Men in the Kitchen

I caught the tail end of Jamie Oliver last night, and as usual, drooled over his culinary creation. It was Caesar Salad with a very tangy twist – lots and lots of grated Parmesan and lemon juice, drizzled over crispy grilled chicken, crunchy croutons and a gorgeous bed of salad. Oh, yum.

Of course, Jamie’s yobbish accent doesn’t capture the imagination quite the way Nigella Lawson’s does but he is a cook I like to watch and learn from.

Back when I was in London, there were these amateur cookshows on British TV that I loved to watch - there was one called Ready Steady Cook where Joe and Jane Public were given fifty pounds (I think) to buy ingredients and had to bring them into the studio. There, they would be paired with professional chefs and had to prepare a proper meal: appetiser, main dish, dessert within 30 minutes. Invariably, one male chef – I forgot his name but he was tall, dark and rather handsome – would whip up creations that would win the studio audience’s hearts. And the members of the public were always quite evenly divided between male and female. In fact, gender wasn’t an issue at all – it was invisible and secondary to the culinary skills being demonstrated.

That, of course, is how the professional culinary world is. Actually, the world of professional chefs is male-dominated and no one kicks a fuss.

But in the world of households, though, particularly Asian ones like in Malaysia, it’s a different situation. A Vice Chancellor mentions that – with the gender imbalance in favour of women in Malaysian universities – it would not be inconceivable one day to find Malaysian men “forced” to go to the kitchen and take care of the children while their wives work, and the whole country is in an uproar. What! Malaysian men (Malay men in particular) doing housework? Unthinkable!

Filed under: Malaysiana, Newsprint, Personal Note, Women

Harry Potter

I’d never realised so many literary snobs existed until recently.

I’m a fan of the Harry Potter series – not enough of a fan to pre-order months in advance or to queue up for hours to get an early copy – but keen enough to be willing to splash out RM82 for a hardcover edition of the book (thank goodness for MPH’s membership card). Anyway, the mere mention of this kids’ book elicited snobby sniffs from certain parties as well as aghast reactions from some that an otherwise very serious thirty-something – ie: me – could find enjoyment in reading about the adventures of a bunch of teens with magic wands.

Yes, of course, the narrative is “simple” and “easy” - it’s meant for children, for goodness’ sakes – but the fact that it’s transcended its target readers worldwide speaks volumes about the storytelling ability of its author. Plus, as someone who has attempted creative writing, “simple” and “easy” narrative is not so easily executed, whether it be a children’s tale or not. JK Rowling has also created a whole new world of witches and wizards - not one that rivals Tolkien’s in terms of detail – but a credible, believable alternate universe with its own set of rules. 

Ah, and some people tell me I’m too serious!  

At any rate, I find all the Harry Potter tales absorbing and this one the most engaging of all, as Harry faces down Voldemort, his nemesis since the day he was born. Just like with its six predecessors, this Harry Potter edition saw me lugging the thick tome almost everywhere – it was on the passenger seat of my car (in case of fortuitous traffic jams, you understand), it was tucked away in my briefcase at work and brought out for lunchtime reading at the desk, it followed me on visits to my aunts’ (where ashamedly, I curled up in a sofa in a corner with it, instead of joining in my aunts’ chatter), and it was faithfully by my bedside on all the six days it took for me to finish the book (and I would have finished it sooner, if not for work, classes and exams).

My ten-year old is now just starting on the series, and I’m toying with the idea of buying a paperback boxed set of Numbers 1 to 6 for him to enjoy (mine’s scattered all over our bookshelves). The values in Harry Potter are good values for kids to absorb (adults, too, incidentally) – courage, valour, friendship, faith, honesty and kindness – along with the magic and mystical creatures that inhabit Harry Potter’s world. The ending of HP7 is, of course, a “happily ever after” ending, appropriate for a children’s book, and perhaps something that reminds adults, too, that hope and idealism need not burn out and die out with advancing age. And yes, that good can triumph over evil, however impossible it may be initially.

I recommend this NYTimes review of Harry Potter - I echo its commendation of how JK Rowling fits in all the pieces of the puzzle together at the end – and if you haven’t tried a Potter tome, go and borrow one, relax for God’s sake, and allow yourself to be transported.

It’ll be worth it, I promise.

Filed under: Books, Playing Favourites, Reads

Mind Mapping

I get very excited when I come across a new software tool. At a class I recently attended, the tutor was advocating this software: MIND MANAGER by MINDJET as a nifty tool for computerised mind mapping. I have downloaded the 21-day trial version and am playing around with the software. Just to let you know, I have played around with NovaMind’s mind-mapping software and still have the free Freemind installed. Novamind’s was very colourful – it really is like creating Tony Buzan’s mind map on the computer, with wavy lines, lots of hues, and graphics you can include for yourself. Freemind was a lot more structured – more like an engineering diagram than a mind map, but still operates on the same principles of mind-mapping, that of root subjects and their sub-roots. What I did not like about it is its presentation – there was very little flexibility in terms of adding colour and graphics, and exporting could only be to HTML or JPEG format. Still, I have a Freemind-based chart of our Library’s operations on the bulletin board behind my desk. And – oh yes – Freemind is free.

I’m still tinkering with Mind Manager, but the features that stood out for me with this software are: the ability to add lots of colour, flags, notes, and graphics, and the ability to export to Powerpoint, MS Project, and MS Word. This latter feature alone made me download the tool – I mean, I’ve created mind maps before on computer only to find that I have to translate it to linear, conventional form manually. The tutor showed how a mind map gets translated to a presentation or text document, and it’s almost magical to see the sub-roots transplanted to bullet form.

The price is off-putting though – it’s US$349 for the full version (with export features) though non profits and educational establishments qualify for a discount of almost 50%. Exchanged into Ringgit, that’s still a hefty price to pay for a piece of software, though if you use it often enough (daily), I gather it’s more of an investment than an expenditure.

I’ll keep tinkering with this tool – I understand a novelist used it to flesh out his novel :

For the past decade, Richard Powers has turned to a program rather ominously called Mindjet MindManager, which creates vast, sprawling outlines resembling family trees….For “The Echo Maker,” which won the National Book Award last year and is about a man who emerges from a coma without an emotional connection to his intimates, Powers created a visual outline for each character. It included material on his or her “life history, personality traits, physical characteristics, verbal tics, professional and educational background, choices and actions, attitudes and relations to the other characters,” he said. “As the material grew, I created topical sub-branches and sub-sub-branches. … After many months, at the very tips of these increasingly articulated branches, I sometimes ended up with sketches that plugged right into the draft.”

Wow. Of course, he supplemented MindManager with Microsoft’s OneNote, where he “mapped out possible changing interactions between characters, and claims “The combination of software programs (each of which links seamlessly into the other) allowed for simultaneous top-down and bottom-up composition.””

I personally feel software cannot replace desire and inspiration, but as a planning and personal productivity tool, mind mapping can be useful, whether done on computer or done the old-fashioned way: using your hand, colour pens, and paper.

Filed under: Playing Favourites, Tech, Work & Productivity, Writing

Advert: INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE “MUSLIM WOMEN IN THE MIDST OF CHANGE”

When there is a dearth of blog topics, advertise.

This is a good ad, though. The Muslim Professionals Forum, which lists as one of their objectives the provision of an “Islamic response to the intellectual and cultural challenges of the modern world and various school of thoughts, religion and ideology”, is organising a very timely Forum on Muslim Women on 1-2 September 2007 (Sat-Sun) at the KL Convention Centre.

Separated into talks and workshops over the two days, the topics to be covered in the Forum include Muslim Women in History, and the very interestingly titled, “Muslim Women as a Battlefield”. Main speakers are WALEED ALY, a lecturer in politics at Monash University, and a board member of the Islamic Council of Victoria; Dr. M. HAYTHAM AL-KHAYAT, a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, and DR. HEBA RAOUF, a lecturer of political theory at the Department of Political Science, Cairo University. There is also a Dinner Talk by SUSAN CARLAND, the 2004 “Australian Muslim of the Year” and a lecturer in the school of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University where she is currently completing her PhD, researching leadership challenges facing Western Muslim women. 

The second day of the programme is mostly workshop and Forum, and the leaders of the sessions include Kamar Ainiyah, whose name seems to crop up whenever there are family law cases in Syariah courts.

It is an intriguing line-up; I have to confess, as a Hijab-clad Muslim woman, with a family and career to juggle, the topics of Hijab, gender conflicts in relation to the Quran, and family vs work can get a little weary, in the sense that the talks and discussions seem intellectually stimulating, but you step out of the discourse venue and away from your spirited and noble-minded brothers and sisters, and the real world smacks you in the face once more. Still, the objectives of the Forum are worthy:

1. To understand the history and evolution of feminist “traditions” within Islam.
2. To discuss Muslim gender roles from the Quran and Sunnah.
3. To examine the injustices against women in Muslim societies and recommend solutions.

And I am sure the relationships and bonds that can be forged with Muslims from other countries would be invaluable. I am equally interested to follow the action, post-Forum.

The Forum is formally supported by the Ministry of Women and Family Development (Datuk Shahrizat is giving the opening keynote, I believe). If you are interested, contact:

Conference Secretariat, Muslim Professionals Forum, 54 Jalan Telawi 9, 59100 Bangsar Baru, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Tel : +6013-331 7430 (Azra); +6012-371 8518 (Siti Jamilah)

Fax : +603-2093 2450

Emails : azrabanu@gmail.com; musa@mpf.org.my

Filed under: Islam, Women, Work & Productivity