Current Events

I'm late, as is usual these days, with this, but still.

Edward Luttwak's "President Apostate" op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday was so far-fetched it's almost amusing. Muslim security guards not being religiously allowed to protect a potential President Obama because he's an apostate? Quite a stretch. If Obama becomes president, it's likely he will have better relations with the Muslim world not because his father may or may not have been Muslim, but for other, more important reasons, like his worldview. Of course, any of the potentials would be hard-pressed to botch things more internationally with any group than President Bush has.

I have to admit I was glad to hear that the recent large earthquake was in China (although I'd be much happier not to hear of any at all). But China is significantly better able to handle a natural disaster than almost any other country in the world, especially countries prone to natural disasters. Myanmar provides an all-too-obvious contrast, but even the difference between what China has been able to do compared with Iran in 2003 and Pakistan in 2005 is striking.

And I'm glad the early comparisons of these disasters to Katrina has stopped. Despite the sorry handling of that hurricane, a disaster like the one in Myanmar couldn't happen here just from one hurricane or cyclone. 1800 deaths in Katrina is awful, but tiny.

As someone once referred to it, the flavor of the week on my homeschooling message board is food storage. I think it's come up maybe a handful of times in the previous 5 years, but it's quite the thing right now. We tend to store food, but then eat it up and have to get more. That works better when you move a lot.

And my goodness, Obama is an appeaser? No, we can't possibly talk to anyone who doesn't agree with us. Unless, of course, they have oil. (Yes, I oversimplified the argument. But so did President Bush.)

Blog About Palestine Day

Depending on your point of view, yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel, or today is the day to remember the Nakba, the catastrophe that forced many, many thousands of Palestinians from their homes and livelihoods. Many of those Palestinians and many more of their descendants still live in refugee camps created nearly 60 years ago.
It's been more than 10 years since I've been in Palestine and I don't follow Palestinian politics as closely as I used to then. My interests have shifted toward Central Asia, and honestly, it was a lot easier to be optimistic about Palestinian prospects in the 90s than it is now.

But Palestine will always be important to me. It's where I was first lived in a Muslim area (I lived in East Jerusalem), where I learned to communicate in Arabic, where I met my husband, someone who shares my interest and love for the Islamic world. I only spent 9 months there, but it was a life-changing nine months (sort of like a pregnancy, no?).

But the primary reason I love Palestine is because of the people I met there and the friends we still have from there. People travelling to Palestine talk about the hospitality, and that's true, but Palestinians are more than hospitality (and there are plenty of other hospitable people in the world). Maybe the reason tourists talk so much about hospitality is that they often can't speak the language and smiles and food are all they can share.

What I loved was talking to Palestinians to hear their stories, whether they were wealthy and lived in large homes in the West Bank, or if they were students in Nablus, or if they were living in a refugee camp in Gaza. We heard about politics mostly, and more politics, but we also heard about children, about Islam, about prayer, about architecture, about cooking, about ghosts, about djinn, and then some more about politics.

There's so much more I could say here, but I'll just leave it with this. Even though I love Central Asia and that's where we're focusing our efforts, we'll always love Palestine. And we'll pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the welfare of the Palestinians.

Dinner

Am I the only who gets excited for what you're cooking for dinner? I just can't wait sometimes. I've got to get some new recipes posted sometime.

Bibimbap

A friend of ours introduced us to this new (to me) Korean dish a few weeks ago and it was so good that we've had it lots of times since. Bibimbap is basically rice with vegetables and red pepper paste, and often a fried egg and some meat. Since there are lots of options, you just need to have some vegetables around and gochujang sauce on hand for a quick meal that can be put together in the time it takes to cook rice. I like to put some carrot salad on top too instead of cooking the carrots. Yum.

Princess Academy

I read this book by Shannon Hale last week since Melissa's always writing about Shannon Hale and thoroughly enjoyed it. (Was that post of Melissa's really two years ago though?) Miri is a likeable gal and the story isn't at all overwrought or too princessy. Recommended.

We're well into our longest break of the school year and I'm ordering what we'll need for next year. (Next year is very likely to start the first week the temperature hits 90.)

I've had to get more serious with school each year; I'm so glad I've always homeschooled and didn't jump into this now. It's probably also good for oldest son too since he'd rather spend all his time listening to audiobooks and building things (it is nice that the things he'd like to do are pretty worthwhile though, especially since he'll listen to anything). I remind him that even if we spend 4 hours on school a day next year, it'll still be a lot less than the 8-9 hours he'd have with public school and homework.

Sometimes I feel like there is so much I want them to learn but there isn't time for all of it.

Book Club Selection

Have you just been dying to know what book I chose for our reading group? Yes? It's Reading Lolita in Tehran. None of the other women had read it, and I think there's potential for a lot of great discussion in there, from Iranian politics to Daisy Miller to reading fiction and so much more. And we'll eat Persian food while we chat. I'm deciding what we'll have.

Someone and Someone Else

Someone in this family has signed our children up for lots of things. Unfortunately that person has also been extremely busy at work which means that someone else in the family has to get the children to all of those activities (although the signer-upper does get middle son to his hockey class).

This is just reinforcing in my mind that one of my favorite reasons for homeschooling is that I get to be in control of our schedule. And I will be back in control of it in 6 weeks.

Of course a lot of families do way more outside activities than we do.

Rosetta Stone Farsi

I've finished Unit 1 in Rosetta Stone Farsi. There are currently 2 units available.

Pros to Rosetta Stone:
It's easy to sit down and spend a few minutes every day studying your language
You get lots of listening practice
It's simple to use, even for children

Cons:
It's limited in what you can practice, and there's not much opportunity to create
EXPENSIVE- I think it's unreasonably expensive

The first 8 lessons covered pretty much what my Persian books covers- present tense, comparatives, adjectives, etc, and a lot of the same vocabulary. I do think RS is useful when it's used with other resources, but when you have to spend this much, I don't know if I can recommend it, especially if only one person will be using it.

As for Persian books, we have An Introduction to Persian and Teach Yourself Modern Persian. I like the first, my husband likes the second. And I think he would really dislike the first and I definitely dislike the second. Thackston is pretty technical with its grammatical terms, but TYMP isn't at all useful for grammar, and it's nice sometimes to be able to just see the conjugations. There really isn't a generally useful book for Persian.

For other posts about RS, click on the Rosetta Stone link below.

Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China

Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China by Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford has just been released and my copy arrived yesterday. It focuses on the non-Han areas of China like Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan, and Inner Mongolia. And it's excellent. I haven't tried any recipes yet, since we haven't eaten dinner yet, but I've high hope since these authors have never let me down before.

This book is a little different from their other cookbooks (HomeBaking, Seductions of Rice, Hot Sour Salty Sweet, Flatbreads and Flavors, and Mangoes and Curry Leaves)- it's a touch more personal, and rather more political. They also mark whom the essays are by. In previous books, you didn't know if Duguid or Alford wrote them. As in their more recent books, the recipes are organized by type of food instead of by country or region. The index seems to be pretty good though, so you can find all the Kazakh recipes, for example, by looking there.

And the essays are a pleasure to read. Duguid's meeting with Ella Maillart is priceless, they write about the various ethnic groups of China, good books are recommended (like Life along the Silk Road) and people are described (I thought the essay about Jenny did a nice job of showing how much China has changed). There are also some pictures to explain techniques, like making Kazkah noodles. As usual, there are not pictures of every dish which I know bothers some people, but I'd much rather have photos of people and places instead of just food.

Flatbreads and Flavors will probably always be my favorite (it feels a little more like recipes gathered while traveling, instead of recipes gathered for a cookbook, even though there's not much difference), but I think Beyond the Great Wall will rate as on of the best of the bunch. Highly recommended.

And a note about preordering from Amazon. I'd preordered this back in January I think, and it was scheduled to arrive in May. But since it was released earlier than Amazon's original date and the preorder date wasn't changed, I cancelled the preorder and just ordered the book again. I don't know if this is common with preorders since I'd never tried it before, but it doesn't make me want to try it again.

Sarah's Quilt

This is a sequel to Nancy Turner's These Is My Words. And it's a pretty good book, especially for a sequel. I reread These Is My Words last week too and enjoyed it again.

Sarah's Quilt is afflicted with the same problem that TIMW is- too many disasters. Turner manages to work Sarah through fire, drought, earthquake, and tornado, not to mention every conceivable human disaster possible too. It's too much in both books.

But both books are very well written and a pleasure to read. Recommended.

Book Club Suggestions

No book reviews because I'm rereading books for a book club a friend of mine just started. I'm in charge next month and trying to decide on a book. I've been looking over what I've read for the last few years, and the book I wished I could have discussed with a group, especially with a group like the one I'm with now, is Ancestor Stones. But I'm not sure. There are so many good books.

Any other recommendations? This is a fairly liberal group. And I'd love to read something new.

I think the thing that bothers me about living a life that's a little different from the mainstream is always being questioned about my choices. You homeschool? Why do you move so often? You eat that? You still rent? You lived where? and so on. I don't intentionally bring these things up, but they come up in polite conversation. Sometimes I want to type up a little FAQ card that I can just hand to people.

Of course, most of the people who are asking the questions don't really care about the answers. I just need to think up more creative answers. Maybe I can say that we homeschool because I don't believe in chalkboards (or dry erase boards). Or that we move a lot because I'm trying to determine if the world is really round. That would make it a lot more interesting for both sides.

Myopic Motherhood

I've been going to a playgroup in with some other mothers in our neighborhood recently. I hadn't been to that sort of thing for about 4 years and it's been nearly that long since I've spent much time with mothers with only small children. I'm noticing how much my day-to-day life has changed in those years.

A lot of those mothers tell me they could never homeschool, and I tell them that when my older boys were 1 and 2, I couldn't imagine homeschooling then either. Just getting through the day was enough for all of us.

When my older boys were little, I'd read that things would get easier when they were older, and I suppose I believed it, but it was hard to imagine. And now that they are a little older and things are a lot easier, I forget those first few years when both boys were little and how limited my focus was.

My life still generally revolves around my children, but they don't consume me in the same way they used to. Nor does the new baby overwhelm me, even though life is very different now than it was a few months ago. And it seems that that happens to a lot of mothers. Those were good years, but I'm glad I got past them.

Fried Eggs with Chopsticks

Finally, an enjoyable travel book about China. Polly Evans' book about her travels in China a few years ago is lots of fun. She isn't trying to do or be anything like so many other mediocre travel books, but just trying to see China. She doesn't whine too much, nor get into too much detail about buses and trains (although she barely stays out of this trap) and she is funny.

Someday I'm going to make a living traveling around Asia with children and writing books about it. With recipes.

Inspired Audiobooks

Some books are even better as audiobooks. And every so often you get an audiobook has the perfect reader. Graeme Malcolm reading The Tale of Despereaux is one of those audiobooks.

Cherry Jones reading The Little House on the Prairie series is another.

If you've heard any others, let me know. And did you know there is now an Odyssey Award for audiobooks? Here are this year's winners.

Swallowing Clouds

This book is by A. Zee and is a little introduction to Chinese food and etymology. Zee is a witty sort of writer and this book was a lot of fun to read. And I learned a lot too. Recommended.

Expanding Horizons Challenge

I thoroughly enjoyed Melissa's challenge. This was the first challenge I've ever really participated in (I've made lists for others, but not finished them or visited the host blog) and it was great. Here's what I read:

The Blue Sky
A Dream in Polar Fog
Fire from the Andes
A Long Way Gone
Istanbul
Climbing the Mango Trees

Thanks, Melissa

I can't help posting this one picture of our little boy on his blessing day a couple of weeks ago. How did we ever manage to wait seven years for this?

Brown Ghee

I let my ghee sit too long on the stove and now it's brown instead of yellow. But it looks like I can still use to to fry some tasty little flatbreads tonight. And the smell in the house is wonderful now. Who knew?

Sometimes I'm ready for the week to be over. Burning my thumb on the brown ghee was just the last thing to happen. I needed that thumb.