that it is do-able as a weeknight meal and the leftovers are tasty as well.
I followed (mostly) the recipe in Therese Volpe Laursen and Byron Lauresen's From Bali to Bangkok in 30 Minutes. We happen to have rice noodles, tamarind paste, fish sauce, chili powder, chili paste, garlic, brown sugar, green onions, eggs, oil and frozen shrimp on hand, so we only needed to purchase peanuts, chicken, and lime. I forgot the bean sprouts and added radishes and cilantro. I'm fully aware that this doesn't reflect the cupboard status of most Americans in small towns in the middle of the country, but both tamarind paste and fish sauce seem to keep for a long time, so if you'd like to cook SE Asian-inspired food at all, there's no reason not to have them.
The one drawback of our dish was that the noodles I used were a little too wide (wide egg noodle width rather than linguine width) and some of the ends stuck together and never softened properly. The thinly sliced radishes, tossed in at the end with the green onions and cilantro, cooked slightly, so would have been better left at the side or tossed in a minute or two later. The smell of fish sauce also permeates the kitchen, so beware.
What southeast Asian noodle dishes have you tried at home (successfully or not)?

Noodle on into the New Year

For those of you wondering about the new resolution, note that I work on something closer to a lunar year for my interesting resolutions, so it is still the year of the noodle until the year of the tiger ends.
I have more to write about noodles and far more to make and eat.
In the meantime, suggestions for the 2011 resolution are welcome.
A quick recap:
2010 noodles
2009 legumes
2008 luck
2007 rodents
2004 pink
2003 sparkling wine
(2005 and 2006 were fruit and spices but were very poorly adhered to).

Happy Boxing Day!

May you pass boxes of goodies to those that can use them, whether you're servant or master.

Ramen Girl: noodle movie and request for growing up films

Ramen Girl is a mostly unremarkable movie. It was essential watching for me in my noodle year, and it certainly isn't outright bad, but for all of the things the film is trying to do, I can name other films I think do it better.

Tampopo delves deeper into the craziness that is proper ramen preparation. Ramen Girl includes a few elements of food magic, (just the right spirit in the ramen can make people giggle or cry) but not enough to make magical food an essential, if absurd, part of the plot the way it is in Like Water for Chocolate or Simply Irresistible. US-Japanese cultural differences arise, but Lost in Translation handles them much more adeptly. The romance is largely a side note, and there are plenty of better romantic comedies. And if one wants a silly coming of age movie, where a lost young person learns to work hard from a seemingly harsh elder, there are surely many better examples. But I can't think of them at the moment-- please comment with your favorite coming of age (in a profession, through hard work) films.

I should add that despite not being great in any aspect, Ramen Girl did make me want to eat ramen. Amateur Reader has promised earlier that he could advise on Tokyo-style ramen and I am seeing him next week, so I'm hoping for good noodles and perhaps a new pre-Christmas tradition.

Anyone have winter holiday traditions that involve noodles?

Pearl Harbor- 9/11- Kennedy Shot of the 50s?

On Pearl Harbor day Tuesday, the Mister and I started talking about defining moments of a generation and news that makes everyone stop. Like most other Americans my age, I know where I was when I learned that the Challenger exploded (at school in 8th grade) and when I found out about the world trade center collapsing (listening to NPR, wondering why the news was different then it had been an hour earlier as I prepared to go to biometry class and fly to Washington D.C. that day). Perhaps a bit more personal and local, I returned home from a high school graduation ceremony to learn of the tanks entering Tianamen Square (I studied Chinese and was on my way to China in the summer of 1989) and I learned of the Columbine shootings while at work in Denver. I was at a Model UN competition when Nelson Mandela was released (most of us thought it was a ploy to change the nature of the debate on South Africa) and, along with the rest of my German class, was absolutely shocked at the speed with which the Berlin wall came down once it started to crumble. Perhaps foolishly, I know exactly where I was when I learned of Princes Diana's death (at a cabin, from my brother on the phone, thinking he was telling a joke when he started "have you heard about Princess Diana").
I know where my parents were when Kennedy was shot and think they watched the moon landing. My grandfather spoke to me about Pearl Harbor and the end of the war.
I'm curious, in general, what specific historical events you remember as being a big deal when you learned of them. For those of you older than I am, I'm also wanting to know about specific events in the 1950s. The 60s are full of them (although I'm unsure how much press things like the Cuban Missile Crisis received, nor do I know if any one protest/riot/march felt momentous to a big audience). How about the 50s? Sputnik? Particular space events? MacArthur's dismissal?

Tampopo: The first noodle movie

After a long week (of mostly good busyness*, but much busyness none the less), the Mister and I relaxed by watching Tampopo last night. I'm sentimentally attached to Tampopo, as the Mister and I watched it together early in our courtship (so early that his loft apartment was clean when we viewed Tampopo together there), but I think that I can safely say that it's well worth watching for noodle lovers and those willing to laugh at a few of the absurdities of Japanese obsessions**. The movie is a string of food-related vignettes interspersed with a mock Western about the revitalization of a ramen shop. At times it is as silly as that sounds, but it doesn't take itself too seriously, even though the characters clearly take noodles very seriously.
Experience viewing Tampopo prepared me for reading Momofuku, David Chan and Peter Meehan's cookbook-memoir about noodle obsessions and starting the Momofuku empire in NYC, last January. The book was a present given to my parents, and I didn't try to cook anything from it, but both the Mister and I were mesmerized by the accounts of soba training and ramen training and flaunting convention as an up and coming chef.

Out of curiosity, has anyone seen Ramen Girl?

*Including being called on Thursday to find out if I wanted my institution included on an NSF grant somebody else is writing. If funded, we would receive money to hire students to do cool research that we would like to do anyway. While participating did require me to run around and acquire signatures and apologize for getting signatures without ample notice, that's all it required of me, and the guy writing the grant was genuinely surprised that I wanted to participate.

**Warning, the subtitles do make it a less good choice for a tired Friday night as one cannot knit to it or fall briefly asleep and catch back up.