In Food News.

Posted on December 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

Mr. H's chicken dinner

Winna winna, chicken dinna!  Yep, that was me last weekend.  Mr. H turned out a delicious meal.  It was a little heavy on the starch – the veggies spoke for themselves and don’t really need the rice company.  Aside from that, copy and paste this meal and I’m all over it again.  A simple white wine rosemary pan chicken with roasted potatoes and veggies pan cooked with the chicken.  I’m a fledgling vegetarian, though chicken cooked this delicious keeps me from fully going veggie.

Lemon and Almond Chocolate Meringues: not all that photogenic, but tastytasty!

I made meringues last weekend.  They’re not my prettiest specimens, but they tasted yummy.  The yellow/orange ones are lemon meringues and the others are almond chocolate meringues.  Viewed close up the sugar  in them reflected light and made them shimmer.

In other food news, I made snickerdoodle cookies at 11pm Wednesday night as my night class on Thursday after work requested some sort of heritage dish.  My people are mutts, through and through, so bringing a “heritage” dish to a school thing is always a challenge for me, particularly when my classmates are almost all first or second generation immigrants that have great food recipes passed down from their parents’ or their home country.  I made the joke the previous week that I should bring alcohol as a lot of my ancestors had been alcoholics, so it was part of my heritage.  No one seemed to see the humor in it, sigh.  I still think it’s funny!  Though I settled on snickerdoodles, which my Mom made a lot when I was a kid.

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Bee-z.

Posted on December 11, 2010 | Leave a comment

A typical scene at home (for one more week at least!)

Life has been a bit of a low-on-sleep but high-on-coffee blur lately.  Work has been going fabulously (the blog post I put up for the Library’s website has taken off – though I think it has more to do with the subject matter than the author, I’ll take the praise and run with it!)  School has just about one week left to go.  Burton Holmes is nearing completion, though Lupe Velez and Dolores Del Rio are struggling a bit.  It’s strange that the topic I switched to last minute (Holmes) is trumping the topic I thought would engage me the most (Velez and Del Rio)!  My goal tonight is to get a complete rough (roughroughrough) draft completed on the Velez/Del Rio front.

My new buddy - he's slightly forest greener in person

Something about the holidays has got me all spendy.  The hot water bottle mentioned in a previous post arrived earlier this week.  We’re already best buddies!  I haven’t given him a name yet, but I’m thinking about it.  It stays warm throughout the night.  It isn’t as good as having Mr. H around for cuddles, but it sure beats shivering through the night.  I haven’t used the space heater in the evening at all either, so win-win there.

Magazine Holders

I also splurged on these magazine holders.  My magazines were recently evicted from my bookshelf by a wave of books that took up residence in the vacated space.  It’s great having my academic/interest books all grouped together by topic (I’m an archivist for a reason!  Though don’t ask me if these magazine holders are acid free – I didn’t take it that far.), but it left nowhere for my homeless magazines.  I don’t have any space for a new bookshelf, so for the time being I’m sticking with these magazine holder guys.

And now I’m doing my best not to invest in this adorable half pint ice cream maker by Hamilton Beech (in pistachio!).  It got mixed reviews on Amazon (very polarized in fact), so I’m a bit torn.  I don’t expect a $30 ice cream maker to churn out Dreyer’s (aka Edy’s for those of you not on the West Coast), but I do want an ice cream maker that doesn’t get its blade stuck mid-churn (ice cream tragedy!).

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How they use to do it.

Posted on December 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Where I lived this summer - I lived in the portion of the building built in the 1930s as servants' quarters

I’ve recently been lucky enough to live in two old buildings.  My current abode in Los Angeles is an apartment in a 1940s era 8-plex.  For being a 70+ year old building it’s in pretty good shape (minus occasionally finicky plumbing).

This summer while working in southern Maine I lived in an old house (1930s era servants quarters) attached to an even older house (the main dining area is possibly the original one-room building structure from the 17th century).

I looooooove older buildings, and when I get around to moving again I will definitely be on the look-out for older housing stock to set up shop in.  But, older buildings have their drawbacks.  The place I live in now (in LA) seems to take outdoor temperatures to extremes.  At the end of the summer in the San Fernando Valley temperatures reach 100+ and the apartment I live in seems to suck in all the heat over the day and turn into an oven at night.  We have two A/C units but they are pretty piddly and are only worth turning on if I plan to sit right next to them.

The apartment does the same thing in the winter.  Thankfully Southern California winters are pretty wimpy, though I’ve become conditioned to them and tend to feel like anything in the 40s to 50s range is freezing cold.  At night the apartment is an ice box.  I hate to run a space heater and I don’t want to turn on the gas wall heater – both run up bills.  So I started wondering what someone would’ve done to stay warm when the apartment was first built (assuming they didn’t want to run up their gas bill either).

I came up with the idea of using a hot water bottle.  I found a couple of cute (and well reviewed) ones on Amazon by a German company called Fashy.  I think I just might splurge and get one.  Sort of wasteful to heat water up, but if the heat lasts all night (as reviewed) maybe it’ll make it worth it (and save energy and gas in the long run)!

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Extraordinary Traveler.

Posted on December 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Whew, I’m nearing the end of the semester!  Come on Christmas!

 

Burton Holmes

So I’ve become a big fan of this guy – travel lecturer, early film pioneer, and all around a likeable guy – based off of his autobiography The World is Mine.  Now, with a title like that you’d think he was completely full of himself, and perhaps he was, but it doesn’t come off that way in his writing.  He was born in 1870, began giving travel lectures accompanied by magic lantern slides in the late 19th century, and then went into travel film making.

He comes out of the Victorian era, though his perspective on religion when he was close to death in the 1950s is so enlightened and modern, even for the 1950s.  He discusses his thoughts on existence, his desire to believe in reincarnation, his unsureness in everything, yet his faith in the general universe.  A refreshing surprise and a welcome perspective.

His travel work is fascinating as well – he really traveled everywhere!  I’ve only looked at his work in England to this point (for my class paper), but I’ll definitely be having a look-see at his other travel work.

More wonderful tidbits on this under-talked-about travel icon can be found at this great site: Burton Holmes, Extraordinary Traveler.

Next on the plate: The representation of Dolores Del Rio and Lupe Velez in Photoplay magazine in the early 1930s.  I’ve got a mini presentation to give on the topic tomorrow – details to follow once I figure them out, eep.

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Appropriately, food.

Posted on November 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

No exciting Thanksgiving holiday action going on for me out here in lala land.  It’s not a big deal though – Christmas is the holiday for me!  I did have a lovely long weekend filled with friends and food though.

Kitchen sink salad from the other weekend: spinach, avocado, mandarin oranges, walnuts, parmesean, mushrooms, and onion

It’s apparently a good year for avocados out here.  My boyfriend’s family had so many avocados that they sent a handful my way, and one of my bosses at work gave me the biggest most beautiful avocado I’ve ever seen.  So avocados have been making a lot of appearances in homemade dishes around here.

Artichoke and Spinach Dip with Rosemary Rolls: sadly not a single one of these things is homemade.  Though everything was delicious!

Orange-Lemon Poppy seed Cake: Made this one Thanksgiving day morning for kicks.  It was a recipe that involved using cake mix as a base, which made me a little hesitant (I need to not be such a from-scratch-snob!), but it actually turned out pretty delicious!  The frosting is a sour cream/cream cheese combo.

Kung-pow tofu and vegetables:  The presentation is all boyfriend, the dish is pretty much all me.  I took a recipe from Cooking Light magazine and distorted the hell out of it.  Thankfully it came back from its hell ride just spicy and flavorful enough to be delicious.  If I can remember the random sequence of cooking actions it took to make this one it’ll definitely get replayed.

I’ve got a paper due tomorrow, so it’s back to the writing dungeon for me!  Which actually isn’t really a dungeon.  My new favorite writing spot is at the kitchen table.  Something about all the uncluttered space and bright lemon yellow walls gets me through hours of writing!  Hopefully that remains the case today.

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Caves and Food.

Posted on November 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Bronson Cave aka the 1960s TV show Batcave entrance!

Bronson Cave is actually more of a tunnel, as you can see.  You can go right through and out to the other side, or you can veer left and go out the other back entrance.  If you were to cut open the mountain and look down on the tunnels from the sky you’d see a giant Y formed by the tunnels.  This photo is from a hiking trip out into Griffith Park the other week.

Today I am having one of those days where life seems really sunshiney.  It’s a slightly funny situation, as the sky has been cloudy and gloomy all day!  I started my day with a full homemade breakfast, picked up some things from the store, and then came home to a delicious salad thrown together by Mr. H (boyfriend extraordinaire), who then proceeded to do the dishes!

Now I’m casually browsing through gorgeous travel photos taken by Burton Holmes between the 1890s and 1930s and musing about what direction to take my paper in.  A lovely day so far!

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Water colors.

Posted on November 17, 2010 | 1 comment

Kitchen with upgraded table and tablecloth

I’ve always felt a bit awkward posting some information about work on a personal blog.  I’m not one to get my panties in a twist about little things, and the big things are often of the type that are probably best left off of an internet forum.  I’d like to keep this blog updated with general information on my academic and professional life, but perhaps leave the critique of my experiences for a more personal blogging sphere.  That being said,  on to something else!

My new favorite quote of recent times comes from 19th century travel lecturer John L. Stoddard.  I am still ironing out details of his life, but I’m crashing my way through his printed lectures on the British Isles.  His chapter on England initially got me a little nervous about committing to this topic – he was rocking the antiquated British writing style a little too heavily!  Eventually his charm and wit won me over.  I’m particularly enamoured of this gem, which he claims belongs to the French (generally):

“Flirtation is merely love in water colors.”

Took me a minute to get it, but once it sunk in my brain gave a little appreciative sigh because of the visual image this conjures up.  Love in pastels.  Pretty, but lacking permanence.  (Not to knock water colors at all, of course!)

The Travelogues of Stoddard and his successor Burton Holmes (who upgraded to film, sound, and color) are my new replacement topic for paper (b) from the last post.  My original topic turned out (two months into class) to not sit well with the professor anymore, so I jumped ship just in time to leap into a Stoddard and Holmes lifeboat.  So far the lifeboat floats pretty well.

How my roommate opens champagne bottles! Okay, not really.

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Research and Rest.

Posted on November 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

Astroturf at a food truck fundraiser event I went to a few weeks ago.

Rounding the corner, leaving October behind and greeting November with a sigh of relief.  Sigh.  This is researching for the research paper month – gotta find enough useful primary and secondary sources to round out 40 pages of worthwhile prose.  I’m planning my attack of the Margaret Herrick Library; to dive into film fan magazines and film publicity.  Two papers:

(a) the image of Mexican immigrant actresses in early 1930s film

(b)the image of the “British” character in American films of the 1930s

I am less sure about (b) and need to go meet with a professor on that one.  Sometimes I start to feel like a one trick pony, what with my obsession with early 1930s film and every possible facet of it.

We’re entering the Cold War in the early 20th century popular culture class I TA for, which makes me a little nervous.  My Cold War history is pretty chilly – old bits of knowledge frozen away at the back of my brain.  Hopefully this class will thaw it out.

In the meantime, I had an absolutely relaxing weekend for once – convenient, as I got sick!  Ugh.  Talk about unfortunate (or fortunate?  I still haven’t decided).  Spent some time at the Dia de Los Muertos celebration Saturday evening, held at Hollywood Forever Cemetery.  I had a great time, but ran of out steam near the end of it and had to go home early to curl up into the fetal position under a pile of blankets.  I’m still working on that 100% feeling, but this week should give me time to research and rest.

At work I’m still chugging along on the collection.  I’m nearing the end of the publications series and am just starting to chip away at the Press and Publicity segment.  Should be an interesting week!  I like publications, but they are often not particularly unique.

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LA.

Posted on October 20, 2010 | Leave a comment

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Culver City and Los Angeles from Culver City Park

I returned to Los Angeles at the end of August and encountered a giant workload which has kept me from having any sort of time/motivation to update this blog. However, I haven’t forgotten it exists! I’d like to continue to record my professional and personal adventures as a young adult type person, now returned to the City of Angels (and maybe also do a little reflecting on the close of this summer’s work).

There are four general threads that currently run through my life at the moment:
(1) Finishing my final year of grad school
(2) Processing a collection at my wonderful new/old Western Museum workplace
(3) Repping for the City of Los Angeles’ SurveyLA project
(4) Being as involved as possible with the Los Angeles archival scene

My other non-official duties involve:
(1) Sweeping up copious amounts of dog hair at home (from my roommate’s adorable but super shedding pup)
(2) (attempting to) Feed myself somewhat nutritious homemade things (takes time, time, time! sigh)
(3) Find time for boyfriend and friends (Time?! What is this?)

First though, I’ve gotta finish up a historiography paper on immigration. Personally, I find the topic of “immigration” a little broad for a concise 8-10 pager, but that’s what the boss ordered, so I’ve gotta deliver. One paper coming right up!

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Bird.

Posted on July 13, 2010 | Leave a comment

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Working in the archive is punctuated by helping out other parts of the museum. Last week volunteers (and staff) dressed up for a mini-performance in one of the historic houses. This is the post-performance performance, haha.

I recently worked on three boxes of the collection that had lived in someone’s barn for decades (and apparently had a bird at some point crawl in and die, leaving behind a bird silloutte and little feathers all over a group of papers). These papers were (unsurprisingly) absolutely disgusting. Yikes! Though cleaning up the papers provided a welcome change of pace.

So far it’s been a weird combination of me making things up and looking up suggestions online. My supervisor sometimes makes statements like “it absolutely doesn’t matter what order the materials were in originally” that sort of blow my mind. I was pretty sure that taking note of the original arrangement (if there is one) was something worth doing. I was also criticized for sorting in piles, because when you sort you are not suppose to make piles?! (I’m not quite sure what that means!) At this point I feel like I was absolutely spoiled with all the knowledge and help from others at my last internship. I am a bit hesitant to mention these sorts of things on a public blog, especially as there are some helpful moments, but it is a part of what is shaping my experience here so it feel dishonest not to consider all aspects of the internship.

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Cats in the archive! An envelope of kitten photos somehow ended up wedged in between photos of buildings of York. This should probably return to the collection’s original owner.

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