Recipe: vegetarian tortillas

Completing my month of Mexican/Tex-mex cuisine endeavours, it was high time I did something vegetarian.  While I'm not one myself, I like to explore meat-free alternatives on a regular basis and this type of cooking provides a tasty and healthy meal every time!  It's also a good base for experimenting with beans, chipotle peppers and olives (yum) - and produce a meal that's low cal, high protein, high fiber and  high calcium - what more can I ask... 

In a Grove, by R. Akutagawa

Quality, not quantity:  this applies to so many aspects of our lives, just as it does here:  the quality of a work of literature is not necessarily found in its length.  There are several excellent samples of short stories that manage to capture my attention much more than some of their lengthy counterparts... Such is the case of In a Grove by R. Akutagawa, a seemingly straight-forward account of a murder that unfolds into a most complex story of what the real truth is...

An LGBT Reading event: Der Tod in Venedig (Death in Venice)

I regard Thomas Mann as one of the more esteemed German writers of his era.  He has provided enough material to mark his place in German literature, and his works are almost always taught at university.  

Despite all this, I had never read any of his works, and Adam's The Literary Others event provided a very good excuse to read one of his more famous novelas, Death in Venice.

Recipe: Beef enchilada soup

I have been under the weather for a week now with a terrible cold, and have consequently changed my attitudes:  as I can't taste much, I just eat to take my medication, without paying much attention to my senses... But I still wanted to finish my adventures with the mexican/tex-mex cuisine - what to do?  I can usually muster the "heaviness" of the beautiful dishes, but not right now.  Solution:  try a soup, a staple that has got me through this week, with a twist:  use ingredients that would give me that essential kick, to remind me of how I used to eat...

under the weather...

Have been fighting a nasty cold this week, which turned out to be bacterial - lots of meds, plenty of TV:  past episodes of Matlock and Midsommer murders is all I can muster ...

Ada Lovelace Day: Alex and me, by Irene Pepperberg

Today marks the Ada Lovelace day, celebrating the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths around the world. Ada was Lord Byron's daughter, one of the first mathematicians and a scientist whose research notes inspired Alan Turning’s work on the first modern computers in the 1940s.

One of the women scientists who have inspired me is Dr. Irene Pepperberg, who tiredlessly worked with Alex, perhaps the most famous African grey parrot, to discover intelligence in an animal whose brain does not surpass the size of a shelled walnut.  The discovery was proven to be comparable to human intelligence and from there on, it opened the door to all the concepts of animal cognition.  This incredible journey and its effects on so many levels but also the relationship between Irene and Alex is the subject of the book Alex & Me: How a Scientist and a Parrot Discovered a Hidden World of Animal Intelligence--and Formed a Deep Bond in the Process.