Happy International Women's Day

List via McSweeney's Internet Tendency.

Best tuna sandwich ever

Have you read Samin Nosrat's best-selling book, Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking or watched her new docu-series on Netflix? I'm obsessed with her! Samin, you're so charming, so approachable, so full of joy and curiosity and wonder. I want to eat with you. I want to travel with you. I want to be your best friend!

Beyond her sparkling personality and obvious passion for things that taste really damn good, Samin's story of how she got to where she is today is quite fascinating. After a life-changing meal at the legendary Chez Panisse restaurant (at the time she was an undergraduate studying English at UC Berkeley), Samin went back and begged for a job bussing tables. She worked her way up to the kitchen and eventually learned how to cook at Chez Panisse, in Italy and at (now defunct) Eccolo in Berkeley. "Since 2000, I've pursued my twin passions of food and words with equal vigor, aiming to create work that inspires, creates community, and raises cultural, social and environmental awareness," she writes on her website.     

And now she's showing us how to make the best tuna sandwich in the universe.

Thank you, Samin. 


Samin's beauty uniform. (A Cup of Jo)

Four great reads on the Internet

A wise person once said, "Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life." Reading is like time travel. Reading is like watching a movie in your head. Reading is an act of empathy.  

I recently came across these beautifully-written, soulful and brave articles (thank you, Internet!). Take a journey and contemplate your "pet faves" (as opposed to pet peeves), walk in someone else's shoes (in this case a 460-lb. man's), feel the stress of working an 80-hour week at two full-time jobs while barely making ends meet, and understand what it's like to shed who you're expected to be in order to discover true freedom.        

Below are some of my favorite excerpts. Happy reading!

Ordinary Things That Bring Me Extraordinary Joy 
by T. Wise (Man Repeller)

"As I sat on my balled up coat, negativity coursing through me, I considered my pet faves. When elderly women call me 'baby.' When the doors of the train I’m on open as the next train I need pulls up across the platform. When old couples walk down the street holding hands. Paying with exact change. When I am the only person with no one sitting next to me on the Chinatown bus. When I see a shirt I love, there is only one left on the rack, and it is my size. Falling asleep on a road trip right as I leave and waking up right before I arrive. Putting dry socks on dried feet after swimming. When someone I love hugs me and later that night I put on my coat and can smell them for one second. When I forget to turn my early alarm off, wake up, and realize I have two more hours to sleep. These are not life-changing moments, but that could be their true magic."

The Weight I Carry: What It's Like to Be Too Big in America 
by Tommy Tomlinson (The Atlantic)

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned: I lust after greasy double cheeseburgers and fried chicken legs and Ruffles straight out of the bag. I covet hot Krispy Kreme donuts that melt on my tongue. I worship bowls full of peanut M&M’s, first savoring them one by one, then stuffing my mouth with handfuls, then wetting my finger to pick up those last bits of chocolate dust and candy shell. My brain pings with pleasure; my taste buds groan with desire. This happens over and over, day after day, and that is how I got here, closer to the end of my life than the beginning, weighing almost a quarter of a ton."

Dollars on the Margin
by Matthew Desmond (The New York Times Magazine)

"A $15 minimum wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever. It is a contraceptive, preventing teenage pregnancy. It prevents premature death. It shields children from neglect. But why? Poverty can be unrelenting, shame-inducing and exhausting. When people live so close to the bone, a small setback can quickly spiral into a major trauma. Being a few days behind on the rent can trigger a hefty late fee, which can lead to an eviction and homelessness. An unpaid traffic ticket can lead to a suspended license, which can cause people to lose their only means of transportation to work. In the same way, modest wage increases have a profound impact on people’s well-being and happiness. Poverty will never be ameliorated on the cheap. But this truth should not prevent us from acknowledging how powerfully workers respond to relatively small income boosts."

How Marie Kondo Helped Me Sort Out My Gender
by Sandy Allen (them.)

"A month later, kneeling and sobbing before my Marie Kondo discard pile, it felt silly, sure, that this book is what had finally done it, but I also couldn’t unsee my actual preferences: so much of the feminine clothing I owned did not spark joy.

I donated it all. I hung and folded the items that remained: flannel shirts, baggy jeans, t-shirts. I had kept a few dresses and heels and feminine winter coats, ones that had seemed really special when I’d bought them. I knew Marie Kondo wouldn’t have approved of my choice to keep them. Each day I passed them and they stared right back at me.

During the months that followed, I steadily shed feminine things. One day, all my makeup: gone. Another day, all my earrings: gone. (My ears had been pierced when I was two!) I tried to do as Marie Kondo said and thanked these items for what they’d given me. I guiltily threw them out, and then felt wonderful.

One August day, I donated the last of my heels and dresses, the ones that had once been my absolute favorites. I happened to run into someone I knew in line at the thrift shop, and he offered to take my box of things to donate. I put them in his trunk and watched him drive away. I didn’t say to him, nor could I have articulated, that I was throwing out the last of me pretending to be a woman."

Opening illustration by Eric Comstock.

Is cultural appropriation always wrong?

When New York Times reporter Walter Thompson-Hernandez heard that Chicano subculture had spread to Japan, he had to see it for himself. "Who knew the culture I grew up with had a home so far from California?" Thompson-Hernandez mused. 

So he traveled 5,600 miles from Los Angeles to Nagoya, Osaka and Tokyo to interview Junichi Shimodaira, one of the godfathers of the Japanese Lowrider scene; musician and recording artist MoNa a.k.a. Sad Girl; and artist Night tha Funksta, whose drawings focus on the positive aspects of Chicano culture.

I was absolutely fascinated by Thompson-Hernandez's report. How amazing for a culture so different from your own to resonate so deeply and personally. It also sparked a question for me: Is cultural appropriation always wrong?

OK, first let's examine its definition:

cul·tur·al ap·pro·pri·a·tion [Noun] The unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.

When Nicki Minaj released her single, "Chun-Li" (off her 2018 album Queen), I had mixed feelings. On one hand, the song is catchy and I always appreciate a good beat. I also acknowledge the nod to legendary Street Fighter character Chun-Li (I get it - it's generally fun for artists to reference Asian culture because Asian culture is generally cool, duh). But I was annoyed that Nicki's hair buns, hair chopsticks, coolie hats and Asian massage parlor imagery (as seen in the video for "Chun-Li") does a pretty good job of reinforcing Asian stereotypes (especially Asian female stereotypes - ugh). 

"This is such outdated thinking!" I yelled out loud when I first watched the music video. "Why am I still watching this sh*t?" 

Rather than having conversations about appropriation, let's instead hear from the people who actually live the culture every single day. Since we're on the topic of female hip hop artists, why not give a platform to Asian and Asian American artists like Jessi, CL, Suboi, HanHan and Ruby Iberra? These are REAL Asian and Asian American women with firsthand accounts about immigration, stereotypes, misogyny, struggles as minorities, and female empowerment. We need these authentic voices. My daughter and son need to hear these stories. (But I digress...)

Times have certainly changed since Gwen Stefani donned a bindi on the Red Carpet and professed her love of harajuku girls. In 2012, No Doubt pulled their "Looking Hot" music video (with Gwen in full Native American regalia) and later apologized to the Native American community. I think most of us would agree: given the long and shameful history of Native American decimation in this country by the dominant white culture, it was totally tone deaf for Gwen to wear that headdress.

So when is appropriation OK and not OK? Is Chicano subculture in Japan acceptable? Should Madonna not have worn North African garb during her award presentation at last year's MTV VMAs? (Or referenced Hindu art 10 years prior in her 1998 MTV Video Music Award performance?) Was Rihanna's papal-inspired gown at the 2018 Met Gala offensive to Catholics? Is it not OK for Asians and Asian Americans to borrow from African American hip hop culture? 

Do we need to make a distinction between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation? Are we all just going a little bit crazy over this? 

What do you think? 


Three cheers for cultural appropriation. (The New York Times)

Monday motivation

The hardest part is getting started... 

Today I didn't feel like doing much of anything. It's cold and gray outside, I haven't got any new ideas swirling around in my head, I don't feel motivated to write, I have nothing in me to offer the world. Get over it, Jenn, my brain said to me. What was it that ancient Chinese philosopher said? The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step...

So I took a deep breath, sat my butt in my chair, looked that blank white screen in the face and started typing. 


Motivation hacks from the best of the best. (Entrepreneur)