Recent Posts
Delicious and nutritious seaweed has been a staple of East Asian cuisine (especially the Japanese) for centuries. World's Healthiest Foods states, "Seaweed is purported to lower cholesterol, reduce blood pressure, fight obesity, promote healthy digestion, and tackle free radicals...Seaweed also contains nutrients that are vital to eye health and maintaining good vision, including vitamin A and vitamin C."
I am a fan of seaweed, so I've previously used it in flake form, to use as a condiment for dishes; nori sheets, for rolling sushi; and in individually-wrapped portions, often seasoned for a yummy snack. But I'd never bought dried wakame 'leaves' and it never occurred to me to make seaweed salad, though I eat them all the time in restaurants.
Happily, I inherited a bag of wakame from a cousin who was leaving town, so after using a bit of it to toss into a bowl of instant noodles (the nutritional benefits of seaweed make up for the horrible badness of instant ramen, right? right??), I made seaweed salad the next day.
Wakame salad on a communal plate (minus one serving for one person who doesn't eat onions)
Tossed with a flavourful, sweet dressing, the salad was enjoyed by all (except my husband, who wouldn't even try it!). My son liked it though, and no wonder--he also likes an Asian-style pasta salad that I make with virtually the same dressing.
Ingredients (4-6 side dish servings)
- 1 ounce dried wakame (broken into smaller pieces, as they expand in hot water)
- 2 small (boiler) onions, sliced
- 1 scallion, chopped
- half a large carrot, grated
- 3 tbsp cilantro, chopped finely
Dressing ingredients:
- 2 tbsp rice vinegar
- 1 tsp sugar
- 2 tbsp sesame oil
- 2 tbsp light soy sauce
- ginger, grated (to taste)*
- 2 tsp sesame seeds, toasted
- pinch of garlic ginger sauce
* I usually keep a piece of peeled ginger root in the freezer. To grate it, I use my Microplane.
Directions
- Soak the wakame in a large bowl of very hot water (make sure the wakame is completely covered). About 15-20 minutes later, the wakame should be rehydrated. The texture will be squishy and slippery.
- While the wakame is soaking, toast the sesame seeds on a dry pan over low heat until light brown. Remove the seeds and set aside.
- Rinse the wakame well, and then squeeze out excess water. Chop wakame into bite-sized pieces and set aside to cool.
- Lightly caramelise the onion slices. It's just starting to caramelise when the colour is light brown or tan, with a few bits that may be darker brown. remove onions and set aside.
- When the onions are cool, put them, the wakame, the scallion, carrot, and cilantro in the refrigerator to chill.
- When ready to serve, whisk together the dressing ingredients, and then toss the salad with the dressing. Sprinkle the seeds on top.
If you read my previous post on adverbs, you'll know why one feels bad instead of badly, and can move on to part 2 of a discussion of adverbial confusion.
Now that you know what an adverb is and how to use it, the next thing to consider is where to put the adverb in your sentence. Word placement is always important, and the position of an adverb can change the meaning of a sentence.
Put the adverb next to the word or phrase it modifies
Consider the following examples.
'Nearly' modifies the verb 'lost':
He nearly lost all his money when he was mugged.
Meaning: He didn't lose all his money when he was mugged, but he almost did.
'Nearly' modifies the adjective 'all':
He lost nearly all his money when he was mugged.
Meaning: He lost money when he was mugged--close to all of it.
'Still' modifies the verb 'think':
You still think I love her!
Meaning: You continue to think that I love her.
'Still' modifies the verb 'love':
You think I still love her!
Meaning: You think I love her now, as I loved her before.
'Only' modifies the verb 'want':
I only want to be with you.
Meaning: I want to be with no one else, i.e., You are the only person I want to be with.
'Only' modifies the infinitive 'to be' (more on infinitives later in this post):
I want only to be with you.
Meaning: I want nothing but to be with you.
Put the adverb after the intransitive verbs
An intransitive verb is a verb that takes no object, as opposed to a transitive verb, which has a direct object. Some verbs are always transitive and others are always intransitive, but depending on context, some verbs can be either transitive or intransitive. For example, 'read' in "I read before bed" is in transitive, but "I like to read biographies the most" it is transitive.
If an adverb modifies an intransitive verb, put it after the verb:
The children play merrily outside.
She scowled menacingly.
I read quietly before bed.
There are exceptions to the rule, such as:
Owls seldom cry.
I generally disagree with him.
Don't be afraid to split infinitives
The infinitive is a verb form that usually looks like 'to [verb]', but can also be 'be [verb]' and 'do [verb]". The Chicago Manual of Style (15th edition) states that split infinitives were roundly disapproved until about 1925, and "adverbs sometimes justifiably separate the to from the principal verb."
The Chicago Manual would no doubt agree that the split infinitive in "To boldly go where no man has gone before", in which the phrase "to go" is split by the adverb 'boldly', is justified. Somehow, "To go boldly where no man has gone before" just doesn't sound as compelling or memorable.
In light of somewhat recent events, I'd like to preface this post with a belated "Happy Australia Day", with special thoughts for the people of Brisbane.
Ever since I was little, I wanted to go to Australia. I was enraptured by its antipodean mystique, brought on partly by the '80s wave of Australia-philia over here in North America. We had Crocodile Dundee, which I was old enough to watch, as well as Coca Cola Kid, which I wasn't. Much later, I would become fond of movies like Picnic at Hanging Rock and Rabbit-Proof Fence. Oh, and almost anything starring Judy Davis.
Also in the '80s, Olivia Newton-John launched her Koala Blue clothing line. One fine day my mom came back from the local mall with a white sweatshirt adorned with a colouful doodle of a koala in a hat. Underneath was the rather mystifying message, "Korner of Australia Los Angeles". If I'd hung on to it, it'd be a cute piece of vintage kitsch today.
I must have used a very old reference for the population statistic, because there's no way it was only 12M in the 1980s!
On the strength of Australia's invasion in '80s pop culture, and the coincidental assignment of a social studies project in school, I became enamoured with the idea of Australia. Ever the optimist, I procured an Australia travel guide that was so outdated, or poorly fact-checked, that it said "kangaroo" meant "I don't know"--a myth which I half-believed for years until an internet search cleared it up for me).
Yet whenever I told adults that I really, really wanted to go to Australia one day, the response was less than encouraging. "Oh, I've been there," pooh-poohed one. "It's just like Canada, but with the seasons in reverse." Um, seriously? Though I'd no first-hand experience, I knew this obviously couldn't be accurate.
On a more serious, and somewhat sinister, note, I was also warned to avoid the antipodes because Aussies 'don't like Asians'. Oh, please. It's not like Canada didn't have its own version of 'yellow peril'. But today Canada is an ethnically and culturally diverse country that manages to overcome the ghosts of its racist history. From what I've gleaned of its culture in arts and media, I think the same can be said for Australia.
It's been many years since I thought of travelling to Australia. I always have a soft spot for things and people hailing from that country, though. One example is The Wiggles, who rank among some of today's least annoying kids' entertainers*; I also appreciate the fact that most of them had a background in childhood education. My son loved them until he was in school, and we even took him to a live concert. (It was insane. We stood in front of the stage, surrounded on three sides by what can only be described as a toddler mosh pit.) Also, thanks to the Wiggles' cover of "Six Months in a Leaky Boat", my son likes Split Enz.
And last but not least--through my work, I've come to know Atlassian software development. I love this company and its tools. Atlassian, can you please open an office in my hometown? And then I can apply, get a job, and transfer to the home base. A girl can dream, right? 
*Except for that blue one, Anthony. Grrr.
Salty capers, briny olives, and sticky sweet prunes--for most people, either you love 'em or you hate 'em. I happen to love them, but the boys I cook for decidedly do not. I was therefore taking a slight risk in cooking the Silver Palate's Chicken Marbella for dinner one night; however, the intriguing list of ingredients for this dish convinced me that the end result would be interesting. As it turned out, the boys liked it, and didn't pick out even a single caper. I call that success!
In the 1980s, the Silver Palate was a gourmet food shop located in upscale Manhattan, New York. According to the Silver Palate website
[ Click here to read more ]
It's a new year, which means that Lake Superior State University has published its annual Banished Words List for 2011. Many of the words and phrases that made the infamous list this year, as they were in previous years, were influenced by their use--and overuse--in politics and on the internet. Here are some of the words.
This picture incorporates (almost) three of the words from this year's list.
[ Click here to read more ]
We had our first dusting of snow earlier this week in Toronto, which is depressing because it means winter is really, utterly here. Or soon will be. (Yet some unfortunate people in areas southwest of us were literally snowed in--so I should count myself lucky!)
With cold weather comes the hankering for soup, and if you're like me, you pretty much love any kind of soup. Soup is good all year round, but when it's nippy outside, having a hot bowl of soup can ignite a warmth that radiates to the tips of your toes
[ Click here to read more ]
On a recent trip to China, my grandmother asked for the "washroom". There were confused stares all around--washroom? Did she want to do some laundry? It turned out that in China, people use the British term "toilet". My grandma thought it was hilarious, because for us, the toilet is the fixture inside the room, not the room itself.*
So why do we say "washroom" and people in China say "toilet"? Aren't we an ex-British colony, after all? Well, it was a while ago. Canada became a country in 1867. We've since had much more influence from the United States. As a result, much is made in Canadian culture--some of it legitimate, most of it hyperbole--of our supposedly low self-image in comparison with the US. On our darker days, it's like we're their friendly yet provincial cousins
[ Click here to read more ]
Ripe, sweet bananas are a staple food for babies everywhere, but they're also one of the few fruits that I love. I prefer them when they're very ripe, i.e., too ripe for most people; for me, black spots on a banana means that it's delicious! I've only ever met one other person who loves 'black bananas' as much as I do, and that was my hubby's sweet old grandpa. When we visited him, I'd have a bunch of ripe bananas in hand.
But I can't always plan to bake for when a bunch of bananas will ripen to perfection, so I've taken to the habit of scoping out when the supermarket puts overripe bananas on the sale cart. Then, I buy them and freeze them (peeled and in a freezer-safe container or bag). Sometimes I cut them into chunks before freezing, which makes them ideal for blending in ice-cold smoothies
[ Click here to read more ]
Although I haven't done so in many months, I like taking public transit. It's best in the city, of course; in the suburbs, service ranges from the mediocre to abysmal. My favourite is the subway, followed by the streetcar. Unfortunately, where I live currently (a concrete jungle west of Toronto), we have only buses. Still, taking public transit is ultimately cheaper than driving a car, and while it does suck sometimes--especially when weather is intemperate--it's the green way to go. Plus, I get to squeeze in some reading time that I might not normally have.
BUT...Despite the inconvenience of walking to and from bus stops in the rain, or anytime in winter--which in southern Canada can feel like half the year--there is yet one thing that bothers me even more about commuting on public transit. And that is the other commuters who do not obey the tacit, but vital, rules of taking public transit
[ Click here to read more ]
September 27th 2010 04:24
Warning: Somewhat superficial blog post ahead.
Ask anyone what makes a man sexy, and aside from any physical/aesthetic requirements, they'll probably say something like "intelligence" and "humour". Although I can appreciate a nice set of abs or whatever as much as the next girl, it's really the intangible stuff that makes a man hot. Like his super-sized brain or his ability to make me laugh
[ Click here to read more ]
|
|
|
Add Comments
Comments (8)
Read More
I wasn't precise. Thanks, Karen!
Comment by Irene
on Pregnancy in movies
Grammar Matters
Interrobang