Something I have in common with fierce Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: we both fractured our elbows in 2009. That makes us like blood sisters, right?

I am now obsessed with tamarind...

Cooking classes are a popular "tourist attraction" in Thailand. I am usually not one for conventional tourist attraction, but you will see from my future posts full of vacation photos that I basically did every typical tourist attraction available, because they're so damn cool over there. I mean, who doesn't want to ride an elephant, drink "twig whiskey" with old men who never quite got right after a few decade of opium, swim with 50 different kinds of tropical fish in a shallow coral reef, and see a real, practical application for gold leaf? More on these later. This post is about my love affair with food and how I got to make a whole bunch of it from scratch, using amazingly fresh ingredients. There was also a small gang of cats roaming around the house where the cooking class was held, which was a big bonus for this crazy cat lady in training.

John is prepping his ingredients


breafast: pad thai

spring rolls (fried & steamed)








tom kha gai soup with oyster mushrooms


cashew chicken stir fry


green chicken curry


red chicken curry with thai eggplant


yellow chicken curry stir-fry



papaya salad


who let me play with fire?

Decision Day 2009

In the face of today's sad news regarding Prop 8, the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, we are still lucky to have a silver lining. A loss just means a better organizing opportunity; people who will fight like they've never fought before. And the bright hope of our future electeds:

Commissioners Debra Walker and Rafael Mandelman, candidates for the Supe seats for Districts 6 and 8, respectively. Photo courtesy of Kip Williams.

All adventures start with a full plate...

I can talk food for days. Literally, days. I think it's my favorite subject, above and beyond, because unlike politics it tends to garner only the most positive of reactions, and while I don't mind cooking up a nasty look every once in a while, I'd much rather be cooking something with lemon grass and turmeric.

On my recent vacation to Chiang Mai, Thailand (which I am still planning to write about, but you know how it is, I tend to drop the ball on long-term blog projects), I took a Thai cooking class in a little open-air bungalow. Before the class, the instructor took my partner and me to the produce market, where my eyes went buck-wild and I turned into a trigger-happy camera-holder. The market was insane. Fresh produce, vivid colors, pungent scents, strong flavors, you name it. Check out some photos:

the market


tom yum soup


tom kha ingredients: lemon grass, slice of thai ginger (galangal), chilis, kaffir lime leaves, corriander, slice of turmeric


closer look at the tom kha bundle


chilis and thai eggplant bundles


fruit: rambutans, mangosteens, som (thai oranges), young coconuts


lancet fruit, dragon fruit, asian pears


thai eggplant, thai ginger, chilis, turmeric, herbs


tiny hot chilis


msuhrooms, beans, and heart of palm

Hopefully soon I'll have time to post photos of all the food from the cooking classes. Stay tuned!

This is what "vacation" looks like...

SFWPC's May 19, 2009 Statewide Special Election Endorsements

Tthe first thing I imagine couples' therapists will tell you is that you need to learn how to compromise. I don't really know, thought: my idea of therapy is skewed, much like my legal expertise, by the Law & Order franchise. How this applies to the May 19th Special Election? Two things: 1) Our beloved state of California is in a pickle with something like a $40 billion budget gap, and 2) Ain't no one happy 'bout it. So, begrudgingly, the Dems and the Repubs birthed a series of ballot propositions aimed at closing that gap by "shuffling some of the funds around" with predictable cuts to human services. Unfortunately money does not grow on trees. We all wish it did.

Three typical responses to the props: 1) YES to all; we need to solve the damn problem; how's this for compromise? Dems aren't happy with the terms, but yes, that is quite possibly the best we can do under these circumstances; 2) NO to all; we will not accept cuts to vital services; go back to Sacramento and rework the deal to somehow find money for the budget gap elsewhere; and 3) YES to some; NO to others, because 1D & 1E provide a negligible slice of pie, but impact the lives of many severely.

The San Francisco Women's Political Committee, which I am on as a Board Member, recently went through a round of membership votes on the endorsements and this is what we propose:

Check out the full text of our reasons for supporting and opposing, brought to you by the immensely eloquent Frances Hsieh, our Endorsement Chair.

1 Struggle 1 Fight

Unless you've either been living under a media-proof rock, or you're not from San Francisco/California, you must have already heard of the amazing effort undertaken by some incredibly dedicated activists from the LGBTQ community to make their voices against marriage inequality HEARD. They are on a six-day march from San Francisco to Sacramento, enlightening minds and hearts along the way. Every day they meet folks who haven't been clued into the incredible injustice done by the passage of Prop 8 this past November, and every day they make more friends who join the fight as ardent supporters. They are doing a kick-ass job getting word out into the media and attracting the support of everyday regular folks like you and me.

Thanks to today's wonderful technology, they are keeping a Twitter to update us along the way: who they meet, where they go, the struggles they face. Please do yourself a favor and check it out, it's truly inspirational... and you know I don't say this a lot! This is like Three Cups of Tea inspirational. You go, guys.

http://twitter.com/1Struggle1Fight.

Don't call it a comeback...

It's really tough to return to blogging after being "away" for so long. Have I forgotten how to do it? Did I ever know, to start with? Too much has been happening to catch up my remaining readers. I wanted to blog about Nov 2008 elections, but as those of you who know me would venture to guess, I was too busy working. Then I started a new job, acquired a distracting new romantic interest, broke my elbow, and underwent a series of adventures. Somewhere along the way I started wearing ties every day. As some of you may know, I usually need a new "thing" every so often. As if I didn't have enough to worry about. See:

What a toolbox.

Until I find a worthwhile training-wheels topic that won't take too much time to research, I'll leave you with a promise that I will try to not be absent for a half a year again. And this: While all hard liquors (80 proof) have roughly the same amount of calories (avg. 65), distilled products such as rum, gin, vodka, whiskey, and my beloved scotch contain ZERO carbs. Isn't that good news? Ok then, drink on my dear readers, and do it on the cheap: the Yelp Guide to Special "Offers".

Afghanistan's top woman cop murdered September 27, 2008...

I've been putting off writing about the unfortunate death of Malalai Kakar, the top-ranking female police officer in Afghanistan, because the fact is I'm not a skilled enough writer to properly express my disappointment, and I didn't want to settle for just a blurb. But now it's been over a week and I still haven't gotten anything together, and something is better than nothing. In sum, Malalai has reached heights previously inaccessible to modern-day Afghani women, and that alone made her a Taliban target. She worked in a city recently overrun by the re-emerging Taliban, a considerably dangerous environment for men, let alone those relegated to second class citizenship (women, minorities, foreigners). At some point (why don't online versions of publications date their stuff??), Marie Claire ran this excellent article on the "top cop":

Malalai heads for the squad room, where she removes her burka and straightens her uniform. She wears a crisp navy-blue safari shirt with the sleeves rolled up and matching canvas pants gathered in folds around her hips, held up by a thick black belt. Clearly, the Kandahar Police Department never planned on providing a uniform for someone with a 24-inch waist. Against her bone-thin, five-foot frame, the 9-mm pistol strapped to her hip looks comically large.

Kandahar is, hands-down, one of the world's scariest cities. In spite of the U.S. and NATO street patrols, the Taliban seem to be everywhere. "They come out almost every night now," says Malalai. "They're responsible for drive-by shootings, bombings at police posts, and the daily mortaring of a NATO base outside town." Residents are on edge. Foreigners keep to themselves and live behind high walls with armed guards. Police at checkpoints look jumpy, and men with submachine guns wander the hotels. Nearly everyone on the street carries a weapon.

Malalai became a police officer, just like her father and brothers, to ensure that women would have a chance at a fair and just system of law enforcement - or access to it at all.

As a female police officer, Malalai is able to speak directly to women who are victims of violence. Recently, she started investigating a spate of suspicious murders and cases of abuse involving women in Kandahar. "These are things that I do that men just won't," she says. "I remember this one case, when I knocked on the door but the children would not let me in. From under the cover of my burka, I told them I was their long-lost aunt. They opened the door." Malalai (who says she often wears a burka to disguise her identity) searched the house and found a woman and her son chained by their hands and feet. They'd survived for 10 months on crusts of bread and cups of water. The woman, a widow, was handed over by her in-laws to her brother-in-law after her husband passed away. The brother married her and divorced her, a major taboo that guaranteed she would be a social outcast for the rest of her life. When she went to pick up her belongings, the brother-in-law forced her and her son into a cage and held them captive.

"The Taliban may threaten me," Malalai says. "But because of stories like rescuing this woman, the women and children love me."

The Taliban did more than threaten her. On September 27th, a spokesperson for an extremist Taliban movement which targets government officials gave the following statement:

“We killed Malalai Kakar. She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target.”

This just can't be tolerated.

Other relevant articles: Trailblazing detective pays with her life [The Star]

Kandahar’s Only Policewoman Walks a Tough Beat — Veiled [ABC news]

The Hidden Half: A Photo Essay on Women in Afghanistan [Mother Jones] (read the comments)

Time to let go of our antiquated agrarian nostalgia.

Slate has an interesting article up about American perceptions of what is "real" American and what is not, the Alaska vs. Hawaii argument. Read the full article here. I agree that there's a certain amount of romance left to the country lifestyle, but it's time to stop pandering to one demographic more than the others. Go where the voters are!

... Alaska leans Republican while Hawaii leans Democratic, and the GOP long ago intimidated the media into believing that only Republican strongholds represent the "real America." These Republican strongholds are usually sparsely populated, and I suppose the media's been sold on the idea that because the United States started out as an agrarian nation, rural areas are somehow more authentic than urban ones.

But if it's really true, as Palin said in the debate, that Americans are tired of "constantly looking backwards," then perhaps it's time we noticed that, as Rachael Larimore points out in Slate's "XX Factor" blog, 80 percent of the U.S. population lives in metropolitan areas. We city-dwellers make no claim to being more "authentically American" than Alaskans or the inhabitants of any of this country's many other big open spaces. But we are, by dispassionate numerical reckoning, more typical. And while most people probably don't think of Hawaii as an urban state, 70 percent of its 1.3 million inhabitants live in and around Honolulu, the state's biggest city. In Alaska, by contrast, only 42 percent of its 670,000 inhabitants live in and around Anchorage, that state's biggest city. So if either of the last two states admitted to the union has any claim to being more characteristic of the nation as a whole, it's Hawaii, not Alaska.

Palin, a "master... of nonanswers"? Why, Andrew Halcro, you don't say! Tomorrow's much speculated upon Veep debate should be interesting, although already predictable: everyone's going to hit on the fact that she's vague and noncommittal to her answers, that Biden struggles to make an impact when compared to his press-ready opponent, that we didn't learn anything new from either candidate or their positions. I learned a thing or two about "feminism" this past weekend at the Women's Policy Summit and I'm looking forward to seeing how she shines as a feminist, though I do think it's unfair that a woman running for office can't just openly say that she isn't one.

Debating the debate... and then what?

Last night my sweet buddy Erik came over to my place with two bottles of Barefoot bubbly, and we successfully managed to distract my poor roommate from her night of quiet reading with our own drinking game (drink every time Obama says "optimism", drink every time McCain says "experience"), but after a while we just decided to drink liberally. The whole thing was pretty painful. I was excited to hear a lot more about foreign policy topics, since that was the theme for the debate, but if you watched it, you will have noticed that the topic du jour was only marginally touched. So on this, the sad day of Paul Newman's death at 83, I'd like to quote another actor-activist...

The result is another frustrating piece of American media that is at once far too polite, and at the same time, dismissive of an American public's need to know anything beyond jingoistic self-aggrandizement.
- Sean Penn, via HuffPo (Read the full post)

Food for thought, or just a better way of wording my frustration...

Palin on Couric: like nails on a chalkboard...

These days, one can't turn a corner without someone pointing out the flaws in Republican Veep hopeful Sarah Palin's thought process and logic. It's a familiar echo from 2000 and 2004 when the people rallied behind a momentous outcry, "Really? THIS GUY? Really? But look at what he said..." which is when young idealists either learned or failed to learn that people vote predictably along party lines, not based on "best choice". So it does just about as much damage to point out the obvious lack of information displayed by one Gov. Sarah Palin in public, like in this interview with CBS's Katie Couric:

But it's still kind of fun.

I am loving her incredibly noncommittal vague answers, and that when asked for a more thorough explanation, she repeats her originally vague response. I love that she points out McCain's "track record of leadership" as a positive toward new regulations, even though his "track record" is proven to be anti-regulation. When pressed on the moratorium on foreclosures, she doesn't give a single actual answer, and instead opts for a long list of political buzz words (phrases that momentarily stun the listener but when looked at closer, mean nothing): "see these amendments implemented", "leadership qualities and pragmatism", "multifaceted solution", "comprehensive long-term solution". Just who preps this woman before her scheduled public appearances? I've watched enough of the West Wing to know that's an invaluable position she might consider hiring for...

For our joint masochistic pleasure, here is another clip from this interview that I just can't bear to embed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8Km8L3FBWI Palin shows her unwavering support for Israel... no matter what! And don't get me wrong, fellow Jews, US aide to and alliance with Israel is as important to me as it is to anyone, but where do we draw the line? When do we say, "If you're going to bring this down to good guys vs. bad guys... literally... maybe we might be better off without you pigeonholing our area of the world?"

What we really should be asking, and where we should be pointing fingers, is "who is responsible for this current economic clusterfuck we're in?" No more of this "let's find a solution together" bullshit, because that obviously has had no merit. And to McCain supporters readily pointing out his 2005 co-sponsorship of a bill for increased Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac regulation? Beware of Greeks bearing gifts, my friends, for his attempt to reform the government’s involvement in lending three years ago actually gave the institutions a free year sans regulation and the ability to further "exploit their subsidies". Last I remember, "exploit" is not a favorable phrase. Maybe they're "bad guys", and we should let clear-sighted Sarah Palin clue us in. You see, she is an expert in "bad guys"...

Battleground Colorado...

Full article: http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2008/09/23/battleground-colorado/

New citizen Fernando Torres is among the many reasons for Democratic optimism. He will cast his first vote this year, and says Obama will get it because he believes he is more in touch with the struggles of working class voters.

And then someone mentioned I dress like this anyway...

About to go check out "Boots and Beers", a fundraiser for Nebraska's amazingly handsome Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Kleeb. I am going to be profusely outnumbered by boys in tight jeans but I will always take on any and all opportunity to dress up in a little plaid.

Edit: Annnnd the verdict is, the man of the hour was extremely gracious! Paul Hogarth did a great job organizing and I walked away with a few new acquaintances and some really good political gossip. I mean, so so good.