Librarianship

On the Joy of Being a Hero

A couple of Snake Stories
and a delicious recipe for Red Velvet Cookies (sans red food coloring)

A few days ago, my husband and I were with some friends in the parking lot of a restaurant when we saw a small well dressed group of people looking excitedly at the ground. We got closer and saw they were looking at a tiny snake and were concerned that either a bird would get it or it would get run over by a car.

As they were debating about how to rescue it, one of the men pulled a pair of pliers out of his pocket and bent to pick it up to, presumably, move it to safety. I couldn’t believe my eyes! How could picking up a snake of maybe 12-14 inches with a pair of pliers be a good thing?

Who carries around a pair of pliers in their pockets, anyway?
“Maybe he’s a dentist?” my husband asked hopefully.
What is this? The 14th century? Do dentists whip out pliers at the street corner when someone complains of a toothache and then quickly yank their tooth out?

But I digress. I watched in horror as the pliers neared the beautiful creature though I appreciate the sentiment of trying to safely move an animal without getting yourself killed.

“That’s a sharp-tailed snake,” I said, and swept it up with a pair of fingers,  walked over to the side of the road and put it in a hedge.

“Look at you, picking up the snake,” one of the ladies in the group said, half admiringly. I realized I should have thought about this and come up with a better way of not outshining the gentleman who was trying to do a  good deed. What if he was on a first date and trying to impress the woman? But I wasn’t really thinking, and sharp-tailed snakes are somewhat common where we live.

For some time now, I have had this dream of sweeping in and rescuing a screaming crowd from a snake attack. As a librarian, oft have I had to step in and break up fights, eject library villains, deflect miscreants, and so on. But most of these incidents just leave a nasty taste behind and rarely result in any glory. So I guess I keep hoping for that big moment on the spotlight.But since I am not particularly athletic, I can’t see myself outrunning a purse snatcher, diving into cold water to rescue a drowning lad, or prying a person out of the jaws of a crocodile (though I know now, you go for the nose, not the eyes). A snake just seems a manageable fiend, especially since I have had so much experience with them, and since there are so many people that are terrified of them.

My husband has always been a big fan of snakes. He is constantly picking up snakes and bringing them in the house. When the children were little he would  let them touch snakes so often, that I was actually a little concerned that here, in California in rattlesnake country, the kids would not have any healthy fear of even venomous snakes and could get bitten.

But our children are both safely grown up now and fully understand, respect, and actually like snakes (well maybe our daughter more than our son). Over the years we have had many fun experiences with snakes, but some stories stick with me better than others.

Once when our children’s elementary school was having a picnic at a park, a large snake was spotted in the grass nearby. It was a snake about 4 or 5 feet long. Panic ensued and children, parents and teachers started screaming and climbing up on benches and tables. My husband did not hesitate. He leapt over a table, picked up the snake (which he recognized as not venomous), swung it around over his head like Indiana Jones (this I am just imaging), and tossed it into the bushes. He had saved the day!

I, unfortunately, was not at this picnic, but for the rest of the year, I heard about this swashbuckling rescue over and over again. It was wonderful for the children!  And for me too.

I want to be that kind of hero too. After my parking lot snake incident was over, I was kind of disappointed at having lost my chance at derring-do.

Adoring crowds after the incident – 0
Number of videos of me rescuing the snake – 0
Number of videos of me disposing of a snake with my bare-hands that got posted on social media – 0
Number of opportunities to bask in glory missed – 1

However, I did my heroic deed today – by trying to invent a good recipe for Red Velvet Cake that does not use that awful artificial red food coloring. For people who are allergic, or detest, the red food color, I think I could be a hero.

As always – my cooking is about healthy options. I used roasted beets for the red color as beets turn a  gorgeous deep red when they are roasted. Wrap the beets individually in foil and roast in an 375° oven for 40-60 minutes depending on the size of the beets. When they cool a little, rub the outer skins off and then mash or blend in a blender to get a smooth deep red paste.


My cookies are not the electric red of store bought Red Velvet Cakes, they are a dull red, but they are definitely much more delicious. The cookies have slight cake-like texture.

Since I always cook with a diabetes diet in mind, I used very little frosting on the cookies.

Please credit me and/or my blog, if you share/publish/use this recipe. Thanks!

RED VELVET COOKIES

Ingredients
1/2  cup roasted and finely mashed red beets (2 large or 3-4 small red beets)
1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 1/4  cup unbleached white flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder – unsweetened
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla

Cream Cheese frosting
Blend together:
4 ounces cream cheese (1/2 packet)
1/4 cup unsalted butter – pre-softened (1/2 stick)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp pure vanilla

Crushed walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°.
Grease your cookie sheets.

Stir together the mashed roasted beets and cornstarch.

Sift together the flours, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt.

Beat the butter and sugar until light.
Add the eggs and continue to beat till pale yellow  and light.
Add the beets and beat for a  few seconds till just mixed in.
Mix in the dry ingredients and then spoon into 1 inch balls on the greased baking sheets.

Cookies1

Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Cookies2

Cool and decorate with cream cheese frosting and sprinkle crushed walnuts on the top (optional).

Frosting1

Please credit me and/or my blog, if you share/publish/use this recipe. Thanks!

Sometimes living the good life makes it really hard to live the good life

Week 6:
141.5 lbs

As early as the second week of this project I had added some new goals to my list. One of them was to go through the letters of the alphabet reading classics. This would be living the “good’ life in every sense of the word. I have always loved reading classics so no great hardship for me this.

Yet, nothing irks me so much as people assuming that as a librarian I must read all the time, and that I became a librarian because I love to read. Nothing could be further from the truth. I do love to read. But I am not a great reader.

I read in fits and starts. If I like book, I will go through it rapidly, choosing to read it over a host of other options of things to do and definitely over slogging over unfinished chores. If I can’t find a book I like, which is a lot of the time, I will reread old books. I will never finish a book I don’t like. I can think of no bigger waste of time (unless there is some compelling reason like it was assigned for a class or assigned by my book club group. And in the latter case, many of us will give up after a valiant attempt if we don’t care for the month’s selection.)

But, at any rate, I did not become a librarian because I love books.

When I first came to the US, I definitely was under the assumption that my husband and I would be traveling around the world for a while and then would return to India to settle there. How wrong I was. Here, little children, is one of the 55 reasons I can give you why you should not marry your high school sweetheart after years of being apart and only communicating through letters. You really don’t know each other at all. Of course, thanks to the advent of the internet, social media, texting and Skype, I don’t suppose anyone will ever be in this situation again. Now we know people we have never met face to face so well, that we could be miles and countries apart, without being able to tell the difference. Unless Russia decides to chop through the underwater internet cables, and then I suppose all bets are off.

But, at any rate, I did not become a librarian because I love books.

I was in the US and, being Indian, the obvious assumption was that I would not pass up this opportunity to get a degree from some hallowed institution. In those days, having a degree in English literature (instead of an engineering degree) was already a big strike against me in Silicon Valley.

I sat down and seriously thought about my educational options for a few minutes and narrowed it down to two choices: Journalism and Library Science, both of which were degrees that were available to me at the local university.

Pros:
Journalism – I loved to write and had a degree in English
Library Science – I was terrified of being in a new country and perhaps being in a library meant I could be in a quiet corner somewhere cataloging books and not having to talk with anyone.

Cons:
Journalism – I might end up as a reporter having to run around all over the place, driving on the wrong side of the road, talking to people I didn’t know or understand.
Library Science – I didn’t know the first thing about libraries in the US. (It wasn’t until much later I realized just how wrong even my meager my impressions of libraries in the US were.)

I began to agonize about my choices. At this same time, just a few months after my move to the US, my husband and I were already getting on each other’s newlywed nerves. He was a brilliant engineer and usually a pretty nice guy. I was a supposedly smart woman, but terrified of everything around me. There was nothing I could do to make him proud of me. For me, winning the approval of people around me was all I had ever wanted.

After one very fun evening visiting with some of his friends we had come home and had just parked the car and walked in the house, when he turned to me and said, “When we go out, if you can’t talk properly, just don’t talk.” I was so shocked I didn’t know what to say. I knew I had this singsong way of speaking that irritated him, but it wasn’t a choice I had made and no one had ever held me responsible for it before. Well, there had been one incident, but more about that later.

Growing up we sisters had never fought with each other and I could not recall hearing my parents argue. I had never learned how to deal with disagreement or adversarial situations or arguments, simply because I had never needed to. I had been a debater in college, but that was different. It was never personal.

So I looked at my husband in stupefaction. I should have picked up a book and chucked it at his head and asked him what the hell he expected of me. I should have asked him if he was drunk or high or both. I could have started a full-fledged fight when we could have aired our feelings and laughed it off. I suppose I could have done all kinds of things to save my marriage. But instead, I just shut down. I was done trying to please him.

The next morning, we were discussing my choices for college. He made some remark about how there was more prestige in becoming a journalist. Boom. And just like that, my choice was made. Librarianship it would be.

Childish? Yes, of course. It could have ended very badly for me. But as it turned out, despite my complete misconceptions of what libraries really are about in the US, there couldn’t have been a better career for me.

So back to reading. And back to a year of living the good life.

I would read a classic novel every 2 weeks (doable) – preferably one I have not read before. But I gave myself some leeway in this. I also tried to stay with shorter novels to make it easier to reach my goal. 26 books. One year. Perfect.

Here is the somewhat ambitious list I made for myself:

A – Adam Bede (George Eliot)
B- Bride of Lammermoor  (Walter Scott)
C- Cakes and Ale (W. Somerset Maugham)
D- Dubliners (James Joyce)
E- Ecce Homo (Nietzsche)
F- Far from the Madding Crowd (Thomas Hardy)
G- The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
H- Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
I- Indiana (George Sands)
J- Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
K – Kim (Rudyard Kipling)
L – The Land that Time Forgot (Edgar Rice Burroughs) – only 82 pages – Yay!!!
M – Main Street (Sinclair Lewis
N – A Nancy Drew book (Carolyn Keene) – since I have never read any of them
O – Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemingway)
P – A Perfect Spy (John Le Carre)
Q – The Quiet American (Graham Greene)
R – Rebecca (Daphne du Maurier)
S – The Sun also Rises (Hemingway)
T – A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
V – The Victim (Saul Bellow)
W – Walden (Henry David Thoreau)
X – Xala (Ousmane Sembene) (This was a hard letter of the alphabet)
Y – The Yearling (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings)
Z – Zen in the Art of Archery (Eugen Herrigel)

Needless to say, 5 weeks later and I have already fallen behind on my reading project. I had placed a hold on Adam Bede and lost a week waiting for it. Oh what an excruciating book! My policy is to never finish a book I don’t like. But here was a book from my list. Did I have to finish the book?

I realized two things too late.
First – I don’t have to read the books in alphabetical order. So even if I force myself to finish a book from this list that I don’t like (and the jury is still out on this), I can put it off to the end. So much time lost. Sigh.
Second – I can download the book free from Project Gutenberg  and many other places. No need to wait for my library to send it to me. Hah! I am actually an excellent reference librarian. I would never have made this mistake while helping a library patron. I would have encouraged them to find options so they didn’t have to wait.
And third – Yes, this is in addition to the two things. I also realized that you can look for most classics on your Nook or Kindle. Just sort by price and you will find the free copies at the top of the list.

So here’s my final decision. I will read through my list as the mood takes me or when I can find the books instead of in strictly alphabetical order. I may also switch books in and out of the list if the mood so takes me. I’ sorry Adam Bede. You may have to go.

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Notes:
Project Gutenberg is  a great source for downloading free books without violating copyright laws. http://www.gutenberg.org.

Now in week 46, I am sorry to say that thanks to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, many of these Public Domain projects may be negatively impacted.

Also as an aside: Deciding on your choice of career when you are a new immigrant suffering from culture shock is like grocery shopping on an empty stomach. It’s a bad idea. Don’t do it.