Orange Is The New Black

I borrowed this book on recommendation from a friend.

Maybe I'm a bit unfazed by reading about extreme conditions, but reading this, I was constantly waiting for things to get interesting (i.e. more violent).  But it never did.  If one were to assume that prison was like a country club.....  well, it's not - you're still deprived of some very basic needs, but neither is Federal minimum security prison a haven for violence and abuse.  It's probably very different in men's prison.

It was a decent book though, and I learned a little about prison culture, through the eyes of a privileged white girl in possibly the safest prison situation.

The Deftones fucking RAWK

This was a great show!!  Chino's vocals were on point, unlike his vocals on a lot of Deftones live YouTube videos I've seen.

The band was really tight, and their songs are made for a live setting.  Definitely a kick-ass show!!

I just watched a video of G.E. Smith playing Michael Bloomfield's old '63 Telecaster, and discovered that he played on Highway 61 Revisited.  With Dylan's recent Nobel Prize for literature, I figure it's time to finally listen to some Dylan.  I've only casually listened to Dylan on classic rock radio - his really popular stuff, but as with most artists, the greatest songs are deeper in their catalogs.

How America Eats: A Social History of U.S. Food and Culture

I love cooking and understanding the history behind cuisine of different regions.  This book combined cuisine, culture, and history to tell a very interesting story about the development of American cuisine.

The book discusses how pilgrims had food shortfalls and what they did to survive - adapting their European wheat-based diet to America's corn-based diet, and importing African slaves for agriculture.  As a result, early American cuisine was a blend of European, Native American, and African cuisines.

Later in the book, the focus shifts to industrialized food production and women's roles in how food was marketed to people.  There was also discussion of the incorporation of Italian, Chinese and Mexican cuisines, and the perception of those cultures and food.

It was a really interesting book, and shows that American cuisine is as rich as the history that set the foundation for it.

Lying

I read Sam Harris's "The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason" years ago.  I thought he was an excellent writer, and though I thought some of his positions on the subject of religion were a bit extremely Atheist and staunchly anti-religious (I tend to be more Agnostic), I could appreciate where he's coming from.

Reading "Lying", I found that same style, but appreciate where he's coming from in his view that lying is never acceptable.  The book is a short read, the first half filled with his thoughts on why it's never okay to lie, and the second half being a transcript of a discussion he had with his inspiration for the book (which I only partially read).

Fresh Off The Boat

I first "discovered" Eddie Huang when my son auditioned for the role of Eddie on ABC's "Fresh Off The Boat" sitcom.  A few years later, I started watching his show "Huang's World" on Viceland, and I thought he sounded really intelligent and his worldviews matched mine.

I knew he was heavily into hip hop, and while I listen to some hip hop, I'm not as immersed as he is.  I was interested in reading about his growing up Chinese in America.

As I read through this book, I found that his experiences growing up ethnically Chinese in America was completely different from mine, due to the fact that he was a minority in Orlando, whereas Hawaii is much more ethnically diverse and there really is no minority here.  Also, I think his affinity for hip hop was due to him trying to find something to latch onto that represented who he identified with as a minority, whereas here in Hawaii we've established our own Hawaii identity that's an amalgamation of different cultures.

I've checked out pictures of his restaurant Baohaus.  I actually identified when he said that he didn't like how non-Asian chefs take classic homestyle Asian dishes and Americanize them.  Most recently, I see the poke craze around the nation and hate that they're taking a uniquely Hawaiian dish and bastardizing it with no nod towards authenticity.

But having said that, I thought it was kind of hypocritical that he is irritated at the cultural appropriation of the food of his ancestors by white people, yet he's adopted a very black American culture into his own life.  In all fairness, his use of ebonics (as far as I can tell) doesn't take much liberties and seems pretty "authentic".

Jiro Dreams of Sushi

This documentary came highly recommended to me.  The cinematography and the music was beautiful.  The story was interesting and reflected the Japanese attitude towards perfection, but I couldn't help but be taken slightly aback by the elitism.  Still, I'd be interested in eating at his shop, though $300 for omakase is a bit out of my price range!