Part 4 of 4 in a series of brief summary-reviews of comic books I’ve read in the past. This article covers titles beginning with T though Z.
Comics from the past: N through S
Saturday, 2 August 2008
Part 3 of 4 in a series of brief summary-reviews of comic books I’ve read in the past. This article covers titles beginning with N though S. I’ve also denoted recommended comics with the lightbulb ( 💡 ) icon.
Detailed Zenphoto upgrade steps
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
While the Zenphoto has great support, I’ve found the upgrade instructions slightly lacking for my own needs. So I’ve written up detailed steps for upgrading Zenphoto, which should work with version 1.1.6 and onward. (Unless the backend of the upgrading process changes significantly in the future, of course.)
Comics from the past: G through M
Monday, 21 July 2008
Part 2 of 4 in a series of brief summary-reviews of comic books I’ve read in the past. The article covers titles beginning with G though M. I’ve also denoted recommended comics with the lightbulb ( 💡 ) icon
Comics from the past: A through F
Friday, 18 July 2008
Part 1 of 4 in a series of brief summary-reviews of comics I’ve read in the past. This article covers titles beginning with A though F. I’ve denoted recommended comics with the lightbulb ( 💡 ) icon.
Salmon tartare
Tuesday, 15 July 2008
Following the shrimp salad, this appears to be second in an inadvertent series of seafood concoctions to serve on bread. Not on purpose, not really. But faced with a large filet of fresh salmon, and a desire to try making something at home with raw fish… You get the picture. 🙂
Salmon tartare with chives, lemon zest and horseradish cream, on toasted whole wheat.
Ongoing comics I read
Sunday, 13 July 2008
I’m chronically in need of more bookshelf space. The shelves creak with their burden of books, and boxes quickly fill up and accumulate. Strangely enough, though, the number of comics I read which are actively updated and published is actually on the small side. It also helps that several of them are or have become web comics.
Update (19 April 2010): I’ve moved Fruits Basket to the comics archive page, as the series finished in 2009 (well, in English). I have also removed Yuri Monogatari, as I’ve stopped reading it for the time being. Reason: I fell behind in reading due to major house remodeling, so needed to shorten my reading list to catch up. I also note that Dokebi Bride appears to be on hiatus (sniff), and that A Distant Soil is being republished as a free webcomic (yay! Heent: If you enjoy a free webcomic, buy the hardcopies if you are able to; a book is a joy a to hold, and creators try to make a living like anyone else).
Update (25 February 2009): I’ve decided to get rid of the Western vs. Asian division. Whether they are originally written in English, or not (such as manga from Japan or manhwa from Korea), they remain the same medium I cherish, comics.
(*) Added recently since this entry had been originally published. Yay! I love discovering great reads!
So here’s a summary list of the web comics…
- Digger
- A Distant Soil
- Finder
- Galaxion
- Girl Genius
- Xeno’s Arrow
…As well as a summary list of comics I read in dead tree format.
- (*) Black Jack
- Castle Waiting
- Dokebi Bride: On hiatus since 2008ish
- Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service
- Love and Rockets
- Usagi Yogimbo
- (*) xxxHolic
The number of comics would be maddeningly long if I included the various other graphic novels, completed series, and comic strips I’ve enjoyed! In addition, there are incomplete stories, sadly on hiatus. But I’ll cover previously read and incomplete comics in separate articles.
Shrimp salad
Saturday, 5 July 2008
Sandwich fillings and creamy salads seem to suffer from ennui, becoming almost annoyingly boring with tired combinations of ingredients —at least in most cafés and grocery stores. One thing I enjoy about traveling is other countries’ (or regions’) takes on such commonly eaten items. In the UK, for instance, they often have interesting fillings such as crayfish with arugula, or chicken tikka salad. Funky, yet delish!
Shrimp salad with scallions, Thai basil and parsley, on top of toasted whole wheat bread.
Here’s a recipe I’ve improvised, based on shrimp. I’ve enjoyed eating this for lunch at home, as well as on a picnic in a park.
Broiled eel (unagi) over rice, two ways
Monday, 23 June 2008
Unagi kamameshi, unagi donburi, una-don, una-jyu: It goes by many names, and remains one of my favorite Japanese dishes. Obachan’s articles on unagi donburi and unagi mabushi, became catalysts for figuring out how to make them on my own. So I came up with two recipes. One which emulates the claypot to obtain the crust, and another which ends up as a moister one-pot meal recipe. In both cases I do cheat —by using already cooked eel— something that’s easy to find in the frozen or refrigerated seafood section at Japanese groceries.
Broiled eel over crisped rice, topped with nori and scallions. Okay, okay, the crispy part is on the unseen bottom of the pan.
(I don’t own a claypot (i.e., ceramic hotpot), and I’m too chicken to choose which of the many supposed “correct” ways to cook rice dishes in said container. Blame my confusion over the soak vs. not to soak and oven vs. stovetop camps of techniques. Blame my hesitation about direct flames on ceramic dishes and fear of a hot, food-filled container cracking and making a mess which would take a decade to clean away. As you could surmise, my web searches didn’t help much. So far. Advice welcomed. 😉
The crispy rice goodness seems like a Japanese version of the Persian tahdig. I couldn’t find a decent definition for tahdig online, though. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Claudia Roden’s New Book of Middle Eastern Food helped. Tahdig, a.k.a. tah dig or tahdeeg, refers to the crusty, often golden-brown rice at the “bottom of the pan,” its literal translation. In Persian and other Middle Eastern cuisine, these rice crunchies are a delicacy. In general, Japanese rice cookery discourages rice crusting —with the exception of kamameshi dishes, AFAICT.
Summer in the garden
Friday, 20 June 2008
Here’s a garden update as of this year’s summer solstice. Presently on my mind are the apricots: not as many as last year, although not as paltry as 2006. However small the crop, they shall be imminently pickable.
For the botanically inclined, I submit vegetable porn involving burgundy and green filet beans. Basically haricots verts / violet, but Californian. 😉 Bush beans of the Maxibel and Royal Burgundy varieties, if ya wanna get technical.
Royal Burgundy bush beans.
Oddly enough, after cooking the purple filet beans, they turn a green color to match the haricots verts.