Last week I decided to get lunch from Whole Foods on my break, meaning I went walking. In Los Angeles. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? I know. After I picked up a few things, I took a different route walking back to the office in Santa Monica, because well, it was really nice outside and I wanted to go exploring a bit. I’m so glad I did because it was as if God was reading my thoughts earlier in the week about how much I wanted to find a great spice shop in the L.A. area. Lo and behold, there was Penzey’s Spices on 4th Street, beckoning me to come in. Oh I did, how could I not?

Let me tell you, it felt like spice heaven. Endless shelves and racks of every single seasoning, every spice - be it sweet or savory, everything you’re always out of when you’re ready to cook or bake. Cinnamon, vanilla extract, at least half a dozen types of curries, salad dressing seasonings, anise seed, fennel, shallot salt, even zatar, a Middle Eastern blend of sumac, thyme leaves, white sesame seeds and salt. Imagining the possibilities that Penzey’s had to offer was making me dizzy, so I quickly grabbed some nutmeg, something I never have on hand, and poppy seed, because I had been wanting to make a lemon poppy seed bread for a few weeks.

I’m not sure who thought up the lemon and poppy seed combination (I’ve searched with no substantial results) but I am publicly thanking them now, because it is divine, especially when the lemons you use come from your own backyard, like the ones above.

The lemon tree that sits in between the orang and pomegranate trees at my house has special significance: it came from my grandmother’s garden, and it remains as the only tangible thing I have to remember her by. For a while after she passed away, I never thought I’d see it give fruit again, but a few weeks ago in an amazing moment, my mom came in, with a lap full of lemons in her shirt.

I used a super easy recipe from one of my favorite baking sites, Joy of Baking.  Baking does so much for me. It lets me be creative, helps me de-stress and allows me to reflect on things while I’m measuring, mixing and pouring.

I’ve realized that I bake not only because I love food, but because it’s sort of my therapy. It keeps me sane, and it reactivates me to deal with the world again. I guess you could say it’s an escape.

A tasty, delicious escape. I didn’t taste my lemon poppy seed bread (blasphemy) because I’m watching what I eat, but I have it on good authority from my sister that it was like a slice of heaven.

My mother cuts fruit like she’s had practice from before she came out of the womb: smooth and seamlessly, she glides around the apple or orange in her hand and sears away the skin without much effort, letting the sharpness of the knife guide her as she twists and turns  the fruit around in her hands. For her, a fruit peeler is child’s play.

I don’t know how she manages to do it and still, I don’t know why I’m so enamored by it. In fact, it seems so magical to me, that I’m convinced that I can’t call myself a real adult until I can learn to cut and peel fruit with her skill level. I have made it the defining mark of the grown up world.

If you think about it, cutting fruit nicely is quite a daunting task. I will never forget the countless times I’ve made an apple look like one of Delia Deetz’s sculptures in “Beetle Juice.” Or how I’ve basically pilfered a watermelon into mush. Sure, it’s edible either way, but it takes such grace and concentration to actually cut fruit into presentable pieces of food.

And this is my twisted, backward reasoning into believing that because I haven’t matched my mother’s fruit cutting skills, I can’t consider myself an adult. To be fair, it was probably acquired over time and perfected during her child-bearing years, but still.

It’s not even entirely about her way with oranges and plums, it’s more or less her way around the kitchen. Before she got married, she had no real training in culinary skills because she spent most of her days holding down two jobs and going to school at the same time and to think that without any prior knowledge, that she cooks the way she does (and believe me, Armenian and Persian food are not easy tasks) is just baffling to me. Her rice is always the perfect consistency, her dolma (stuffed grape leaves) is just heaven in my mouth and her desserts are to die for -even her simple vanilla cakes. When I eat her vanilla cake, I can taste her-her warmth, her passion and love, all baked between the insides of a delectable bundt pan.

So, I guess I’ve come to the conclusion that I better raise the level of my abilities with food presentation before I can graduate into adulthood. But moreso, I see that you get back is what you put in, especially if what you’re putting in is love.

Smart restauranteurs always know there is more to opening an eatery than just the food. In an age where those simple moments where you’re able to breathe and (gasp) relax are coveted, the atmosphere of where you do the most sacred of daily tasks - eat, is so important.  Japanese restaurant Akari,located in the London borough of Islington, is the type of place where you can breathe.

Its inconspicuous location, low lighting and friendly wait staff make you feel like you’re a world away from the hustle and bustle of the city outside.

When you walk into Akari, the first thing you notice are their homey, rustic wooden tables and how the patrons at them are completely involved in their own conversations enough to not even look up when the servers put food down. I told you this place is relaxing - filled with enough talk to mask the sound of silence, but not enough to mask the talk at your own table.

When we arrived, it looked like most of the tables had been reserved for different parties. We inquired if they had room, and they graciously opened up a reserved table for us, as the other party wasn’t expected until about two hours later.

After the staple order of edamame and two glasses of pomegranate tea, which I have to say, was so delicious, it was time for some food.

Cue in the vegetable rolls and deliciously warm Udon buckwheat noodle soup. As you can (kind of) see below through the lens of my iPhone camera, the rolls are put together so delicately. The seaweed was so fresh and soft and the shape of the roll made it perfect for dipping into some soy sauce. The soup came with its own little saucer full of spices that you could mix in the bowl to your heart’s content. At first, I didn’t mix it well enough, so I got a mouthful of spices that needed to be washed down IMMEDIATELY before I choked.

After the Udon completely warmed our souls, it was time for dessert.

I wish I could remember the name of this heavenly concoction above, but it slips my mind. It was like a sticky soy pudding, with a delicious glaze on top. I have to admit that I couldn’t finish this dessert, which is a rare occurrence for the likes of me, but it got a little too rich by the end.

We capped off the night with some traditional green tea. If you noticed a difference between this last photo and the ones before, it’s because we were so involved in the ambiance of the place, that we didn’t even remember that we had an actual camera with us until the very end. Akari restaurant gets high marks on all fronts: it is a charming, authentic Japanese restaurant with great food, good service and an atmosphere that’s missing from a lot of restaurants. By the time you get up to go home, you’ll realize you’ve spent about two to three hours there. You probably will be well-fed and happy enough to not care.

Price: Quite reasonable. Except to pay around £25-30, obviously more if you decide to indulge in the extensive drink menu.

Interesting tidbit: Akari’s location was formerly occupied by a pub named Three Brewers.

Akari Restaurant
196 Essex Rd
London, N1 8LZ, United Kingdom
+44 20 72269943

I stayed at work on Friday night so that I could be alone for a bit and also try to beat traffic and I had the strangest conversation with some random person on Yahoo messenger.

edifiedsalmon: Hey, Jimmy.
me: this is not jimmy.
edifiedsalmon: Not today, salmon.  Not today.
me: como what?
edifiedsalmon: Good night.
me: bye salmon

By the end of it, I was thinking WTF? and also laughing. I did a search for this particular screen name and it turns out that it’s a bot. Either way, it was hilarious.

I have a habit of visiting a list of sites each morning before I can get anything done. This chore is just as legitimate as washing my face or drinking tea - my day cannot start before it gets accomplished. The following is a list of sites I visit. Looking through them all is my equivalent of drinking a cup of coffee: it wakes me up and gets me through my day.

• Oh No They Didn’t - Best celebrity/gossip blog ever. And it’s not just the content, it’s the comments. Example: (”She is unappealing to me in every way imaginable.” “Look at that GQ motherfucker.” “Why does it look like Nikki Reed stores chestnuts in her cheeks. she looks like a squirrel. “) And these examples aren’t even the best of the best. I feel like ONTD is the only site that gets it. You know, really gets it. You know what I’m talking about. It has provided me with so many fits of laughter and so many tears of joy. I love it with all my heart.
• Dlisted - Another gossip blog with flawless commentary from Michael K. Having a bad day? Visit Dlisted, it’s guaranteed to turn your frown upside down.
• Twitter - Join the twittolution! Twitter is an amazing social media tool that has allowed me to connect with so many journalists, writers and truly awesome people.
• Facebook - At first I was against joining Facebook, just the same way I was once against joining Myspace. I really didn’t want to have anything to do with people I knew from school, but it’s just another way to connect with people and the sooner you accept that it’s a good thing to connect with others in social networks, the sooner things will run smoothly. I like seeing what people are up to and also it gives me a chance to share info with them, whether that be a video or an article or whatnot.
• The New York Times - For me, the NY Times is the end all, be all of journalism. It has amazing articles by incredible journalists and this might sound strange, but it really is my life goal to write for them in some capacity or another. Brilliant reporting and writing.
• Dooce - Do you know Heather Armstrong? If not, you need to start reading Dooce. It’s hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, nostalgic and refreshing, and it makes you come back for more.
• Etsy - Buy and support handmade! Etsy is an amazing community of creative minds and I not only visit to seek out unique items to buy, but for inspiration.
• BBC Rss Feed - Next to the NY Times, BBC is my ideal news organization that I love. They have incredible reporting, especially if you watch BBC World News - the reporters at the BBC make you feel like they’re human and actually CARE about what they’re reporting.

Photo by hamedmasoumi

I often blame my temporary inabilities to write on my surroundings. Sometimes I can’t think when it’s too quiet and other times, I can’t concentrate if I’m anywhere but a library. Other days it has to do with the day of the week. Although I have the time on weekends, all I want to do is stay in bed and watch bad television. On the weekdays, when I’m super charged with energy, I have to concentrate on other responsibilities. It’s a lose-lose situation. When I think about the fact that I have to compromise my writing for the time or the place, I feel sad. I wish I could think of a more eloquent synonym, but it really makes me sad that that’s what it’s come to.

I often think that the only way I’ll be able to write anything worthwhile is to go hide away in a cabin for months until I come up with something that I find fairly decent. I need the quiet, the change of atmosphere, the scenery to inspire me, to make me come up with ideas that the concrete jungles of Los Angeles are  stifling.

Writing habits are an interesting topic and I’m not entirely sure if I’ve discovered mine yet. I tend to write ideas down and dwell on them for a long time. I’ll write the title of a story I want to work on and save it, or I’ll see something on the news or hear someone having a conversation and realize how great it would be to include that in a story. Mostly, I think my inspiration comes from life, from relationships, from what people say and do, to what they don’t say and do. I try to draw from reality as much as possible because for me, reality is just as entertaining, if not more, than fantasy.

I write everywhere. I write on post-it notes, notebooks that I haven’t used for years, scraps of paper, the notepad I use at work, I even take down notes on my iPhone. I’ve tried to buy fancy notebooks so I can keep my thoughts in one place, but they always seem to escape me. These days, when I do write in somewhere other than a centralized place, I take my post-it notes and my scraps and everything else and tape them in my main notebook.

I tend to write bits of ideas on paper and then expand those ideas on my computer. I like writing while I’m sitting on my bed, with a cup of tea, especially when it’s raining. My dream would be to have one of those window-sill type ledges where you pile up pillows and read or write.

I stumbled across a blog, Rodcorp, that highlighted some of the work and writing habits of some of my favorite writers and people. I echo a lot of their sentiments.

Jonathan Safran Foer, who is best known for his 2002 novel, “Everything is Illuminated,” has habits that sound like mine:

I am a completely horizontal author. I can’t think unless I’m lying down, either in bed or stretched on a couch, and with a cigarette and coffee handy. I’ve got to be puffing and sipping. As the afternoon wears on, I shift from coffee to mint tea to sherry to martinis. No, I don’t use a typewriter. Not in the beginning. I write my first version in longhand (pencil). Then I do a complete revision, also in longhand. Essentially, I think of myself as a stylist, and stylists can become notoriously obsessed with the placing of a comma, the weight of a semicolon. Obsessions of this sort, and the time I take over them, irritate me beyond endurance.

Stephen Fry seems to have encapsulated my fears:

As a young writer–I was then contemplating how to move forward after my first effort–I felt so enthusiastically and agonizingly aware of the blank pages in front of me. How could I fill them? Did I even want to fill them? Was I becoming a writer because I wanted to become a writer or because I was becoming a writer? I stared into the empty pages day after day, looking, like Narcissus, for myself.

Virginia Woolf does what I feel I must do:

I don’t take another job. I don’t do anything. I go up to my house in the country and pull out all the plugs, virtually. I just do it nonstop until I’m finished. I envy writers who can write on planes and take a break for a week and then get back to it. I have to get into a sort of zone. [...] With writing, I don’t know what it is. I just have to get into a complete world. It has something to do with an inability to concentrate, which is the absolute bottom line of writing.

I’m hoping to get a better sense of what I’m capable of in terms of writing and also my habits this year.

Chopin, Ballade No 1. in G Minor. Ivan Moravec. Haunting song that might make you cry if you allow yourself to think deep enough while listening to it. Ten minutes long. Gifted pianist. My words won’t do it justice, you might just have to listen yourself. There are times when we don’t know what to say. There are times, that even as a writer, I can’t find the words to describe how I feel. This is why music was invented, so you can let the notes, so delicately strung together, speak for you.

Today I stepped out at lunch to go to Urban Outfitters because I had been eyeing a shirt of theirs. It was a “now or never” kind of shirt:

Yea. So I made my way over there, not realizing it was the wrong day to walk because I was wearing high heels. This is my punishment for waiting so long to get this shirt. I walked in, went straight to the “SALE” section, found it and went straight to the cashier. It was a good thing I waited in retrospect, because on their website the shirt is $14.99 but I ended up getting it for $9.99, even though the original price was $28.

I was pretty excited about my purchase and I was making my way back to the office, I saw a little booth set up on 3rd street promenade with a guy selling Obama/Biden merchandise. There were buttons with Obama’s face transposed on Superman’s body, window posters, mini buttons with just his face and bumper stickers. Because of my political fueled drive home last night, I decided I wanted something. Button, sticker, whatever. I wanted it. I hopped into Famima to buy some bottled water, got some cash back and darted over to the booth, $10 in hand.

Enough people were coming up to buy objects of their political stances that it became a small crowd. As I picked a button up, a curly-haired boy, maybe about 7-years-old came up to the booth. He was wearing a rusty red shirt with jeans and he picked up one of the stickers and examined it.

“Is this our president?” he asked.

His mom, who had walked back to retrieve him, smiled and said “Well, we hope!”

She looked up, smiled at me, and both the seller and I laughed.

It was the most precious thing I think I have ever seen. It really gave me chills. I picked up the same sticker the little boy had, and bought it with my button.

I have been silently watching the Republican National Convention all week and following the Sarah Palin controversies blow up in the news. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more angry in my life. I remember when John Kerry was running against George W.Bush in 2004. I remember thinking, things will change, finally things will change! But they did not. I was pretty sure the good people of this country would realize what an idiot Bush was and not elect him for another term.

I was wrong.

I don’t want to really get into specifics, mostly because I don’t have the energy on a Thursday night at 10:30 p.m. to discuss the shortcomings of Sarah Palin, how utterly wrong John McCain is and how much I hate FOX news. I just want to point out a few things

For one, it is so upsetting to see the crowds at the RNC, cheering for the utter bullshit that is McCain and Palin. Look across the people there, all you see is a sea of white. A sea of white with cowboy hats on cheering on ideals that are so misconstrued it’s ridiculous. Bring on the guns, take away a woman’s right to choose what she wants to do with her own body, tell everyone that the Democrats want to raise taxes and take your money away from you. This is their message.

There are two demographics who round out the general Republican population: Rich white people and poor white people.

Rich white people are voting for McCain because the Republican party has convinced them that the Democrats plan to screw them out of their hard earned money. Poor white people are voting for McCain because the Republican party has convinced them that some kind of terrorist attack is so imminent, that the only person who can protect them from it is a 72-year-old man who doesn’t know the difference between Sunni and Shiite.

There is a montage right now playing at the RNC showing the September 11th attacks, the Oklahoma City Bombing and other horrific events. This is how Republicans work. They convince people to vote for them by instilling fear. Fear of attacks, fear of people taking away their rights and their land. Fear of everything outside of the boundaries of the U.S.

I feel so sorry for all those people who actually believe in the ideals that McCain, Palin and others are perpetuating. I feel angry, but mostly I feel sorry, because there is no way to reason with a Republican. If they happen to think that Apples are purple, no one on God’s green earth can convince them otherwise.

Senator Graham of South Carolina is at the convention right now, spewing the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard. “Victory in Iraq,” “Barack Obama doesn’t get it,” “we cannot afford to lose,”  “We’re going to win this war.”

I feel nauseous. I feel so nauseous that people like him have convinced crowds that Iraq is about winning or losing. Tell me, have any one of those people ever met anyone living in the Middle East? Do they know where Iraq is? Do they understand that the people of that country are living like second class citizens.

This election is not only important to the people of this country, but to the people of the entire world. Everyone is looking and observing, trying to see what move we’ll make next. Dooce said it best:

I get the feeling that people around the world are looking at this election as a gauge to see if America is finally ready to wake up and realize that we are not the only country on this planet. They are waiting to see if we are going to put yet another fundamentalist loon in charge of public and foreign policy, someone who doesn’t think that global warming is in any way caused by humans, so screw the rest of you who live here on this planet, we need that cup of oil with breakfast in the morning.

To my readers who do not live in America, who are not American, please know that there are so many of us here who are disgusted with what we have let happen in the last eight years and are doing everything we can to ensure that it stops. We are just as scared as you are of those around us who have their fingers in their ears and are going LA LA LA LA LA in an attempt to convince themselves that their behavior and their policies are not in direct violation of the teachings of the God they thinkput them in power.

Perhaps when I’ve calmed down, I might be able to come back and explain my positions and feelings as eloquently as she has, but for now, I feel angry. At the same time, I feel hope. I feel hope that the majority of this country will come to their senses and realize how desperately we need Barack Obama. I wish Tim Russert were alive to see all this.

Nothing would give me greater joy right now in this world, then to see Barack Obama elected President come November. Watching the Democratic National Convention all week long, on television when I could, on the internet when I missed it, makes me feel like there is a light at the end of an 8 year long tunnel of lies and deception and ignorance and arrogance. George W. Bush and every one around him have not only tarnished this country’s image, economy, values and overall state, they have robbed me and the millions of other young people of 8 years. Eight years of our youth spent listening to the likes of Bush.

I don’t know how any of that happened. It’s like a big blur. A big blur that I don’t want to remember, but can’t forget.

Watching Obama and John Kerry and Al Gore and Hillary Clinton, as well as Michelle Obama speak has not only filled me with hope, it has renewed my faith in people - people that want change, that want to fight to make the lives of others better, who want to give every single person in this country a life worth living

It is that American spirit, that American promise, that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend.

That promise is our greatest inheritance. It’s a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night and a promise that you make to yours, a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west, a promise that led workers to picket lines and women to reach for the ballot.

And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln’s Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.

The men and women who gathered there could’ve heard many things. They could’ve heard words of anger and discord. They could’ve been told to succumb to the fear and frustrations of so many dreams deferred.

But what the people heard instead — people of every creed and color, from every walk of life — is that, in America, our destiny is inextricably linked, that together our dreams can be one.

“We cannot walk alone,” the preacher cried. “And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.”

America, we cannot turn back..

… not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend.

America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone.

At this moment, in this election, we must pledge once more to march into the future. Let us keep that promise, that American promise, and in the words of scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess. - Barack Obama

I’m crossing my fingers that the people in this country who are on the fence, the people who aren’t sure, even the people who support the opposition, finally come to their senses and understand that change is imminent. Change is necessary, now more than ever. And just like John Kerry said in his amazing speech, which still gives me goosebumps even though I’m just reading a transcription of it, “Years ago when we protested a war, people would weigh in against us saying, ‘My country right or wrong.’ Our answer? Absolutely, my country right or wrong. When right, keep it right. When wrong, make it right. Sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power.”

Amen.