LUNCHTIME BOOK CHAT #4

I just read a depressing book on the economic crisis and now I'm ready for something lighter, maybe one of the books on this page. Here's (above) a book that caught my eye: "The Girls of Murder City." How do you like the cover? it's good enough to be a poster!

The story is about the gaggle of beautiful female murderers (example, above) in 1920s Chicago. It was considered hip to be a female killer in those days and the press treated the girls like superstars.

Even prison guards would ask for autographs. 

The author got caught up in the whole thing, and frequently weighs in with lines like: "Just pleasantly buzzed, as usual, the kind of tingling warmth that held you like a new mother." Nice!  I've gotta check this out!

Steve lent me this book (above). It's by Leslie Carbaga, author of the wonderfully researched and beautifully layed-out Max Fleischer biography. It's all about breasts. I had no idea there was so much to say about the subject. 

It's full of charts like this one (above),  depicting the different types. Some men will no doubt use the charts as checklists.

The book isn't perfect. There's too much tacky language, and I don't agree with some of the points he makes. He blames religion for girls' reluctance to have casual sex, but the females of most species are like that. I don't think female turtles play hard to get because of what they learned in church. And he's down on marriage, which I think is the best thing since sliced bread...if you get the right person. Marriage means everybody gets somebody, and the richest man of the tribe doesn't get to grab all the girls for himself. 

But I'm nitpicking. Leslie makes a lot of good points and the book looks like a fun read.

Here's a new hardcover sketchbook by my friend, Tim Walker. Tim's done everything in the TV animation industry. Things were going great for him until a few years back when he discovered that he couldn't control the shaking in his right hand and was diagnosed as having Parkinson's Disease . Everybody concluded that Tim's professional life was over; after all he was right-handed, and that hand was useless to him now.  Everybody gave up on Tim except Tim. He simply refused to accept defeat.

The man sat down, and through sheer will power, taught himself to draw with his left hand, thus the title of the book, "Drawings From The Left." The book begins with drawings he made when his right hand worked, and seamlessly morphs into newer drawings done with the left. If the captions didn't tip you off, you'd never guess where the dividing line is. Tim had no history of ambidexterity. He just plain...did it, and now he's back at his old desk at Warners, rushing to meet deadlines like everyone else. Man, some people are irrepressible!

Examine the book at: http://jamestimwalker.com/about-tim-walker.html

BTW: If you have a blog of your own, have you noticed how well Blogger enlarges pictures? You'd have to fiddle around with Photoshop to get the same quality enlargements that Blogger gives you with the touch of a button. And Blogger doesn't even brag about it. Somebody at Blogger deserves a pat on the back!

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT TUTORING

When I was in school I used to hate classroom discussions. The subject always devolved into who's more intelligent, boys or girls, or whose innocuous comment was actually indicative of closet racism. I could get that kind of stuff on the street. I thought the purpose of school was to be taught by people who know more than I do.

A while back I put this opinion into a blog post, and to my surprise, it provoked some pretty interesting replies. One commenter was obviously a teacher. He said that he could tell that I never had any first rate teachers in school, because if I had I would never have questioned the value of discussion.  He said a good teacher guides the discussion. The idea is to take a cultured, articulate, and well organized mind (the teacher's), and show the students in detail how that mind handles the topic at hand. It can only be properly done in groups small enough to allow some personal attention, and only with motivated students. Amazing!

Well, the guy called it right. I had some teachers who were okay,  but none who were really first rate. There just aren't enough first rate teachers to go around. The mind boggles to think how fast you could learn something, if you had the personal attention of someone who was really skilled in that subject.  And that brings me to the point of this post: teachers aren't able to give you individual attention...but tutors can.
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I'm a huge believer in tutoring. It's not something that's only for slow students, it's something for the the brightest kid in class. There's no faster way to learn than to have someone personally talk you through a problem and digress if need be to teach you something you failed to pick up earlier. In the case where you already know the material, a good tutor can put you on a whole different level by exploring interesting tangents or by putting the material to practical use. A motivated student combined with a motivated tutor is a powerful combination.

Schools like Oxford used to teach almost exclusively by tutoring. There were regular lectures by professors, but the real education took place in the student's own quarters, arguing with, and being prodded and interrogated by the tutor (the don). In Japan after school tutoring is common, even for gifted students. I wish it were more common here.

There's another good reason for tutoring. If tutoring were widespread, if it transcended the remedial and got into some meaty subjects, if it was handled, not by the school bureaucracy, but by free agents and by private industry, then we'd have a chance to re-introduce imagination and competition into the schooling process. Who knows? You could even have tutors like the ones in the illustrations for this post!

HOW TO COOK CASHEW CHICKEN

Okay, we're going to make stir fried Cashew Chicken with vegetables! You'll have to pay a visit to a  Chinese market, but that'll be fun. Wait til you see what those stores are like!

 Tentacles, eyeballs (above), hooves, candied baby sand crabs... they're all there, many of them with cancer warnings pasted all over them!

Look into the freezer and it'll look back at you!

But I digress. About woks...you'll want to use a flat-bottomed wok, though in a pinch you can use a steel or iron frying or saute pan. Nonstick pans are dismissed by traditionalists because they require lower heat, but they make cleanup so easy that they're hard to resist. I have both kinds and I only use the nonstick now.

Ordinary frying pans usually have low sides and the constant stirring will push the food out and onto the floor, so watch out. If you're using a frying pan then it's best to cook the vegetables separately, after the chicken's been removed, so you'll have more room in the pan. If you have a old-style steel wok you haven't used in a long time it might be rusty, so you'll have some strenuous cleaning to do. For rust use steel wool and soap.

Here's (above) the recipe I use, from Helen Chen's "Chinese Home Cooking." I hope you can read it. Click to enlarge.

This recipe serves four. If I'm cooking the meal for myself only then I use half the amount of everything, not a fourth. Why the extra 25%? It's because I added added vegetables to the recipe. Believe me, this dish tastes twice as good when combined with vegetables!

About the chicken: To make it easy on yourself buy boneless, skinless breasts. At my local supermarket these are on sale at least once a month. The last time I shopped the sale price for a 2 1/2 lb. pack of four large breasts (unfrozen) was $5.50

If you're only cooking for yourself you'll want to use one breast and freeze the other 3. Remove the supermarket wrapping and re-wrap each one separately before freezing. If you freeze all four at once in their original wrapping they'll stick together and you'll need a flame thrower to separate them. When the chicken is thawed and ready to cook, dice it into small squares. The parts won't really look like squares, but that's what you should aim for.

For the rice you'll want long grain white Jasmine. I have a bag of short grain Japanese sticky rice that I have to finish up, so I use that. It's delicious and easy to eat with chopsticks, but I have to admit that it's so good that it competes with the taste of the main dish.

Oil: peanut oil used to be popular for stir fry because it resists smoking at high temperatures, and smoking can give food a scorched taste. I use grape seed oil because it's almost as heat resistant, and is more healthful. The taste is about the same.

Soy sauce: Kikkoman has the best taste of all, but it's too thin and watery to stand up to the high heat of stir frying. For that you need something thicker. Try "Pearl River Bridge Superior Dark Soy Sauce (above)." obtainable at Chinese markets. Gee, that's a beautiful name isn't it?

Sesame oil: two Chinese cookbooks I've seen recommend Kadoya brand Japanese sesame oil (above).

Ginger root: buy it hard and firm.  For one meal you only need a single small root.

Vegetables: 1/4 lb. snow peas, bean sprouts (a big bag usually costs a dollar), shitake mushrooms (shown above; cheap if you buy them at a Chinese market), and spinach.  No bamboo shoots or water chestnuts for this recipe. They're for Almond Chicken, which is made differently. Add a small chili pepper if you like hot food.

Hoisin sauce: this is one of the things that gives Chinese dishes their distinctive flavor. The supermarket kind in a jar is fine. I like to add a little Chinese oyster sauce (Lee Kum Kee Premium Oyster Flavored Sauce) and pepper, but these are optional.

Okay, that's it. Before cooking have all the ingredients prepared and easily accessible. If you have to stop to look for something while cooking the food will overcook. BE CAREFUL NOT TO OVERCOOK. It's frighteningly easy to cook the flavor away, or give it a scorchy taste.  If you're not sure about the cooking time, it's best to error on the side of undercooking.

Take care to be sure the important areas of the wok are thoroughly oiled before subjecting the wok to high heat and garlic. Constantly shake the wok when cooking; constantly stir. Wok cooking uses intense heat for short periods of time. Have the table set, have the rice already cooked and on the plates, and have drinks at the ready. The cooking will go very quickly and you or your guests will want to start eating the instant the food is moved onto the plate. Guests should never wait for the cook to be seated. The food is at maximum flavor the moment it touches the plate.

Oh, I almost forgot the vegetables! If you cook them separately then cook them last of all, over medium heat, and almost all at once. I say "almost" because you'll want to add the most delicate things, like spinach leaves and sesame oil, last.

The drink? Beer or a moderately sweet white wine is most common. I tried a Gewurztraminer (spelled right?) and that worked fine. Trader Joe's Two Buck Chuck version of Sauvignon Blanc worked fine too. Helen Chen says the Chinese don't drink alcohol with meals unless they're celebrating something. They prefer to drink chicken broth, with a little tea afterward.

So there it is! You can find videos about seasoning and cleaning a steel wok on YouTube. You can also find videos  on the making of Cashew Chicken, but none of them agree.

For the time being I'll stick to Chen's recipe. Chen's version wins the coveted 'Two Day Glow" rating that I bestow on only on the best recipes, the ones that incite you to hippie bliss (above) and the feeling that all men are your brothers for a full two days after eating the meal.  I love Chinese restaurant meals, but they've never given me the glow that Chen's recipes have.