Hurray, I’m now a Cambridge certified EFL teacher! And for the moment I have a much more relaxed schedule, so my blog will see more love than it has in past weeks. Starting with this fantastic creature, Japan’s Giant Salamander.
But impressive it certainly is: about 1.7m (5ft 6in) long, covered in a leathery skin that speaks of many decades passed, with a massive gnarled head covered in tubercles whose presumed sensitivity to motion probably helped it catch fish by the thousand over its lifetime.
If local legend is to be believed, though, this specimen is a mere tadpole compared with the biggest ever seen around Maniwa.
A 17th Century tale, related to us by cultural heritage officer Takashi Sakata, tells of a salamander (or hanzaki, in local parlance) 10m long that marauded its way across the countryside chomping cows and horses in its tracks.
It’s referred to as a “living fossil” because its skeleton still resembles closely that of 30 million year old examples (see right).
The full article describes the creature’s highly unusual manner of (external) fertilization. It sounds almost as alien as slug sex. It really is from another world: see the video and accompanying article @ BBC News.
I referred in a previous post to a mysterious bite which caused my forearm to swell up and make me look like Popeye. Well, the swelling is gone now but my arm is weaker than before.
My interest piqued, I began Googling around to see if the bite may have somehow caused a degeneration of muscle tissue in my arm, whereupon I found many instances of this lovely word: envenomation, which according to dictionary.com is “The injection of a poisonous material by sting, spine, bite, or other similar means.”
Local and systemic skeletal muscle degeneration is a common consequence of envenomations due to snakebites and mass bee attacks. Phospholipases A2 (PLA2) are important myotoxic components in these venoms, inducing a similar pattern of degenerative events in muscle cells. Myotoxic PLA2s bind to acceptors in the plasma membrane, which might be lipids or proteins and which may differ in their affinity for the PLA2s. Upon binding, myotoxic PLA2s disrupt the integrity of the plasma membrane by catalytically dependent or independent mechanisms, provoking a pronounced Ca2+ influx which, in turn, initiates a complex series of degenerative events associated with hypercontraction, activation of calpains and cytosolic Ca2+-dependent PLA2s, and mitochondrial Ca2+ overload.
So maybe it is possible that the bite is to blame for my “muscle necrosis”. The above quote is from an article at Science Direct.
A second experiment in stop motion. The soundtrack is First Light by Brian Eno and Harold Budd, with added samples from the film The Quiet Earth.
Something bit me on the arm when I was in that tree and now my forearm is swollen and looks like a club. I’d be ok with that if I were happier with the video.
I just got a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch. It’s small, ergonomic and beautiful. And i’ll probably be doing a lot more drawing and animating as a result.
Above is an unfinished sketch of the local landscape here. Features are missing. I will probably do different versions of this scene, as it changes with the light, fog, weather, etc.
Below is a portrait that I gave up on, unsatisfied. But I’ve come to believe that it’s better to do lots of quick sketches than to chase individual ones around until I get frustrated and demotivated.
I think the reason I’m not completely satisfied with it is because I started drawing it before I really knew what I wanted to do with it. It’s helpful, with anything, to know what you want before you begin.
If my joy is depleted –
from wondering if I ought to be wondering,
and getting ready to wait again –
there is still a backup,
like in A&E.
Eyes, ears, dusty solar panels to collect:
The music released from a cabbage,
when split with a large kitchen knife;
Sunset light shone low through a cock’s comb,
radiating at x lumens per wattle;
And glassy, blue light,
exploded by the chaff of suspended dust particles in my room,
where the telephone won’t ring.
I thought it would be nice to make a list — almost like a restaurant menu — of the items in my culinary repertoire, so as to make it easy to plan meals and keep track of new recipes I find/create.
Then it occurred to me that somebody must have already devised a system expressly for this purpose. It turns out they did, and one more advanced than the one I had in mind. The most promising, free recipe organizer that I’ve found so far online is we gotta eat.
There are three things that make it highly attractive for my purposes:
You don’t have to fill in all information in order to make an entry. For me this means I can quickly establish an archive of just recipe titles and descriptions, so that I can quickly build an archive of my repertoire, even including recipes that are committed to my memory and therefore would be a waste of time (at the moment) to type up in detail.
You can choose on an individual recipe basis whether or not to share your recipes with the wegottaeat community.
You can (optionally) add an enormous amount (see below) of categorical information to help you search your database later.
Above: categorization of ‘pasta e fagioli’ soup.
There are other fun (what?) gadgets too, like a shopping list manager. Check it out: wegottaeat.
I decided to make my own life mask (above) after recently becoming intrigued by the concept of death masks. Wikipedia:
In Western cultures a death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. Death masks may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. It is sometimes possible to identify portraits that have been painted from death masks, because of the characteristic slight distortions of the features caused by the weight of the plaster during the making of the mold. In other cultures a death mask may be a clay or other artifact placed on the face of the deceased before burial rites. The best known of these are the masks used by ancient Egyptians as part of the mummification process, such as Tutankhamon’s burial mask.
In the seventeenth century in some European countries, it was common for death masks to be used as part of the effigy of the deceased, displayed at state funerals. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries they were also used to permanently record the features of unknown corpses for purposes of identification. This function was later replaced by photography.
Shorpy has this grisly image of a death mask being made in New York circa 1908.
I took everything from my mother, her liquor, her ghosts,
her sweetness, her heavy lips, her breath of sorrow.
I took her waist and her spools, her ears and her thimble,
I took her green thumb, and the purple cosmos blossoms
that trembled under her kitchen window.
I took her feet and her loneliness, the cities
she lived in, the small towns, their friendless dusks,
her quilts and perfumes and fingers.
I took the sound of her dresses at midnight,
and the goat she kept as a child,
I took the crickets beneath the boards of her first houses
and her lovers; I got lost in their shadows.
I took her hatred of her father,
I ate from her dishes in rooms that smelled of the sea.
I took the war and the horses that pulled the cart
that carried her mother away.
I took the odor of crushed thyme and sweat,
I took a handkerchief embroidered by my great aunt
and the iron in her shoulders and the road signs
of old villages.
I took my mother’s maiden name and her fear of oceans,
I took her bravery and her strangeness,
I took a blessing from her and
the lullabies she whispered, drunk,
and my terror of that dark music.
I took my love for a woman
who walked through a broken doorway
with her eyes closed
following no one.
My paperback copy of George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia was in need of some love; its spine was broken, the pages were falling out, and the cover was pretty ugly to begin with (I can’t even track down the cover online, which suggests it’s a design that didn’t last long).
So I knocked out a new jacket, complete with buttons. I rebound the book with woodglue along the spine.
The colourful felt used is actually cut from a metre-length of kitchen cloth that I got at the supermarket.
The text is printed directly on to the felt. I fed an A4 piece of the felt through my (standard) printer. The text resolution was surprisingly crisp and attractive.
I spent two of the summer months in the States, mostly in Texas, where they experienced the hottest heat they’ve had in years. My trip coincided with the end of an era for me personally and I’m left contemplating what of myself I am left with.
The first winter whisper,
harsh and real,
finds my wounds,
undresses me; knows me.
No shame here.
Off with that
American attire –
loose t-shirt,
baggy shorts —
take this old cardigan.
It looks right;
it suits you.
Richard Burton won’t mind;
he’s dead now.
No shame there.
A child is not born with words in his breath.
He tries on many hand-me-down garments.
Friend, look at my jeans:
Our favourite food
is stained in them fast.
Dad, hear my accent:
It’s mine and it’s not.
Teacher, I owe you;
I like to read poems.
Look in my wardrobe:
Nothing in it’s mine.
Here’s a round-up of my favourite recent posts from TheKitchn. Firstly they have an exciting collection of soup and broth recipes. Can’t wait to try some of these out as I’m somewhat of a soup fiend.
Then there’s an interesting food science piece that explains the “digestive consequences” (I like that) of beans and offers tips on how to reduce the severity of said consequences.
The second option is to be sure to cook your beans long enough. The cooking beans low and slow eventually breaks down the carbohydrates so that our bodies are able to absorb them
without trouble. While this method takes time and patience, the positive is that all the good vitamins and minerals are retained.
This recipe for pear and currant chutney sounds easy and looks delicious. I’m on a sort of pickles and chutneys buzz of late.
There is some nice design on display in this roundup of snazzy fruit bowls. I think it’s admirable to give your fruit the attention it deserves like that… I don’t think I’ll be shelling out 100 dollars for a design I could replicate myself though. Some of them are more reasonably priced however.
Speaking of tea ceremonies, here’s a video demo of “blooming tea” in action. Obviously not for everyday consumption, but certainly an attractive and fun bit of ceremony.
Now I think of it, it’s like a more tasteful teapot version of those razzle-dazzle Chinese birthday candles that open up and sing when you light them. I naively lit one of these at my housemate’s birthday party and it roared into action like a garden firework, taking us all aback.
I’ve accidentally discovered quite an exciting ingredient at the supermarket here in Spain, labelled “Altramuces”. Admittedly, I only picked them up because I thought they looked like butterbeans. But it turns out they’re Lupin Beans.
Above: Lupin beans served with Portuguese beer, wikipedia.
They’ve long been a poor-man’s food on the Iberian peninsula. They’re apparently served with beer in bars, in similar fashion to olives or peanuts. And they have some things in common with both olives and peanuts: They are salty like preserved olives and rather similar in texture to a firm olive, while being high in unsaturated vegetable fat like peanuts.
They contain a large amount of protein — 39 grams in 100 is accounted for by protein, instead of the usual 25ish in other beans. And perhaps it’s something to do with the protein that gives them an uncanny cheesy flavour.
At first I was repulsed by the unique flavour of this slightly bitter bean, but the flavour grows on one very quickly, like that of olives — I don’t know anyone who took immediately to olives. I can certainly see why they are so popular as a beer snack.
We’ve identified the chillies my dad grows as being of the Padrón variety, which, according to this article are being marketed in the UK now as “Russian Roulette Chillies”, as the degree of hotness is so variable from one chilli to the next.
“In Spain they are very trendy right now where they are used for a bit of fun in a daredevil game of culinary Russian roulette.
“But they all have a superb, sweet, fresh taste not too dissimilar to bell peppers or even freshly picked asparagus.”
They are traditionally cooked in a pan with a small amount of olive oil until they blister, with guests then encouraged to take their chances.
According to wikipedia’s page on tapas, Padrón is a municipality in the province of A Coruña in the region of Galicia.
In case I want to make it again, I’m writing the recipe down here. If you want to make it according to this recipe, be ready to improvise and use whatever and however many vegetables, spices, herbs, etc.
Feeds approx six people.
2 medium onions, chopped coarsely
2 small/medium courgettes, cubed
approx 3 cups french beans, chopped into 1-2″ pieces
2 carrots, diced
5 small-med potatoes, cubed
4 cloves of garlic, diced
8 cups water (add more if necessary later)
1 stock cube
3 medium fresh vine tomatoes, chopped coarsely into chunks
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried oregano
1 tsp dried mint
1 bay leaf
2 cups green lentils
1 small red chilli, diced
Olive oil.
Get a large pot on a medium heat. Drizzle in olive oil and add the allspice and turmeric, wait a few seconds, add the onions, cook, stirring, for 8 minutes or until they turn translucent.
Add diced garlic and red chilli. Stir for no more than a minute. Add chopped fresh tomatoes. Stir for a minute.
Add the water, stock cube, and the lentils. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring once or twice.
Add the other ingredients except for the herbs. Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes.
Add herbs (oregano, mint), simmer 5 minutes, serve with crusty or toasted bread.
I like how the handles of these vessels, designed by Kristy Whyte, has a double function: firstly handles, secondly supports to make the novel shape of the bottoms a possible design option.
Check out Kristy’s other designs on her site. I like her wine carafe (above).
