Dear everyone,
It’s just a couple of days since I finished posting the
Kenyan trip diary, but meanwhile two weeks have passed since our return. The most important thing happening lately is
the coordinated announcement of Wes accepting a post doc in Zurich, and the
subsequent decision for Wes and Nicola to take on the bond of matrimony
(otherwise Nikki would have to apply for a visa as Wes’s concubine
[I couldn’t believe it either]). So, we
have a wedding in Virginia in two weeks, and one in Eugene two weeks later –
just a month from now.
Otherwise, things are pretty placid here. I had to renew my global entry card as well as my passport. I got new ones within two weeks!
Last weekend we were visited by Jasper and
Vivian. We went to H-Mart, where I was indulged in
purchasing a variety of Asian foods. One
was a cold pack for bibim
naengymeon that was surprisingly good (I would get again), another for thin
scorched barley rice cakes (nurungji) which is super
hard, crunchy, and bland - - not even salty.
I think you are supposed to eat it in soup or make a porridge out if
it. I much prefer kolo! Afterwards, we
had dinner at Alter Brewing.
Yesterday I was at a half-day aikido seminar at my home dojo
with Bob Garza (the head of my dojo) and Lisa
Tomoleoni, who runs a dojo at Crystal Lake.
Sensei Tomoleoni is a short woman who values practicality in her
techniques, and she is not unwilling to take a fall or ‘lose’ to her ‘opponent’
in the quest for perfecting her art. It
was fun
Yesterday evening we went out to dinner with the
Wallochs. Jami was celebrating his 71st
birthday. We went to a new restaurant in
Downers Grove called Everest
Asian Fusion. It’s basically three
sets of fixed price menus that include a hot pot, sushi/sashimi and Korean
barbeque. The menu was a bit confusing,
and the restaurant was a little too dark to see while using the in-table hibachi
and it was noisy. You order off of a
tablet. You are restricted to ordering
10 items at a time, and can only order at ten-minute intervals (and, despite
being an ‘all you can eat’ restaurant, your ordering ability is restricted to
about 90 minutes - - nevertheless, that is ample time to eat to
stupefaction). I think if we went again,
we would do things a bit differently - - the hot pot was not that great, and
really a bit of a filler, and the Japanese food was only ok. Because we didn’t understand the menu
sufficiently, we didn’t end up ordering much marinated meat until the end (and
each meat order for barbeque is pretty small, so you would need to order
multiples of any item if you are a party of four). They were sold out of all
the desserts by the time we ended our meal. I think I prefer separate
restaurants for each cuisine.
At home we watched the Ghost and the
Darkness, as discussed in my letter, it was bad. I also saw the Relic, a movie
recommended to me by Anderson Feijo.
This is a jump scare thriller whose claim to fame is filmed (mostly) at
the Field Museum. Mediocre at best. I should also add another movie I saw on
the way to Kenya, Dust Bunny,
which was a quirky horror movie that I liked.
Reading: I just
finished Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen)’s memoir, Out of Africa. It is well written and interesting if you can
get past the condescending racism that was part of the 1930s milieu. There is a
lot of description of the different major cultures she encountered – Maasai,
Kikuyu, and Somali. I plan of watching
the movie with Meryl Streep now.
Margo’s
Got Money Troubles – I was surprised by how much I liked this, although the main character is a bit ingenuous, on purpose, surely.
The
American Plate Libby O’Connell’s
(she was on our Kenyan trip) funny and erudite history of the US through 100 different
kinds of food.
Love, H.
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