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Green Fitness Studio trip!

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Pulse, Gorgeous Black and White 4K Timelapse Footage of an Incoming Storm 

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Exploring the fusion of art and science through designs in gold leaf

By Greg Dunn

h-t Quanta Magazine (Mapping the Brain to Build Better Machines)

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Learning to Love Everything You Are with Body-Positivity Activist @mayaraefe

“#MyStory is a series that spotlights inspiring women in the Instagram community. Join the conversation by sharing your own story. To see more of Mayara’s photos, follow @mayaraefe on Instagram.

(This interview was conducted in Portuguese.)

“#MyStory is about loving yourself, your heritage and your body. It’s about survival and having the freedom to be who you are.” —Mayara Efe (@mayaraefe), a body-positivity activist and plus-sized model from São Paulo, Brazil.

“For years, I suffered from depression. As a black, curvy and gay woman, I didn’t fit into any of society’s boxes. I tried to fit in. I tried to lose weight, and every month I tried to straighten my hair. Then, when I still didn’t feel like my life had any great possibilities, I tried suicide. During my recovery from depression, I discovered feminism and realized that I could do anything, regardless of my skin color or weight. I started to post photos that my grandmother would take of me. People began sharing these images, saying I was photogenic and recommending me for modeling jobs. This is how I became a plus-sized model.

I don’t want other girls or women to have to go through the same thing I did in order to learn to love themselves. I learned the hard way that the only way to be happy is to hold your head up high and have the maximum amount of love and respect for yourself.”

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Steep Rock climbers!

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Central Park Zoo!

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Free PDF Books on race, gender, sexuality, class, and culture

Found from various places online:

The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

Angela Y. Davis - Are Prisons Obsolete?

Angela Y. Davis - Race, Women, and Class

The Communist Manifesto - Marx and Engels

Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde (link updated 1/14)

Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf

Critical Race Theory: An Introduction by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic (link updated 1/14) 

The Black Image in the White Mind: Media and Race in America- Robert M. Entman and Andrew Rojecki (link updated 1/14) 

Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism - bell hooks (link updated 1/14) 

Feminism is for Everybody - bell hooks (link updated 1/14) 

Faces at the Bottom of the Well - Derrick Bell

I am Your Sister - Audre Lorde (link updated 1/14)

Black Feminist Thought-Patricia Hill Collins (updated 1/14) 

Gender Trouble - Judith Butler

Four books by Frantz Fanon

Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston

Medical Apartheid - Harriet Washington

Fear of a Queer Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory  - edited by Michael Warner

Colonialism/Postcolonialism - Ania Loomba (updated 1/14)

Discipline and Punish - Michel Foucault

The Gloria Anzaldua Reader

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? by Mark Fisher

This Bridge Called by Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color by Cherríe Moraga & Gloria Anzaldúa

What is Cultural Studies? - John Storey (updated 1/14)

Cultural Theory and Popular Culture - John Storey (updated 1/14)

The Disability Studies Reader (updated 1/14)

Michel Foucault - Interviews and Other Writings

Michel Foucault - The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3

Michel Foucault - The Archeology of Knowledge

This blog also has a lot more.

(Sorry they aren’t organized very well.)

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Riverhead Table: GRETEL AND THE DARK by Eliza Granville

Riverhead Table is back, and this time we’re serving up classic German and Hungarian recipes inspired by Eliza Granvile’s “haunting, lyrical and enchanting” (Library Journal) debut novel GRETEL AND THE DARK, which just came out in paperback.

We re-read the book for recipe ideas and were immediately taken by this passage: 

“Josef put down his pen, reluctant to revisit the moment of change. Instead he made his way to the kitchen, drawn by his nose to the prospect of freshly made Shlishkes…To perch on a stool amid the scrubbing and chopping, the beating and mixing, the basting and tasting, transported him back to childhood, when his grandmother had taken charge of his father’s house, especially as Gudrun was familiar with so many old Hungarian recipes. He took advantage of Gudrun’s turned back to palm surreptitiously one of the warm dumplings with its coating of sugar and caramelized bread crumbs.” 

Granville magnificently parallels the world of fin-de-siècle Vienna with Germany during World War II in GRETEL AND THE DARK, and while fantasy also interweaves between these two timelines, it’s the food of the region that brings characters together and back into reality. These two dishes specifically, so grounded in Hungarian and German culture, help create the haunting atmosphere of the book.

Shlishkes (Gnocchi with Toasted Breadcrumbs) with homemade marinara sauce

Apfelstrudel (Apple Strudel)

Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad

Shlishkes (serves 4-5; prep & cooking time approximately 2 hours, depending on how fast you work)

2 lbs Russet potatoes

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

6 tbsp butter or 1/3 cup olive oil

1 cup plain bread crumbs

Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees. Prick each potato all over with a fork, place on a baking sheet and roast in the oven for 45 minutes to one hour. Set them aside to cool; once they are, peel them and either run them through a potato ricer or grate them over the large holes of a box grater into a large mixing bowl. Add in the flour, salt and egg. Use your hands to mix the ingredients and to knead the dough in the bowl. (Tip: Add a bit more flour if the dough is still too sticky!) Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and separate into 6 small, fist-sized balls. One by one gently roll each ball out into long ropes that are about 3/4” thick. (Tip: Keep the other balls covered in plastic so that they don’t dry out.) 

Cut the rope into 1 inch pieces. Place your nearly-finished shlishkes on a lightly floured baking sheet while you cut the rest of your dough ropes. Then, working in batches, place the dough pieces into a pot of lightly salted boiling water. As soon as the pieces rise to the top of the water, remove them using a slotted spoon and place in a bowl.

Melt your butter or heat up your oil in a separate pot or pan. (Tip: We used the same pot we used to boil the dough!) Add bread crumbs and stir until toasted, then add your cooked shlishkes and toss until coated.

Homemade Marinara Sauce (makes around 3 cups; prep & cooking time approximately 30 minutes)

1 28oz can whole tomatoes (or 2 14 oz cans of chopped tomatoes)

5 garlic cloves, minced (or more, depending how much you like garlic)

Red chili pepper flakes

Salt

Pepper

Dried oregano

1 large basil sprig

¼ cup olive oil

(NOTE: The shlishkes are great without sauce, but we loved having marinara on the side…and drenched all over the shlishkes, I mean who are we kidding?)

Pour the tomatoes into a large bowl and squish them with your hands. Put 1 cup of water into the tomato can to pick up leftover juices, then set aside. Heat the oil in a small saucepan and sauté the garlic, but don’t brown them. When the garlic sizzles add the tomatoes and water from the can. Add chili pepper flakes, salt, pepper and dried oregano to taste, then stir. Place the basil sprig on top of the sauce. Allow it to wilt and then submerge it into the liquid. Simmer until the sauce has thickened a bit, about 15-20 minutes. Continue cooking down until you get the consistency you want, and add more seasoning if you like. Remove the basil before serving.  

Shaved Brussels Sprout Salad (serves 6; prep & cooking time approximately 30 minutes)

1-2 lbs Brussels sprouts

1 cup walnuts, toasted

Finely grated or shaved Parmesan cheese, to taste

¼ cup olive oil

3-4 tbsp lemon juice

(NOTE: This isn’t in the book but we figured we needed a salad. Also it’s easiest to use a mandolin or other adjustable slicer for this but a sharp knife works well, too.)

Slice the sprouts as thinly as you can (don’t hurt yourself!) and then toss them into a salad bowl. Separate the layers where you can. Crush the toasted walnuts and add to the bowl. Add the rest of your ingredients and toss well.

Apfelstrudel (serves 8-10; prep & cooking time approximately 2 ½ hours)

For the dough

1/3 cup room temperature water

1 tbsp + 1 tsp vegetable oil (you’ll separate this into two ½ tsp portions)

½ tsp vinegar

1/8 tsp sea salt

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus a dash more for dusting

For the filling

3 tbsp unsalted butter

2/3 cups fine bread crumbs

5 tbsp white sugar  

½ tsp ground cinnamon

4 tbsp raisins  

3 tbsp rum or room temperature water to soak the raisins

2 lbs MacIntosh apples - peeled, quartered and cored!

1 tbsp lemon juice

2 tbsp melted butter

Powdered sugar

whipped cream (technically option but sooooo good if you use it) 

(NOTE: This recipe has a lot of steps, so we’re going to break it down as best we can!)

Make the dough: Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Mix your water water, one tablespoon of vegetable oil, vinegar and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add about half of the flour and stir well, then slowly add the rest of your flour until you can work the dough with your hands. Put the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth (about 8-10 minutes), and occasionally slam it onto the counter. Add a bit more flour if the dough is too sticky. Roll the dough into a ball, then put it in a clean bowl brushed with oil. Brush the dough itself with oil, as well. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and let rest for an hour at room temperature.

Now make the filling: Melt butter in a pan over medium heat, then add breadcrumbs (stirring constantly) to toast. Remove crumbs from heat and set aside. In a separate bowl mix the sugar and cinnamon together, then add it to the buttered breadcrumbs. Stir then save for later. Soak your raisins in rum or water until they soften, about 10 minutes. Take your prepped apples and chop every piece into ¼ inch thick slices (Tip: cover them with lemon juice so they don’t brown). Drain your softened raisins then add to your apples.

Prepping the strudel! First of all, have a lightly floured dish towel or table cloth ready and waiting nearby…you’ll need it soon enough. The, using a rolling pin, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. When the dough is about 15 inches in diameter, pick it up and stretch it in the way you would for a pizza, with your knuckles. When the dough gets bigger and is pretty thin, put it down on the lightly floured cloth that you prepped earlier (we told you you’d need it) and straighten out the wrinkles in the dough with your hands. Gently stretch the dough into a rectangular shape from the middle to the outside edges, all the way around, until it is paper-thin. While making sure to leave 1 inch of space next to the edge, brush half the dough with half of the melted butter. Now sprinkle your sugar, cinnamon, breadcrumb mixture over the other half of the dough, and spread the apples on top of this half only. Slightly fold the edges of the long sides of your rectangle inward. Then slowly roll the dough using the cloth (you HAVE to use the cloth), starting at the half with the apples and working all the way down to the other side. Gently roll your strudel onto a slightly buttered or greased baking sheet, making sure none of the filling escapes. Brush the top of the strudel with melted butter.

Bake your strudel! Put your strudel in the middle of the preheated oven and bake it for 30-45 minutes. Our oven was a little bit fickle so check on things after about half an hour. You’ll know it’s ready if the crust is golden brown and crispy-sounding if you tap it gently with the back of a wooden spoon or plastic spatula. Take it out of the oven, let it cool down until it’s just warm. Dust powdered sugar on it for presentation, then slice and serve with whipped cream.

And there you have it! These comfort foods will impress your friends at your GRETEL AND THE DARK book club. Give them a try, and don’t forget to share your photos using #RiverheadTable on Tumblr, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. 

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Inked Princesses by Joel Santana

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(via Saturday Morning Cartoons: Baopu #15) by Yao Xiao

words to remember

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Astronaut Scott Kelly’s Year in Space

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Persistent Photographer Captures the Perfect Shot of a Diving Kingfisher Bird After 6 Years of Trying

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The truth is that the obsession with word magic and names is a primitive one, inherently irrational. Names are notional. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet—or as rancid, depending; a mountain by its older name is just as tall. Yet the desire to remedy the wrongs of the past by righting our nomenclature is a deep one, and it burns on. Word magic it may be, and no more than that, but we believe in magic, and we think in words.

Adam Gopnik, “Denali and the Names of the Past” (via newyorker)

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Donate to ALC Oahu and help create Hawaii's first community-based resource center for self-directed learning! http://thndr.it/1VeihpQ

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Monzter, An App That Sends Users on a Gorgeously Illustrated Adventure to Find Monsters in Abandoned Buildings

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My Reaction to Mad Max: Fury Road and the Utter Perfection that is Imperator Furiosa

Okay so. Buckle up, kids. It’s time for Furiosa feels.

Here’s the thing.

I am what’s called a fetal amputee. Fancy way for saying I was born with a missing limb. I’ve written about this on here before, but it’s been a long time and I’ve gained a lot of new followers recently (hai guyz) so it might be news to some of you.

This is me. 

This is Charlize Theron as Furiosa.

I finally wound up going to see this movie Monday night after work, by myself, cause I was too thirsty for it and couldn’t wait for my friends to be available. Everyone was out of town this weekend for various reasons, so I figured I’d just wait for someone to go with, but then Facebook started talking about how amazing it was and I just couldn’t put it off any longer. So that’s how I ended up in a theater last night, completely by myself – not another soul in the room, sobbing my eyes out.

Because you guys. I am turning 30 years old next week. I’ve been a fan of action film my entire life. And I have NEVER seen a physically disabled, kickass, female lead character in a Hollywood movie EVER – not once, until yesterday.

(SEMI-SPOILERS AHEAD)

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