New York, Days 1-3

I arrived on a red-eye and basically collapsed into bed for the next few hours. After that, my sister and I went out for lunch and some random shopping, except I was very grumpy because the sky was grey and it started raining on and off halfway through.

I think I'm officially Californian now; I was so baffled by the concept of rain in summer. I feel I shouldn't be, as I grew up with summer typhoons and the warm, wet rainy season, but I glared at the grey skies like they were a personal insult. It's summer! Skies should be vast and blue and sunny, the weather should be hot and dry, and the nights should be cool and refreshing. This hot, wet, muggy thing doesn't work quite so well.

On the first day, the food was good but not particularly spectacular, though I did get to sample cheddar grits, which are very interesting. My sister and I both agreed vehemently with each other that sweet, porridge-like substances (oatmeal, cream of wheat, etc.) are extremely strange, and that we prefer savory porridges (polenta, congee, etc.) intsead. Of course, this is because we grew up with congee. I remember being particularly startled when rachelmanija once told me that she couldn't eat congee because it weirded her out, as she has grown up with cream of wheat. On the other hand, I can actually eat oatmeal, but only with fruit or jam. Adding brown sugar makes my brain freak out a little.

I feel I should stop being shocked and eminently amused by small things like this, but it's like the first time I saw a non-Chinese kitchen and realized that... they had no rice cooker!

You may all laugh at me now! I am a bit obsessed with things like junk food and Twinkies and meat loaf and street food because I find different people's concepts of "normal" food extremely interesting. For example, I find tuna, ketchup, mayo and cucumbers on waffles tasty and normal but was completely surprised to see people eating waffles with fried chicken and maple syrup (I suspect that would be tasty, though I haven't tried it).

( Ratatouille and Korean food )

I blogged about Max Brenner and the Union Square farmer's market previously, so I'll leave that off. And I'll write up all my book loot when I get home.

( Park Avenue Cafe )

( Soup, peas, and Shoujo Manga Dark Angel (spoilers for DA 2x11) )

Nathan, Melissa - The Waitress

I suspect this would have been a much better book if it had been half as long as it was.

Katie Simmonds is currently a waitress, though every week, she decides she wants to be something else (educational psychologist, author, director, you name it). Her best friend Sukie, also a waitress at the same cafe, is an aspiring actress, and her roommate Jon is a socially phobic writer.

I got the name of Melissa Nathan off a rec for romances via desayunoencama, so it was interesting to find that the book feels more like chick lit than genre romance (less time devoted to the romance and more time devoted to the heroine's group of friends and social life).

Nathan can be funny, but often, I just wanted to slap Katie for being stupid. I think we're meant to sympathize with Katie's foibles, since everyone's life is a bit of a mess, but I just can't, because Katie willfully does not deal with her mess, and that drives me insane. Also, because of this, the plot relies on a few too many Big Misunderstandings. I.e. there is more than one Big Misunderstanding, and for me, one is already one too many. I had a very difficult time believing that characters who had the brains to start their own business would be that stupid emotionally.

I am not speaking of those people you know who have no emotional intelligence. I am speaking of everyone in the book acting like high schoolers when they are in fact in their late twenties or early thirties, as far as I can tell.

Hrm. I think this write up sounds much angrier than I meant; I wasn't mad at the book per se, but it just made me roll my eyes a lot. I've read this book in about a dozen incarnations, and I'm really just not that interested in reading yet another.