99% Food, 1% Skin

Category archives: Books

The Language of Food, The Butcher and The Baker

What a neat book!

It was full of surprises, and moments of “geeking out” from our linguist author Dan Jurafsky.

I was expecting a book about the evolution of terminology and language usage on menus in restaurants, and potentially boring.

Instead, it contained interesting history of food (the origin of ketchup, macaroon and sherbet for instance), and findings from academic linguistic research (apparently, the more words on the menu about where food comes from, the higher price we pay).

There were geek-out moments such as the relationship between the physical movement of our mouths during word pronunciation and our perception of sweetness or amount of carbonation.

Explanations were given to why Chinese traditionally did not have dessert, and the transformation in the usage of “entrée” for different culture.

The topics were very specific, and the book barely wet my appetite for wanting more information.

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La Bodega and Tender at the Bone

We almost missed La Bodega as it was tucked away in a nook of a building.

Once I saw the store, it made me smile.

The color and lights filled the space with a tropical atmosphere among gray Pacific Northwest office buildings.

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The space was small, and was packed with seats for about 20 people.

The menu included sandwiches, empanadas, and all the sandwiches could be made into rice dishes as gluten free options.

I had the signature Puerco asado, and had to try the yucca flour empanadas which La Bodega had highly touted its wheat free property.

The empanadas was amazingly crispy with yucca flour.

The skin was very thin and a little grainy.

There were 3 different fillings for the empanadas for the day, and I had the beef picadillo.

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Little Uncle and Comfort me with Apples

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Heard so much rave about Little Uncle, I finally made it there in a gorgeous sunny afternoon!

We almost missed the store as the restaurant was actually at the basement, and only the name of the restaurant on a window was visible from street level.

Once we arrived at the bottom of the steps, it opened into this big cavernous space.

I loved the natural wood décor with rice bags lining the walls under the bar.

There were quite a few unique items on the menu.

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Savor and Kimchi Amigos

Savor – mindful eating, mindful lifestyle was a book written by a monk and his follower.

I had to admit when I first put this book in my library queue, I did not expect the content that I eventually read.

The book was focused on using mindfulness to deal with over-eating and overweight problems.

Using Buddhist philosophy, the authors encouraged readers to look into themselves to understand the root cause of their over eating behavior.

A lot of the techniques and skills were common sense and wildly known theories; but with every day busy life we might have ignored.

For example, they recommended techniques to bring mindfulness into eating: noticed the feeling in the body after we consumed certain food, ate slowly and chewed our food.

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