Month: May 2023

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.