a blog about a lot of things

A Strangeness in My Mind A Strangeness in my Mind, the latest novel from Orhan Pamuk, is another of the author’s many odes to Istanbul. The novel touches on familiar ground for the writer, not the least of which being the city he grew up in. It also addresses the conflict between secular and religious groups in Turkey, as in his earlier novel Snow. It references heavily on the gap between the rich and the poor as in the novel The Museum of Innocence. Like all of Pamuk’s novels the structure is very postmodern, and the characters regularly address the reader directly. This may be the most overtly religious novel since Snow and while Snow had religion as a central them, the main character was not religious. The main character, Mevlut, who is a boza seller primarily but has a succession of unskilled jobs throughout the novel, is a religious man who worries about problems of a religious nature regularly. Women’s honor is less of a central theme than in The Museum of Inno...

Food is usually linked to memory. This isn’t an original idea and to many people the food that I’ve chosen is barely memorable, just as most people won’t really be able to speak of great cheese sandwiches or fried eggs and not mean a specific meal instead of the entire selection of eggs or sandwiches. Dosa is a simple meal which can be ready in a matter of minutes. I usually explain it as a savoury crepe made of rice and lentil flour. It is served with sambar (a lentil and tamarind stew) and coconut chutney. The best dosa I’ve ever had is at Dosa Mahal in Toronto. It was the first time I’d had dosa in almost two years and that was probably why it remained in my mind as a representation of the best. It’s impossible to untangle the experience of food from the taste only. The taste is linked to history. It’s a common enough trope that even children’s movies like Ratatouille can use the idea that a simple dish which evokes memories of childhood will have deeper and almost spiritua...

Travel Writings – Zurich Cuisine Rösti is considered to be the national dish of Switzerland. It’s a dish which has a lot of similarities with hash browns; as it consists of grated potato fried in a frying pan. It is thought to be highly representative of Swiss German culture in particular (which isn’t really surprising as it consists of potatoes). From my experience with German cuisine thus far, I hadn’t had high hopes for this dish. Traditional German cuisine seems to regard vegetables as an accompaniment to the meat and an accompaniment which needs little attention other than being boiled. I’ve been informed the quality of the meat more than makes up for it, but as I’m vegetarian that’s not really much use to me. It’s rare that I find a national dish that isn’t comprised of meat or fish, so even with little expectation of it being good, it was still a great opportunity. Luckily I was entirely wrong about the link of Swiss German and German cuisine being a liking for tast...