Wednesday, April 25, 2007

easy recipe: miso soup


Miso Soup! Get ready to cook something wholesome for yourself!

You will need a little bit of all of this:

Sliced diakon
Sliced turnip
Sliced sweet potatoe
Sliced ginger
Sliced shittake mushrooms
Natto (found in freezer section of Japanese grocery store)
Chinese cabbage
Sliced green onions
Firm silken tofu
Seaweed of some kind
Low sodium chicken broth or water
Miso (I use different combinations all the time)
Gomasio (blended roasted sesame seeds and salt, 50:50, will keep a long time in fridge)

Other things you can add to soup: yellow onions, broccoli, meat, fish, kale, carrots, noodles, etc. Hey, empower yourself, yer the cook, add what you want!

While farting around on your computer, doing your daily (hourly?) internet check-ins, simmer ginger, diakon, turnip and mushrooms in a little bit of broth. Once somewhat tender, add sweet potatoe. While letting this simmer, rinse the slime off of the natto. Rinse rinse rinse forever. (You will want to do this, unless of course you like natto... personally I'm not ready for its big taste.) Then chop up about half the packet of natto (the rest goes in the fridge, not the garbage) and add to soup. Of course if you haven't already done this, add more broth. (When it's all said and done, I usually use an entire tetra pack of broth, which is about 1 litre.)

Now scoop into a separate little bowl, a couple of spoonfuls of miso and hot broth from your soup pot. How much you add will depend on your flavour buds, but I like about 2 scoops. Using a fork, mash into a thin paste that will easily stir into your existing soupy potion and then scoop it in. After this point, don't allow your soup to boil anymore, because you want to keep the miso and natto goodness from being cooked to death. Add sliced green onions and some chopped cabbage, then give a stir. Add a tbsp or so of seaweed and then stir. Then finally, add about half the pack of cubed tofu and gently mix.

Sprinkle with gomasio! Voila! Eat your heart out!

Restaurant Review: Kissako Green Tea Cafe


Anyone who knows me knows that I love Japanese food. It has always been the case, that of all the worldly foods, Japanese has always made me feel the best about my dietary choices. I have only been discouraged a few times (namely with greasy tempura and other deep fried dishes), but I know to avoid those "fast-food type" dishes in the future.

Now everyone knows Futaba right? As it turns out, the original owner recently decided to sell this innovative restaurant (actually to the owners of Shiki Sushi) and open up something more low key and green tea focused. Also, as it turns out, my acupuncturist is the daughter of the man who owns Kissako. So after some talk of great restaurants in Victoria, she encouraged me to try Kissako out. And so I did. Well, we did.

There is nothing more sublime than hobbling out of a small car, after acupuncture and after having downed several pain killers, to work my way into a restaurant that I am quite sure I will love. To me this is the perfect, most ideal and fulfilling pilgrimage. This is worship and this experience has happened to me only a couple of times before: Sobo in Tofino and Diadoco in Victoria. To be honest, generally when I try a new restaurant my heart is not set on yummy fulfillment, that is unless of course I know in my gut that I am about to taste God. It would be great if all restaurants were tasty and affordable, but obviously that is not always the case. Anyway, Kissako is worth every penny you spend. So put your money where your mouth is.

I am a sucker for homemade udon noodles and guess what??? Kissako's udon miso soup ($6.50) is made with fresh homemade noodles and fantastic miso broth. Wow! I think this soup is the best deal in town, all steamy and healthy with (mostly) organic seaweed, diakon, cabbage, tofu, mushrooms and natto. In fact, this soup alone is worth the trip. If ever you are feeling run-down, uninspired or fantastic, go and get yourself some of this goodness. It has the potential to heal you and fill up your empty tummy. The serving is generous too, which is also very important in my world.

Also while you are there, please try the affordable (key word) burdock root and carrot salad ($3 something) and brown rice sushi rolls ($3.75). We chose a salmon roll, a shittake avocado roll and an unagi roll (this one is $4.75 or something like that). It was all very, very, VERY good.

Other featured items and ones that I will surely try the next time I go here:

Quiche made with brown rice, tofu and vegetables ($4.25)
Chicken salad (I don't remember the price, but it's reasonable)
Apricot seed custard with fruit ($4.25)
Green tea ice cream cone ($3.25)
Green tea roll ($4.25)
Matcha latte ($3.65)

Yum. You can get everything "to go" too and it is packaged in reusable containers (mostly). Don't forget to recycle what you don't keep.

Go right now!

PS: The menu is vegetarian and vegan friendly too... wowhoo!

Kissako Green Tea Café

2027 Oak Bay Avenue
Victoria, B.C.
Phone: (250) 370-5195
Hours of Operation: Monday-Friday (10:30am-7:00pm) & Saturday (11:30am-7:00pm)

won't miss this


This was my breakfast the last day I was at the hospital. Believe it or not, it is a bran muffin and icecream scoop of scrambled eggs. Gross. But considering they put me on a very reduced diet (for reasons I am still unsure of), I was always starving, thus more than delighted to eat by the time my meal finally came around. Now I'm more than delighted to declare that, I won't miss this.

gifts from the hospital!

I am home from the hospital now and while I was there, I received many cool and colourful gifts from my friends and family! All of these gifts decorated my dreary hospital room and gave me something to look at other than the ceiling. This is important when you are laid out on your back for several days! Without these things my room would have been nothing more than a thin curtain surrounding my hard, rubber bed.

I don't have photos of everything (for instance not included here are a couple of chocolate bars that were eaten in the neuro-ward!), but here are some of the gifts anyway. I thank everyone for the visits and generousity!

(Notice all of the pink.)









Tuesday, April 17, 2007

33


I don't know if it's just me, but everytime there is mass slaughter in a school setting, I feel fear. The likely possibility of this fear: I have spent the last 8 years of my life, full-time in a University setting and have very recently made the decision to spend another big chunk of my adult life in a High school setting. Doing what? Teaching.

Keeping up with the news, there are stories and Cho Seung-Hui displayed various signs and signals. This kid wore his sunglasses to class and took pictures with his cell phone. This kid wrote horror stories, was a loner and freaked out his teacher. This kid was troubled and now looking back, it was written all over him. This kid was obviously a killer.

Well then, if it's true that the truth revealed itself long before April 16 at Virginia Tech, then it must also be true that I have taught one or two killers in my time at the University. What about my student who too wore his sunglasses in class and filed down his fingernails like claws? This same student, who also worked alone, with one ipod bud plugged in one ear, wore a "I hate people T-Shirt" and told me repeatedly how much he hated the course. As well, I have had to tell him not just once, but a few times, to put his cell phone away, including this one time, when I busted him taking a picture of his coffee cup. Bonafide Weird-o. Sure it's true that he stressed me out and true, if he went on a killing spree, I could easily tell reporters how strange he was. I would easily speak into the microphones and recall story after story including the one where he told me he quit working at Thrifty's (a local grocery story adorned with smiley faces), because "...it wasn't all smiles". But is it true that he is a killer? Honestly, I dunno. All I know is, it's always easy to look back and read into the past. And fuck, I hope he's not a killer.

Being at the front of the classroom and behind the scenes marking assignments and tests, I do everything I can to be fair and mark accordingly. This in turn, often doesn't sit well with some students. Yes, I have failed students. And yes, in return, I have been yelled at and harassed by students. I have received emails, visits and comments given by some obviously very distraught individuals. Not to say that I have done everything "right", but I can tell you right now that I know most of the issues that unhappy students have, have nothing to do with my teaching style. I can tell that something else deep and ugly lurks. I can tell by the way they vent on me, let go on me, criticize me, and try to tear me down. A person who is healthy does not constantly throw themselves into attempted power struggles. They just don't. There is so much bullshit that goes on in the classroom, and I have my theories, but my ideas don't get me anywhere at the end of the day. I just have to accept my position and accept that sometimes a student projects onto me, issues and scenes from their past. My first focus is to help students accomplish their goals and happily, in most cases I have. But in some cases, it just doesn't work and I can't waste the energy getting caught up in power plays. I have had to just block it out and move on. I just have to assume and hope that there are no killers present in my student audience. In spite the fact that some of them act and demonstrate all of the "obvious" first signs.

I am in the same place at a scheduled, same time. My academic moves are highly predicable and essentially, I am the perfect target for someone who feels like going on a suicidal killing spree. In fact, so is every single person in a school setting. Everyone at school is a perfect target for uncontrollable rage. It used to be Post Offices and now its schools. Creepy. Also considering the fact that most criminals are followers rather than inventors, it is very likely we will experience many more of these mass murders. That sits so uncomfortably with me.

I'm very sorry to hear about the tragedy at Virginia Tech.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

An Afternoon Picker-Upper



Ewwww....


"Open discectomy is usually performed under general anesthesia ...while the patient is lying face down or in a kneeling position. During the procedure, the surgeon will make an approximate 3-inch incision in the skin over the affected area of the spine. Muscle tissue is removed from the bone above and below the affected disc and retractors hold the muscle and skin away from the surgical site so the surgeon has a clear view of the vertebrae and disc. In some cases bone and ligaments may have to be removed for the surgeon to be able to visualize and then gain access to the bulging disc without damaging the nerve tissue, this is called a laminectomy or laminotomy depending on how much bone is removed. Once the surgeon can visualize the vertebrae, disc and other surrounding structures, he or she will remove the section of the disc that is protruding from the disc wall and any other disc fragments that may have been expelled from the disc. This is often done under magnification. No material is used to replace the disc tissue that is removed. The incision is then closed with sutures and the patient is taken to a recovery room." (www.spine.org/articles/discectomy.cfm)


Think of me at around 11:15am next Wednesday on April 18. It's 6 months before my 34th birthday. And if you are bored, definitely come by and visit! (I'll likely be there until Saturday morning.)



Sunday, April 1, 2007

warm bunny

Everybody needs a warm bunny, especially a girl that has to sear and freeze a discrete area of her spine on regular intervals throughout the day. So this morning, while my b-friend slept (apparently he couldn't sleep peacefully with my endless, painful tossing and turning last night), I hauled out my dusty box of homemade felt, my needles and threads, and got to work. And look what I created... a warm bunny heating pad! The instructions are simple: sew something together and fill with brown rice. To make it warm: put it in the microwave until hot.

Bird's Eye View:



Side View:



Close-Up: