My cookbook is here!!! After much anticipation, I was finally able to finish the printing process with the help of the amazing Copy Center employees. Printing this was quite the process, as I talked about in my Week 9 update. This week saw me getting all the color printing done and getting the books bound through the Copy Center.
I got hold of my first copy on Tuesday and was in awe that I actually did this. I committed to such a large project and saw it through till the end. I’ve never been more proud of myself than when I got to hold my cookbook for the first time.
I never told very many people, but a long time dream of mine was to write and publish my own book. I now got the chance to see that dream become a reality. I am just so ecstatic over my accomplishments this quarter!
After getting my first copy, I was also able to pick up all the color pages for the cookbook. Tuesday evening was spent on my floor, assembling the cookbooks to hand them over to the Copy Center on Wednesday for binding. Once I got into a rhythm it was a pretty quick ordeal.
As I organized all 20 copies, I kept getting more and more excited to see the stack of them all completed. I can’t wait for graduation when I can give my parents their copy! I haven’t let them see any of the pages since I want the dedication page to be something of a surprise.
I was so overwhelmed by the amount of people who pre-ordered my cookbook. I printed 20 copies expecting to have a few left over, with about 4 of those being set aside for family, but I sold out of all the first print. It was such an amazing feeling, and I’m already planning for a second printing in July. I am so humbled by the outpouring of support I’ve received. It feels great to be ending week 10 on such a high note. I don’t feel scared to graduate anymore, I feel so accomplished in what I’ve done here at Evergreen that all I am is excited to get started on my future!
This week was a mad-dash to finalize my cookbook draft and get started on the black & white printing. I first printed off some test copies at the library to make sure the formatting was right before printing the rest myself, and getting ready to send the color pages to the Copy Center. It honestly felt super hectic as I realized just how many pages I would be ending with, but I also felt super accomplished. I’m so excited to hold the final product in my hands!
I’m really grateful I had both my faculty to give me feedback on the layout. They helped me zero in on details that I had previously overlooked. If you ever decide to do something similar to this for your project, I highly recommend having at least two other people as your editors. After working on a project of this scale so long, it’s easy to get caught up in the big picture and forget about the small details.
Alongside getting the black & white printing out of the way, I also worked on getting a piece of my writing published in Overachiever Magazine, an online magazine that centers Asian women and gender nonconforming voices. They put out a call for submissions for their Asian Diaspora Issue in honor of Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. One of the prompts was to reflect on your cultural identity, how it has changed and how you relate to it now. I thought it was serendipitous since it was so inline with the work I’ve been doing for my ILC and Senior Capstone Project this quarter. My cultural identity is heavily attached to food, so it felt fitting write a piece to submit.
I titled it “The Ghosts We Know & The Ones We Don’t” which felt like an apt descriptor. It was grounding to write this piece, finally giving myself the time to trace the steps of how I came to know myself and this part of my heritage. Writing this made me feel reinvigorated about my cookbook when I had been started to drown under the pressure a little bit this week. Taking this time to really reflect and refocus on why my project is so important to me, taking this opportunity to reignite my passion, was exactly what I need as the end of quarter slump started to creep in.
Feeling once more inspired, I can’t wait to get my first full copy of the Cookbook on Monday (hopefully). I sent my order in to the Copy Center on Friday and will bring in the black & white pages to be bound with the rest. Stay tuned for the final product!
This week was a whirwind that tested my patience in many ways. On the one hand I made a lot of progress in my cookbook, but I’ve come to learn just how hard it is to do layout for an entire book by yourself. Luckily, I’ve been running ahead of schedule and am fairly confident I can meet my deadline. Since I’ve got all the material for the cookbook, it’s mostly been about polishing it up and getting feedback from my faculty, Sarah Williams and Catalina Ocampo.
It’s been really helpful to have multiple sets of eyes on this since it’s such a huge project. And this is also my first time doing something like this. I’ve had my head buried in my computer for hours everyday of the week. I’m trying to get better at giving myself some breaks since my eyes began to ache from all the layouts near the end of this week.
I’ve also been paying close attention to my table of contents since that works as my map to the actual layout.
With feedback from Catalina, I’ve broken up the cookbook into chapters based around what time of day I would cook the recipes. I’ve currently got four; morning, afternoon, evening, and all day. I’m a little undecided on the last one, but it’s because the last three recipes are like sides/light eating so I’d make them at any point in the day. I might workshop the section title further, but I’m mostly just concerned about finalizing the layout right now so I have time to finalize my academic statement and write my evals.
Not a huge update this week since it’s been a lot of the same stuff. On to week 9!
5/19/2023 This week has been busy, busy, busy! The past weekend I was home with my family and got to get some project work done. I baked a ziti, visited my Nana, and spent time with my parents and siblings. It was a heartwarming and productive weekend that set me up to hit the ground running this week. I brought back some photo albums with me so that I could scan some photos to use for my cookbook, all with permission of course. If you ever use photos that you don’t own or don’t depict just you, always ask permission before using them!
I made my way down to Photoland on Wednesday and got the photos scanned. The plan was to then get into InDesign and start drafting up my cookbook, but the lab aid gave me a good piece of advice. She let me know that for what I was doing, I really didn’t need to be using InDesign–in fact, InDesign would make the whole process more difficult. She advised me to just pop it all into a google or word document, and if I wanted to get fancy with the cover and photographs I could always use Photoshop or another photo editing software/app. So, despite it being the middle of week 7 of the quarter, I decided to listen to the person more knowledgeable than me, cut my losses, and put the body pages in a document.
I was going to use Photoshop to create a front and back cover, but then it hit me; I could also use Canva. Canva is an app I’m already familiar with, so there wouldn’t be a huge learning curve and it would make the process easier so I can actually get the cookbook done in time.
I was pretty happy with the cover design I landed on. I also had a fun time designing the layout of the photographs I would be using for some of the recipes.
It took me about six or seven hours, about four or five of them consecutive, to do design and layout for all the pages that would need it, but it was overall a really fun experience and allowed me to visualize the aesthetic I want for the cookbook.
I also looked up how to write a copyright page and learned it’s rather easy. You literally just need to know what to write. Of course, there are extra steps you need to go about to get your copyright registered with the government, but by virtue of this being an original work of my own I have the copyright.
Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee
Besides squaring things away with the cookbook draft, I’ve been continuing to read Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee which has proved to be a major source of inspiration for me. The way he writes is humorous and humble, but also a well versed look into multicultural communities and foodways across the United States. It feels incredibly similar to what I hope to accomplish with this cookbook, my goals are just on a smaller, more localized level.
Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward LeeButtermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee
The stories that Lee finds and tells don’t feel exploitative, because often times he’s in the middle of what he’s talking about. He makes sure to preface that he’ll never truly grasp or understand these cultures which he doesn’t belong to, but he meets community members and lets them tell him what they think about themselves, their practices, their traditions, and their food. All the while, they often invite him to partake in some moment with them, in one story he fasts for Ramadan while he’s staying in a town where many of the restaurants he’s looking for food in are run by Muslim families.
I’m excited to continue finishing up my cookbook draft next week and to hopefully get a first print done by end of week 9!
This week got over-run by the student art fair I was planning, but I was able to get a fair bit done nonetheless! I was mostly reading Buttermilk Graffiti and picking out sections I really admired and wanted to discuss in my next craft paper, but I also wrote out a few recipes for the cookbook!
I’m trying to give a little back story to each dish; why I like it, why it’s here in the cookbook, and where it came from. I’m also trying to cater it towards an early adult audience, maybe those living away from home for the first time and only just now trying out cooking or those who are new to cooking. To help, I’m providing a list of materials needed to cook the dish and the materials I prefer to use, as well as little tips and tricks that may seem like common knowledge to someone who’s been cooking for a while, but might be less obvious to someone just starting out (i.e. not using metal utensils with a non-stick pan).
Another way I’m trying to make the recipes easier to decipher is splitting the ingredients up between the big ingredients, like meat or onions, and the seasoning, such as sauces, oils, and herbs.
I also separated the prep-work from the actual cooking since that was something that would confuse me when I’d first read a new recipe. Kind of like information overload, so to help myself organize my thoughts while cooking and to hopefully help others not feel overwhelmed, I tried to break down each step as thoroughly as possible.
Week 7 I’ll be in Photoland starting on InDesign, so expect updates from there!
5/3/2023 This week I’ve been doing some more cooking, completed my first-ever craft paper, and am finishing up my mid quarter self-eval. I’m a bit sluggish with a lack of sleep after being pent up in my room all weekend due to a COVID exposure (which I didn’t catch), so my responsibilities have felt that extra-bit weighty. I did manage to get some decent sleep last night, so I’m feeling more prepared to tackle my work today!
I finished my mid quarter self-eval and sent it off to my faculty. While I usually dread doing self-evals, this one served as a grounding practice, giving me the needed space to reflect on my work thus far and plan how I want the rest of the quarter to go. I find these check-ins invaluable since it’s easy to lose sight of you end goal while doing an ILC. There’s a lot of moving parts to keep track of, and often new interests that pop up that can sometimes distract you from your initial goal or add depth to your initial goal. For me, the biggest trick with an ILC is remaining fluid enough to go where your research takes you while still giving yourself enough structure to not completely lose sight of what it is you originally set out to do.
Breakfast with Grandpa by lee 이 theresein loving memory of my Grandpa, Jack
I emerge from the bedroom
I am seven years old again
allow my eyes to adjust to the light,
the sun dancing through the curtains.
I step lightly,
mind the creaking of the floors,
make my way through the cool hallway,
arrive in the kitchen
& there he is.
It’s anytime between 4 & 6AM.
Grandpa sits at the table by the window
a mug of coffee by his side,
the steam rises
fogs over his glasses.
He wears what he usually does;
a plain colored shirt
this one white
denim overalls
& a plaid flannel over it all.
As I watch him sit there
drinking his coffee
looking at the birds through the window
looking exactly the same as he did the day before
I can’t help but think
“there he is,
as if he never went to sleep.”
I walk over & make myself known.
Grandpa greets me as always
“Morning sweetheart.”
His voice rumbles
it reminds me of the crunching of gravel
& soft thunder.
He helps me get a bowl
pour in my cereal
no milk, I ate my cereal dry back then
grab a spoon
& now we both sit at the table.
I swing my feet,
too short to touch the floor
& munch on my cereal
& he drinks his coffee.
I mumble a random thought every now & then
as kids are want to do.
I could never stand silences for long,
I still can’t, but I am learning.
Grandpa dutifully answers back
our voices soft so we don’t wake the others.
We mostly sit in silence
the cold air slowly being cleared away by the furnace
& watch the world outside move
or not move.
We sit
& the morning is good
& he is there
& I am seven years old
& the world is good.
4/28/2023 I didn’t find much time to keep a daily log here this week, but that just means I was too busy doing my ILC to find the time! I’ve spent this past week reading and cooking, cooking and reading, writing, and more reading. I’ve been devouring The Milk of Almonds with the same fervor in which I read Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho–an absolutely stunning memoir I read last quarter about a mother’s life before and after schizophrenia wrapped up in important discourse surrounding food and survival. I feel a connection with both books in a similar way; they both unearth stories from their respective diaspora groups–both of which I belong to–and give insight to my own histories that I’ve never before been able to glimpse.
This weekend I’ll be writing my craft paper for The Milk of Almonds, and I’m excited to jump in. I’m meeting with Catalina Ocampo over zoom today to discuss my creative writing, so I’m hoping it will also serve as good groundwork for the craft paper.
Saturday, April 27, saw me cooking up some soup for myself and my roommate. They caught COVID was spending the weekend quarantined in their bedroom. You can’t always do much for someone when they’re sick, but I found I can at least cook for them. I decided to make kimchi soup (not to be confused with kimchi jjigae) using my own broth. I didn’t have a recipe for either and was scrounging around my cupboards for ingredients to use, having been too broke to buy groceries for the last couple of weeks. I remembered my dad telling me to eat kimchi when I’m sick since it’s good for your heart and clears your sinuses (in his words), so kimchi soup was what first popped into my head.
Kimchi Soup made by Natalie Arneson; Photo Taken by Natalie Arneson April 27, 2023
I gave Dad a call while I was in the early stages of cooking, roughly chopping the cloves of garlic and slicing the yellow onion. I like to call my parents when I’m cooking every now and then, putting the phone on speaker so I can move freely around and use both my hands. I told him what I was up to, and how I was a little stumped on how to go about the broth since I didn’t have any and didn’t have any money to go out and buy some.
“Well, do you got any beef?” He questioned.
I looked down at the tiny ribeye steak I had bought for cheap from Winco weeks ago, just thawed from my freezer. “Yeah,” I answered him, “But it’s like a really small steak I got from Winco.”
“Well there you go. Just slice it thinly and add it in close to when the broth is done.”
“Okay, thanks Dad!”
“No problem.”
My dad is of the opinion his children don’t need him anymore, but I’d strongly argue he’s wrong. Sure, I don’t need him in the way that I needed him when I was a little kid, but who else am I gonna call to tell me how to make broth? He may think otherwise, but I won’t ever grow out of needing his and mom’s advice.
When I was a little girl, my summers were red. Memory of that time is tinged the colors of a hot day’s sunset; yellow, orange, red. Every summer it seemed my mother grew tomatoes in her garden. The green vines would outstretch, twining around their thin metal cages. It was an exciting thing, watching a garden grow. I wondered at how the small, green fruit would slowly change colors to the bright reds and oranges of cherry tomatoes, hanging like miniature suns in Mama’s garden. She grew a few kinds, but the cherry tomatoes were the crown jewels.
Small hands reach towards the soft, but sturdy vines, ready to pluck tomatoes from the green’s hold. My mom is with me, her hair is still long in this memory, though I’m sure she’s cut it short by now. She watches me reach for the small, plump cherry tomatoes. Watches as I try to tug one loose, then give up on my efforts for fear that my small struggle will somehow uproot the whole plant. Mom proves my teacher once again, breathing out in either amusement or subtle exasperation before telling me the proper way to pick a tomato.
“Twist it gently when trying to pull it, and if it comes loose that means it’s ripe.” She demonstrates and I study her careful grace. “If it doesn’t come off right away, leave it there. That means it isn’t ready to be picked.”
We go back inside with a bowl full of orange-red sunspots.
Cherry tomatoes were snacking tomatoes, though sometimes Mom would use them in salads. There’s an Italian cucumber & tomato salad Mom’s always been fond of, though it took me a while to get used to it. Despite disliking the tang of the red wine vinegar for this dish, I always delighted in the pieces of cucumber and halved cherry tomatoes covered in herbs.
The big tomatoes, which were never abundant in Mom’s garden, were used for meals like sandwiches, steak, atop salads, caprese salad. The rounded tomatoes, I confess, I used to eat like apples on sunny afternoons when school let out. The ones from the store suited me fine, but I preferred garden fresh tomatoes if they grew.
“I’d never eaten a store-bought tomato until I left for the Navy,” my father tells me during one of our phone calls. Growing up in Northern California, it was the perfect climate for his mom’s multitude of tomato plants. He told me her garden was bursting with life, their backyard filled with tomatoes, honeydew melons, green onions, and Korean hot peppers. An urban paradise. Dad recounted the delectability of those home-grown tomatoes, sweeter than anything sold in the grocery store. Although I myself never saw this fabled garden, I imagine the tomatoes to be as large as softballs and as red as a painted sun.
Unsurprisingly, the most common way we ate tomatoes was through pasta dishes. Baked ziti was my favorite, the penne mixed with creamy ricotta cheese, topped with fresh mozzarella and fresh basil leaves, but of course, the sauce was the most important part. From eggplant parmigiana to regular spaghetti, the dishes wouldn’t be much without a good red sauce. And if you’re Italian, you usually have a recipe in your back pocket.
I remember the first time I asked Mom to show me how to make the family’s spaghetti sauce. I was 18 years old and my grandpa had just died. Mom drove up from Portland to Olympia to pick me up—I feared if I tried to drive myself, I’d only end up crashing the car, done-in by my own grief. I was barely two months into my freshman year at college and I had spent almost every weekend going home to see Grandpa in the hospital.
It was jarring to see him so small and frail, this man who’d once let his grandkids climb all over him like a jungle gym. I kept thinking to myself, I swear he was taller. But it was simply that I used to be smaller, younger. He would tell me he loved me before I left, that he would always love me. He said it in a way that seemed he would die the moment I stepped foot outside of his room. I would tell him “I love you, too” because I was afraid of the same thing. I remember him most clearly wearing wine-red hospital clothes.
I don’t remember much of the time between Mom picking me up and Grandpa’s funeral, but I remember seeing red. For his wake, to be held at my Auntie Dewaina’s house, Mom would be making spaghetti and she would be teaching me how to make the sauce. Despite my grief—or maybe because of my grief—I was still worried about my academics. I was in the program Eating in Translation with Professor Sarah Williams, my first foray into food studies, and was anxious to do well. My in-program ILC was all about family recipes, and so in my grief I became my mother’s student once more.
Natalie Arneson stirring the spaghetti sauce; Photo Taken by Maria Arneson November 3, 2019
The family sauce is a red sauce you typically see paired with spaghetti. It has its base ingredients that never change—tomatoes, garlic, onions, sugar or carrots to sweeten the acidic taste, oregano, salt, and pepper. What gets added in varies from person to person, Mom being partial to mushrooms, bell peppers, and red pepper flakes in her sauce. According to my mom, a characteristic of a true Italian spaghetti sauce is the use of pork as the meat. She’s not sure if it’s simply a regional thing (our family being from the southern part of Italy) or just a general rule, but every other Italian she’s come across also uses pork in their sauce. Pork shoulder is the most typical cut of meat to use, but ground pork is acceptable in a pinch. Never beef. Mama told me, “Beef is for making meatballs, and even then, it’s a mix of pork and beef.”
We use canned San Marzano tomatoes as well as tomato puree. I watched as Mom reached her hand into the Cento can and pulled out whole tomatoes. She hovers them over the large pot, the bottom of which would already be covered with sizzling mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, and browned pork. She squeezes her hand, crushing the tomato. Red spills from between her fingers into the pot before she drops in what remains of the tomato. It’s carmine, tangy and sweet.
“My Children’s Names” by Janet Zandy from The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture
4/18/2023 This week I’ve been diving into my reading of The Milk of Almonds with a lot more vigor now that I have all the ILC details finalized and out of the way. Each reading has been fascinating, but my favorite works are thus far “Our Father” by Cris Mazza, “My Children’s Names” by Janet Zandy, and “The Seven Sacraments” by Mary Beth Caschetta. Each have been so inspiring in their own way, and I can’t wait to have the chance to sit with each piece as I write my craft paper.
“The Seven Sacraments” by Mary Beth Caschetta from The Milk of Almonds: Italian American Women Writers on Food and Culture
I’ve also begun working on the cookbook (Senior Capstone Project), mapping out the table of contents and sorting through what pieces of writing to include. I think I’m set on my dedication page, because I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather dedicate it to than the two people who first taught me to cook–who first taught me a lot of things. My timeline for the quarter has my hard deadline to start on the design and layout of the Senior Capstone Project for Week 8 of the quarter, but it never hurts to start early. It gives me bones to work with come Week 8 and will save me some time in case any unexpected obstacles pop up.
4/22/2023 I didn’t get as much done this week as I wanted to since I was busy working Equity Symposium. While unable to sit down and do the work I wanted, my project was constantly running through my mind, new ideas and plans for how to continue the quarter bouncing around. Despite not actively doing anything for my project, it still takes up so much space in my day-to-day. I did expect it to be so all-encompassing, but I guess I was still a little surprised how much it pops up in my thoughts. I honestly go to bed thinking about my ILC most weeks.
Wednesday night I attended the Rhythms of the Land film screening, an absolutely beautiful film with powerful storytelling by the creator of the film, Gail P. Meyers, PhD, and the people she interviewed. Through this film, we saw stories and histories of African American farmers told by African American farmers.
Tomato sculpted by Natalie Arneson on April 20, 2023; Photo Taken by Natalie Arneson on April 20, 2023
I did get to partake in a fun workshop during the Equity Symposium though! A ceramics professor was running a cultural foodstuff session that invited people in to try making their own clay food. I really enjoyed it and it was fun to try something I’ve never really done before. I made a tomato! We always ate a lot of tomatoes growing up, for a while they were my favorite after school snack. Summer always saw an abundance of cherry tomatoes that were the sweetest things you could eat. Even now there’s always three on hand in a bowl on the counter.
Natalie Arneson holding her clay tomato; Photo Taken by Sage on April 20, 2023
