Scientific Ink

Author: Dunrie

  • Practice makes permanent

    So, I have been straying from my path, not going to satsang at my local meditation center, wondering what the point of the chants and the gatherings are, feeling disconnected. I have let that question “why should I go?” rattle around in my head for a little while, and I just rediscovered the answer.

    Tonight, when I sat down for meditation, I noticed a few extra soundtracks playing in my head: the music I had been listening to in the car when I went to get groceries, the football game my husband watched as I plinked around on the computer next to him, the grandiose or pessimistic fantasy du jour, and my usual planning channel, full of to-dos and shoulds and schedules and stress. When I closed my eyes and that’s all I heard, I had to reconsider how I was filling my time, filling my mind. That’s the gift of meditation – the chance to notice my patterns and to choose to maintain them or to let them go.

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  • Thanksgiving highlights

    • My nephew
    • My niece
    • My brother-in-law’s deep fried turkey
    • My sister’s homemade non-canned green bean casserole (from Cook’s Illustrated – subscription required)
    • Hot and numbing beef roll in our take-out meal from Tasty China in Marietta
    • Dave’s bacon, avocado, leftover turkey sandwich, a play on Zingerman’s Tarb’s Tenacious Tenure. Hingerman’s Barb’s Tenacious Tenure anyone?
    • Going to the Marietta YMCA with my sister to work off aforementioned meals
    • My nephew and niece, again.

    Nathan samples the fried turkey

  • Gone modular again

    Flor in the studyMy obsession with modular floorcovering continues. After some delay and vacillation, I replaced the 12 year old Pier 1 clearance-special dhurrie rug in our study with Flor Copper Solid Ground. I was tired of kicking out the puckers in the old rug when I was trying to use the room for yoga. I also never liked the “southwestern” color scheme and pattern. This stuff feels great underfoot, cleans like a dream, and can be hand-cut to fit any size or shape. My favorite part about it is how it stair-steps around the file cabinet (lower right) and it also stair-steps under the desk (not shown).

    I might replace this photo with one taken in daylight – the ones with flash looked weirdly flat and this one is blurry because I was breathing during the exposure.

  • Laap (aka “Larb”)

    Laap is a savory dish made with ground meat and herbs. It is often found under the salad menu in Thai restaurants, but for me it isn’t a salad – it is a meat dish with a bit more green than usual. The meat can be whatever you want or have on hand (chicken, beef, water buffalo, whatever). I really like it with ground turkey. This recipe is based on notes that my friend Heather scribbled down in a Lao kitchen when we visited Dave’s uncle Jim in Laos years ago.

    Ingredients

    • 2 inches galangal (can substitute ginger), grated
    • 5-10 shallots (5 medium shallots, 10 if they’re teeny), diced
    • 3 garlic cloves, diced
    • 3-4 stalks lemongrass, remove the outer leaves, cut off and discard the greener ends and the “bulb” end, keeping about 4 inches or so. slice the lemongrass stalk lengthwise and then crossways to make thin half-moons
    • 2-3 green chilies, diced
    • 20 oz. ground turkey
    • 2 Tb sticky/glutinous rice flour (available at Asian groceries, may be able to substitute regular flour)
    • 1/4 cup fish sauce (available from Thai and perhaps other Asian grocery stores)
    • 1/2 cup fresh lime juice
    • 4 scallions, chopped
    • 1 bunch mint, chopped
    • salt to taste

    Place a little oil into a 12 inch saute pan, stir fry the galangal, shallots, garlic, lemongrass, and chilies for a few moments. Add the ground turkey and break it up so that it mixes well with the herbs and starts to cook. Once it has cooked through, add the rice flour to absorb the juices. Take it off the heat. Add the fish sauce, lime juice scallions, mint and salt to taste.

    I typically serve this with sticky rice, alongside a Thai curry or tom yum soup. Sticky rice is also known as glutinous rice or sweet rice, and it is available at Asian groceries.

    With another dish, this recipe feeds 4.

  • Mother-in-law’s tongue in bloom

    Mother-in-law's tongue
    Some houseplants thrive no matter what you do to ’em. My mother-in-law’s tongue seems to fall into that category. It’s an African perennial herb, Sansevieria trifasciata, and it has absolutely thrived under my regime of inattention. I toss it onto the porch in summer, toss it into the study in winter. I forget to water it, now and then I divide it, and generally it grows and grows and grows. It has bloomed for me a couple of times, and it is blooming now. The fragrance is lovely – floral, sweet, and light.

  • How young is too young for a laptop?

    So, it is nearing Christmas, and I am remembering my intention to purchase gifts mindfully. I haven’t been able to arrange charity exchanges with everyone, but I have got a few takers, and that’s good.

    Theo and Dave

    A colleague at work told me about one laptop per child, an organization that is providing rugged laptops to third world children. It’s a cool concept, building a low-cost, efficient laptop for kids (so no expensive office oriented software). I’ve heard that it is programmable, but also comes with a reset button to undo mistakes.

    The most intriguing part is that one laptop per child is offering a “give a laptop, get a laptop” promotion, allowing us to explore the form, function, and user experience of the XO laptop. It would be fun to touch it and play with it, but it seems to violate the spirit not to give it to a kiddo. I’m wondering if my four-year-old nephew Theo (pictured here eating his first s’more) is too young for it.

    Is 4-and-a-half too young for a laptop?

    11/25/2007 – After seeing him with Dave and Dave’s laptop over Thanksgiving (replacement photo at left) I think he’s going to love it.