Manic Bookstore Cafe

So I've been neglecting the Bookstore Cafe because of another, unrelated manic episode -- I started a project in mid-December with our high school. Knowing that the new version of Anna Karenina  (the movie) was coming to the Little Art Theatre around New Year's, I challenged the high school students to read the novel over the holiday break. My goal was to help them through it by writing a series of blog posts and to celebrate their achievement on Russian New Year's on January 14 (well, actually on the 13th, since I wanted to do it on a Sunday). I'm not sure it was the most well-organized experiment. I had 13 takers, including an eighth-grader, and hustled all over Dayton and Columbus looking for enough books. (It had seemed to me that I would pick them up used at the end of the semester, but even though two courses at Ohio State read the novel this past fall, the bookstores had already sent the books back to their warehouses or wherever they go...) I had to buy some ...

My friend Gera likes to talk about life as a series of lines or rows, a white one followed by a black one, followed by another white one. Stripes, if you will, of good luck and bad luck. When he feels like things are going very badly, he remembers that the next stripe is bound to be white. This holiday season, I found myself thinking not of stripes, but of plaid. We had a wonderful ten-day adventure back in Philadelphia for the holidays, but it was definitely plaid. Safe and enjoyable drive out -- no white-out conditions, no heavy rain, cats well-behaved overnight in the motel -- and a lovely day in Philadelphia. We got our visa pictures taken and went to a new (for me) Chinese restaurant for lunch, Han Dynasty, where the sesame noodles were to die for and the fish I ordered rivaled Peter Chang in Charlottesville ( very  high praise from me). We went to the house and discovered water on the floor from the leaking washing machine, and overnight Steve couldn't sleep at al...

Sometimes it is nice to make food and feed friends, and sometimes it's nice to go out to eat and let someone else cook. When we were younger, we would occasionally come out to Yellow Springs early on a Sunday morning, bike to Xenia and back, about 18 miles, and then go to the Winds for brunch. Then we moved here 8+ years ago, and if we've been for brunch two times, I would be surprised. Having younger colleagues with younger children come out to see us and taking them  to the Winds made us feel, well, younger. And older at the same time. Their kids were 2, 6, 7 and 9; ours were the babysitters, and they felt like rock stars. The day was warmish and gray, and when we returned from our highly adult outing, we stood around in the backyard watching the children jump on the trampoline, climb the tree, play soccer and basketball... Oddly festive, and super fun. The truly warm hugs of our colleagues reminded us that we can host without huge efforts in the kitchen; sometimes ope...

It's true. A cookbook can change your life. This morning I made the most amazing paneer, using the recipe from Vij's at Home. As in the Russian proverb, "первый блин комом," my first attempt at paneer a few weeks ago was only so-so. The second was fantastic. I found a thin cotton produce bag (given to us, I suspect, by Steve's sister Allison) and it was perfect for making the paneer. It may be that the local milk I bought made a difference as well. The recipe is as follows: Pour 1/2 cup of water into a soup kettle. Add a half gallon of whole milk. Heat over medium high for about 15 minutes, until the milk rises about 3 inches in the pot. Then shut off the flame and add 1/4 cup white vinegar (which I used today) or lemon juice. Swirl the vinegar into the milk without using a spoon. Wait ten minutes. Then take a bandana, a cotton bag, or cheesecloth and place over a colander. Pour the milk solids and liquids into the colander and let sit for 10 or 15 min...

I've recently decided that in a household of 4, plus two cats, it's rather likely that two or more of us will be grouchy at any given moment. This was a week of grouchiness, including several episodes with Olivia's crazy cat. But on the weekend I managed to get into the kitchen. Since we were headed to two parties in Columbus, one of which was a potluck for ESL learners at the Worthington Library, I decided to pull out my new Vij's at Home  cookbook. (When we were in Vancouver I had a great French lunch with my friend and colleague Evelyn, and our UBC hosts took us to an amazing Chinese restaurant, called Lin's, I think. But after that our timing got all messed up and it became clear that we were not going to manage to go to any more restaurants. So when we were gathering picnic food at the indoor market, I made sure to buy one of the cookbooks from Vij's, which they say is the best Indian restaurant in Vancouver. The cookbook is fantastic, and I've tri...

A followup on Louis Menand [pronounced LEW-IS MEN-AND, not the French way I've been pronouncing it!]. The Future of the University group I belong to at Ohio State, in conjunction with the Humanities Institute, invited Menand to speak on campus in November. I was pretty hot to go, as I thought his book was interesting, and he's a very good writer. The event was on the 11th floor of the newly renovated library, which was a treat -- that room is beautiful and a great place for a special lecture. Unfortunately, Menand is not a special lecturer. It's hard to imagine a more monotonous style of delivery, and this was a "canned" lecture that repeated much of what was in his book. The lecture also confirmed for me what the book suggested: people who live in Ivy-Covered Ivory Towers shouldn't come out to Ag Country. We here in the Midwest are notoriously in awe of the Establishment of higher ed, namely Hah-vahd. But when someone in the audience asked Menand...

Does it count as a blog if I post once a month? I think so -- this is just the electronic equivalent of all those notebooks and diaries on my shelf which have the first few pages filled out. Some of them are new year's diaries, when I do a recap at the end of the year. Still others represent new ventures, new times in my life. I hope this new period will be a time of travel. I attended the Russian language class of a t.a. yesterday -- ostensibly to give her feedback on her teaching and to be able to speak authoritatively about it in my letters of recommendation as she goes out on the job market. The theme of the class was "verbs of motion," but in the end it turned into "Professor Brintlinger -- a great traveller!" (Профессор Бринтлингер -- великая путешественница!) How great is that. The students were asking me questions about my trip to China this summer, my trip to Crimea, my trip last year to Lake Baikal, and I got to end the class by saying: "And in...