A Wiffer pointed me to this blog posting - the list is copied from Very Good Taste. It is a list they made of 100 things that they think every good omnivore should have tried once in their life. They have thoughtfully created links to a number of the stranger foods (I had to go look several of them up myself).

“The list includes fine food, strange food, everyday food and even some pretty bad food - but a good omnivore should really try it all. Don’t worry if you haven’t, mind you; neither have I, though I’ll be sure to work on it. Don’t worry if you don’t recognize everything in the hundred, either; Wikipedia has the answers.

Here’s what [they] want [me and you] to do:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.”

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred: (comments are in parentheses)

1. Venison (grew up near hunters - school was out for buck and doe days)
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros (yum)
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile (alligator really, it had a bit of a tang - not bad)
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava (yum)
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas (a big mistake)
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O (on Hey Day at UPenn)
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (if ‘Rabe de Toro’ counts)
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut (Of course. I lived in Savannah, GA)
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill (yes if survival depended upon it)
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail (not again)
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict (gross)
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare (my mom was hoping we wouldn’t ask for the wing…)
87. Goulash
88. Flowers (not a repeater…)
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Sorry, deadly food and organ meats are out.  How about you?

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I have discovered something wonderful about my new toy iPhone… I’ve never been one to use the camera feature on my cell phone, the images just weren’t worth it. They’re still not great, but the iPhone makes it really easy to use.

Anyway, I was at the bookstore this past weekend when I broke down and bought Sam’s new book (that’s mine on the right). I took a photo of it sitting on the kiosk at the front of the store. It only took me two days to read (many interruptions) and is, in my opinion, her best book yet! The next day, Amazon.com shipped me the copy I’d pre-ordered (as soon as it gets here, I’ll have my first give-away).

Then, I had a brilliant idea.

Since I can’t possibly buy every book I want to read, I used to write down the title and author so I could remember to order it later (from either Amazon.com or the library). Then it occurred to me that it would be a lot easier to simply photograph each book I want to read…. It was much faster than writing and within moments I had a photo of every book I want to read. Look! One of my favorite authors has a new book out!

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This morning I cooked my sons fried egg sandwiches and found this:

Apparently they’re very rare and the chicks will not hatch (they can’t acess the air pocket when there are two in the egg).  For way more info than you probably want, you can read Twin Yolks and Twin Chooks?

The kids thought it was pretty cool and the oldest had a lot of questions about twins… but no remorse about eating the fried egg.

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I’ve been reading a lot of non-fiction in preparation for writing the next book this fall. The title of this post is one of these books (by Mary Roth Walsh - 1977).  Yes, its an old book, but I was after the historical stuff… She chronicles and examines the history of women becoming physicians from 1835-1975.

Originally, the argument against women in medicine was based on our menstrual cycles. It was first argued that we would be unable to function during the menstrual flow or that the hormonal fluctuations would damage the quality of our work. Later a man named Clark would argue in 1873 that, “The most dangerous threat… stemmed from the mistake of educating females as if they were males. Since the uterus was connected to the central nervous system, energy expended in one area was necessarily removed from another.”

Despite this bias, women continued to train as physicians.

In 1870, there were 544 female physicians.

1880: 2,432

1890: 4,557

1900: 7,387

1910: 9,015 (6% of all physicians)

As it turns out, the number of female physicians peaked in 1910 only to drop precipitously shortly thereafter. Why? In 1893, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine admitted the first ever co-educational class of medical students. Women declared the ‘battle’ for equal education won, and woman’s medical colleges began to close with the expectation that medical schools would be open on an equal basis to both sexes.  For a time, they were.

Then slowly, as women’s liberation movements focused on winning the vote, those numbers eroded. The men in control of the schools began to accept only a handful of women into their class, the bare number necessary to claim co-education. Then, women were denied access to nearly all internships and residencies after graduation, particularly the ones at prestigious institutions. Those women who continued in the face of blatant discrimination earned far less than their male colleagues and were denied positions of influence and power within the medical community (based on their ‘lesser’ internship/residency).

And so the enrollment of women in medical schools dropped precipitously.

Although women continued to apply to medical school in the face of nearly certain rejection, the number of women physicians wouldn’t begin to recover until during the second world war when medical schools recruited women out of sheer necessity. Not until the 1970s would women finally begin to be admitted on equal footing with men on the basis of academic merit alone.

Today, most medical schools admit an equal number of women and men.

Tags: female physicians, medical school, women physicians

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As many of you know, I’ve recently moved. One ongoing debate about our new house is what we should do (or not do) about the fireplace in the kitchen. The last owners did some renovations and in the process the original kitchen became the family room and the family room became the kitchen. As such, I ended up with a gorgeous fireplace right across from an island. I love this fireplace. The rest of the house is great too - but the fireplace was a major selling point.

So what’s the problem?

During those renovations, the last owners converted it to gas. That’s right. With the flick of a remote control, you have an instant ‘fire’.

Still, you say, what’s the problem?

Well… I’d kinda sorta hoped that one day I’d be able to try open hearth cooking in my own home… and there’s something about the smell you get from burning real wood. “You have the fireplace in the formal living room for that,” says Pierce, my husband. My response is a weak, “Yes, but….”

If I push, the gas fireplace components can be yanked out and the fireplace restored to its woodburning state. My husband would prefer to leave the gas. I’ve agreed to give it a year (since it’s July, I’m not feeling the desire for a fire yet)…

So what is your experience with gas vs wood fireplaces? Does anyone have any sage advice?

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While I was putting all those family photo albums back on shelves, I came across my own baby photos.  I can’t have been more than two…  Although my mother reports that my two boys are WAY more active (a nice way to say “They’re nuts. I’m glad I had girls.”), it does look like I enjoyed both climbing and dirt.

While I wasn’t a tomboy, I was certainly not into the whole girly thing that I see around me today.

What were you like?

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As of this past Sunday, I have been married twelve years! *Gasp*

Didn’t I just finish college a few years ago?

Wait, no, there’s also those advanced degrees I hold….

And somehow a lot of my free time seems to have been devoted to a four-year-old and a seven-year-old who starts second grade this fall! Time is flying by.

And, given my recent change in employment status from tenure-track-professor to stay-at-home-mom, this seemed like a good post to share my results from the following quiz. Go ahead. Take it yourself and let us know, how do you rate as a 1930s wife?

Here’s my score:

20 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Oh well, after 12 years, I’m afraid not much is likely to change.

Tags: wife

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I’m still here. But my writing, including this blog, has slowed WAY down.

I was in the middle of moving.

But now the boxes are unpacked, curtains are up, and most of the pictures are hung (don’t ask about the cellar, we’re pretending its not there). Its time to start writing again.

I bravely sent out queries via email just before moving. Mostly I’ve been rejected or simply ignored, but one agent requested the first five pages! I’ve claimed office space in the new house (it has a door I can shut) and today I shall at last get those five pages off to the agent.

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We’ve spent the better part of the last two weeks preparing to move, hanging in a hotel, and then at last, moving into our new home.

That means we’ve eaten out quite a bit. My four-year-old (self named DahDoo) has always had an interesting take on words and phrases….

So, we’re at Red Robin. DahDoo points to a photo on the kid’s menu. The waitress arrives and I order his request - grilled cheese. He screams indignantly, “No!!!” We all stare at him in confusion as he turns bright red. “I’m a boy! I want a boy cheese sandwich, not a girl cheese sandwich.

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early electric washing machine! circa 1910

The first electric washing machine was invented in 1906. It was a vast improvement over the below systems:

Although electric washing machines made the weekly laundry day considerably easier for the woman (less rubbing, pounding, lifting - not to mention less exposure to the caustic soap used then), there were still problems:

• She still had to heat all the water on the stove (it was so much work, that the whites were washed first, then the colored - all in the same water).
• Originally, the motor wasn’t protected from the water. Short circuits often occurred and/or the women received a nasty shock.
• The motor often worked too vigorously, shredding the clothes.
• There was no spin dry - you used a wringer, which often removed buttons, hair, and sometimes damaged fingers.
  

  

• The tumble dryer arrived on the scene a bit later - circa 1930. Even then, most women hauled the laundry to the clothesline or spread it out over bushes to dry. Then, they faced the hot task of ironing.

SO, three cheers for my washing machine, the dryer, and my electric iron (for the rare occasions upon which I require it). AND, oh yes, three cheers for my husband who doesn’t expect that I will be the only one to run the washer and dryer and, most importantly, neither expects nor wants anything ironed.

Tags: electric washer, wringer

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