After four lovely years at WordPress.com, I’ve decided to move my content to a new domain: http://www.crystal.kitchen (Thanks ICANN for releasing those new top-level domains!)
I’ve implemented a 301 site redirect, so visitors from the web will be automatically sent to the new site, but if you follow this blog via RSS or email, please update your subscriptions and bookmarks to the new location.
And remember, pans pulled out of the oven are hotter than they appear.
This list was inspired by Lorraine Hansberry’s series of birthday notes, written annually from when she was 23 to 33. You can see these candid, intimate glimpses of her life on display at the Brooklyn Museum until March 16th.
I love:
The Park Slope Food Coop
My office “family”
Learning obscure skills (blacksmithing)
Traveling to foreign countries
Efficiency (though not at the cost of human relationships)
Handwritten letters, and making time to write them
Carbs: bagels, pizza, pasta, rice, beer
Biking year-round
Lucky Peach
Sherlock Holmes (BBC)
Being fit
Being alone
Sleeping on the floor
Brooklyn
I’m bored with:
My glasses
Hunter x Hunter
Game of Thrones books
Swiss chard
Marijuana
Trying and failing to get Cronuts
I hate:
Not being able to recognize people readily (face blindness)
Cockroaches in my building
Too damn high rent in NYC
Oxford commas
Mixed signals
Being lonely
I’m proud of:
My ability to emotionally move on (after a breakup)
My ability to physically move on (since everything I have can fit into one car)
My family, who accomplishes crazy feats, feeds me well and behaves with rational insanity
Friendships, many of which hit their 10-year anniversary last August
Decisiveness, ripping off bandaids and not looking back
Zen, achieving inner peace when NYC tries to make that impossible
I wish:
To again write words that will spur laughs, inspire wonder, incite anger or change lives
To evolve from being a cook to a chef
To live in East Asia someday (Hong Kong?)
To be in love again someday
Lately, all my writing energy has been devoted to working on this damn thesis, due on May 6th. I just want to get the thing written and turned in, so that I can move on with other projects.
Already, I’ve had to trim lots of interesting material that isn’t entirely relevant out of fear that this will turn into a book. Only a select few of you will find this topic totally absorbing, but I’ll post a tentative abstract here to ward off the inevitable questions.
Title: The Slow Evolution of Fast Money: A Fresh Approach to Sustainable Investment
Abstract: The Industrial Revolution heralded an age of unprecedented environmental damage and social tolls driven by commercial activity. We can move toward a restorative economy through careful placement of investment funds in socially responsible businesses that focus on more than bottom line profits. The microfinance industry in developing countries and the Slow Money movement in the U.S. are two examples of business models that aspire to move away from the traditional profit-driven financial paradigm. However, they are relatively unproven and are prone to the pitfalls of commercialist mission-drift. Study of these experiments provides lessons to be learned for future models of sustainable finance.
In case you’re wondering, what does this have to do with food or gastronomy, the answer is: it doesn’t. I simply felt like dipping back into the econ fold for a while.
Corby Kummer, august senior editor for the Atlantic and one of my all-time idols, thinks my writing is shit.
Fine, he didn’t say it exactly like that.
Kummer was teaching a weeklong writing workshop, and everyone had submitted second drafts of essays on food. One by one, he whisked us into the hallway for individual conferences, then periodically returned to give comments to the entire group. All day, I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong. Why wasn’t my piece being read out loud to the class? Why was it at the bottom of the pile?
Wendy was one of the lucky ones. Her first paper was so perfect that her “revision” was to write another paper.
For the second paper, Kummer told her that he had no comments. It was perfect, again.
I congratulated her on her double win. Then I went back to doing what I do best—worrying while looking happy about it.
Bells tolled. My afternoon stupor was interrupted by Emily’s shoulder tap. “Hey Crystal, he wants to see you.”
In the vending machine alcove, Kummer was marking papers with a vengeance. I glanced at mine, lying on top of a trash can. It looked oddly clean and blank.
“You’re an expert writer, but you’re too self-conscious.”
Kummer looked at me, eyes framed under a furry blanket of hair. He continued.
“I read some of these lines and think, ‘Would you say that in speech?’
“Take this part, where you talk about dropping a lobster into boiling water: ‘The sucker will thrash and create a lively ruckus.’
“It’s like you’re detached and having these self-conscious remarks. You’re so incredibly aware of what you’re doing that it’s distracting. You just sound…Writerly. With a capital W.”
Did I mention that Kummer rejected me for a writing fellowship at the Atlantic three months ago?
I needed to defend myself.
“When you tell me to use monosyllabic words, I feel like it strips away my writing. Maybe I like using long words in daily conversation!”
Kummer gave me a skeptical look. “Shall we go through this piece from the beginning?”
I nodded. I needed to pee.
“You have moments that flow. This part about adding ‘fistfuls of julienned scallions, ginger and garlic’ is nice. Oh, and I can’t believe I missed this the first time—‘Atop a clinical ad seeking sperm donors, I gently placed the cutting board’– that is such a lovely detail.
“This reference to Hades, I just don’t think you would say that in speech. Did you really mean to say that?”
I twitched on the inside.
“Maybe I’ve been reading too much Jane Grigson [a writer who uses lots of classical references]. I don’t know, I was working on this at 6 am.”
“Oh my.”
“Well, it was better than writing it post-party.”
Kummer gave me a look. I am not sure if it was sympathetic or admonishing.
He went on. “Are you familiar with David Szanto? He had the same problem.”
David is a writer who taught at the beginning of the year. He is also a former student at the university, and my go-to advisor for all matters related to writing.
“David used to say, ‘I can write this piece with 3 different tones. What would you like to see? ’
“I guess I want to see you develop a consistent voice. What do you sound like?”
I looked at Kummer and stammered, “Don’t you see? I feel incredible pressure to write whatever you want me to write.”
“But that’s exactly it, I want to hear you.”
I started to cry. God, I hate when I do that.
“What if I am a pretentious person who loves high-falutin language?” I asked.
“You would call yourself a pretentious person?”
“Do you see the shirt that I’m wearing?” I waved at my body. “It says, ‘Bad grammar makes me [sic].’ If you called me pretentious, I would not be offended.”
Kummer’s face wrinkled with a smirk.
“You know, back when I was younger, people called me pretentious too. So I can relate.
“Writers have a way of hiding behind a façade, and you can’t really get to know them. It’s like they have something to protect. They want you to see a certain aspect of themselves, or maybe they’re too embarrassed to show their true selves.
“I want to see who you really are.
“This line—‘stop being a pussy and just kill the damn thing.’ I think that’s you. That’s who I want to hear.
“Now, I really wish I could read more of your writing. I’m curious about what your voice really is. After working with David for a week, I think he really nailed it down.”
He handed me a blue tissue. I wiped my nose less than gracefully.
“You know what, David thinks my writing is great.”
“Of course, I’m not surprised,” Kummer replied.
“I am sorry that I have made you upset.”
I waved him off between sniffles. “No no, it’s all right, I really appreciate your honesty.”
“Okay fine, then I’m not sorry that I made you upset.
“I am being so harsh because I want you to go to that next level.
“I spent half my time copyediting the rest of the class’ papers. In terms of copyediting, this is flawless.
“You’re an excellent writer—you’ve made yourself into one—and you’re ambitious.”
Maybe he was making that up entirely.
I bet he hates that I used the word “august” to describe him in line one.
I don’t care.
Photo: E. Bennett
It’s internship season here at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, and everyone is abuzz with plans for the near-future and exit strategies post-graduation. Our last classes will take place on March 4th, at which point we will each set off on two-month long internships of our own design. These can take place anywhere in the world (though you have to fund your own food and housing), and can take a variety of forms, from independent research to a structured corporate program. At the end of the two months, we must turn in a thesis, which is usually (but not always) related to your experiences on internship. Graduation is set for May 13th, and then we officially become UNISG alumni.
Some examples of internships from my classmates:
Of course, there are still a number of us who are frantically trying to make arrangements and hammer out final details. Good luck to you all!
Continue reading Internships & Books: Putting My Pen Where My Mouth Is
Two Fridays ago around 5 pm (11 am EST), I noticed a slew of comments on my latest blog post on hiking the Männlichen summit. Not that I haven’t been getting occasional comments all along, but the majority are from people I know personally, and the spike in external commentators was unusual. I scratched my head over what could be inspiring the bump in traffic, then scrutinized my blog stats to find that WordPress.com was sending referrals my way faster than a time-strapped doctor. Sure enough, when I checked the WordPress landing page, there I was, featured in the top-right corner under “Freshly Pressed” blogs.
For a blog that has only been around for two months and hasn’t had time to develop much of a content library or a following, this is kind of a big deal. WordPress receives thousands of hits every hour, and even a sliver of that directed toward the average indie blogger is a tidal wave in comparison to normal traffic. Prior to being featured on Freshly Pressed, I received somewhere around 50 hits a day, which is not bad for an amateur blogger but nothing to brag about. On the other hand, the Freshly Pressed spotlight led to an immediate skyrocketing in views, with the aforementioned hiking post receiving 50 comments and 38 “likes”. Better yet, I was selected on a Friday, and since Freshly Pressed only selects blogs on weekdays, that meant my blog would stay featured through the weekend.
I am not going to lie–I have always yearned to be “discovered,” and receiving the Freshly Pressed nod sort of validates all the time and energy I spend writing this blog. For the rest of the day, I walked around with a huge smile on my face from my instant “celebrity.”
Continue reading Freshly Pressed: One Night Stand or the Gift That Keeps Giving?