Une vraie féministe.

Il me semble que les femmes du 18ème siècle ne sont pas heureuse. (Insert large "DUH" here...) Mais il me semble aussi que les femmes de l'époque présente ne sont plus heureuse. Alors, qu'est-ce qui se passe? Pendant le dix-huitième siècle, les femmes n'ont pas de droits, pas d'argent, et pas d'éducation (si elles n'ont pas d'argent). Et maintenant, nous avons presque les même droits, un rôle plus important dans la société, et nous avons le choix de mariage. Pourquoi sommes-nous si furieuses tout le temps?

Je n'ai pas de talent de converser et de m'instruire avec eux, ni l'activité que je voudrois avoir. Je porterois mes défauts dans les charges publiques, et j'aurois, de plus, le tort de m'y être placé moi-même, au lieu que la Providence m'a placé ici. -Les lettres de Mistriss Henley publiée par son ami

Femme intelligente, très belle, et absolument misérable. Et pourquoi? Elle a toutes les possibilités du monde, mais elle ne le réalise pas. Pendant cet période, elle ne peut pas avoir toutes les possibilités du monde à cause de son sexe. Mais maintenant, nous n'avons pas de raison d'être misérable comme elle. A mon avis, nous aimons râler trop...et puis nous croyons pourquoi les hommes n'aiment pas nous écouter. (Uh, hello...it's because we're annoying!)

Je sent pour les femmes de l'époque des Lumières. Tout le monde est en train de changer, sans elles. Tous les hommes sont en train de changer leur point de vue, de leur manière de penser, d'avoir une voix, mais les femmes n'ont pas d'espace dans ce monde. Aujourd'hui, nous avons une grande place de vivre librement, mais je ne pense pas que les femmes le savent. Elles s'attendent que le monde va être emballé, avec un ruban luisant-- mais ce n'est pas le cas. Si nous avons le droit de faire ce que nous voulons, nous devons le prendre. Nous devons accepter ce défi de l'époque. Parce que à mon avis, les femmes du dix-huitième siècle, elles ont battu nos ânes si elles avaient une moitié des possibilités que nous avons aujourd'hui.

Elles étaient les vrais féministes, avant que le titre a été créé.

Cookie dough bliss.

"Jeez. Is there anything you can't make?"

I'd love to be able to say, "Of course there is...." but I wouldn't have anything to follow-up with after the beginning of that sentence. Ever since I can remember, when I was handed something, (whether it be a homework problem, a sport challenge, or a recipe) I could usually figure out how to make it work in the end. Frustrations would rise, tears may have fallen, but in the end I made it work. And that's how baking has always been for me.

I find a recipe, either slightly challenging from an oldy-but-goody, or extremely new and exciting, and I just have at it. I don't expect perfection, I crave it. When it comes to baking, all bets are off. I feel safe when I work the dough through my hands, adding each ingredient in its perfect amount, at just the right time. All the problems of my own personal world can be solved while the blender is on and I'm scraping the sides of the bowl.

Brown sugar makes me smile. It's sweet and mysterious. But I don't think that's why I love it. I think it's because of how many different ways it can be used. You can toss it on a peanut butter sandwich to make it a dessert. You can throw it on top of a cookie to caramelize in the oven. You can make butterscotch candies in about ten minutes. And who doesn't love butterscotch? It's such a simple ingredient, but it demands the right amount of attention. Too much and you end up getting a crunch on your cookie (is that what she said?), too little and you might as well have never added it in. Brown sugar may be subtle when baked into a recipe, but it'll kick your recipes ass if you don't watch out. Sweet, but fierce. Yeah, that's why I love it.

And cinnamon too. Man I loveeee me some cinnamon. Warm in flavor, it adds just the perfect amount of home we all crave when we bite into a cookie. Sometimes I see the questioning look in a person's eyes just before they bite into one of mine. Slightly skeptical of whether or not the cookie will hold up to their mother's old recipe from way-back-when. But it's usually the cinnamon that brings them home. There's a small change in flavor that takes place, and it starts something new with whoever is chowing down. A little affair never hurt anyone, right? Well, not really...but with finding new cookies I think it's safe to say Moms won't be hurt.

I may bake to bring smiles, but I mostly bake for myself-- for the challenge, for the relaxation, for the time to myself. It's my one time to shine, where I know I won't screw up, where there's no pressure. It's just me, a few sticks of butter and the intuition my grandmothers bestowed upon me. So here I sit, putting off my French literature paper while I dream about the butterscotch cookies I'm about to make. Maybe I'll even figure out a way to find world peace. Wouldn't that be quite the challenge?

Peace, love, and butterscotch morsels in my mouth.

New Favorite Buttercream

The art of icing is actually a lot easier than most people think. There's not much to a great icing-- butter, confectioners' sugar, maybe some milk, a dash of vanilla, a bit of salt, and of course any other flavor you want to incorporate into the mix. For years though, I've only played with the easy flavors...vanilla, chocolate, and lemon. You either make the recipe just how you're supposed to; you add a little mocha powder instead of just confectioners' sugar; or even better, you toss in a little lemon juice. And voila! You have your homemade icing.

But sometimes a girl wants to make strawberry-lemonade cupcakes, right? Right. So here's where the difficulties come into play. The recipe is the same, but now I have to add a high water content fruit. And a sometimes tart one at that. My first attempt at this icing was with chopped strawberries...and it kind of worked? The flavor was right, nice and fluffy with a bit of that syrup-y sweet strawberry taste we all love. But then you chewed a piece of strawberry and got that kick of sour. Sounds like Heaven so far, right? Kind of.

The problems settled in when the icing began to settle to room temperature. The juices in the strawberry were released and that made the icing a little watery in general. So then there were streaks of strawberry sliding down the edge of the cupcake. Not as cute.

So this time around, I was making a decadent chocolate velvet cupcake-- a light and fluffy cake that needs very little to make it any more incredible. But I would never leave a cupcake naked, that would just be cruel. Especially because I just got these awesome cupcake lingerie liners that are peeled off after cooking is complete. And while a piece of chocolate cake is incredible anyway you slice it, I just felt wrong leaving that little cake out there in the cold in it's birthday suit.

Here's what I did:

1 cup (softened) unsalted butter
a pinch of coarse salt
6 tbs. strawberry puree
1 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

The trick is to mix the butter with the salt right off the bat to get the creamy and salty flavors incorporated. Then I used my smoothie maker to puree about ten strawberries. Before adding in the strawberries, I slowly blended in the confectioners' sugar, one cup at a time. Then came the vanilla. (Thank goodness, because this icing was literally just butter and sugar...amazing, but not very icing-like). Once those were all tossed in, I just added the puree two tablespoons at a time until I got to my chosen flavor. Enough strawberry that covers up the insane amount of confectioners' sugar, without going over the top. And at the end of the six tablespoons, I decided to throw in three drops of red food coloring. Because you can never have too much pink or red on top of your cake, right? Right.

Yes, I just admitted to liking the color pink on my cake. I dare you to laugh at me.

Anyhow, so that's where I ended up. Now I have about twenty chocolate velvet cupcakes smothered in my strawberry puree butter-cream icing sitting on the counter of my apartment. This could end badly.



TGIF? Si.

Theodoseus the Great

There once was a spider warrior by the name of Theodoseus the Great. For years he feasted on the remains of mosquito families and dragonfly babies he captured in his great webs. When humans came into his territory he creeped into their quarters, only to force them out minutes after his arrival.

His reign of terror spread from the jungles of Vietnam, to the countryside villages, and even as far as the metropolitan area. For Theodoseus, every human he encountered screamed and ran in the opposite direction.



One night-- as Theodoseus preferred to travel by nighttime so as to avoid being potentially stomped on by human feet, he stumbled upon a gated community. Oh, this will be great, he thought to himself, a bunch of sleeping people I can scare awake...then I'll take over the whole building to myself and get to work on creating an empire. So he crawled through the somewhat rusted white bars, past the sign reading Hoa An Center.

Once he reached the white tiled stairs, he decided to clear out the first floor of rooms first. Creeping through a window, he mounted himself right next to the bathroom door. Surely an unsuspecting human would stumble towards the bathroom in the middle of the night and then shout out upon finding Theodoseus. So he sat, and waited-- not even bothering to spin a web to settle down. This would all be his soon enough, no need to rush.

Around 5:00 am, Theodoseus heard an alarm clock ring, and a shaded image moved towards the bathroom. No flashlight. Perfect.

The human entered the bathroom, did their business, and as they began to wash their hands their eyes must have adjusted. Sitting there perfectly still next to the mirror, Theodoseus heard the scream. But it was not nearly as loud as he expected. They're not terrified? Merely taken back? This had never happened before. The human left, probably to tell the others they needed to get out because of this great spider. But instead, one by one, the humans came out to do their business and just avoided Theodoseus like the plague. They completely ignored his very presence!

Thinking that a better location would give him the results he wanted, Theodoseus moved into the actual bathroom and sat next to the window across from the showerhead. The humans hardly reacted. They just closed him into the room and continued to use the other stall.

Hanging his head in shame, Theodoseus decided these humans were a new breed-- no longer afraid of his kind, and so he headed back into the jungle. He would wait each night, hoping to see these humans leave, and a new breed arrive. A new breed that he could once again torment and terrify.

Humans- 1
Theodoseus- 7435198374

Phu Quoi?? Phu Quoc!

Holy day of learning lessons. We started our morning with finding a legitimate taxi driver in Ho Chi Minh City after a blank silver car rolled up and the man inside started to cart away our luggage. Luckily, the real taxi driver took us directly to the domestic terminal without delay. Once we arrived we searched around for a luggage storage area to keep our big bags for the next week while we went around. The airport personnel informed us we could store our bags at International (which would be better in the end anyway) so we lugged everything over to International and were greeted by a glorified storage closet with a few shelves and three or four people sitting around a desk. There were maybe two bags sitting on the shelves. Completely sketchy in my mind. But we forked over forty American dollars and they took down our flight information and names and we watched as they locked our bags and put them together by flight arrival time. So here's to hoping my bag is still in Ho Chi Minh on Saturday evening.

Once we got into the airport, we waited in the small gate area. When the time finally game to board, we walked down a set of stairs and out into the open air. A bus was sitting outside and carted us to a plane with wind-up propellers. The runway for take-off seemed entirely too short but the plane really had some power to it! Our flight was gorgeous-- white fluffy clouds painted the skyline and just underneath us, thousands of houses were crammed together along windy roads. Once we hit the skyline everything turned grey. But before we knew it, we were once again descending into Phu Quoc, a mere 127 miles away.

The airport was pitifully small, but quaint. We stepped off the plane into the overcast daylight, and stepped directly into the greeting area/baggage claim. A man met us with a Saigon Resort sign and motioned us to a mini-van that drove us all the way to the Resort. Once there, we had to wait in another room for three-person room to be ready, which was well worth it because they gave us vouchers for the day-spa. But after we settled in a bit, we rented a bike from the hotel (for free!) and the six of us headed out on an excursion ride. We headed to the right at first but couldn't find much outside of coffee shops and other resorts. Then we headed back past our Resort and found the highly-acclaimed night-market. We stopped for a bite to eat at a random place that had a sign advertising various types of sandwiches.

Phu Quoc Lesson #1: Never eat at a place that advertises their best dishes on a sign. You will end up with pieces of raw meat in your sandwich, but not realize that fact until your last bite. No, I'm not sick yet.

After we had our mediocre meal, we headed back to shower and meet up with Amy and Erika who had just arrived to the island. Around 5 we headed to the Resort restaurant for dinner, which was over-priced but American. I had two Blue Lagoon drinks; (Yes Diane, that does mean Happy Times Lemonade) vodka, blue curacao, lemon juice, 7-Up. I also got a cheeseburger with fries. Nomnoms.

After I paid my $25 bill (by far the most expensive meal since I've been here, but still better than Miami), we grabbed some more cash and went to the night-market in search of cheap, but very real pearls.

The vendors had ridiculously jacked up prices in comparison to what our director said from last year, but we managed to find a few good deals. It was great to bargain some more, even though we probably only bargained down to what their actual prices would be. You win some, you lose some. Gonna go back tomorrow for a couple more gifts and a book about the war. Wednesday night I promised the girls I would eat seafood if we ate at the market...there was an elephant snail there. It literally had a trunk coming out from under the shell. Everything looked so fresh that I can't help but trust it.

On our trek back home we stopped in a wine shop to browse around for tomorrow night and a woman recognized our group and asked if we were the bike group from earlier. We said yes, and she immediately told us her bike tour was better than the "crappy Saigon ones" we were riding. So then we got to talking about where she could take us and how, and she said that last minute we could get a mountain bike tour to a waterfall for only $5!! Amazing. So when in doubt, talk to the Vietnamese. They always "give discount" and will always give more discount when you stay longer and/or buy more from them.

That's my only news so far. The weather is kind of a bummer, but we're making it work anyway! Too bad I'm burning a hole right through my pocket with all these excursions.

Hope the final days of summer are treating you wonderfully. Can't wait to see some American faces soon.

Peace, love, and shrimp on a stick!!

An afternoon of thought.

For years I have compiled a list of foreign countries I dream of seeing one day...Cote d'Ivoire, Italy, Greece, Ireland, Egypt, and the list goes on for days. But travelling to an Asian country never really crossed my mind. Everything seemed so absurdly foreign and terrifying that I couldn't picture myself voyaging all the way across the world to literally be in a new world. It's easy for Americans to want to travel to Europe, most people know English. And the food still mostly resembles our cusine. The people are usually more conservative and while they may hate American tourists, they love to make money off of them.

Asia always seemed like an entirely new breed of conservative, almost cold towards Americans. And I vowed that I could never come unless I was with a strict tour group that kept an eye on me and made sure I didn't disappear down any dark corners. I feared trying completely fresh food that sits out all day while buyers stroll by and bargain for a deal. The thought of crossing a communistic solider sent shivers down my spine. What if my passport got lost? Or what if I couldn't get to the American Embassy in time to avoid being thrown in prison for being a radical American female, doing as she pleases?

I used to want to see Tokyo, stay in a posh little hotel, and experience all the exciting thrills of the city life. But I knew I would never have the balls to do it. But even with all of this doubt and fear of an Asiatic adventure, here I am today. Laying on the floor in a Vietnamese camp. The same floor I've been laying on for the past three weeks.

Spiders don't phase me anymore. I've learned to love the sound of the playful horns from the mo-peds flying by our bus on the wrong side of the road. A bowl of fried fish (scales still on) can sit next to me at lunchtime without any urge to vomit. I'm learning Vietnamese, for crying out loud. I successfully crossed a major road yesterday like a local. Don't look, keep going. And the mo-peds literally swerve around you. I play barefoot soccer with strangers. I eat mystery meat in a brothy soup everyday, twice a day. My chopstick abilities are no longer a cause for concern. Oh, and here's the kicker...I'm already trying to figure out when I can come back!

My cautiously planned out six days of extra travelling suddenly seems like nothing at all. How can I possibly see all of the temples, ride my own mo-ped, snorkel, go to a day-market, a night-market, AND get lost in an old Cambodian teashop if I only have six days to do it? Ah, that's right...their coffee is much stronger than ours. And I'm used to waking up at five in the morning now. But still. I want to stay. I don't want to leave.

I can get over the twice-a-day bugspray applications...because I'm barely applying it once a day now. I don't mind the ant bites, I'm not allergic. I don't mind the chirping lizard that lives on our wall. And I definitely don't mind not showering everyday, because it acts as its own bug repellant. For the first time in my life, I'm not afraid to be alone. I'm not afraid to say, sure let's go down this road and see where it takes us.

My camp director, Anna, told us something while we were in Can Tho a few weeks ago. She said that when disaster strikes, adventure can begin. And on that day, her words rang truer than I thought they could. But for me now, I can see that I'm already on an adventure, and the only disaster that had to strike was getting oddly high and outrageously sick from the Japanese encephalitis shot...twice.

To my friends and loved ones, I hope I have not hurt you by declaring my disenchantment of returning to the States because I miss you dearly and I know that as soon as I come home I will transition morbidly fast into American living again, but for now...I'm really enjoying living like a dirty camper, getting to know my kids more and more everyday. It will be easy to keep in touch with the Vietnamese coaches, thanks to facebook, skype and gmail...but the same cannot be said for my kids. Dat gave me his address so I will try to send them all a picture of me, and maybe a little note or something...but who knows if the package will ever get to them. And then they'll be left wondering what happened, worried that I forgot about them, and hoping for something that will never come. Maybe that's why I really want to come back to Asia, to see them again. To have a reunion and to re-live the memories we've made so far. Maybe it's just me being selfish. Or maybe I'm just like every other new teacher, completely and utterly attached to my first class of kids.

The silent art of cooking.

There are few things in the world that are universally spoken without using words. Giving directions, dancing, and cooking are just three. Since we no longer have camp in the afternoon, we have about six hours of free time from when we eat lunch, until dinner. Today, most of us scrambled onto Facebook the minute we heard the Communist ban had been lifted. I allowed myself an hour to peruse a few profiles, not understanding all of the updated functions.

I braided Amy's hair for her tennis match with Ania this afternoon but that only took up about twenty minutes. I was antsy for 3 pm to roll around so I could run out back to the kitchen to help 'Grandma' and our camp-crew prepare dinner with Sophia. When the time finally came, Sophia and I put up our hair and changed into some work clothes. All of the Vietnamese coaches went to watch the impromptu tennis match, so we were left wondering how in the world we would figure out what to do in a Vietnamese kitchen.



Luckily, the main director of our hostel was there and she speaks a little bit of English. She explained how we would be having over twenty guests tonight so they were boiling an entire chicken to make rice soup with. There was also a bowl of banana flowers sitting in some kind of liquid. Apparently they are served with the soup.





Sophia and I kind of stood around smiling while the Vietnamese worked away at their various chores, talking about us and giggling every few seconds. Then one woman motioned us into the back area where a fire was burning with a plastic bag melting on top. She pointed to a bowl of pork sitting in an oil blend, and then pointed at a rack. We assumed that meant, cook on here. But we had to wait for the wood to burn down to heat up the coals.



Grandma came around the corner and handed us each a Vietnamese rootbeer. Then she tried to teach us a few words, which I of course have already forgotten. I know one was snails, and the other was pork...but the translated meaning, I got nothin'.



When we got the O-K to put the meat on the rack we started to follow the woman's lead. She laid a piece. So we laid a piece. And then about thirty seconds later, she flipped it over. We had to balance the rack because it was slightly bent and would rock back and forth on the coal fire. Soon the rack was filled entirely and we started our flipping process. We'd wait, and then flip. But then she basically flipped the same piece right after we did. My mind was blown. Everything Paula Dean and Bobby Flay have taught me through the Food Network is suddenly reversed. "Don't flip your meat until it's ready," rang through my head as we flipped the meat every few seconds.

When I thought a piece was ready, I picked it up and showed it to the woman. She either nodded her head yes, or nodded her head no. If it was a yes, I put it down in the bowl where she could cut off the charred pieces of fat. If it was a no, I put it back on the mini-grill. No words needed.



Every few minutes Grandma would come pat us on the back and try to give us a few more words to practice, but I of course have already forgotten them.

Hopefully we don't poison anyone tonight, but the meat is really good...not gonna lie. If everyone says how much they like the meat, I will toot my own horn. For days.



I want to buy a pot and make a coal grill now. My hair smells like a summertime bbq, except for this time I'm covered in ashes and I actually cooked the food.