Stuck Writing

One more term paper to go, not to mention the exam I'm preparing. Online, I spend the majority of my time on google books and library pages. Awful overdose. Meanwhile, the weather outside reminds me of this song:

For May Dreaminess

May 3rd: Sernik Day

We celebrated Polish Constitution Day by baking our first sernik/cheesecake ever. The "/" captures our concentrated attempts to combine Polish and American recipes, which are very different, having wildly divergent conceptions of what cheese is.

My first confrontation with the gaping culinary wound caused by the lack of twaróg (yes, it's like the German Quark, only different) was with pierogi(es). The genuine pierogi z serem have white cheese (i.e. twaróg) filling. With cheddar they are just ridiculous.

I gave up hopes of making my own twaróg after I noticed that milk was good to drink after a month -- it didn't go sour. This explains several other oddities, like why kefir costs a fortune here and why you can only get it at the co-op. I dread to think what possible complications, chemical tricks, and replacement strategies go into the production of sour cream and yogurt.

And what cottage cheese really is. It was the closest to twaróg that I could get, but senselessly salty. The only reason I can think of that would justify putting crazy amounts of salt into butter and cottage cheese (as they do here) is to then effectively advertise other, "low- or non-sodium" products as a remedy for impending death.

You know, salt shakers aren't that heavy to lift and they have the fantastic option of letting you decide how much salt you want, so why sabotage that? The grocery logic here is mostly beyond me.

Of course, in spite of the generally successful hybridization of recipes, the cheesecake came out oddly salty. And yet, I can't post a picture, because I've devoured most of it already.

Once I'm done with my papers, I think I'll take G. on a mission to get some raw milk. I hope it doesn't entail stealing a cow, but there always are things you can't foresee...

Made Up, Unmade Up

Last night we watched a few episodes of Kasia i Tomek and I realized that if I were living in Poland, I would be buying and wearing more make up.

As a friend of mine said (referring to academic projects, however): once one has such a realization, what does one do with it?

The Cardinal

Cardinal with Bokeh, originally uploaded by Uncle Phooey.

I'm having coffee with the Northern Cardinal. He (I know for a fact that it's a boy, because he's red from beak to toe [toe?]) is sitting outside on a branch and not singing for me but for the cardinal ladies in the area. I am almost trying to work on an essay. But it's hard, because there are no cardinals in it, not even a feather.

... and They Don't Even Know How to Make Good Tea

I saw some protesters in front of the post office on my way to mail my tax returns. I know filling those out is hard as hell. Still, I don't think that doing away with them is a solution. Well, actually, I know it isn't. Sorry.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Tea Party Tyranny
thedailyshow.com
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Add Zombies

I'm not sure I understand why.

I also don't understand why I am intrigued by the idea. But I am. Maybe it's the simplicity of the title, which doesn't purport that zombies are somehow implicated in the story but just adds them. Obviously, I can't answer the big question posed by NY Times -- I don't know what exactly zombies add to the plot. Exercise? A dash of female agency as Elizabeth Bennet gets to run around with a dagger rather than sit in a parlor with her mother and sisters?

Or not.

I found an excerpt and illustration (there are illustrations! the book is scoring points with me) here. Any thoughts?

Broken Fairy Tale

Where Are They Now? American Queen Hope Cooke
About Hope Cooke the only American Queen who married the King of Sikkim, history and biography of her then and now.

9-DAY WONDERS--ON THE 10TH DAY
Headline--1963: HOPE COOKE

At the Peak: It seemed to be a real-life fairy tale back in the early 1960s when Hope Cooke, a shy 22-year-old New York debutante, won the heart of the crown prince of Sikkim, a fabled Shangri-la principality astride the Himalaya.

They called Hope "the Grace Kelly of the East" in those days, and the public was bombarded with details of her exotic romance. We learned how the bride, an orphan who'd been raised by the former U.S. ambassador to Iran, had been wooed by her Prince Charming, a handsome widower whom she'd met in India in 1958.

After many consultations by the Buddhist astrologers, the wedding was set for March of 1963, and the public was treated to rhapsodic descriptions of the two-hour ceremony, replete with throbbing Tibetan horns, bejeweled altars, clanging cymbals, and classical chants by imperial lamas. Then the couple was supposed to live happily ever after in a palace nestled in the shadows of Mt. Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest mountain (which the groom happened to own).

Please read the rest of the story here. They issue scary copyright warnings but when I clicked on the conditions I got blank subpages.

... And come back here!

I'd like to thank Shital Pradhan, whose comment on this post provided the proper ending. The article glossed over the details of Hope Cooke's leaving Sikkim for the U.S... and the fact that she later divorced her king.

I wish I had more time to actually research this. If you know more about the American queen of Sikkim, please drop me a line.

(Image found here.)