the ch!cktionary

Pork sandwich from Chinatown’s Mei Sum Bakery, which makes...

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:39:32 -0400

Pork sandwich from Chinatown’s Mei Sum Bakery, which makes the best banh mi in town.

Mei Sum Bakery
36 Beach Street
Boston, MA 02111
(617) 357-4050

Last Chance To Enter!

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:34:59 -0400

Last Chance To Enter!:

Last call for catcalling stories on Sex and the Ivy! Submit an entry for the chance to win the Womolia Heat vibrator.

Anatomy of an Outfit: Arnold Arboretum Edition Murmur jacket...

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:07:31 -0400

Anatomy of an Outfit: Arnold Arboretum Edition

Murmur jacket (from High Society in SF’s Marina District)
Yanuk jeans
Chuck Taylor Double Tongue All-Stars
Ferre sunglasses

What The American Government Doesn't Want You To Know About Cocaine

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:13:00 -0400

I just finished reading the recently released Cocaine Project, which was conducted in 1995 and just saw the light of day last month. In the meantime, the project has been suppressed — and its very existence denied — due to U.S. government pressure for the past fifteen years. A joint effort between the the World Health Organization and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, the report is the “largest global study on cocaine”, according to The Vancouver Sun, and examines cocaine use in 22 cities in 19 countries.

After reading the findings, it’s pretty obvious why the report was buried for all these years. Sure, there’s the expected disclaimer (“Conclusions of the study require careful interpretation, particularly when making comparisons between different substances of their harmful health consequences. In no way should it be read that WHO or UNICRI endorse the use of any psychoactive substance”) and there are the requisite warnings about physical and mental health repercussions “associated” with cocaine use. However, the authors also leave plenty of room for doubt since they emphasize that the majority of problems result from using multiple substances, not from cocaine use alone. Among the more controversial points made in the report:

Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use.
Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users.
A majority of health consequences may not be directly attributed to cocaine use. Cocaine often contributes to or exacerbates the conditions reported, rather than causing them.
Despite a broad range of educational and prevention approaches, most programmes do not prevent myths but perpetuate stereotypes and misinform the general public. Such programmes rely on sensationalized, exaggerated statements about cocaine which misinform about patterns of use, stigmatize users, and destroy the educator’s credibility.
Most treatment services are poorly coordinated, often culturally inappropriate and ineffective in achieving rehabilitation. Unlike heroin, cocaine dependence has no standard treatment. The majority of people who suffer cocaine-related problems eventually recover without receiving any formal treatment.
Law enforcement targets users, dealers and traffickers but is thought to focus its efforts on users. Users of minority background or low socioeconomic status are the ones most subject to arrest and prosecution, while wealthier users are virtually immune to prosecution or rarely imprisoned.

And perhaps most importantly, the report notes:

“Most authorities agree that it is unrealistic to expect to eradicate the use of cocaine and other drugs. However, if substance use wilt continue, harm from that drug use need not be inevitable. In most participating countries, a minority of people start using cocaine or related products, use casually for a short or long period, and suffer little or no negative consequences, even after years of use. This suggests it is possible to reduce, if not entirely eliminate, harmful cocaine use.”

Last year, the World Health Organization noted that the U.S. has the highest rate of cocaine use in the world (16 percent, which is four times the second highest rate in New Zealand). We also have some of the strictest drug laws in the world, and now that marijuana is a less and less controversial issue, people are becoming more aware of the racism, corruption, and general ignorance responsible for its prohibition in America.

Curious about the full report? You can download the entire PDF here.

"This was still the era — it would later end in that famous decade — when to be young was..."

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:29:14 -0400

“This was still the era — it would later end in that famous decade — when to be young was a social encumbrance, a mark of irrelevance, a faintly embarrassing condition for which marriage was the beginning of a cure.”

- Ian McEwan on repressed British life prior to the sexual revolution, On Chesil Beach

Possibly the cutest photo to ever grace a camera phone.

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:50:00 -0400

Possibly the cutest photo to ever grace a camera phone.

A leashed up Hamlet waits for Christine and me outside of...

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:00:00 -0400

A leashed up Hamlet waits for Christine and me outside of Chinatown banh mi purveyor New Saigon Sandwich. Recently, I’ve been on a bit of a Vietnamese sandwich streak.

New Saigon Sandwich
696 Washington Street
Boston, MA 02111
(617) 542-6296

A Beacon Hill favorite of Patrick’s, the Hungry I offers...

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:18:30 -0400

Entrance to Hungry I's "Secret Garden"

Cornbread and butter

Chilled sweet potato, the soup du jour

Moussaka, an eggplant and sausage dish

Ratatouille omelet, another main course

Apple and fig tarte tatin for dessert

A Beacon Hill favorite of Patrick’s, the Hungry I offers elegant dining without the pretension. By far the most romantic of the restaurants on Charles Street, the Hungry I features two alternative spaces to its main dining room: an elaborately decorated upstairs room for large parties and a charming back patio that opens in the warmer months. Service is always gracious and accommodating. (You receive a handwritten bill and thank you at the end of your meal.) This is one of the few places where I think the extremely pleasant dining experience justifies a heftier price tag.

Though I’m not particularly fond (or familiar with) French food, I’m always pleasantly pleased with my meal at Hungry I. On Sundays, the restaurant offers a $34 three-course prix fixe menu for brunch. I went this past holiday weekend, and for the first time, sat in the restaurant’s patio. Every bit as lovely as expected!

Hungry I
71 Charles Street
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 227-3524

I HATE getting back in shape (or, more accurately, letting...

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:51:00 -0400

I HATE getting back in shape (or, more accurately, letting myself get out of shape in the first place).

This winter, even in the most horrid of weather conditions, I could manage six miles without feeling dizzy or nauseous at the end. After today’s comparatively easy run of four miles, I actually had to lie down on my living room floor for several minutes. I thought I was going to have a heart attack with Hamlet as my only witness and Patrick’s Yale gear as my death apparel.

Day of Independence

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 16:22:00 -0400

I spent July 4th in Boston. This was a first. I wanted to go to Nantucket, but Patrick is allergic to crowds and seersucker and pre-planning. It would never do. I suppose you can only get so patriotic when spending the holiday with your English bulldog and German lover (though, to be fair, Hamlet’s ancestry is just a front for his humble Poughkeepsie puppyhood).

So instead, we woke up late, me before him, surprised that the weather improved overnight and irritated that some local talking head would certainly point to this as proof of god’s favoritism. 10:30am soon stretched into 11, and 11 into half-shut eyes, and that into unscheduled copulation. It was noon by the time we left, still groggy and blurry-eyed.

The train to Central Square was empty. Boston generally felt like a ghost town. We spent the first half of our holiday eating outside at Andala Coffee House, where we could still make out the scent of shisha used by the previous night’s patrons. Hamlet sat at our feet, shaded by the table and emerging every so often to sniff at the plates brought out by the waitresses, one of whom got jumpy at the sight of dogs. We transitioned from lunch to work seamlessly. It seemed natural that my MacBook would follow the final course of baklava. I wasn’t particularly interested in my email or my assignments, but I half-heartedly tapped away at my laptop nonetheless in hopes of accomplishing something before I called it a holiday. Patrick read a new book on China (or maybe it was Russia?) and capitalism or communism or some combination of the above. Two hours later, I traded in Steve Jobs for Ian McEwan and decided to redirect my focus to the fascinating internal monologue of a newly married and extremely repressed couple in 1960s Britain.

Soon after, we returned to a deserted Beacon Hill and a mildly warm apartment, where we determined immediately upon entrance that we’d accomplish enough for a Saturday. We live walking distance from the Hatch Shell where the Boston Pops Orchestra plays their annual free concert before the fireworks show. Even if we weren’t interested in camping there overnight for seats, there were still the blocks upon tree-lined blocks of the Esplanade, which extends far beyond the performance space, where we could have stood together, one of us with leash in hand, the other with a camera. Still, neither of us was interested in temporarily setting aside our misanthropy to rub shoulders with the New Brahmin Class or their stroller-bound spawn.

And so, Patrick lugged lawn chairs up five flights of stairs, while I supervised the dog. We watched the slightly terrifying flyover of F-15s from the roof of our building, which offered a perfectly good view of the festivities and none of the annoyance of sharing personal space with the diaper-clad. The lawn chairs, liberated from a neighbor’s balcony, came with holes in the armrest, like imaginary residences for the beer I don’t drink. It was the first night we could sit on the roof without jackets, though the dog still shivered from fright. The fireworks display was longer than expected, an almost distasteful extravagance whose only redemption was that it ended at some point. Every bit as terrified as expected, Hamlet wriggled about in Patrick’s lap. I snuck a kiss, my first with a man under fireworks. We devoured an entire bag of dates during the course of the half-hour show.

I thought the colorful explosions seemed strangely reminiscent of war, perhaps because our position on the roof offered a seldom-seen perspective of smoke rising ominously over the city. Frankly, I sympathized with Hamlet. From a dog’s point of view, it really must’ve appeared like the world was coming to an end. “It looks like someone is bombing the city,” I told Patrick. He said something vague in response, like, “That could be one interpretation.” I took that to mean that I was getting overly political or reading into things. “But don’t you find the parallelism between patriotism and war ironic?” I insisted. “The low-flying fighter jets earlier, the sounds of the fireworks, the smoke over the River? Weren’t you scared?”

No, actually, he wasn’t. Growing up in West Germany, he regularly spotted (and more often, heard) fighter planes conducting military exercises overhead. I’d never seen a F-15 before or ever imagined what it might look like over my house. But he already knew.

“I’m going to tell people that my boyfriend was in the Cold War,” I said to him.

"To The Back Bay!" said ze German.

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:10:00 -0400

Me: Beacon Hill is the only real neighborhood in Boston, so I'm still hesitant about moving to the Back Bay.
Jason: But Lena, Patrick needs his lebensraum!

Last night’s dinner from The Red House in Harvard Square....

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:10:00 -0400

Mushroom Phyllo

Roasted Mixed Beets

Remains of Stuffed Baked Lobster

Key Lime Pie

Almond Tiramisu

Lychee Sorbet

Last night’s dinner from The Red House in Harvard Square. The Red House is the most romantic option on the strip of bars running down Winthrop Street. OM? Too trendy for my taste. Upstairs on the Square? Only when I’m in the mood for leopard print decor. And whereas I’d never take a parent to either of the preceding, The Red House is perfect for semi-proper folks and semi-proper occasions.

On the photos: I managed to scarf down an appetizer (mushroom phyllo), baked stuffed lobster, and key lime pie. Then I went home and made myself a banana mousse dessert and a bowl of cereal. (Through no fault of The Red House’s — their portions are huge!) In my hurried/hungry state, I neglected to take photos of the main courses until I destroyed my lobster.

The Red House
98 Winthrop Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 576-0605

Things Men Have Yelled At My Readers

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:54:24 -0400

Yesterday, I asked readers to submit catcalling stories for my giveaway. According to them, here are some of the pleasantries they’ve exchanged with would-be Lotharios:

“I’m making a DVD. Have you ever thought about acting?”

“You WIFEY material!”

“Hey baby, wanna check out my gun shot wound? It’s so fresh the scab hasn’t even healed.”

“Hello, pussycita, yum yum!”

“Pork fry ri!” [“Pork fried rice” in a purposeful Asian accent.]

The last one is probably my favorite, because it’s just so without context. I’m also partial to “You WIFEY material!” (But I’m choosing the eventual winner at random.)

"Claiming that you “just happen” to prefer the blonde-haired, blue-eyed type (or whatever yours may..."

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:44:53 -0400

“Claiming that you “just happen” to prefer the blonde-haired, blue-eyed type (or whatever yours may be) ignores the biases we’ve each inevitably formed as a result of living in a society that promotes very specific beauty ideals. What many deem a “preference” is informed by their exposure to stereotypes, such as those depicted in television and movies. (The hypersexualization of black males and Asian females, the emasculation of Asian males, and the masculinization of black females are just a few examples.) Incredibly divergent interracial marriage rates are also a testament to the fact that physical preferences are really stratified by race.”

- Sexy Time: Check Your “Type” At The Door, today’s column on College Candy

Sex and the Ivy’s July 4th Giveaway

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:40:00 -0400

Sex and the Ivy’s July 4th Giveaway:

After a lengthy hiatus from Sex and the Ivy, I’m giving away a Womolia Heat ($99.95) from Emotional Bliss to a lucky reader for Independence Day. To enter, comment on the contest entry with your best/worst catcalling story. For inspiration refer to mine.

Please reblog and link out to your female friends! (Unfortunately, the Womolia is designed to fit the curves of a woman, so boys will have to wait for my next giveaway to score free toys.)

The Condensed Version of the Previous Year

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:22:18 -0400

Everyone seems to be wondering what the hell it is I’ve been up to all year without school, so here’s a life update in chronological order. Kind of.

My friends have little to no understanding of what I do for my day job, but the basic gist is that I manage editorial content for an education non-profit. I got this job in October when I returned to Boston and went from part-time to full-time last winter. When not working the 9-to-5, I’ve kept up the freelance work and have also started writing about food, through self-published recipes and reviews as well as pieces for websites like Citysearch’s 3 Buck Bites.

I was only supposed to live with Patrick for a month before finding my own place. I actually did pay one month’s rent for a Porter Square apartment I never moved into, before Patrick and I decided that his Beacon Hill one-bedroom could fit another tenant. I went to Germany over the holidays and made my first-ever trip to Austria, where I learned how to ski (a minor miracle). For Chinese New Year, I appeased my mother by bringing home ze German (who spoke Mandarin to my bedazzled relatives) and against all odds, she did not make him sleep in a separate room. This spring, I visited Kennedy in Seattle for her birthday, went to Seattle two weeks after that for a speaking gig, took my little sister on a grand college tour of Northeast art schools, entertained various visiting friends in Boston, and have managed to wind up in the dress section of Beacon’s Closet in Brooklyn nearly every month. In late May, I finally got health insurance. In June, my friends graduated and promptly dispersed across the globe.

Right now, I’m transitioning out of my full-time position and working overtime so I can take late July and August off to read and travel, get ready for my return to Harvard, and prepare for the first big move of my life (but don’t worry, I’ll still be in Boston). I’m psyched for the new apartment (which will actually accommodate my wardrobe now), excited to start school again, and still have zero idea of what I’m doing after I graduate. But I’ve got time to figure it out.

I discovered Andala Coffee House during a walk around Central...

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:00:00 -0400

Arabic Coffee, $2.95

Shakshokeh, $9.95

Chicken Khalili Sandwich, $8.95

I discovered Andala Coffee House during a walk around Central Square yesterday. Today, I brought Patrick here to work and enjoy some of the most delicious Mid-Eastern food I’ve tried in Cambridge.

The best part? Nothing on the menu over $10, not even the Meat Pie Plate ($7.95) which I hear is the house special dish. (I haven’t managed to get my hands on one yet, since the cafe’s been out of them since yesterday.)

Andala Coffee House
286 Franklin Street
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 945-2212

"Also, it’s way more acceptable to leash dogs. You can’t really leash babies without..."

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:00:44 -0400

“Also, it’s way more acceptable to leash dogs. You can’t really leash babies without being judged.”

- Me, on why pets are better than kids

My newest acquisition, this feather and lace cocktail dress by...

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 12:07:00 -0400

My newest acquisition, this feather and lace cocktail dress by Carmen Marc Valvo, is one of my best shopping finds in a long time. I found it this weekend in pristine condition at Ilus, a dress rental boutique in Nolita. (Each season, the store holds a sample sale of its rentals to make room for next season’s collection.) I’ll have to get it taken in a bit around the waist, but even with the cost of tailoring, the dress is a great steal at $167.

Ilus
248 Elizabeth Street
New York, NY 10012
(646) 454-1678

Because I'll Never Stop Being "That Girl"

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:18:31 -0400

Zac: Bye, I'm going out to see Lena!
Zac's father: Lena, who's Lena?
Zac: You know, Lena from college? The small, Asian girl?
Zac's father: Who?
Zac: She went to dinner with us a bunch of times.
Zac's father: ...
Zac: She has a website.
Zac's father: OHHHH. SEX Lena!
Zac: Yes. Sex Lena.