Big World, little snapshots

sometimes

Sometimes (not often enough though) I like how the photos taken on my iPhone turn out. Here are two such photos shot earlier today (in reverse order):

Sometimes a sunset along the Hudson River will be of the stop-you-in-your tracks (or in my case, literally-stop-you-in-the-middle-of-your-run) variety.

Sometimes you just want to share a photo of a pretty plate of doughnuts, pre-consumption for breakfast. Especially if that photo of doughnuts kind of matches the photo of the sunset you also want to share. Oh, I know you were thinking it. Or if you weren’t, you kind of are now, right?

The first photo in this post was taken near the 14th Street entrance of the West Side Greenway, a path that runs along the Hudson River in Manhattan. The second photo is of a few doughnuts from the Doughnut Plant location in Chelsea (clockwise from top left, in case you’re inspired to make a Doughnut Plant run yourself (maybe during a sunset! — cue comic drum, please!): tres leches, strawberry, carrot cake (my personal favorite of this bunch) and pistachio).

Tags: hudson river, photography, sunset, manhattan, iphone photography, doughnut plant, doughnuts, westside greenway

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Categories my photography, living new york, on island, things of yum, out in the land

my berlin muse

20 Apr

I was discouraged by the chilly, damp weather from taking many photos during my recent trip to Berlin (read: I am a wimp), but I found myself snapping tons of photos at the Reichstag Dome, which sits on top of the German parliamentary building. In this Norman Foster-designed glass structure, I suppose I discovered my Berlin muse.

Tags: architecture, berlin, dome, germany, norman foster, photography, reichstag

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Categories architecture, further off island, my photography, off island

memories of berlin

20 Apr

: Ambling along the River Spree – Berliner Dom in the background.

: Gazing up at a domed ceiling in the Neues Museum, being reminded of an eclipse.

: Being struck by the stillness of the Holocaust Memorial.

: Discovering a love for city biking – thank you, Berlin, for making it so easy.

A few of my memories of Berlin, distilled on film, from a few days spent there earlier this month.

Tags: berlin, berliner dom, bicycles, germany, holocaust memorial, neues museum, nordic embassies, photography

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Categories further off island, my photography, off island

photo recipe: kimchi

4 Mar

Before we get into the recipe, it may be worthwhile to go over some background on kimchi for those of you who haven’t grown up with the spicy, pungent stuff. Wikipedia describes kimchi as “a traditional fermented Korean dish made of vegetables with a variety of seasonings.” According to that same Wikipedia entry, the Kimchi Field Museum in Seoul, South Korea, has 187 varieties of kimchi on record, and a 2008 Health magazine article named kimchi as one of the top five “World’s Healthiest Foods” because of its richness in vitamins and salutary health benefits.

Kimchi is ubiquitous in Korean cuisine and many Korean people (my parents included) start feeling a little funny if they go even a day without the spicy, garlicky, crunchy stuff. Koreans feel you can add kimchi (either as a side dish or an ingredient) to pretty much anything. My personal weirdest (but still pretty darn yummy) kimchi pair-up: as a topping on pizza.

The following photo recipe is for the most common type of kimchi — baechu (or cabbage) kimchi — made from napa cabbage. Making kimchi will take some time and you may have to get used to the smell (I’m not going to lie; it’s strong) but I hope you will give it a whirl and perhaps use it as an entry point in trying out other Korean recipes.

Before you begin, you should head to the nearest Korean grocery store (if you live in New York City, Hmart in Koreatown or M2M in the East Village should have most of what you need) to pick up the following:

2 medium-size nappa cabbage
1/2 Korean radish
Salt and sugar
3 cups hot red pepper flakes
Salted shrimp, garlic puree and ginger puree
1 bunch of Asian chives
Sweet rice flour (optional)
1/4 pound fresh oysters (optional)

: To begin, clean each cabbage and cut in half length-wise (but careful not to cut the leaves). Salt each individual layer of leaves and soak in cold water for at least 4 hours (preferably overnight). (Note: your bowl doesn’t need to be this huge – this picture is of a bowl with like 8 cabbages.)

: Next, take your Korean radish and clean and peel. Cut in half.

: Cut the half in half again (easier to grate this way). Start grating your radish.

: Optional: Mix 1/4 cup of sweet rice flour (or plain flour) and 1 1/2 cups of water in a skillet or pot and heat on medium-high while stirring constantly. Once the mixture starts to bubble, pour in 1/8 cup of sugar and stir until lumps disappear. If you are having problems with the flour lumps, you can strain the mixture. Cool the mixture down.

: Chop your chives until you have about 1/2 cup.

: You can use fresh garlic and ginger and mince or you can buy the pureed kind at the grocery store. I don’t know how you would begin to go about salting your own teeny shrimp so I would just buy this pre-made. You’ll need about 1/3 cup of salted shrimp, 1/2 cup of minced garlic and 3 tbsp of minced ginger.

: Mix the radish, pepper flakes, chives, shrimp, garlic, ginger, (cooled-down) flour mixture (optional) and oysters (optional) together in a big bowl. You can play with the proportions of these depending on your taste.

: Next put your cabbage one at a time into the mixture and spread the mixture on each individual leaf (both sides!).

: Place your cabbage (and some of the left-over paste, if you have any) into an airtight container. (Note: the “airtight” part is important for keeping the smell in.) Leave the container out overnight. Check it in the morning – if it’s started bubbling, it means it’s fermenting! Move it to the refrigerator and enjoy according to your tastes. Some people like brand new kimchi and others like the really old. Chop and serve.

Special thanks to my friend Grace who donated her apartment, supplies, ingredients and recipe for making the batch of kimchi photographed in this entry.

Tags: how-to-make, kimchi, korean food, recipe

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Categories recipes

certain strings

29 Feb

Hi, my name is Judie and I’m a book nerd. I love words. I love especially those words composed from what can only be the sacred recesses of a writer’s heart/mind (is there a difference?), those special strings of words written in such a way that a reader instantly intuits as meaningful and profound without even having to process them.

Here are some beautiful strings I came upon recently:

“But eventually a sort of amnesia had overtaken Susan; her rebellion and hurt had melted away, deliquesced into a sweet, eternal sunniness that was terrible in the way that life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it gravitas and shape.” — Jennifer Egan

“The beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.” — Virginia Woolf

“It was a visit from the goddess, the beauty
Who was poetry’s sister — she had come
To tell poetry she was spoiling us.
Poetry listened, maybe, but we heard nothing
And poetry did not tell us. And we
Only did what poetry told us to do.”
— Ted Hughes

These photographs were taken on my iPhone in Central Park on a cold winter’s day during which most people would have preferred not to linger outside. I was struck by the image of this man seen through the bare branches of the trees, quietly sitting on a park bench, reading.

Tags: books, central park, iphone pictures, jennifer egan, poetry, poets, reading, ted hughes, virginia woolf, writers, writing

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Categories my photography, on island

sidewalk swirls

9 Jan

Thank you to the artist Jay Shells for injecting energy and life into what would be an otherwise lifeless, boarded-up future construction site in the West Village, transforming it instead into a beautiful backdrop for our daily sidewalk scenes.