Vaults of Heaven

I really want to see this exhibit at the Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Good thing it's right around the corner!

Beautiful!

In other religious art news, I just saw this short video on Al Jazeera English about a photographer who has spent years shooting the statue of Jesus that stands over Rio de Janeiro. Enjoy.

Last Night on TV

On my friend Marie's suggestion I watched "Lewis" last night. I was only impressed by the last 15 seconds of the show. She also rated last night's episode a "B-/C+". Much more to her liking is the episode, "Life Born of Fire", which I will hold out for before I pass judgement on the series as a whole.

Anyway, after that there was a brief food/travelogue show on called, "Gourmet's Diary of a Foodie" which was featuring Turkish food, and the breaking of the fast, or Iftar, in Istanbul ["Turkey: Iftar in Istanbul"]. WOW! Now, I LOVE Turkish food. And watching this show was like a dream. The food looked amazing. And seeing Istanbul on TV, in all its glory - being able to show Josiah what I've been talking about all these years - was a real treat! It made us vow to get there as soon as physically possible. Yummy food too!

Here's the blurbage from the website:

Travel to Istanbul, an ancient Turkish city with a culinary past that weaves its way through the Byzantine, Roman, and Ottoman empires. During the holy month of Ramadan, locals fast from sunrise to sunset. Join a food author for the Iftar meal, the traditional feast when the fast is broken. Visit the famed 150-year-old bakery that makes Turkish flatbread pide, a mainstay of the Iftar, in a time-consuming, authentically traditional way. Discover the beauty of güllaç, a multilayered dessert studded with pistachios and pomegranates, and meet a family that has perfected the art of making Turkish delight, an early ancestor of the jellybean. In the Gourmet test kitchen, executive editor John “Doc” Willoughby prepares spicy grilled köfte, a Turkish street-food favorite that gets its irresistible flavor from a unique blend of spices.

Under the Hagia Sophia

Found this link in my daily blog-reading and am amazed [thanks bldgblog for your awesomeness, as always!]. It just sounds SO COOL! Like Jacques Cousteau meets Indiana Jones. Or Steve Zissou!

Anyway, on one of my visits to Turkey, we stumbled across an excavated-but-abandoned archaeological site which had been flooded. The doorway arches loomed out of the water, and frogs were splashing around. I felt like I'd found Atlantis or something. But tunnels under the Hagia Sophia sounds so Byzantine!! [get it?]

I can't find the upcoming film of the expeditions at the site on IMDB yet, but according to the Hürriyet article,

His 50-minute documentary, “Ayasofya’nın Derinliklerinde” (In the Depths of Hagia Sophia), will compete at international festivals starting in the fall.

Sally's weekly blog round-up

Now, right up front I want to say that I don't think of Obama as the Messiah, or anything. But I do feel that Obama's heart is in the right place. And I think Obama's idea of living Jesus' teachings is much more in line with my own.
I do feel that this image is politicizing Jesus' image, which has been going on since before the Crusades. But, it does make you think for a minute, right? Powerful? maybe. Provocative? I say yes.

Here's another discussion of the political sphere pandering to a non-existent "down-home" crowd, when the majority of Americans live in cities. Some good points made in the same vein as the bldgblog posts, below.

As remarked upon elsewhere, boing boing directed me to the Sad Guys on Trading Floors. Nice.

Flood insurance reform - not a sexy topic, but something that needs to happen in the age of sprawl, from American Rivers blog.

Slam dunk commentary from Tom Friedman - I still don't forgive him for agreeing w/Bush about going into Iraq. But with this piece he is inching back into my good graces. Maybe.

US Debt Clock runs out of digits. What more can I say?

Check out the awesome Goreme Cave Churches (may still be featured to the right on the Sacred Destinations widget)! I would REALLY love to go there one day.

The EPA discards input from the open comment period on it's climate strategy paper and wastes everybody's time, including the American Rivers org. Bastards.

At least Europe votes to ban dirty coal. From Bellona.

Mexican Obama vernacular on TextMex.

The Palins' Un-American activites, sponsored by Iran, in Salon.

The call for Urban candidates from bldgblog. This has been a theme at bldgblog all week. Now this is an idea I can get behind.

Bible as glossy mag: a Swedish advertising executive's project found on boing boing. Too bad I couldn't see more of the actual product to see how they represent the different texts!

Terry at Idle Speculation posted beautiful illuminated images WOW!

My horoscope this week from Rob Brezsny is right on target, as per usual:

In her poem "Pure," Kate Knapp Johnson speaks of "those who made me real to myself." I invite you, Pisces, to take an inventory of the people in your life who've made you real to yourself. That would be excellent homework for you to do during the phase of intensified intimacy you're now in -- a time when your allies are making even you even more real to yourself than you've ever been, as well as a time when you will be returning the favor to them.

This red and white church is another of the Goreme Cave Churches. Amazing, right?

Food Fives meme

Food Fives

I found this fun food-related meme at City Mama. If you are reading this, consider yourself tagged (and link back so I can find you!)

What were you cooking/baking 10 years ago?
I had just moved back to Philly after a year in parts Southward. I was married, but no kids yet, and still mainly vegetarian, though we did start eating fish right about then. I can’t really remember what I was cooking, but mainly pasta, beans and rice, broccoli enchiladas (husband’s family’s recipe). And as for baking, I made lots of pies and cobblers.

What were you cooking/baking one year ago?
Basically, same as what I was cooking 10 years ago, but with more kid-approachable stuff. Also, I decided to start making very nice sit-down meals for Sunday evenings. So I started searching on Epicurious every so often to get ideas. I started cooking more seasonally, and incorporating the colored fruits and vegetables in each meal (as much as possible) – so, a green and a yellow vegetable on Sundays, for example. Or at least have a starch that wasn’t truly bad for us. And then last Christmas, Josiah got me a Bundt ™ pan and I started baking cakes. Now I’m known as a cake-baker. And that’s a good feeling!

Five snacks you enjoy (in no particular order):

• My ginger snaps
• Super-crisp apples
• Cheddar cheese
• Carrots
• Chile & lime tortilla chips

Five recipes you know by heart:

• broccoli enchiladas
• apple crisp (aka cobbler)
  
• many Mexican-style beans & rice dishes
• baked tofu w/rice & vegetables
• most breakfast foods

Five culinary luxuries you would indulge in if you were a millionaire:

• lobster; truly fresh, good seafood (mussels, shrimp, octopus, etc.) whenever I wanted
• a wine cellar stocked with delicious red wine and champagne at all times
• year-round access to the gardens at Villandry
  
• having a chef of Turkish cuisine on-call at my home 24/7
• all the ingredients necessary for any dessert concoction that I love on hand at all times, esp. fresh cream-based ones.

Five foods you love to cook/bake:

• Pies
• Cakes
• Sunday Dinner
• Potato salad
• Mexican or Turkish feasts

Five foods you cannot/will not eat:

• Beef (mad cow disease)
• Tiny, cold, grey & white fish that I had once in Southern Spain
• Don’t love beets or onions, but sometimes like foods they are in.
• Liver, kidneys, most organ meats (esp. brains, see above)
• Black licorice

Five favorite culinary toys:

• Cuisinart
• Good bottle opener
• Rolling canvas for pie crust
• Hand-held mixer
• Egg-slicer (I love the concept, and as a kid I played it as a harp)

Five dishes on your "last meal" menu:

• Lobster and roasted chicken, with a bottle of red wine, lots of good cooked vegetables and fresh fruit, followed by a tray of sweets. See TV movie, "Moll Flanders", for and idea of what I’m talking about.
  
• My mom’s roast beef and Yorkshire pudding w/gravy, roasted potatoes and peas, w/ a bottle of really good red wine.
• Soufflé with a cold champagne

• A Mexican feast along the lines of the wedding banquet in “Like Water for Chocolate”
  
• This is very hard……

Five happy food memories:

• Every Turkish meal I ate in Turkey
• The birthday dinner we had for my dad’s 60^th in the South of France, and eating moules in Brittany
• Making apple pie w/ my mam-gu
• Our anniversary dinner at Cube in Montréal
  
• And – eating reindeer and other traditional Finnish delicacies in Helsinki.

Your turn!