Daily Archives: 27 July 2012

Literary Review: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Title: The Hunger Games
Author: Suzanne Collins
Format: Audiobook

So I finally got around to finishing out the trilogy that every one has been talking about for years. Yes I am that behind.

Unfortunately one of the things that kept me from reading / listening to the trilogy earlier was that a lot of the premise reminded me a lot of Battle Royale that was created back in 1999 with a movie adaptation in 2000.

I enjoyed Battle Royale despite the insane amount of blood, violence and sex… because the provocative storyline is something that I could see would happen in the not so distant future (which was the setting of the story in general).

Available summary of Battle Royale (from Amazon.com):

In an alternative future Japan, junior high students are forced to fight to the death! Koushun Takami’s notorious high-octane thriller is based on an irresistible premise: a class of junior high school students is taken to a deserted island where, as part of a ruthless authoritarian program, they are provided arms and forced to kill one another until only one survivor is left standing. Criticized as violent exploitation when first published in Japan — where it then proceeded to become a runaway bestseller — Battle Royale is a Lord of the Flies for the 21st century, a potent allegory of what it means to be young and (barely) alive in a dog-eat-dog world. Made into a controversial hit movie of the same name, Battle Royale is already a contemporary Japanese pulp classic.

A bit too close to that of the “present time” as opposed to The Hunger Games where the setting was post-current Earth. It would appear that a World War III of some sort occurred and now everyone is left in a very authoritarian world. In fact it was rumored that Albert Einstein once said:

I do not know with what kinds of weapons the Third World War will be fought, but the Fourth World War will be fought with sticks and stones.

Yeah, no kidding. In any case, to the fantasy / science-fiction mind a premise of using children as play pieces in a game / fight to the death is not a new premise. In fact this has been the kind of story from ancient times most typically:
– Gladiator style in ancient Roman times
– the mythology of the Minotaur where fourteen young sacrifices were given to please the monster in a massive maze

So it is rather believable that two authors could have come up with rather similar premises to create their stories. After a significant amount of time as passed I finally decided to listen to the audiobooks more out of curiosity than anything else.
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Entertainment: Ignorance – England descended from America???

While going through my Facebook feed, this popped up via The Nerd Code.

I went to England and they spoke American??? Why is this?
Also they copied our city names like Boston, (New) York, Birmingham and the state of (New) Hampshire!!! Why do they copy us!!! Also why Do they say david beckham is English when he’s American???

Christopher Columbus, under the commission of King Washington sailed from Boston Harbor seeking a new trade route to Spain when he accidentally discovered the British Isles. He named the place England after the New England states in the USA. People in England are the direct descendants of American sailors and therefore speak American. David Beckham became an American citizen when he married his Posh Spice who is a direct descendant of Pochantas, a native American.

The United States has a rich heritage. Americans have migrated all over the world and populated all of Europe. Europeans are all descendants of the American peoples.

Considering some of the people I have run into in my past… this just doesn’t surprise me anymore…

Though the above is really really tempting to adapt into a short play.

Recipe: Corned Beef Hash… on Rice

While grocery shopping a few weeks ago, I came across a bit of corned beef and decided to purchase it on a whim. Coming from an Asian family, corned beef isn’t exactly a common meat in the household, though we all have had a bit of a corned beef as a deli meat and as sandwiches.

So why did I decide to get a slab of corned beef? Who knows… and it took well over a week before I figured out what to do with it… Corned Beef Hash!

Well duh, why didn’t I think of this before? The recipe would be similar to that of the Vietnamese dish: Bo Luc Lac aka Vietnamese Shaking Beef. Over at RasaMalaysia the Ravenous Couple were asked to write a guest post blog about the dish as well as their recipe:

INGREDIENTS:
Beef Marinade
1.5 lbs beef sirloin (or any cut you like) cut into 1″ cubes
2 tbs minced garlic
1.5 tbs sugar
2 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs fish sauce
1 tbs sesame oil
1 ts thick soy sauce

Vinaigrette
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1.5 tbs sugar
1/2 tbs salt

Dipping Sauce
Juice of 1 lime
1/2 ts kosher salt
1/2 ts fresh cracked pepper

1 red onion, thinly sliced
2 bunches of watercress, long stems trimmed
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced

Cooking oil for frying

METHOD:
Prepare marinade by combining garlic, oyster sauce, sugar, fish sauce, thick soy sauce and sesame oil with the beef for at least half an hour, preferably 1-2 hrs.
Prepare vinaigrette by mixing rice vinegar with salt and sugar. It should be a balance of sour, salty and sweet.

Thinly slice the red onion and use about 3-4 tbs of the vinaigrette to pickle and set aside covered in fridge for about 10 minutes. Prepare bed of watercress and tomatoes in a serving platter and set aside.

Heat a large wok or pan over high heat. Add about 2 tbs cooking oil and when it begins to smoke, add an even layer of beef and allow to sear for about 2 minutes, before “shaking” to sear the opposite sides for about another 1-2 minute more to brown all the sides. Do this in batches to cook all the beef if necessary.

Transfer beef to bed of watercress and tomatoes. Drizzle another 3-4 tbs of vinaigrette over the beef and greens and top with pickled red onions. Lastly, squeeze lime juice over salt and pepper in a small ramekin.

Enjoy!

COOK’S NOTE:
We like our beef medium rare and test the meat by touch and sight–it will plump up slightly and be bouncy to the touch with a spatula.

Granted, at home we had a much more simplistic version of the above recipe, but this is very good nonetheless. But, instead of adapting the above recipe for the corned beef, I figured I would go with my original idea of making Corned Beef Hash to test for taste and texture before seeing if I could create an adaptation of the above with the Corned Beef.
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