Serving Up a Snowpocalypse

About a week ago, a powdered-sugar monstrosity came into my life.  Marketed as a Dutch-style pancake, this cavernous world of breakfast left me feeling like I had discovered some sacred (edible) scroll...


It was crunchy on the edges, but tender and gooey on the inside.  It lovingly held the strawberries and bananas as they fervently and shyly embraced. It left me moustached and merry.

That lasted for about 15 minutes.  Although it was good, it left me feeling slightly underwhelmed; the pancake was too thin to be substantial, and I was hungry for more.  Indeed, I was seduced by the siren's call of sugar and sweet promises...

And so today, on this work-free Monday, I decided to try my hand at some good ol' buttermilk pancakes. (Given the state of this wrathful winter, I steered clear of all powdered sugar.)  I do not know what it is about pancakes that make a morning so spectacular.  Perhaps it is the way the scent evokes last year's sleepy weekends with my roommate; we would slap lumpy pancakes onto the skillet, laughing through conversations that drew us slowly out of our confused dreams.  Though our pancakes would often turn out burned or shaped like Louisiana, making these together was an almost ritualistic holiday.  It promised some solidarity after a week spent flailing on the high seas of stress. 

Although I am no longer in that house, I find myself warmed by whiffs of these times.  I think I have finally perfected the art of fluffy pancakes.  I also think that one of our kitties, Clio, has pancake batter on her foot.  

 








Pancake cat!

Kindling Rage

Note: From time to time, I may include reflections from my grad school seminar. The following comes from my recent post on our discussion board.

Ah, the Kindle. Its very name conjures up the image of reading next to a roaring fire...but I would love to throw it into one.

I was that strange girl surreptitiously sniffing the pages of books whenever I visited B&N as a kid; even today, I still love cracking open the covers of Shakespeare or Whitman or Plath. The raw joy of reading includes hearing that soft crackle and feeling the cobblestone bumps of pages. It is as satisfying as walking into a glorious library and seeing rows and rows of books, aged and loved by so many people (Beauty and the Beast dream library, anyone?).

But perhaps what the Kindle can never capture is the craft of book-making, the history of binding pages together into a complete piece. An art teacher once showed me how to make pulp out of starch and shredded paper, which would then be applied to a solid backing. The finished product -- journal covers in all their rough edges and imperfections -- felt majestic yet familiar. With blank pages added, it felt like a worthy vessel for words.

Walter Benjamin wrote that "mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art" (234). The Kindle, though light and efficient, is simply a beautiful machine for our fast-paced, glistening world. It is cold and heartless; every piece is designed to operate perfectly, whereas a book finds a tenuous identity through the hands that hold it. For instance, I can never expect what happens when one of my students picks up a book -- will he embrace it, throw it at my head, or ask me how to turn it on?

Greetings, earthlings...

Perhaps it is because of all the snow, with its blank slate of a promise.  Perhaps it is a perk of celebrating the Lunar New Year, reminding me of my resolutions (already growing a bit stale on the shelf).  Either way, I am ready to start again.

In my college years, I used to blog impulsively; between midnight buffalo-wing splurges and the occasional class, I poured my angst into the crevices of virtual reality.  Like many of my contemporaries on Xanga, life was just so complicated, and everyone had something to share.  After all, there is much to say about the meaning of life according to French toast. 

Five years later, the fast-moving streams of Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr have left me longing for something less ephemeral.  This blog is meant for sitting back and mulling over the delicious moments thrown at me from random directions; yes, a proper pieing indeed.  As a lover of words, I hope to share literature, stories, and foodie adventures that may stick around, longer than the ice currently imprisoning the Garden State.

As a first bit, here's a benediction that one of my favorite authors declared at the start of this new year:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.     -- Neil Gaiman