Archive for Korean food
sabres bleues [blue wave#4]
Posted in pictures with tags fencing, France, gold medal, Grand Palais, Korean food, Paris 2024 Olympics, Russian invasion, sabre, silver medal, Solidarity with Ukraine, Ukraine on August 1, 2024 by xi'an
a journal of the conquest, war, famine, and Gothic death year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel with tags American literature, book review, books, cheese, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, drug wars, Edgar Allan Poe, fermentation, film review, gochunjang, gothic novels, Journal of the Plague Year, kimchi, Korean food, Libé, Mexico, Netflix, Philadelphia, Russian invasion, tea, teen culture, Ukraine, varieties of radishes on March 12, 2024 by xi'an
Read novellas by Aliette de Bodard, The tea master and the detective, and Seven of infinities, which involved a “mindship” as a central character and mysteries attached with a second central character, set within a Viêt Nam inspired galactic civilisation (still enjoying tea!). Easily forgotten mind candy but not unpleasantly so. And Legacy of Evil by James W. Peyton, which had been recommended by the Crime Book board of Libé, which proved terribly predictable, cliché, borderline (!) sexist and racist, and unrealistic, plus loads of unnecessary political reminders about the dire state of Mexican politics and policing, and the impact of the recent US policies about migrants.
Made my first kimchi, with chards, red onions, and radishes for the basis. Which proved much easier (and messier) than expected. It even worked (!) in that fermentation took place with no major disaster and in that the outcome is definitely eatable, with approximately the right spiciness. Made good use of the jar for cooking within a fortnight. But the bitterness of the chard had not gone away, so next round will be with more traditional cabbage. And more gochunjang. Still on the food side, met two occurrences when a shop absurdly refused to sell (or give) me a product (previous day bread and spelt levain) that was just out of date, when no equivalent product was available… Absurd waste.
Watched The Fall of the House of Usher, a modern variation on the most well-known short stories of Edgar Allan Poe (who seems in high demand on Netflix shoes, witness the recent The Pale Blue Eye where he was a character by himself, during his cadet year[s]). Like the Gold-Bug (little connected), the Pit & the Pendulum (imperfect), The Telltale Heart (predictable), the One-Eye cat (duh), the Red Death (closest) &tc. Other characters have names taken from Poe like Rue Morgue‘s Auguste Dupin, Arthur Gordon Pym and Rufus Gimwort. I could not trace an Annabel Lee (one of the very few luminous characters of the show) to Poe’s works and life… The whole setting is very Gothic(-chic) and saturated, not only in the colouring, but so are Poe’s stories. Actually, I remember enjoying these stories very much as a teenager, Poe being presumably better known in France than in the US, but I am unsure I would still uniformly do in the current time, esp. in stories that are droning on the melancholic feelings of some old nobility characters or the vague prescience of an horrifying event. (As an aside, I regret I never found the time to visit Poe’s museum in Philly.) The characters of the show also are uneven, possibly getting more structured with the episodes, especially the Usher elders, but with little suspense (everyone dies!) or logic (a supernatural being being the deus ex machina). The reconstitution of the 1980’s atmosphere is remarkable, though, if unconnected with the Victorian Gothic!
Covent’ska [jatp]
Posted in Statistics with tags 1970s, bus station, Coventry, England, jatp, Korean food, Madness, Midlands, Ska, The Specials, University of Warwick on November 5, 2023 by xi'an
a journal of the plague, sword, and famine year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags Ankou, Arctic, Barnes & Noble, BBQ, BD, Biometrika, book review, books, Breton, Brittany, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, fantasy, film review, flight, horror story, Journal of the Plague Year, kimchi, kindle, Korean food, Naomi Rapace, pandemics, pro-democracy protesters, real wood barbecue, restaurant review, Russian invasion, skater, soju, The Guar, Ukraine, Vercors on December 9, 2022 by xi'an
Read two successive books about seeking lost sisters, The Last House on Needless Street and Second Sister, after finishing the third book in a row involving a dead god, aptly named Three parts dead. This third one was rather enjoyable, thanks to the world construction, except for a blah ending. The first one, by Catriona Ward, is perplexing, complex and frankly a bit stretched in its gradual exposition of a multiple personality (disorder) patient. The “horror” side never really set for me, which is fine as it never does. Furthermore, this is the very first book I ever read where I saw a few words (correctly) written in Breton, as well as a thread with the Breton myth of ar Ankou, the local Death personification. Kudos for that! The second one, a physical book that I picked rather instinctively / hurriedly in a Barnes & Noble in Philadelphia is a thriller set in Hong Kong. Despite a bit too much of infodump on internet (in)security and hacking, and some caricaturesque sides, incl. the final coup de théâtre!, I enjoyed it as a page-turner. (But I now wonder if I am not getting prejudiced against Kindle books..!) Except for the anti-protest paragraph. Also read a nice BD, Les Animaux Dénaturés, borrowed from Andrew, which is an adaptation the 1952 book by Vercors, that I saw eons ago as a theatre play. The interrogation on what constitutes humanity (vs. simianity) is the driving force of the story, but it is somewhat marred by the killing of a newborn child that seems to negate the whole fight of the main characters.
Thanks to a short (train) visit to Coventry, I stayed overnight in the center of the city and enjoyed a fabulous dinner with friends at Jinseon Korean BBQ Restaurant, recently reviewed by Jay Rayner in The Guardian. Marinated thin slices of beef, pork, and lamb almost immediately cooked on the white hot (ring) coals, along rice and plenty of kimchi and hot sauce. And a sip of soju. Not an everyday fare, for sure, but quite delightful (and even more as my single true meal over two days!)
Watched a fraction of Swedish Black Crab, with Naomi Rapace playing the central character, but despite potential connections with the current survival war of Ukraine against the Russian terror, I quickly lost interest in the very shallow plot and in the accumulation of unrealistic scenes and heavily programmed eliminations of the characters (sorry for the spoiler!). For one thing, expert skaters skating 100km should not take days to cover the distance. For another, a military commando operating in the far North should wear appropriate clothes, not a sweater and a loose scarf! Luckily enough, I have had no screen nearby [me] to distract me on my round trip flight to NYC from reviewing Biometrika submissions. (The flight back to Paris amazingly took less than 6 hours, thanks to extremely strong tail winds.)
a journal of the [tolerated] plague and [mostly] pestilence year
Posted in Books, Kids, Mountains, pictures, Travel, University life with tags Biometrika, book review, books, compote, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Denfert-Rochereau, DIY, fantasy, film review, homecooking, Journal of the Plague Year, Korean food, pandemics, Paris, rhubarb, Rivers of London, Russian invasion, Spanish inquisition, Taiwan, Twingo, Ukraine on August 31, 2022 by xi'anRead Among Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch, the ninth installment in the Rivers of London urban fantasy series. Which I found superior to the earlier volumes. As the ninth novel in the series, it obviously shows some signs of fatigue in the relatively thin plot that painstakingly connects a series of no-spoilers with the Spanish Inquisition, in the convenient so convenient appearance of a new kind of magical being, and in the convoluted uncovering of this connection in the final pages. However, the witty remarks of Peter Grant still make me smile and his move to becoming a father is rather charming. Recommended for the comforting feeling of being reunited with a familiar.
Over the four week summer period “everyone” was away (on vacations), I managed to deal with long delayed projects, keep my Biometrika slate mostly clean, and work on an incoming grant. Plus, made an uninterrupted series of compotes from my neighbour’s fallen apples and rhubarb sticks from the local market, as I found a much faster way to bake them in the microwave oven, with no danger for kitchen pans! Observing in the process a phase transition phenomenon where the contents very suddenly change structure and the bowl overflows, despite my frequent stirring. And I found time to lazily bike with my wife on weekends to traffic-free Paris, incl. light dinners outside (except during heatwaves), like a nice and perfectly spicy Korean bulgogi near Denfert. Had some DIY experiences as well, incl. changing my 2000 Twingo car battery, which had run flat after at least three months of idleness (now that our children no longer drive it)! Which as usual induced several (dreaded) trips to the DIY store…
Watched Extraordinary Attorney Woo, which is a Korean TV series following an autistic attorney at law, which has some original features but leaves me uneasy about its rather charicaturesque depiction of autism. At least, addressing discrimination and sexism (albeit with mixed results, as in the stereotyped representation of both female heads of the law firms). And The Soul, a Taiwanese horror + sci-fi + noir movie whose foggy atmosphere was rather appealing but alas following a terrible scenario.
