The Beauty of Every Brain

     I have been thinking lately (though lately covers a long period of time) about differences in the way individuals function. Not simply about personalities or Myers-Briggs tests, though these aspects also played a part in my pondering, but about brain wiring and communication and thought processes.(Excuse my randomness for a moment, it will come together in the end.)
    I try to keep in contact with my friends around the globe, despite our distance, and I have noticed that some of my friends communicate very well on the phone, while with others much more of a connection is established through instant messaging, or emails, or paper letters. For others I have not deciphered their best mode of communication, but they appreciate my efforts and when I finally see them again they do not feel any less close for never having responded. Interestingly, I have not noticed the extrovertedness of a person to have much to do with their strongest form of communication.
   Most nights I have dreams, usually three or four. Sometimes I wake up and tell my dreams to Nathanael and then they slowly fade away, sometimes I only remember that I drempt, and every so often I have a dream that sticks with me and I can picture it perfectly from then on. There are a few dreams I still remember from when I was three or four years old. Nathanael teases me that I live twice as long as some people. He seldom remembers dreaming, and even less frequently remembers what he drempt. During our honeymoon I awoke one morning, looked at Nathanael and asked,"How was your shop today?" Completely believing that he had opened a small business...until I saw the amused look on his face and woke up a bit more. 
    One day during graduate school I mentioned to some friends over lunch how I often wonder if someone else suddenly finding themselves with my mind would know how to use it. Somehow they took it very philosophically and thought I was saying that humans are merely machines with souls, which could be interchanged because bodies do not influence a person's self. I suppose I was wondering something nearly opposite. How much do the strengths and weaknesses of our bodies and our brain wiring distinguish us and the way we take in the world or lend it input? How has my visual thinking, vivid dreaming, and synesthesia given me a different picture of the world than Nathanael, who does not think in pictures. And why is it that both of us have trouble recalling species names of plants and animals we learned very thoroughly a few months ago, while friends who are self proclaimed "C students" seem to remember such things for years.
     Lately I have been thinking that God has given everyone their thing(s). That perhaps sanity and insanity is just a continuum of millions of characteristics and everyone has their strong points and oddities distributed in slightly different areas. (But perhaps I have just drawn this conclusion from being around too many eccentric, sock-in-sandal wearing professors.)
     My wonderings in mind, I was very glad to have recently come across the book, Thinking in Pictures: My Life With Autism, by Temple Grandin.

   Temple writes about her childhood and how her mother, certain teachers, and her aunt enabled her to excel despite having been a child who was hard to reach and might have been institutionalized by others at that time. She writes of feeling fulfillment in her work more than in a social life, and feeling attachment to place more than people. How in order to express herself in words she needs to translate her thoughts from pictures, as if she were speaking a foreign language to the world, even after all of these years of being well practiced at it. In a world where academic expectations are increasingly rigid, Temple Grandin was able to find and pursue her niche with the help of mentors who encouraged her to think the way she was built to think. She worked all the way through a PhD in Animal Science and has gone on to design more than 1/3 of the large scale livestock facilities and slaughter houses in the United States. In her book she also discusses why her designs are more humane and efficient than many of the facilities that were in place; and why she is not a vegetarian, despite feeling as though she sometimes relates more to the thought processes of cattle more than of the men and women she encounters.
     The book does not necessarily answer life's tough questions, or my little ones, but it does explore a lot of them and present a perspective I think is really helpful to consider. I would recommend it to any adult interested in having a lot of things to think about, but even more especially to individuals who sometimes have a hard time understanding or connecting with their friends or family members who have autism, learning disabilities or who just see the world differently.

"It's clear that genetic traits that can cause severe disabilities can also provide the giftedness and genius that has produced some of the world's greatest art and scientific discoveries. There is no black-and-white dividing line between normal and abnormal."  --Temple Grandin, Thinking in Pictures

Other media I highly recommend, which also deals with unique challenges and perspectives that are frequently overlooked:

• Like Stars on Earth/Taare Zameen Par -- Dealing with dyslexia, and also with art, though on screen symptoms also overlap with the autism spectrum. (PG, In Hindi, with subtitles.)

• An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks -- Stories about seven individuals with different injuries or challenges causing them to see the world in distinctly out of the ordinary ways (figuratively or literally). Oliver Sacks features both Temple Grandin and Stephen Wiltshire in the chapter focusing on autism. Many of Oliver Sacks' other books are also intriguing.

• Stephen Wiltshire's website is worth exploring either before or after you have read his profile by Dr. Sacks. Be sure to watch one of the video clips detailing Stephen's amazing artistic process.

• And on the topic of synesthesia, Cassidy Curtis has written a detailed article, which is quite an accurate representation of what I personally experience.  Many articles and fictional books are written (by people who do not have synesthesic experiences), which make this disorder sound disturbing and disabling, but very few people find their own synesthesia anything other than intriguing or helpful. In other words, don't believe those freakish videos you see on YouTube.

Do you have any thoughts on the ways people see or interact with the world? 

Any books or articles to recommend?

Do you remember any crazy dreams from childhood?

I Like Turtles.

 

In my last post I mentioned having recycled a shredded pillowcase, so here is the second project salvaging some of that material. Since I was motivated to sew, I decided I would sew whatever I wanted, so after the clothespin bag I wanted to make a gift for one of the (many) babies soon to be born to my friends. Sewing projects for infants are common, but I wanted to make something that would not be grown out of too quickly. Inspired by the simplicity of uglydolls, which provide no choking hazards but are a little bit creepy, I decided upon a turtle. The list of patterns I have created on my own is very short...ok, this may be the first one, but much to my surprise it worked without a single problem! That is until the thin, old fabric tore as I was stuffing the turtle's little legs. I almost stopped then, to add it to my half completed projects and move on, but Nathanael told me to keep going. So, I patched the turtle's wounds, gave it some hand-sewn detail to compliment its roughness, and voila! The turtle prototype for my future baby gifts. I am actually kind of glad it ripped, because now I get to keep it and remember fondly how I purchased the pillow case at a yardsale before college (against the advice of people who told me it was a creepy thing to do).

   

 My finished turtle is about six and a half inches long.  He is made of 100% cotton, inside and out.

 

His solid green body used to be the base of the pillowcase and his colorblocked shell used to be the decorative edge fabric. I was not able to find such super fabrics at the fabric store this weekend, but I think future turtles will still turn out satisfactory and squishable.

And he comes out of his shell! Which is a completely inaccurate representation of turtles to young children, but so fun. I am sure I would have preferred this falsehood as a child.
What do you guys think?
Would your child / friend / younger-self approve of this toy?

Brightening Laundry Day

In September I read nine books, plus one with Nathanael. None of them were bad books, but neither did any of them live up to the expectations I had when I borrowed them from the library. This, and the fact that the refrigerator was packed with leftovers (and I am doing my best not to be addicted to cooking), prompted me to say to Nathanael on Sunday,"I am going to paint today." It was a nice idea. Unfortunately, the amazing and creative images that flash through my mind as I fall asleep dissipate before the afternoon; I was not able to think of a design for my canvas. Not wanting to waste my creative motivation, I decided to sew a clothes pin bag for myself. I needed one. No more carrying clothespins in my pockets.
 I went in search of a pattern and ended up finding a really neat design for a tear drop clothespin bag, which stays open on its own. For fabric I used a green pillow case that was torn to bits (never put a Euro pillow in a ~40yr old standard pillowcase), and some yellow floral fabric that I purchased a few years ago during a Joann Fabrics sale.
I am pretty excited about this bag.

First, because it looks really suave. I kind of want to find more uses for it and make another one. I would hang it on our door for full of candy for trick-or-treaters if there weren't danger of the first kid taking all of the candy. Secondly, because it was a really quick project and has inspired me to attempt to complete (or at least work on) a creative project each weekday. Third, because it is just one of a series of projects from my destroyed pillowcase, and I think you will enjoy seeing all of them in the days to come.

 If you want to make one of your own have a look at this pattern by Leisl . I think there is a printable pattern on there, but I just freehanded mine on a piece of packing paper. 

 Inside my extra long loop I put some braided string, just incase the old fabric would not stand up to the job.

This is the bag laid flat, before topstiching.

In action.

 The apartment clotheslines do not have hooks beside them, so Nathanael helped me devise a way to hang the bag from the clothesline itself. I think it's pretty nifty. I also plan to put a button on the back, to loop around for easier storage indoors, but I am still in search of the right button.

L.L. Bean Trail Bars: Two Ways...or Maybe More

 Nathanael is taking a wetland plant taxonomy class this semester. They have field trips on many of the weekends, which is a little bit of a bummer for Nathanael's cramped schedule, but he enjoys the interesting excursions nonetheless. The students are required to collect and press 25 herbarium quality plant specimens by the end of the course, but Nathanael has already collected more than enough even though they are not yet halfway through the semester. Preserving species is pretty invigorating once you get into it, and I know that sounds very nerdy, but it isn't really. It is more of a pleasure in understanding your surroundings I think.
  When Nathanael goes on these all day trips into the southern heat we are nearly always out of bread. So he usually requests oat cakes and I fill a container with fruit and vegetables, but I also make him a more outdoorsy snack to satisfy his hunger. So far trail bars have been just the thing.
      Today I would like to share with you this recipe, which is rather drab in terms of color, and probably also not the most healthy thing you have ever eaten...but that is what makes it tasty. Alright, it does involve prunes and an assortment of grains, so it has those things going for it at least. The real reason I am posting this recipe is because various members of my family have been searching for it at a given time, and since I have finally found it, I want others who are looking to be able to find it too. (There are other versions on the internet, but they are not all alike.)
My Mom cut this recipe out of an L.L. Bean catalog some time in the nineties, which I think is unusual because I don't think I have ever seen recipes appear in that catalog on any other occasion. There was a picture, which made the baked trail bars look like granola bars, but when my mom made them they looked like fiber filled brownies. However, when I (at long last) rediscovered the recipe I made one batch that looked like hers, and one batch that looked like granola bars. But, both were delicious and each one accompanied Nathanael as he collected plants. (I include the instructions for each outcome below.)
   You may be skeptical of prunes, but I would like to assure you that prunes complement chocolate wonderfully without being loud in their own flavor. If you are a big fan of original powerbars, make the brownie-like variation (they are not just like power bars, but reminiscent of them), and if you are more of a chewy granola bar person, make the original version. I have substituted almost all of the ingredients at one time or another, so just make these with what you have or see my ideas below.

 

L.L. Bean Trail Bars (original recipe)
Dry Ingredients

1c. quick oats
1 c. flour
1/2c. wheat germ
3 Tbs sesame seeds
1/4 c. sunflower seeds
1/4c. chopped walnuts

Wet ingredients
1/4c. sunflower oil
2 Tbs. maple syrup
1/2 c. honey
2/3c. chocolate chips

Later addition
1/4c. baby food prunes

In one bowl mix wet ingredients thoroughly, in another mix the wet ingredients. Combine wet and dry mixtures, and the baby food prunes. Spread into a greased 8 by 8 inch pan and bake for 20 minutes at 375 F.
Cut into bars while warm.


Brownie-like variation

Heat wet ingredients together in a saucepan until the chocolate chips are melted. Cool slightly, add to dry mixture and stir in baby food prunes. Spread into a greased 8 by 8 inch pan and bake for 20 minutes at 375 F. Cut into bars while warm.

Alternate ingredients
old fashioned oats instead of quick
the addition of any puffed or rolled grains instead of portions of the oats
whole wheat flour instead of all purpose, or gluten free flours because rising is not important here
flax meal instead of wheat germ (or just skip the wheat germ)
your choice of nuts instead of sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and walnuts
canola oil instead of sunflower
additional honey instead of maple syrup
chocolate chunks instead of chips

Chromatic Kimchi

     Until I went to college I did not realize the diversity of my Dad's palate. The fact that he regularly consumed and incorporated international ingredients never really occurred to me. The dried anchovy snacks in the car, the 12 inch pieces of stretched dried bean curd in the cabinet, the "crab crackers" that inflate when you deep fry them; all seemed a little random, but exotic wasn't really a word that occurred to me. Since then international students have been continuously surprised at my knowledge of ingredients from their homeland. Unfortunately, I can't say being familiar with these things has always eliminated my being intimidated by them.
    Enter kimchi. A smell that will drive you away, like sauerkraut only spicier and more complex, and more nose crinkling. Dad ate kimchi, but he did it alone while we all wondered why.
     As I got older I figured one day I would probably like it, but I was in no rush, and it seemed more fun to tease than to be daring. One day Dad finished the last bits of cabbage in his kimchi jar after dinner and left it on the table while Melissa and I were cleaning up. I was in a silly mood (Melissa and I always have fun in the kitchen together), and I began acting out something ridiculous with an altered voice and dancing around the kitchen shaking the kimchi jar. Only when I realized Melissa couldn't possibly think I was that funny did I notice that the lid of the jar had been screwed on crookedly...and that I was covered in garlic rich, deep orange kimchi sauce. Melissa and Mom were merciful (and didn't want to smell me) and let me skip out on dishes to go shower.
     Last year was a big turning point in my relationship with kimchi. My friend Young Wha and I began cooking together once a week; she would teach me to make Korean food and I would help her fine tune her English. Our times together were always amazing and delicious. I am sure there are phrases she would still like to learn, but it seems as though we talked about all of life without any hindrance. Still, cooking words not being on the top of the ESL list, we had a lot of moments that made both of us laugh.
"Sarah! What am I doing with the noodles?"
"You are tossing them."
"Ah! Toss!"
She could probably have a cooking show now.
Kimchi and anchovies were ingredients I was skirmish of at first, but she convinced me.

Despite kimchi being the most ubiquitous thing in Korean kitchens, not everyone makes their own. Young Wha's mother made a big batch every so often and sent it to her daughter (and perhaps other family members). But, curious as I am, I thought I would attempt it. The recipe I chose is from the Momofuku cookbook. Momofuku is a noodle bar owned by the Korean-American chef David Chang. He shared this recipe on NBS's The Today Show, but in case of dropped links I have copied it here. (Orange notes are my own.)

Momofuku Napa Cabbage Kimchi (aka Paechu kimchi)
Yields Makes 1 to 1½ quarts
Ingredients
1 small to medium head Napa cabbage, discolored or loose outer leaves discarded
2 tablespoons kosher or coarse sea salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
20 garlic cloves, minced
20 slices peeled fresh ginger, minced
1/2 cup kochukaru (Korean chile powder)
1/4 cup fish sauce
1/4 cup usukuchi (light soy sauce)
2 teaspoons jarred salted shrimp
1/2 cup 1-inch pieces scallions (greens and whites)
1/2 cup julienned carrots
Cut the cabbage lengthwise in half, then cut the halves crosswise into 1-inch-wide pieces.

 

Toss the cabbage with the salt and 2 tablespoons of the sugar in a bowl. Let sit overnight in the refrigerator.
Other recipes recommended placing the cabbage in a large colander to prevent it from sitting in the water that drains out of the leaves. I didn't have one big enough, so I placed a cereal bowl upside down in my big mixing bowl to lift the cabbage off the bottom.

 

The next day, prepare the sauce.

One of my favorite cookbooks taught me the easiest way to peel ginger. Believe it or not, the edge of a spoon peels off the skin, but very little extra. Try it. It's magical.

After peeling it is best to slice ginger into rounds and then smash the rounds with a mortar and pestle, or with your garlic press.

Combine the garlic, ginger, kochukaru, fish sauce, soy sauce, shrimp, and remaining ½ cup sugar in a large bowl. If it is very thick, add water 1/3 cup at a time until the brine is just thicker than a creamy salad dressing but no longer a sludge. You can see that kochukaru (Korean chile powder) is not the same as other varieties found in the United States. I found mine at a Korean food market. The owner told me to let her know how the kimchi turned out. Despite having a lot of kochukaru, the resulting kimchi is only medium spicy, and not especially hot.

Stir in the scallions and carrots.
Drain the cabbage and add it to the brine. Cover and refrigerate. Though the kimchi will be tasty after 24 hours, it will be better in a week and at its prime in 2 weeks. It will still be good for another couple weeks after that, though it will grow stronger and funkier. Some people leave their kimchi at room temperature for 24-48 hours before refrigerating in order to encourage fermentation. This recipe does not call for it, but it is really up to you.

Funny little things

I have noticed a lot of funny little things since we arrived a month ago. Some are a little disappointing, but a number are interesting or quite nice.
    The first thing Nathanael and I did when we entered our apartment, was fill our water bottles and taste the water. For one thing we had been awake almost since we left Wisconsin, and had then spent the morning roaming campus because there were some computer glitches preventing his registration, and all of this worked up a pretty strong thirst. Also, we were both very curious as to what it would taste like. The result was more surprising than we expected. No chlorine. After having abandoned the glories of well water the moment I left home seven years ago, I was not expecting to stumble upon it in a city of over 200,000. And, not only is it devoid of chlorine, but instead of being flavorless it is slightly sweet. I have begun to enjoy the flavor very much, in fact. There is a third thing about the water, which I suppose I should have expected, but which took me utterly by surprise. I actually laughed at myself when I ran the water upon our arrival. The water is warm. No matter how long you run the tap marked with a C, it will always be cooler once you have left your glass full on the counter for a while. I wouldn't trade our water in, though; warmth beats chlorine by miles.
   Before we left Wisconsin, Nathanael and I had been discussing how products sold in the state/region/locality where they are produced should be less expensive since they do not demand as much transportation. Most products are not priced that way, and the example I used was Stoneyfield yogurt. All around the country the price hovers around $3.96, even when I was in graduate school in the same state and the CEO was our commencement speaker. However, now that we are here instead of in the dairy state, a gallon of milk ranges from $3.99 to $7.15. I am doing my best to refrain from complaining now that what I wish has come true (while I slowly use our $3/lb butter), and instead have been trying to find the things that are less expensive because they are locally produced. I don't have a super memory for the prices of non-dairy items, but it makes me smile that most of the rice in the grain aisle is produced in the town where Nathanael works at the rice research station. The farmer's market has been a source for vegetables at significantly less than grocery prices (which has not been true in other cities where I have lived), especially for pecans. Pecans! Those emblems of the South and its rich desserts. They were one of the products sparking my hopes of lower prices locally, and though the store shelves don't show it, the farmers market provides local pecans for a good bit less than $9/lb.
  My last surprise--for this post, though I certainly have more to share--was how much we miss our garden. For the first few days when we knew not what to cook I blamed it on our missing pans and silverware. Once they were unpacked I realized the difficulty was no longer having vegetables motivating our menu in large quantities. In two days we moved from 2 or 3 enormous zucchini a week, to one six inches long for $0.50. The effects on cooking are pretty dramatic.
    In Wisconsin, our garden is in the loving hands of Kristy and Paul, who have been creating all kinds of ways to enjoy the vegetables (even zucchini pancakes). We are so glad for their hard work and for the pictures they have sent us of the produce. Below is one of the pictures Kristy sent us, which I think is probably my favorite picture of vegetables, so far in life!

    
    In the on campus apartments, where most of the residents are international students, a number of the graduate students have their parents living with them. One older Chinese lady in particular is always outside with her tiny grandson, but every so often I noticed her walking back from the parking lot alone. One day I saw her huddled between the edge of the asphalt and the chain link fence, digging; which in the moments before my eyes glanced around made my brain think, "Secrets? Burried treasure? Small dead animals?" Then I saw the real reason. A garden bustling with produce. This determined little lady has turned a small strip of littered sand into beautiful thing. She has peppers, long skinny eggplant and the most enormous squash I have ever seen, which are draped over the fence and the plant still holds them up. I smile whenever I think about it.
     Now Nathanael says if he could find a place to keep a goat, he'd be happy staying here pretty much forever.

Refrigerator Pickles

     I don't remember a whole bunch about my Dad's father, but I remember watching buggs bunny on a particular Thanksgiving, Grandpa calling me a "wise guy", and a crystal platter arranged with baby pickles. I don't remember any of the other food, though it is probably because pickles were the only thing I ate.
     My grandfather liked a lot of things; fireworks, Laurel and Hardy, pickles, photographs, and radishes. I didn't understand the radishes-- though the amount of zip packed into something so white was intriguing-- I approved of the other four. The biggest mystery to me was why my grandmother always insisted on draining the pickle juice out of the jar as soon as she opened it, thereby leaving the pickles high and dry for subsequent servings. It just struck me as odd. But then again, this week Nathanael has been doing his evening research with a jar of my pickles and a fork on his desk. Maybe pickles just bring these things out in people.

     Since Nathanael and I left our garden we have been purchasing cucumbers, three for a dollar, at the farmer's market. It's a little ironic since just a few weeks ago we were swimming in them, and even though we were making cucumber sandwiches and sharing them here and there, I seriously needed to make pickles. This was more than fine with me since I could probably live on pickles...if they had a little more nutrition. But, I was in search of a recipe for refrigerator pickles so that I would neither have to spend weeks waiting for them to ferment to perfection, nor store them and create one more box of food to bring South. I had enough cucumbers that I was able to try some different ratios, discovering that I did not really like any of the refrigerator versions I came across online. Usually they had more sugar than vinegar, which I think is preposterous.
Pickles are about the vinegar, people.  (Unless you are making the fermented variety, in which case they are not.)
Therefore, I would like to share with you my very own, fine tuned pickle recipe. I am not going to claim that it is going to make the "best pickles you ever had", because Nathanael told me people have offered him homemade pickles in the past while telling him that very thing, and he couldn't have agreed less. I will tell you that Nathanael, Asher, and a number of others I have shared these with have thoroughly enjoyed them and gone on to finish large jars of them within hours. This recipe is pretty simple and can be modified for zucchini (which we tried), carrots, and even grapes (I hear), but if you have cucumbers start with those.

Refrigerator Pickles
Makes 1 Quart jar or 2 pint jars or a number
of odd small jars (which must be glass)
For liquid
1 1/4 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 Tbs sugar
2 Tbs salt
For jar
3 Medium or 4-6 pickling cucumbers (pickling are better, but any work)
2 cloves of garlic, each sliced into two or three pieces, lengthwise
1/2 tsp mustard seed
1/2 tsp dill seed
2  (4 inch) branches of dill or  1 scant tsp dried dill weed
*If you don't have any of these spices the pickles are still worth making, they just will have a different flavor.

1. In a small pot, all of the ingredients for the liquid until the sugar and salt dissolve. Then remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. (It will smell so delicious, but amazingly strong too.)

2. While the liquid is cooling, cut your cucumbers into rounds that are 4mm thick (the ones in the pictures were a little too thin and were not as crisp as we like). Place half of the spices and garlic in the bottom of the glass jar.

 Cram the cucumber slices in as tight as you can until the jar is half full, then sprinkle the remaining spices and garlic, and finish filling the jar. (The dill and dill seed we used was also from our garden.)

3. Pour the cooled vinegar mixture slowly over the slices and screw on the lid. Refrigerate and let the flavors meld for 2 days before devouring.

(This is really just a tip, because I usually try a slice or five before the two days arrive, but they really are best after two days.) Eat all of your pickles within two weeks, and use the pickle juice for another batch of cucumbers up to one time. After that too much salt is gone and they won't really pickle.
4. Be sure to wash out your pot to prevent corrosion, even if it is stainless steel. Really.

(Notice the remnants of us still unpacking in the background.)