Hello, my name is Barbara, I am a Culinary Nerd, and I have a problem.

With addiction.

I can’t stop playing Free Rice.

Why?

Well, besides the fact that it is a vocabulary game that tests your language skills by giving you words, and then four choices of definition, which, for a literary nerd like myself, is irresistible, (yes, in addition to being a Culinary Nerd, I am also a Literary Nerd) but for each correct answer you give, 20 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Program. The money comes from the advertisers who support the site, and the words come from professional lexicographers, and the time to play–well, that comes from me multitasking while I am doing other
stuff at the computer.

The game is bloody addictive–there are words in fifty levels of difficulty, and after the first few words, a baseline level of difficulty is set for you. Then, to quote the FAQ:

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level. You then determine a more exact level for yourself as you play. When you get a word wrong, you go to an easier level. When you get three words in a row right, you go to a harder level. This one-to-three ratio is best for keeping you at the “outer fringe” of your vocabulary, where learning can take place.

And, as the FAQ states, that while there are fifty levels, it is rare for anyone to go higher than forty-eight.

I’ve gone to level fifty several times, though most of my playing time is spent around level forty-six or seven.

The truth is, the damned game, which is played for the best of purposes, has hit my self-competitive streak, where in everything I do, I try one-up myself every time. So, once I hit level fifty, I wanted to work towards staying there. So, I am learning all kinds of new words, like “psalterium” which I guessed correctly meant “third stomach.”

Or, “weasand,” which means “throat,” which I neither knew nor guessed correctly.

Zak and Morganna make endless mock of me for it, but I am hooked. It is too much fun, learning new words, or puzzling out what an unfamiliar word probably means from divining the root word, and going from there. I just love stuff like that, and because English is a language which has root words in it from many languages: Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin and Greek, primarily, it makes these sorts of games so much more fun and challenging to play.

So, other than telling everyone who loves words and feeding people to go play, and to be prepared for the jibes of your friends and family once you get addicted, do I have any words of advice?

Well, I have noted several things about the words chosen for the upper levels.

Many of them are archaic, meaning, they are seldom in use any more. Many of them have to do with arms, armor, carriages, horses and ships, which have little commerce in modern life. (Which means all you SCA geeks and readers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Patrick O’Brian will be in your element.)

Many of these words have French or Latin roots, with a smaller number of them from the Greek. If you have any knowledge of any of these languages, you will do well at Free Rice. I, nerdy woman that I am, have had five years of Latin in school, and three of French, so…yeah. Many of the Greek-based words are medical terms which you can pick up by watching those doctor shows on television, though I got a lot of mine by once being a pre-veterinary/pre-med student. (And growing up watching M*A*S*H obsessively. That helped.)

If you are from the UK, you will notice a great number of primarily archaic, but some modern British. slang terms which seem quite strange to Americans, (and thus they have a higher difficulty level) than you would guess. I got those from being a great reader of English literature and a big fan of lots of the shows on the BBC, past and present.

And there are a lot of terms relating to food: French and Latin-based primarily, so all the foodies around here should get it.

In fact, I would say that anyone who reads and writes a lot (like, um, say, bloggers) and anyone who cares about feeding people (that would be foodies), would not only do well with this game, but would feel good about it.

Even if it does label you as a big old egghead for life, and makes you the object of gentle derision for your immediate family.

Basically, it is about the power struggles married or cohabiting couples experience in the kitchen when it comes to daily meal preparation, cleanup, entertaining and just plain chores. Naming the primary cook in a couple the “alpha cook,” and the other member of the couple the “beta cook” (at least they didn’t adopt the newly trendy parlance of BDSM and call them “tops” and “bottoms”), the article stated that what often happens is that despite the fact that many beta cooks have perfectly adequate cooking skills, they often get treated to a litany of criticism, humiliation and impatience by the alpha cook to the point that many of them retreat from the kitchen altogether. (Hrmm. Maybe that BSDM lingo is more appropriate than it first seems.)

And, while there were a few examples of female alphas and male betas, most of the article focused on alpha male behavior in the kitchen and how tiresome and destructive it can be. One male alpha cook even stated: “Men have gotten better at cooking, and that’s all positive,” Mr. Richman said. “But men can’t share. If you can find a man who’s O.K. with a woman being in charge in the kitchen, tell any woman to marry him immediately.”

Whoa. Dude. Whatever happened to equality? You know, share and share alike?

And what a switch from Betty Friedan’s 1950′s when women were expected to have dinner on the table every night for her husband, as well as being “the hostess with the mostess” while her husband might be trusted to pour drinks and grill saurian-sized slabs of meat over a charcoal fire.I mean, which is worse–being expected to be the chief cook and cleanup crew, day in and day out, while getting accolades from the guests on the delectable feasts prepared, or being the unappreciated prep cook and dishwasher who is never appreciated by the guests, the host or anyone?

I can’t even begin to figure that one out.

However, it isn’t like I have one ounce of room to talk.

I admit to being an alpha cook, big time, however, I do attempt to moderate my critiques of those who graciously help out in the kitchen.

But what about Zak, my beloved soulmate husband? Is he the beta cook?

Hardly, though at one time he did try the job out for size.

Back about eight years ago, when I was successfully teaching culinary arts publicly and privately, he decided to become a student of mine. We decided we would use the dinner prep hours three times a week so he could learn how to cook.

It was an utter and complete disaster, and not because of Zak.

It was because of me.

In the classroom, and among the private students who came to my home for lessons, I was known as the soul of patience, wit, and generosity who would not hesitate to demonstrate a particularly tricky technique fifty two times if I had to, and who would answer as many questions as it took to get a point across. I was praised in evaluation forms as being a font of knowledge and creativity who always inspired her students to keep trying new techniques, recipes and ingredients, all with good humor and self-deprecation.

Well, I would like to say I was the same way with Zak, but I am ashamed to admit that I wasn’t.

I was impatient. I would show Zak a technique, and when he didn’t get it right away, I would sigh and roll my eyes. Zak’s culinary timidity did not help the situation, but it was mostly my own fault. He would struggle to cut vegetables precisely enough to stir fry evenly, and instead of just accepting imperfection, and being patient with the fact that he was slow at cutting, I would end up doing most of the cutting myself without giving him a chance to learn.

I discovered that trying to teach someone while I am hungry and attempting to cook dinner after a long day of personal cheffing or teaching was not a good idea. It brought out every ounce of my own native impatience, bossiness, and every insufferable quality I had witnessed among male chefs and culinary students during my education, and I didn’t like it.

As much as I disliked it, Zak hated it, and he put down his knife in frustration one night and has seldom picked it up since.

Even now, he will cook with Morganna, but not with me, and I have no one but myself to blame for that.

As for Morganna, after my failed experiment in teaching Zak, I have learned to be more patient in the kitchen, even when I am cooking dinner and starving. She is growing quite well into a budding culinary artist, though she has her own alpha cook shadow to confront. I have caught her now and again bossing around her friends mercilessly in the kitchen and have intervened. Once, she even had the temerity to snap at me that I was in her way in the kitchen.

I mildly smiled and informed her that a chef is never in the way in her own kitchen.

But, even as I try very hard to be quiet and compassionate in my kitchen, even as I am dismembering vegetables and dead animals and frying them or otherwise exposing them to soaring flames, I am told by my father in law that I am one of the most intimidating persons he knows, especially in the kitchen. And, I will admit to, even recently, (at Morganna’s birthday party last month) barking at Karl to not argue with me over how chafing dishes work, since I was the one who used to be a caterer, while he only used to be a doctor. He forgave me though, taking into account that I was feeding over twenty people an Indian feast of over twelve dishes and three desserts.

I have learned, however, that rather than accept help in the kitchen from others, sometimes it is just best to refuse politely, and do it myself. When Karl was visiting with his father last month, I was preparing a Chinese meal with homestyle bean curd and stir fried mixed vegetables. When Karl asked if he could help me prep anything, I smiled and said, “I love you, but no, thank you.”

I would have been fine if I had stopped there. Instead, out burst from my mouth, “This cutting requires precision, and as much as I love you, you are not precise.”

Sigh.

At least Karl took it well, with a laugh and a smile. He knew I didn’t mean it in any unkind way; I was just being honest. Maybe a bit more honest than perfect politeness required, but well, I am not perfect.

I guess I need to keep struggling to keep my alpha cook tendencies at bay. (Thank goodness for my study of Zen, the exercise of mindfulness. It helps. A lot.)

So, now that I have made my own confession, what about the rest of you? Any alpha cooks out there? How alpha are you?

And you betas–speak up, too. I want to hear from everyone.

Especially those of you who somehow manage to work and play well with others without falling into either category.

I suppose it should come to no surprise to anyone that Julia Child is my Kitchen Saint, since just this summer I wrote about my experience going on a pilgrimage to see her kitchen, which is ensconced in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

But, since I cook primarily Asian foods, most particularly Chinese. Indian and Thai, one might wonder why I hold Julia in such high esteem, since she was mostly expert in French cuisine.

Well, you see, the paradox does make sense, eventually, but it takes some explanation.

Julia may not have cooked the same foods which are my passion, but she had the same passion for food that I feel. She, in fact, was one of my earliest influences in the kitchen, along with both grandmothers, several aunts and my mother, none of whom cooked Asian foods, either. From watching Julia on television as a child, I learned a certain fearlessness in the kitchen, a refusal to be cowed by any unfamiliar food item or technique. From her good-natured, self-deprecating humor and sly wit, I learned not to take myself or cuisine too seriously, while at the same time, being deadly serious about those things in the kitchen which matter, such as safety and precision of measurement.

At the same time, I learned to go with the flow, loosen up and improvise, particularly if anything went awry.

I learned never to apologize, and to always move forward with utter and complete self-confidence, a trait which has served me well for years, but especially when I was in culinary school, and had to cook under the critical eyes, noses and palates of stringently critical chefs.

In reading her writings, especially her recipes, I learned how best to write recipes for my own classes, so that students could exactly replicate them at home without my help. I learned that precision of language and detailed description went very far in ensuring that my students would have the confidence to run home and try making dim sum delicacies or a complete vegetarian North Indian feast without me standing over them.

And, from her, I learned how to put students at ease.

According to my father-in-law, I am one of the most intimidating people he knows, particularly when it comes to being in the kitchen with me, so it behooved me to find a way to relate to my cooking students that did not include sending them running for the hills, screaming in terror. Instead, I took a page or two from Julia’s book, and used self-deprecating humor, jokes, and bits of kitchen science, history and food lore to draw my students into the lessons, and give them something to hold on to.

Finally, I cannot help but love a woman who once said, “If you’re afraid of butter, use cream.”

And so, that is why Julia Child, even if she mostly cooked French food, is my own beloved Kitchen Saint, whom I call upon in times of trouble and need, and who has been enshrined as part of the decor of my sacred culinary space. (With thanks to Dan and Heather, who gave me that wonderful sign pictured above for this year’s Generic Winter Holiday.)

Does anyone else have a Kitchen Saint or two, or three? If so, who?

Luckily for my readers, most of my busyness has been in the kitchen, though I have also been working on painting furniture for the nursery and working on Kat’s quilt.

And today, Morganna was a strong taskmistress in the kitchen–she got me up and motivated enough to not only make stock–which you see her skimming above, but to use our huge supply of tomatoes to make marinara for the freezer for after Kat is born, and make chicken and noodles for dinner with mashed potatoes, so that we could both feed Dan, who went to Columbus with Zak to pick up our rocker-glider for the nursery, and have leftovers for the freezer. (And we had two good meal’s worth of leftovers out of them–not to mention around twenty quarts of stock, two quarts of marinara sauce and chicken that we can use to make jambalaya for supper and for freezing later in the week.)

The Culinary Nerd gets very little rest…she is tireless in the pursuit of good food for her family. (I can only eat so much take out while recovering from childbirth, and so all of this work is very much worth it from my perspective.)

Needless to say–look for a big stock post on Tuesday. And maybe one about homemade marinara on Monday.

Tomorrow, I have some goodies from the blogosphere to share with you.

Until then, I leave you with this photograph–that also gives a look at the -other- action that happened in my kitchen today: Schmoo showing his unique way of getting a snack.

Silly Mooncat!

Here is the final installment of the tale of the Culinary Nerd and her friends gallivanting in the Baltimore/DC area.

First, I want to apologize for not contacting either the bloggers out in that area, or the folks whom I have not seen there in ages; I didn’t want to further complicate the visit, which already included six intrepid explorers, all in a rented minivan, all of whom had their own needs, wishes and places to go and people to see, by adding yet more people and visiting to the venture. The other reason I didn’t end up contacting anyone was because in the heat (it was over 98 degrees F. through most of our visit) and in my sixth month of pregnancy at the age of 40–I get tired ever so easily, and so I didn’t want to overtax myself with a lot of activity. Walking around the Smithsonian’s museums was about as much excitement as I could take, and even that got to be very, very wearing. So much so that I think I am out of the travelling game until after little Kat is born and is big enough to go off with Mamma and Daddy to see the world. (I hate to admit to weakness, you know. It pains me to do it, but it would pain me more to push myself beyond my physical capabilities. Besides, Zak and Morganna would become quite cross, and then all of my friends would help them tie me to the couch or something. And then, I wouldn’t get to cook anymore, and then, I would be really, really sad.)

So.

Do not think I wasn’t loving you if I didn’t contact you and make a date to meet you. It will happen, at a later date, preferably when it isn’t hotter than the hinges of hell, and I am not carrying around an extra wiggly internal burden whose name is Kat, but who most often these days gets called, “Thumper.”

For obvious reasons.

But wait! I am supposed to be talking about shopping.

Oooh. Shopping.

Every Culinary Nerd likes to shop. Its just that we have kind of more esoteric shopping needs than those that are usually satisfied by The Gap, Target, or Pier 1.

And there is a place in Ellicott City which this Culinary Nerd misses intensely: The Lotte Plaza Gourmet Asian Supermarket.

There you see it, at the beginning of this post–an Asian market that is the size of an American supermarket, which my friends quickly dubbed, “Korean Krogers.” And, really, it is an apt name.

Lotte is a chain of supermarkets originating in Korea, and I know that it has outlets all over the metro DC area, as well as in the upper part of the East Coast. I wish like crazy it would penetrate into America’s heartland, too, but I suspect I must wait a very long time for that to happen. But, when I am in the Columbia, Maryland/Baltimore/DC area, I have to stop by at this temple of Asian food goodness and remember all the tours I used to lead for Howard County Parks and Recreation at the place.

And while I am at it stock up on some of the most fresh Asian produce imaginable. And maybe buy a couple of gallons of kimchee. and gaze in wonder at the many varieties of very fresh fish and seafood in the seafood department. And pick up some neato-keen serving platters, plates and bowls in the housewares department.

I am sorry I didn’t take many photographs; I was trying to be inobtrusive on a crowded Saturday morning at the peak shopping time. I didn’t want to worry, upset or otherwise annoy the hordes of shoppers from every country in Asia, many countries in Latin America, and some scattered few Anglo-Americans. (Though, to be honest, most of those shoppers came in with me.) So, there are a mere handful of pictures here: not nearly enough to convey the amazing bounty on display in this huge and bustling shopper’s paradise.

Words are hard-pressed to convey the amount of extremely fresh fruits, vegetables and herbs that are available in the huge temple to vegetatation that they call the produce section. And the prices! Oh–so inexpensive. And they have -everything-. Fresh tamarind, durian (no, I didn’t buy one–I had friends in the minivan, and I would like them to remain friends), Asian pears, lemongrass that was among the freshest I have ever seen (and yes, I bought some of that), lotus root, water chestnuts, and sigh–two kinds of bitter melon (no–I didn’t buy those either, as they cause uterine contractions).

As for kimchee, there is an entire refrigerated AISLE of it, which I could not photograph, because it was jammed with shoppers alll picking their own favorites in jars from a mere 12 ounces to two gallons. It was beautiful.

The canned goods stretch for several aisles: the sauces and condiments for three. Noodles take up two aisles, and then there is the meat section, which is filled with mysteries such as gallons of cow and pig blood, pig uterous and chicken feet. (I didn’t buy the feet, because I get those free from a local farmer here in Athens.)

The whole experience can quickly become overwhelming, especially at busy times. There is the gigantic fish and seafood aisle where squid, beltfish, (they look like mini-oarfish–thirty-foot long giants of the deep), monkfish and shrimp with their heads on all rest on beds of ice. (The Maryland blue crabs, which I would have bought normally, in order to bring them home and make green curry with were not on ice, and were mostly dead, not lively and cantakerous. They smelled bad–a bad sign, and I noticed that not one shopper stopped to pick any out.)

The overwhelming nature of the Korean Krogers is part of why I started teaching one of my most popular culinary arts classes for Howard County Parks and Recreation when we lived there. I taught a series of Asian cooking classes–Thai, Chinese and Indian–but I also taught a tour of Lotte Plaza. The class size was limited to twenty people, I taught it every season, and every time, it was filled with students and had a waiting list of at least fifteen to twenty more people hoping the other students would cancel.

The manager of the store loved us, and would set up tasting stations, and have guys in the produce section bring out new and unusual produce items for us to examine, and would set up the fish department folks to be doing something interesting like cleaning squid, so they could demonstrate to my students. (I also got to step up and clean some squid myself–which was fun, and the fish guys were really happy that I even knew what I was doing!) One time, myself and my students were featured in a local television ad they were filming that same night.

Most of the students were cool, but every now and then, I would have a problematic person, and would have to diplomatically reign in behavior which I found to be offensive. Some people would make judgemental comments about the pig’s uteri in the meat department, and there was the night that the refrigerated case filled with gallon jugs of blood became an issue. I had to explain quite firmly those times that it was not our place to judge what others choose to eat and not eat, because it was part of their culture which is not better or worse than our own–simply different. I also pointed out that Europeans ate blood-based foods as well, such as the German blood sausage or the English black pudding.

Most of the time, however, it was fun, but not nearly as much fun as it was introducing my friends to the store. We had a great time looking, shopping, and people-watching. Tom, the anthropologist, had a stellar time observing the shoppers and what went into their carts, Heather was amazed at the produce prices and Zak and Dan were just fascinated by the spectacle of it all. And for Morganna–it was a return to a place of her childhood, as she visited this place often with me when she was younger and came to see us in Maryland.

She also liked shopping at the little Sanrio store that shares a space with the grocery plaza, and of course, we -all- were fascinated by the little refrigeration unit that was specifically designed to ferment and store varieties of kimchee over in the appliance section.

After such a lot of walking, we were a might bit peckish, so we paid for our purchases, and walked across the parking lot to La Boulangerie, which despite its French name, is a Korean bakery. Again, it was crowded, so I took no pictures of the inside, but let me say–the buns, breads, rolls, cookies, doughnuts and cakes inside are all beautifully made and are a perfect balance between Eastern ingredients and Western traditions. Red bean paste filled doughnuts sprinkled with cinnamon sugar were sold next to sweet potato filled breads. Sweet Portuguese style bread rolls filled with luscious but not too sweet buttercream tempted while crispy-tender almond cookies beckoned from a basket beside the register.

It was all good.

The visit to the Lotte Plaza and La Boulangerie was a feast for the senses, and a trip well worth taking, and in the future, worth repeating. If you live anywhere near Ellicott City and you like to cook and eat Asian foods, it is worth your while to take an afternoon to go down and check out all the goodness available to you there. It really is an amazing sight to see so many unusual vegetables, fruits and herbs all stacked together in perfect rows and pyramids, little of it available anywhere else, and all at great prices.