Third of 2008

See

Last week on DVD I watched The Namesake, Mira Nair's follow-up to the sensuous Monsoon Wedding. The film feels deeply personal and continues with Nair's celebration/examination of Indian culture in modern times. The story begins with a young woman in India (played beautifully by actress Tabu) being sent by her family to New York to marry another Indian working on his Ph.D.



As they learn to love each other, they discover their children are growing up in a completely different world - in particular their son, Gogol. Gogol is named by his father, after the author, whose book he was reading when he had a fateful encounter with a stranger on a train. The film traverses through the family years, through conflicts and tensions between American and Indian attitudes and ultimately ends with Gogol as a central character.

It's a terrific little film, both visually and emotionally rich. I find it so moving to see people fight to hold onto family tradition. It's heartbreaking to think of everyone being the same, in a dull and homogenized world. Stories like these speak to the complexities of honoring culture in multi-generational households and the value of staying connected to our origins.

...Moving from past to future, I also had the chance to view the History Channel's special "Life After People."



The show predicts, based on scientific knowledge, what will happen when the human no longer roams the planet. Beginning with just a few weeks after human extinction and moving along all the way to several thousand years after, "Life After People" showcases the decay of modern buildings and bridges (due to the lack of human upkeep to avoid corrosion), the flourishing of plant-life and the new kingdom once again ruled by non-humans. It's an interesting - though sometimes spooky - exploration of what Earth will look like when we all go away.

To learn more, go to the show's web site

Eat

Last Monday I had the day off so I treated myself to lunch at El Quetzal, the very authentic Mexican restaurant on Beacon Avenue. Well, to call it a "restaurant" might be a stretch. It's just a slight store-front without about half a dozen tables. Many dine in, taking advantage of the homemade chips and salsa (which you aren't offered if you do take-out).

This was my second time there, both times I've done take-out. This time I decided to go with the Chile Verde, chunks of pork with chiles in a tangy tomatillo sauce. Served with rice, beans and tortillas. The flavors were just perfect, but I had trouble with the pork so only ate about half. The meat just seemed...too gray to me.



However, on my first trip there I ordered the Carne Asada tacos and was completely satisfied. Aside from the lack of space, another reason to not dine in is the limited beverage menu: no cervezas to wash down all that hot salsa! Apparently the owners don't want to spend the extra money for the license so it's just sodas, making it a great place for lunch (they also serve breakfast all day long).

Drink

This past week after working out, I tried two new (well new to me) energy drinks: Mango-Acai Talking Rain and Lemon-Lime Hi-Ball.

The Mango-Acai Talking Rain is not carbonated, which is not in my favor. The flavors were also a bit too much. It is part of the "Twist Organics" line, not to be confused with the "Twist Naturals" product. Acai seems to be the new pomegranate. It's everywhere, especially in gyms and healthfood arenas. It's loaded with antioxidants and often featured alongside blueberry in energy drinks and smoothies.



The Hi-Ball drink comes in a very fun-shaped bottle so immediately it draws your attention. It comes in original, club soda, lemon-lime, grapefruit, wild berry and orange flavors. I had the lemon-lime, which contains a host of B vitamins, natural caffeine, ginseng, taurine and guarana. Just ten calories. Very refreshing, but definitely gives you a jolt. Not to be had late in the day if you're an insomniac!

Read

I finished up Toni Polancy's book So You Want to Live in Hawaii? yesterday. As a resource, it's extremely valuable and I'm sure I will refer to it many times in the future. I just have two main issues with it. One is that it does skew slightly toward the negative, as some reviewers on amazon suggest. While she does offer several anecdotes from others who have moved to the islands and succeeded, these are set aside as side-bars in a different font and one might even skip over them to continue reading some of the less-than-dreamy statistics or horror stories.



It seems to me that the book's intended audience was the caucasian who might not fit in with the local Hawaiian population. Since most people who dream of moving to the islands after a killer weekend in Waikiki are probably White, I see the validity in that. But reading on and on about "racism" in that context made me feel a little weird. The author does give historical context to explain why Hawaiians might be wary of "haoles" as we are called in Hawaii and maybe I'm just being sensitive after reading so much about Hawaiian history lately.

My second issue is that there is an entire chapter devoted to "Religion," an entire chapter devoted to "Military" and yet the "Romance" chapter only mentions gay relationships/dating in passing and there are no other resources listed out for gay malihini. Hawaii is a bit of a gay mecca so I thought it was disappointing that there wasn't more in the book for the would-be gay Hawaiian residents. I may even write the author a note about it, as a suggestion for future editions of the book.

Remember

The Culinary Communion recently opened its doors on Beacon Avenue, which "teaches cooking and wine classes in the Seattle area in an effort to create a community of food enthusiasts, or “foodies.”


The school is housed in an old house in the heart of North Beacon Hill and offers classes in seafood, sauces, meat curing, as well as regional cooking such as cuisine from Japan, Spain, Mexico and France. In addition, there are classes in baking and tasting/education workshops/series on wine, bourbon and gin! We are lucky to have this center of goodness in our neighborhood.

Worry

As the world mourns the tragic loss of actor Heath Ledger, one radical Christian group has plans to picket Heath's funeral because he played the role of Ennis in Brokeback Mountain (which, by the way, is one of the very best performances in film history, in my opinion).



Hopefully they will not be successful. There really isn't much one can say about any group motivated by that much hate and so devoid of human compassion. I really hope someone stops them from adding pain to the Ledger family.