May's Five Fabulous Finds

NOAH

NOAH is the National Organization for Albinism and Hypo-pigmentation.  The group’s purpose is to provide support education and research with regard to albinism as well as to create a community for individuals and families whose lives are impacted by albinism.  By the time NOAH was founded in 1982, I had made it through grade school and graduated from college.  I had successfully maneuvered the challenges of albinism somehow on my own.  I did not discover this organization until a year or so ago.  Since then, I have become involved by writing for their member publication and Weber and I will attend the national NOAH conference this summer.  In an email exchange I had with another NOAH member, I said that I was surprised that I hadn’t discovered NOAH sooner.  She said, “People find NOAH when they need it or when they have something to offer.”  I hope that I have something to offer.

SLAW CHOPPER

We have gotten at least one head of cabbage, and sometimes two, in our CSA bin every two weeks since February.  That is a lot of cabbage, which because I prefer uncooked cabbage, translates to a lot of cole slaw.  And a lot of cole slaw translates to a lot of chopping cabbage.  Sometimes you don’t have to go any further than your own kitchen for a fabulous find.  Though we still have no doors on our kitchen cabinets, we do have shelves and completed under counter drawers.  This has allowed us to finally unpack, sort, whittle down, and put away all of our kitchen stuff.  In doing so we found Weber’s mother’s Serrated Edge Slaw Chopper.  Seemingly these are not the preferred modern tool for slaw chopping, but it works great - and is a lot less trouble than dealing with the food processor and a whole lot safer than a serrated edge knife!  Our cole slaw recipe is  “Zesty Cabbage Salad” from Ginny Callan’s BEYOND THE MOON COOKBOOK, slightly modified by adding just a few red pepper flakes.  This is an awesome slaw recipe!

KEN ROCKWELL

As part of the “Visual Cents” project I have been doing some reading about how to improve my photography.  I ran across this online article.  After reading it, I explored the rest of Ken Rockwell’s website.  It is one of the most down-to-earth, readable, and helpful websites I have ever seen.  

THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

Now that I am on break, I have been doing a little pleasure reading.  At the recommendation of one of my students I am reading Milam Kundera’s THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING.  I am somewhat hesitant to include it here at this point because I have not yet finished this novel; however, I was drawn into it in the first few paragraphs.  In a nutshell, it is a love story of sorts which is couched in a discourse with Nietzsche and his ideas on eternal recurrence.  That is all I am going to say about this right now.  Perhaps I will say more once I have finished the book.

FOOD TRUCKS

Food trucks are a late addition to this edition of fabulous finds.  Tonight we went literally around the corner from our house to have dinner from a food truck, our first such experience.  It was great fun.  The area was packed with people young and old, black, white, hispanic, asian, families with children  - in strollers, on bikes with training wheels, walking, running, dancing,  couples strolling hand in hand, lots of people with their canine companions, and ten or so food trucks.  Food choices included sandwiches, pizza, burgers, tacos - both Mexican and Korean, frozen desserts and beverages that ran the gamut from water to beer.  We drove to the trucks this time because we were on our way home from running a few errands; next time we’ll walk so that we can partake in the beer.

And tomorrow, June will be bustin' out all over!