By Karen Coates on March 10, 2010
It was 1998 when Jerry first visited the 7 January Bread Co., named for the day the Vietnamese invaded Phnom Penh and ousted the Khmer Rouge. The factory is tucked in a big building, blackened with the soot of continuous fire. Young men hustled through the blazing heat of the giant ovens that cooked the capital’s popular sandwich bread and breakfast baguettes. I wasn’t along on that story, at that time, but I remember Jerry telling me about the light. And I remember the photo above, which stuck in my mind for years, pulling me back to Cambodia long after we had moved on. Read more.
Posted in Food | Tagged baguette, Cambodian bread, Khmer bread, Phnom Penh
By Karen Coates on March 7, 2010
Sokheng is 16. She grew up in Prey Veng province but left home to work in a bread factory, cooking meals for 20 or 30 sweaty, hungry young men who make the little baguettes sold everywhere on Phnom Penh’s streets. She tends the charcoal fires in a dark nook beside the blazing ovens that inspire magic: several times a day, steaming, crackling, hot loaves of bread tumble from those ovens in a gush of heat. Though everyone here makes bread, no one really eats it. They eat the food that brought them through childhood on the farm: rice, fish, soup, curry. “That’s bread, this is rice. I don’t eat bread. I eat rice. Everyone here does,” Sokheng tells me. Read more.
Posted in Food | Tagged household chores, International Women's Day, women's work
By Admin on March 5, 2010
DSCRIBER – The rumor mill: The enigmatic, super-talented Denver Broncos wide receiver Brandon Marshall is likely on his way to the Seattle Seahawks. Since the Broncos put a first-round tender on Marshall, if the Seahawks make an offer, the Broncos would have seven days to match or receive the sixth pick in April’s NFL draft. More
Posted in Sports
By Admin on March 4, 2010
ACROSS THE BORDER – Several travel-related issues along the U.S.-Mexico border are sure to raise some questions on this blog (and they already have started doing so), so I’m going to see if I can address them in this post: Is is safe to go to Tijuana? Is Mexico requiring that I have a passport to go to Tijuana/Mexical/other border cities More
Posted in Travel
By Admin on March 4, 2010
GOTRYKE – “the handle comes up, the hammer comes down” by Doug Aitken
Take a close look at the subject that is our fate — an unassuming parking lot. So the question is posed, where are we going when the hammer comes down? Words were everywhere on the work at Pier 92 and 94 — the site of the Armory Show. More
Posted in Pop Culture
By Karen Coates on March 4, 2010
Speaking of Wisconsin, and beer food, I’m really surprised my fellow Cheeseheads have not picked up on this: wafer-thin fried cheese, Yunnan style. See—it’s all crispy and bubbly, dipped in salt (and a teensy bit of sugar). Read more.
Posted in Food | Tagged beer food, cheese, Wisconsin, Yunnan cheese
By Kathy Cano-Murillo on March 3, 2010
CRAFTY CHICA — I recently bought a bulk load of adorable mini-canvases. But because I’m a chica who loves function, I decided to make something useful with them, like this little pencil cup! More
Posted in Uncategorized
By Admin on March 3, 2010
CRAFTY CHICA — I recently bought a bulk load of adorable mini-canvases. But because I’m a chica who loves function, I decided to make something useful with them, like this little pencil cup! More
Posted in Uncategorized
By Admin on March 1, 2010
THE CAPITAL SPECTATOR — Harry Markopolos spent nearly a decade telling the Securities and Exchange Commission that Bernie Madoff’s returns were too good to be true. The SEC more or less ignored Markopolos, a securities analyst and forensic accountant. The greatest Ponzi scheme in history, as a result, rolled on for years, ultimately stealing billions of dollars from investors, large and small, before it all came crashing down in 2008.
Markopolos has written a first-rate memoir of his lonely one-man investigation into Madoff’s $65 billion fraud: No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller
. More
Posted in Economy, Lifestyle, Literature | Tagged Madoff, Markopolos
By Admin on March 1, 2010
GOTRYKE — Tesla TAG Heuer — The 80 year old Swiss watchmaker has shed it’s image of Tiger Woods and opted to align with the electric roadster. “TAG Heuer has a rich history and expertise with the world’s most prestigious racing teams — but this is the first ever partnership we’ve forged with an electric sports car company,” said Jean-Christophe Babain, CEO of TAG Heuer. More
Posted in Cars, Pop Culture | Tagged electric cars, TAQ Huer, Tesla