Fighting Fire

Posted on July 31, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

The media shitstorm that’s developed in the wake of the Ray Rice/domestic abuse/laughable penalty/Stephen A. Smith/”she provoked it” brouhaha has brought out the worst in many of us.  If you’ve been blessedly avoiding the news, here’s the summary.

Ray Rice (who plays for the Baltimore Ravens) beat his fiancée (now wife) to the point of unconsciousness.  There’s video.  The NFL imposed a penalty of two games, so Rice will lose more than $470,000 out of his $4,000,000 salary.  This caught the attention of the media because the penalty in the NFL for testing positive for taking a banned substance is four games and for getting caught smoking pot twice is a full year.  Regardless of its intentions, the NFL sent the message that it considers beating people to be less offensive than taking banned substances.

For whatever reason, Rice’s fiancée/wife released a statement after the news that he beat her came out.  In the statement, she apologized for the role she played in him hitting her.  And then Stephen A. Smith took to the airwaves of ESPN and said that while it’s important for us to recognize the role of men in beating women, women should also consider what they

Continue reading →

Posted in life | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Shock Therapy

Posted on July 28, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

I don’t hate my body.  Well, I don’t hate all of it.  I’ve made peace with my butt.  Like most people, I can identify and prioritize the places where I’d have surgery to fix my flaws if money were no object and needles and surgery didn’t terrify me.

A couple of weeks ago, when both my parents and my sister were home, we went to Spa Castle in Carrollton.  Spa Castle is one of two Korean-style bath houses in the Dallas area.  I’ve never been to a Turkish bath, but I think the principle is the same.  Think of the locker room at your gym, and then multiply it by a lot, and take away the gym, and you have a Korean bath house.

I’ll confess not knowing the origins, but I think it’s because for a long time, before Korea became wealthy in the 1980s, running water was a luxury that only the rich could afford.  Today, even with modern bathrooms in their homes, Koreans will still visit the bath house.

Why do people use the bath house when they have their own showers and tubs?  It’s because bath houses also offer several kinds of sauna and steam and Continue reading →

Posted in life | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Matchmaker

Posted on July 25, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

Over the last fifteen years as my love life provided mediocre levels of satisfaction, multiple friends made the offer to manage it for me.  If I filled in the profile information and paid the money for the online dating service of my choice, these friends would screen and select suitable candidates, and then all I would have to do is show up for coffee.  Generous and attractive in theory, but terrifying when you saw the looks of glee or heard the cackles of anticipation.  Also, some of these friends had terrible taste in men.

In late June, through a convoluted series of events, I hired someone to provide that exact service, a matchmaker.  Live matchmakers have never interested me because they seem like their focus is connecting rich, older men with gorgeous, younger women.  Not my cup of tea.  This new matchmaking service (eHarmony started offering it in December of 2013) uses trained relationship therapists as their matchmakers, and there’s no limit on the number of matches they’ll make for you in a year.  I like that there’s real training and expertise, and I especially like that they have a financial incentive to find me a match as early in Continue reading →

Posted in life | Tagged | Leave a comment

Things I Learned the Time I Almost Killed My Boss

Posted on July 10, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

1.  Despite my disdainful avowals to the contrary, Koreans in Sydney use peanuts in their food.

2.  Sometimes, a Benadryl and an Epi-pen are not enough to stave off anaphylactic shock.

3.  Locals do not always know where the nearest hospital is.

4.  It’s best to stay calm and relaxed when you go into anaphylactic shock.  Running or panicking, as your direct report who almost killed you and other colleague are doing as they frantically search for a taxi, will only make anaphylaxis go faster.

5.  You can rely on taxi drivers to know where the nearest hospital is (sometimes it is within non-emergency walking distance).

6.  There is such a thing as non-emergency walking distance.

7.  A visit to the emergency room in Australia will cost you AU$100.  They take credit cards.

8.  Anaphylactic shock can trigger asthma attacks.

9.  Hospital staff expect you and your colleague to hang out by your boss’s bed as doctors and nurses administer various medications to him, even if you assure them that you would both be happier in the waiting room.

10.  You can’t always count on hospitals having wi-fi.

11.  Completing the next of kin information on the admission form will increase the guilt that you thought only three seconds before was at its maximum limit.

12.  Emergency room doctors, unlike on tv, exhibit calm and measured behavior.

13.  Despite your best efforts to separate your personal life from your work life, if you almost kill your boss with peanuts, you will end up seeing him shirtless.  Awkward.

14.  Treating and getting over anaphylactic shock takes many, many hours.  If you lack wi-fi, the emergency room is a pretty good place to pass the time — you’ll overhear many, interesting conversations and see some remarkable things.  Especially if there is a pride celebration going on nearby.

15.  The day after almost killing your boss with peanuts is too soon for your boss to joke about almost killing him with peanuts.

16.  Six months after almost killing your boss with peanuts is still too soon for your boss to joke about almost killing him with peanuts.

17.  One year is the outside edge of when it’s ok to start talking about the time you almost killed your boss with peanuts.

18.  When you try to avoid eating meals with your boss when traveling together after almost killing him with peanuts, he will notice and shame you into getting the heck over it.

19.  The boss I almost killed with peanuts has gone into anaphylactic shock on every continent except Antarctica.

Posted in food, travel | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Closure

Posted on July 7, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

New e-mail.

Huh.  It’s from Mr. X.  Don’t read it.  You got an ugly and unclear but ultimately clean break.  If he hadn’t disappeared on you, you’d still be entangled with him, and he is not the one you’re supposed to be with.  Just delete it.

But I want to know what it says.  DAMNIT.

He’s sorry he abruptly ceased communications.  He found someone he thought was the one, was trying to be respectful, things have been turbulent with her, a lot of breaking up and getting back together, it’s not going to work out, he’s doing better financially, he gave away his dog that you love to someone who can spend copious amounts of time with her, and he thinks of you a lot.

Yeah, I’ll bet you do, you drama magnet.  I’m intense, but I’m transparent and even-keeled.

Ok, now you know.  Delete it.

I have to answer.

There isn’t a single question in his e-mail.  There is nothing that requires a response.  Delete it.  Knock out the next thing on your long list of to-dos.  Oh, crap, you’re hitting “reply.”

So many more questions — what was her name,

Continue reading →

Posted in life | Leave a comment

Consistency

Posted on July 3, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

All of the debate about the Hobby Lobby ruling from the Supreme Court reminded me of Amy, a college-aged intern I worked with when I was an associate at a law firm in DC.  Most of the people I know fall into these two camps:  pro-choice/anti-death penalty or pro-life/pro-death penalty.  Amy created her own camp, pro-life/anti-death penalty, because she said, “You’re either ok with killing people or you’re not.  I’m not.”

In my teens, I was vehemently pro-choice:  a woman should be able to do with her body what she wants.  That changed when I visited my grandparents in Chicago one spring break and went to the Museum of Science and Industry, my favorite museum ever.  They had a life-sized exhibit on the wall on what a human embryo/fetus looks like from conception to birth, and it rocked my world.  Fetuses look like tiny babies from pretty early on.  Since then, the idea of abortion makes me uncomfortable and sad.  I still think that abortion should be legal and safe, primarily because women have probably been purposely ending unwanted pregnancies for as long as humans have known we had that ability.  There’s no reason for anybody to die as a result.

In any event, Amy’s policy of consistency, which she shared with me sixteen years ago, popped into my head this week.  I wonder how conversations would change if we adopted the same policy.  What I see in the news is that we’re in favor of religious freedom until we start talking about Islam or Scientology or another religion with which we have only a passing familiarity.  We’re in favor of legalizing addictive substances like alcohol and marijuana, but we believe that large sodas should be outlawed.  We believe in free speech until the speech we hear offends us, and then the government should shut it down (e.g., we’re ok with protesters picketing when we agree with them and think they should be removed when we don’t).

I don’t think that my opinions would change based on consistency.  It’s probably not consistent to believe that abortion constitutes the taking of a human life and still be in favor of its legality.  It’s probably not consistent to be in favor of people’s right to buy a large soda and not be ok with rising health care and insurance costs.  It’s probably not consistent to want to pay the smallest price possible for my airplane tickets and still want the airlines to offer me desired amenities like food or alcohol or leg room.

I don’t know where Amy is, and I won’t be able to find her because I can’t remember her last name.  Wherever she is, I hope she’s still making people think and consider.  I’m going to try to get better at thinking about the consistency of my opinions, not with the goal of changing my mind or proving others wrong or right.  I like that it makes me look at what I think I believe with a critical eye, and it makes me think harder.  I have such a long way to go to being the person I want to be.  I’ll take all the additional help I can get.

Posted in life | Tagged | Leave a comment

Agree to Disagree

Posted on June 30, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

A friend on Facebook has been posting about the Supreme Court’s decision to allow closely-held companies to choose not to cover birth control and abortion for their employees.  She believes that these items are an inextricable part of a woman’s reproductive rights.

Whatever your position, and this is not a post aimed at debating the rightness or wrongness of abortion, the thing that’s hacking me off about her posts is her assumption that women who vote Republican are stupid or somehow uneducated.  (And I’m having this conversation with her, so none of this is secret or behind her back or passive aggressive.)

I lean left on social issues and right on fiscal issues.  What this means in this context is that I believe that women should have access to birth control and abortions, but that the government and I shouldn’t have to pay for it.  I do not trust the government to do the right thing, and so I’m in favor of there being less of it.

Here’s the thing — I still love and respect my friend.  We can disagree, and it doesn’t detract from her value as a human being or the purity of her soul or the goodness of her friendship.  It ruins my day, though, when people say the equivalent of, “Gosh, you read a lot, and you seem so smart and well-educated — I can’t believe you ever vote Republican,” or “I can’t believe you ever vote Democrat,” or “I can’t believe you shop at a non-organic grocery store,” or “I can’t believe you eat meat,” or “I can’t believe you wear leather shoes,” or whatever the hell it is that surprises people about what might be different about me.

Rational discourse left our building years ago, and this attitude that we have that our opinions are the right one with no room for disagreement or conversation or an attempt to understand why people may have values different from ours is killing us.  That’s not me exaggerating for effect.  It’s KILLING us.  You can see the ripples in the employee makeup of Silicon Valley, you can see the ripples on what counts as news, you can see the ripples throughout the world’s economies, and you can see the ripples in nearly every war that’s taking place (I qualify that because I confess I can’t give you a catalog of what underlies every war that’s taking place in the world right now).

When we say we agree to disagree these days, we say it at the end of a conversation during which we’ve just discovered that someone doesn’t think like we do or value the things we value.  And instead of exploring why this might be, we close off the discussion and our minds and put the other person in a box labeled “undesirable.”

It’s taking everything I have not to hide my friend’s feed while all the “I agree with you — white men are stupid” comments pile up. And because I’m having this visceral reaction, it’s particularly important for me to read what they’re writing and to HEAR it, meaning to understand it and not to discount it.  If I only hear people who agree with me, who value the same things I do, I’m not learning, and I’ve discovered that for me, learning is crucial to me becoming a better person.

I understand if you’re in a different place.  Agree to disagree.

Posted in life | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Lazy Foodie Contradiction Recipes: Caipirinhas

Posted on June 26, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

Y’all, Thursday crept up on me, and I’m having trouble putting my thoughts in order on some of the things I want to write.  So today, you get my instructions for making caipirinhas.  I’m putting this in the lazy foodie contradiction recipe category because caipirinhas are high ROI, both because you put in so little in effort and time, and you get back so much in deliciousness.

I’d never drunk a caipirinha before going to Brazil for work a couple of months ago.  Caipirinhas are made with cachaça, and whisk(e)y is my favorite, so I gravitate to whisk(e)y- and rye-based drinks, ignoring everything else on the cocktail menu.  Caipirinhas are the official cocktail of Brazil, and therefore any visit to Brazil would be inauthentic and incomplete without tasting one.  (I know this might seem like exaggeration and rationalization.  I promise you that within fifteen minutes of being introduced to a Brazilian, one of the first questions he or she asked was whether I had tried a caipirinha yet.)

Cachaça is a spirit made from sugar cane juice; for this reason, you will find it in the rum aisle at the liquor store.  (Because of the World Cup and depending on how good your liquor store is, the shelf might be empty.) Sometimes people will call it “Brazilian rum.”  Please don’t do that.  Also, it’s pronounced “kah-shah-sah” not “kuh-shah-kuh.”  I understand that this is an area of opportunity in personal growth for me, but I found myself judging the managers at my local liquor stores and finding them wanting for making these seemingly minor mistakes.

There are literally THOUSANDS of varieties of cachaça in Brazil.  The locals couldn’t tell me a specific brand they recommended.  The guy at duty-free at the Rio de Janeiro airport talked me into getting a bottle of gold cachaça (aged in barrels, which imparts color); I don’t think that’s necessary, based on the caipirinhas that various bartenders made for me in Brazil.  I didn’t see the same bottle twice, and every single caipirinha I drank tasted fantastic.

So as you’re watching the World Cup in Brazil (and in preparation for the Rio Olympics), I recommend getting into the spirit (hahahahaha – sorry) and making yourself a caipirinha as you watch.  You won’t be sorry.

Ingredients for one caipirinha:

  • One lime
  • 1-2 heaping soup spoons of sugar OR 0.5-1 tsp Truvia, to taste
  • 2 oz cachaça

Continue reading →

Posted in food, travel | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The Time I Got Deported from India

Posted on June 23, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

One of my clients hired me to deliver four workshops in April for one of their clients (“Acme”).  I delivered two in the U.S. at Acme headquarters and two overseas. Because of Acme’s scheduling constraints, I needed to deliver the two workshops in the U.S. back-to-back in the same week, followed by a workshop in Brazil the following week, followed by a workshop in India the week after that.

For me, this is the ideal business trip.  I’d never to been to Brazil or India before.  I reached out to all of my friends who have traveled to Brazil and India and asked for advice.  All of it was great and useful and aimed at my time in India:  don’t drink tap water because you’re not acclimated to their micro-organisms; for the same reason, don’t eat anything raw; in case you don’t care for the local food, make sure you take prepackaged snacks with you; and make sure your elbows and knees and collarbones are covered.

I delivered the workshop in Brazil, flew home, rotated out the contents of my suitcase, slept at home for one night, then headed to the airport for the first of my flights to
Continue reading →

Posted in travel | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Cold Brew: the Mom Improvement

Posted on June 19, 2014 by travelfoodandlife

I have to interrupt stories from Taipei with a cold brew post.  I know, I know – I promised I wouldn’t post about cold brew coffee anymore.  Mama Cooper is back home for a stretch, though, and two things happened:  I got her hooked on cold brew, and she made a small suggestion while watching the process that simplified it.  You can skip to the bullets at the end if you just want to know the simplified process.

Something you should know about my mom is that she is frugal.  She and my dad grew up in Korea during the Korean War, and they both experienced levels of poverty I’ve only read about in books.  As a girl, Mom would make a snack out of a single grain of uncooked rice.  Sometimes when she’s reminiscing, she’ll tell me that if you suck on that grain of rice long enough, it will get soft, and you’ll be able to taste how sweet rice is.  Casual memories and knowledge like that help me understand why she’s so reluctant to throw anything away.  She’s not a hoarder (filth disgusts her), but we do have a huge collection of empty jars and bottles and small Continue reading →

Posted in food | Tagged , | Leave a comment