No Other Angle The Same: Through the Plastic Box

Philadelphia, PA
Sunday, January 19th
1:33 PM

Sometimes, life is just that much cooler when you view it from the inside of a box that held a toy for your baby sister on her first birthday.

(Isn't my friend's daughter cute??)

No Other ______ The Same: Uhuru is Moving

Walking home tonight, I came across this sign.

To some, this might not seem like a big deal. After all, Uhuru is simply a used furniture store, and a pretty odd used furniture store at that. Exhibit A: the sculpture in the window.

Yet Uhuru for me is synonymous with my introduction to Philadelphia 7 years ago. When I moved into my very first apartment without roommates, in a new city, with no furniture, I would go back and forth from Uhuru practically daily. Everything in there was cheap and definitely had a story. Throwing a dinner party? I'd pick up a new chair for $10. Needed one more wine glass? They had three for $5.00.

Uhuru is a project of the African People's Education and Defense Fund, so all purchases go to a good cause. Yet my relationship with Uhuru got a little bit awkward when I inadvertently got on their mailing list and Ruby, the manager, began calling and emailing me to come to all of their meetings. I said I could come to the meetings, but I didn't have extra money to donate. It turns out that she really wanted the money. I started avoiding Uhuru, a difficult feat since inevitably it would be on my way home.

I'm not sure what will replace it, but I doubt the new store will have the panache of Uhuru. Maybe I'll stop on in during the next couple of weeks, brave the chance of seeing Ruby, and pick up one more weird lamp to add to my unique furniture collection. 

No Other News The Same: Women and Weight

Earlier this week, my friend called me in tears because her yoga teacher told her she had to lose weight. The teacher told her that unless she modified her diet, she wouldn't be able to progress in her yoga practice. My friend is a size 4. Most women dream of being a size 4.

If even the most supposedly forgiving and spiritual type of physical activity, yoga, is starting to shame already fit women into thinking they need to slim down in order to be healthy, we are in big trouble. We should know now as a society that being a size 0 doesn't equal perfect health. The more we prioritize size over wellness, the harder it will be for individuals to actually be healthy.

Recently Elle Magazine ran a cover of four women in comedy featuring Mindy Kaling, Zooey Deschanel, Amy Poehler and Allison Williams. The pictures of Deschanel, Poehler and Williams were full-body shots. The picture of Kaling was cropped, just showing the actress' face and torso. Immediately the public started to wonder why. Was Kaling too large to show her whole body on a magazine cover? Keep in mind Kaling is a size 8.

Yet Kaling herself said in a talk show interview that the public outcry deflated her sense of accomplishment at making the cover of Elle. "The implication was, 'What, Elle, you can't put her big, fat body on the magazine?'" she said, slightly joking. "'Why? 'Cause she's just fat and gruesome? Why can't we look at her beautiful fat body?'" (Reported by the New York Daily News). Kaling is funny, innovative and extremely successful. Yet when I google "Mindy Kaling", the first item that comes up on my search engine is "Mindy Kaling weight".

Being thin doesn't necessarily equate being healthy. Some believe that exercising rather than dieting is the important part, and that thin people can, in fact, be extremely unhealthy. In an article entitled The Truth About Size Zero, a former Vogue editor quotes a Russian model refusing a snack in one of the only English phrases she knows, "It is my job not to eat."

Marilyn Wann writes about weight bias; "A highly accurate way to predict a person's risk of dying is to see how easily they can get up from the floor. I'm trying to imagine how different our health care system would be if, instead of focusing on weight and weight loss, caregivers did the sitting-rising test instead. How much healthier would we be? How much more would we actually enjoy healthy living, free from weight judgment?" One yoga teacher writes about learning to be at peace with being the biggest person in all of her classes as a size 10. She realized she went up a size from doing so much yoga and cross-fit, yet she was stronger, more muscular, and more fit than ever.

I'm not for one second saying that gaining an excessive amount of weight is healthy. According to the Center for Disease Control, more than one-third of American adults are obese, and approximately 17% of children and adolescents are obese. Extreme weight gain is a health problem. Being a fit, healthy size 10 is not.

Yet there is hope (and despair for the weight loss corporations). Currently, the amount of dieters is at an all-time low, which is surprising considering the fact that it's still prime New Year's Resolutions time. Instead of dieting, some Americans are simply eating healthier. Some are also becoming more tolerant of a couple of extra pounds.

What if, instead of worrying about size and weight, people (and women in particular) just worried about wellness? The organization I work at teaches young people that health can come in all shapes and sizes.

One young woman, after a summer with us declared, proudly, "I'm big and healthy. I'm blealthy." 

No Other Dish The Same: Granny's Oatmeal Bread - Baking Fail

I was sort of stumped as to what to make this week, since I wasn't making a dish for a certain occasion. Then, passing by my coffee table, I noticed my cookbooks. Remember cookbooks? Those precursors to the internet? Frequently I forget that I actually have a decent set of cookbooks, and instead I default to cooking blogs. My cookbooks are delightfully weathered with post-it notes inside them and somewhat disheveled pages.

This one is called Vegetarian Planet by Didi Emmons. My very good friend gave me this book six years ago (isn't it crazy that 2008 was six years ago??). I'm not a vegetarian, contrary to popular belief, but I don't particularly enjoy cooking meat. Choosing the right kind, making sure it doesn't go bad, and ensuring it's cooked for me is pretty stressful. Cooking meat will be a challenge later this year.

This recipe is called "Granny's Oatmeal Bread". Why, you might ask, did I actually try and bake again, given my record? Well, at a time in my life when I was an Outdoor Education Instructor living in a commune in Vermont I did manage to bake a few successful loaves of bread. I also had all but two of the ingredients. Finally, I thought it if turned out somewhat decently I would have breakfast for a couple of weeks. Breakfast is one of those meals that I simply haven't gotten down yet. What do you all eat for breakfast?

Here's the recipe:

It seemed simple enough. Yet, after an unexpected happy hour complete with mojitos, I wasn't entirely with it. Trying to keep juggling all the ingredients at one time proved to be too much.

This is me, wondering why on earth I even try to bake??

Then, I realized something. It was 9:45 pm, the dough had to rise for an hour and a half, and then the bread had to bake for an hour. So....I gave up.

I'm going to let the dough rise, try to set an alarm to get it into the refrigerator, and try to bake it tomorrow. I'll keep you posted. Needless to say, I won't be enjoying Granny's Oatmeal Bread for breakfast in the morning.

UPDATE

 

This morning, I got up an hour early, put the loaves into the oven, and went back to sleep. An hour later, the loaves were, as I had suspected, hard as bricks on the outside and still a bit gummy on the inside. Turns out that after the dough rose the first time, I was supposed to let it rise a second time. Whoops.

 



No Other Tale The Same: How My Parents Learned to Eat

How My Parents Learned to Eat by Ina R. Friedman and illustrated by Allen Say conveys the universal message of appreciating other cultures in a very simple, straightforward and charming manner. Everyone can appreciate and learn from this story, despite the fact that it is written for ages five to eight.

A young girl tells the tale of how her parents first learned how to eat - or really, learned to eat in a different way than they were used to growing up. Her mother is Japanese and her father is American, so when they first meet in Yokohama (he is stationed there as a solider), they are afraid to dine together. John is nervous because he doesn't know how to eat with chopsticks. Aiko is apprehensive because she doesn't know how to eat with a fork and knife. They secretly practice the other one's customs, and of course, when they go on their first dinner date, John is prepared to eat at a Japanese restaurant and Aiko is prepared to eat at an American restaurant. They resolve to alternate in the future, and the rest is history. The book ends with the little girl saying that some nights her family eats with chopsticks, and some nights her family eats with a knife and fork. Amazing.

Without sounding preachy, Friedman shows an example of two individuals who, instead of judging one another, strived to understand one another instead. There wasn't the least bit of disgust on either end. Both John and Aiko, with open minds and curiosity, strive to simply understand each other. Yes, it's a simplistic thought, yet what if everyone really took this concept to heart?

Sasha Martin cooked at least one dish from every country in the world in her Global Table Adventure experiment with the goal of creating more peace through understanding culture, one bite at a time. Food connects all of us no matter how differently we eat, and of course, we all know that food is about more than simply nourishment. As John thinks to himself when he finally gets up the courage to ask Aiko to dinner, "It's hard to be happy if you're hungry."

 

No Other Angle The Same: Fresh Lettuce

MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) Museum
Giovanni Anselmo
Senza titolo (Struttura che mangia)
Untitled (Eating Structure)
New York, NY
Saturday, January 11th
4:31 PM

I tend to get kind of snarky when I look at modern art. Call me old-fashioned, but when I go into an art gallery I like to see work one of my former 3rd grade students couldn't have crafted. You can imagine my comments when I saw this. (So now lettuce, sawdust and granite are considered art??? Really?? Come on!)

Yet, as is the case usually with modern art (for me), it's all in the description. I realized that the lettuce has to be changed every few days or the granite stone will fall when the lettuce wilts. The idea that lettuce can hold up a stone is kind of cool. I also read more about why this artist chose these elements. It's pretty interesting.

Still, though, I have to admit that I would take Van Gogh's Starry Night over Senza titolo any day.

No Other ______ The Same: The Piano Bar

All the newbies hang at the bar, being shoved constantly to the side by the people coming in and heading out. The regulars sit at the round tables closest to the piano, clearly well past their 2 drink minimum. The piano singer is on fire, belting out everything from Katy Perry to Queen to Lisa Loeb to Broadway showtunes. A rather large, macho bartender sings a surprisingly sassy version of "Part of your world" from The Little Mermaid. A customer sings a way too serious version of "Moondance" by Van Morrison, all the while pulling up his pants that keep falling down. The server blows everyone away as she belts out the high parts of "Seasons of Love" from Rent. As the patrons continue to drink, their voices get louder and more off-key as they sing along to all their favorite tunes.