Nose Hair

Be thankful for nose hairs people! Mine are all gone and let me tell you I'm missing them terribly! My nose has officially become a leaky faucet that I can't turn off. I bent over today and it just came dripping right out onto the floor(thankfully none of my students seemed to notice, because you know it isn't that they're just too polite to say anything...). Ick ick ick!

Looking forward to a lovely lazy weekend!

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Caution! Edgy

First off, I'm feeling pretty good physically today. I got a good night's sleep and my gullet is more normal (note to self: don't go off the prilosec during chemo week). The only problem is that I'm beginning to realize how fragile I am emotionally. All the stresses I carry around about cancer, appointments, medical tests, teaching, what's in store for me after this round of chemo, (the list is endless), are catching up to me. I am now beginning to understand why so many people in my situation depend on chemicals to keep them sane. In an effort to avoid those chemicals (and their side effects) I'm trying other things.

Today I found iTunes U. If you haven't delved into this treasure trove, I highly recommend it! Classes on anything and everything you can think of from some seriously legit places! Now that I'm getting chemo at a place with WiFi, I might just sit and watch a class during my next drip. I'm getting ahead of myself... Today I downloaded a "class" from UCLA - Recreation called "Yoga Nidra". Holy moly! I went into it a skeptic, but you wouldn't believe how refreshed I felt after just 15 minutes!

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FunPark Beach Blast

Punch your ticket to the rollercoaster excitement of FunPark Beach Blast, the fast-action 50's-themed game filled with sun, sand and thrills!
To get into Big State University, Jamie ditched her part-time, underpaid and up-to-her-ankles-in-grease job for the grooviest summertime position at Fortune Beach Fun Zone. Now she's in charge of running the fastest rides around filled with enough twists, dips and loops to turn faces greener than split-pea soup!
Get rolling with Jamie and give riders a roaring good time in 40 fast-and-furious levels. Run the thrill rides to perfection, manning the turnstile, loading the trains, strapping down the riders and blasting them off. Deal with Preppies, Greasers, Beatniks and mischievous kids on four far-out coasters including the Sea Horse and Poseidon's Revenge. Spend the cash on upgrades, serve cotton candy and improve moods with the VIP Corral. But don't forget to save wisely as well, or Big State U. might give way to Small Town College.

Game Size 16MB

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Cerulean Skies

Join the young witch, Cerulean, on her homeward journey through a magical forest. The forest contains powerful rune tiles, but their magic has been concealed...except to those who can beat a string of clever puzzles! Uncover the magic within the runes, and match them in order to power up Cerulean’s spells! Blast your way through spooky graveyards and mysterious mushroom groves, as you help Cerulean find her way home.

Game Size 23MB

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A Jar of Homemade Goodness

For the past couple of months, I have been buying mangoes (Thai Honey Mangoes) almost every other day. I couldn't resist stocking up these sweet juicy fruits even though they took up so much space in my fridge and kitchen counter. We very much enjoy the fruit on its own, but I have also used it to make ice-blend mango smoothies, mango milkshakes, mango puddings and cakes.

With the 'bounty' of mangoes at my disposal, and, to be able to enjoy the fruits when the season is over, I preserved some  in a jar (^_^)

This mango and passion fruit jam is so simple to make! To a lousy cook like me, it is easier than cooking a pot of porridge!

All you need to do is to peel and cut the fruits, put them in a pot with the sugar and cook till the jam becomes slightly thickened. The cooking time is no more than 10mins. The only extra task is to get the jam bottles sterilised just before canning.

The best thing about making your own jam is that you know what goes into the jar...just fresh fruits and no other additives...not even pectin is used to thicken the jam. Clever pairing of fruits with low-pectin level and those with high pectin will eliminate the use of commercial pectin in jam making. Besides sugar and pectin, acid is also needed in jam making, both for flavour and gel formation. The acid content varies in different fruits and I believe passion fruit is paired here with mango as it has got high acid level. That could also be the reason why most strawberry jam is made with strawberries and lemon juice.

Unlike my Banana and Passion Fruit jam, this time, I removed the seeds from the passion fruit pulp, only the juice is used. This lovely homemade jam is not cloyingly sweet when tasted on its own...in fact it has got a slight tang to it...mainly because of the passion fruit, what's more, the jam smells really good! It goes so well with bread toasts that it has got this effect of 'picks-one-up' instantly, especially when we take our breakfast at 6am in the morning. When I told my younger child I used the jam to make a chiffon cake, he let out a loud 'Hah?!!' I was totally amused by his worried and concern expressions over his face...he thought I have used up all the jam to make the cake! After I assured him that there was still some jam left, he actually heaved a sign of relief! There is no surprise that I will make this jam again soon.



Mango and Passion Fruit Jam

Ingredients:
(yields about 300ml of jam)

500g mango flesh (use firm, just ripped fruits)
50g passion fruit pulp
200g granulated sugar*

Method:

1. Place passion fruit pulp in a sieve, drain remove the seeds and retain the juice.
2. Cut mango into small chunks and roughly mash with a fork. Place mashed mangoes, passion fruit juice and sugar in a stainless steel pot or a large saucepan. Mix well. (Note: use non-reactive pots made with  stainless steel, glass or enamel, avoid pots made with copper, aluminum or cast iron which would react with acid).
3. On medium heat, stirring constantly with a heat-proof spatula or a wooden spoon, bring the mixture to a full rolling boil (when the bubbles do not stop or lessen when you stir it). Once the mixture starts to boil, skim away any excessive foams or bubbles, stirring constantly all the time.
4. Keep at a slow rolling boil for another 5 ~ 10 mins, stirring constantly till the mixture thickens, becomes clearer and transparent (no more foams).
5. Remove from heat. The jam will be a little runny when hot but the consistency will be just right after it has cool off.
6. Ladle hot jam into hot sterilised jars, fill to the brim. Secure lids. Let cool. Unopened jam will keep up to 3 months** if stored in fridge or in a cool, dark cupboard. Once opened, store in fridge and best consumed within 3 weeks**.

how to sterilise glass jars and bottles:
Wash glass jars and lids in hot, soapy water, rinse well. Place jars and lids in a pot. Fill with enough cold water to cover the jars. Place over high heat and bring water to the boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil gently for 10 minutes. Remove jars and lids from boiling water and drain upside down over a clean tea towel. Preheat oven to 110 degC. Place jars and lids upside down on a baking tray. Place in the oven and heat for 15 minutes. Proceed to make the jam while the jars are in the oven. Do use glass jars with lids that come with a gum binder that seals them against the top of the jar.

Note:
*Do not reduce the sugar, as the amount is required to preserve the jam.
** For safe eating practices, do examine the jam frequently for signs of spoilage.

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Grains as Food: an Update

Improperly Prepared Grain Fiber can be Harmful

Last year, I published a post on the Diet and Reinfarction trial (DART), a controlled trial that increased grain fiber intake using whole wheat bread and wheat bran supplements, and reported long-term health outcomes in people who had previously suffered a heart attack (1). The initial paper found a trend toward increased heart attacks and deaths in the grain fiber-supplemented group at two years, which was not statistically significant.

What I didn't know at the time is that a follow-up study has been published. After mathematically "adjusting" for preexisting conditions and medication use, the result reached statistical significance: people who increased their grain fiber intake had more heart attacks than people who didn't during the two years of the controlled trial. Overall mortality was higher as well, but that didn't reach statistical significance. You have to get past the abstract of the paper to realize this, but fortunately it's free access (2).

Here's a description of what not to eat if you're a Westerner with established heart disease:

Those randomised to fibre advice were encouraged to eat at least six slices of wholemeal bread per day, or an equivalent amount of cereal fibre from a mixture of wholemeal bread, high-fibre breakfast cereals and wheat bran.

Characteristics of Grain Fiber

The term 'fiber' can refer to many different things. Dietary fiber is simply defined as an edible substance that doesn't get digested by the human body. It doesn't even necessarily come from plants. If you eat a shrimp with the shell on, and the shell comes out the other end (which it will), it was fiber.

Grain fiber is a particular class of dietary fiber that has specific characteristics. It's mostly cellulose (like wood; although some grains are rich in soluble fiber as well), and it contains a number of defensive substances and storage molecules that make it more difficult to eat. These may include phytic acid, protease inhibitors, amylase inhibitors, lectins, tannins, saponins, and goitrogens (3). Grain fiber is also a rich source of vitamins and minerals, although the minerals are mostly inaccessible due to grains' high phytic acid content (4, 5, 6).

Every plant food (and some animal foods) has its chemical defense strategy, and grains are no different*. It's just that grains are particularly good at it, and also happen to be one of our staple foods in the modern world. If you don't think grains are naturally inedible for humans, try eating a heaping bowl full of dry, raw whole wheat berries.

Human Ingenuity to the Rescue

Humans are clever creatures, and we've found ways to use grains as a food source, despite not being naturally adapted to eating them**. The most important is our ability to cook. Cooking deactivates many of the harmful substances found in grains and other plant foods. However, some are not deactivated by cooking. These require other strategies to remove or deactivate.

Healthy grain-based cultures don't prepare their grains haphazardly. Throughout the world, using a number of different grains, many have arrived at similar strategies for making grains edible and nutritious. The most common approach involves most or all of these steps:

• Soaking
  
• Grinding
• Removing 50-75% of the bran
  
• Sour fermentation
• Cooking
  

But wait, didn't all healthy traditional cultures eat whole grains? The idea might make us feel warm and fuzzy inside, but it doesn't quite hit the mark. A recent conversation with Ramiel Nagel, author of the book Cure Tooth Decay, disabused me of that notion. He pointed out that in my favorite resource on grain preparation in traditional societies, the Food and Agriculture Organization publication Fermented Cereals: a Global Perspective, many of the recipes call for removing a portion of the bran (7). Some of these recipes probably haven't changed in thousands of years. It's my impression that some traditional cultures eat whole grains, while others eat them partially de-branned.

In the next post, I'll explain why these processing steps greatly improve the nutritional value of grains, and I'll describe recipes from around the world to illustrate the point.


* Including tubers. For example, sweet potatoes contain goitrogens, oxalic acid, and protease inhibitors. Potatoes contain toxic glycoalkaloids. Taro contains oxalic acid and protease inhibitors. Cassava contains highly toxic cyanogens. Some of these substances are deactivated by cooking, others are not. Each food has an associated preparation method that minimizes its toxic qualities. Potatoes are peeled, removing the majority of the glycoalkaloids. Cassava is grated and dried or fermented to inactivate cyanogens. Some cultures ferment taro.

** As opposed to mice, for example, which can survive on raw whole grains.

More about → Grains as Food: an Update

Heart Rate

The last several days I've noticed that my heart has been beating very fast. It makes me feel caffeinated and a little edgy. Given the fact that Herceptin sometimes causes damage to your heart muscle, I was worried. So when I went in for my drip today and my heart was still going really fast I asked the nurses about it. They thought it was ok, but they called the doctor in. I talked it through with the doctor, she listened to my heart (which had settled down by this point). Everything sounded ok to her, but to be sure she ordered an EKG. Within about 10 minutes I had an EKG and my heart looks normal (what a relief!). I'll get an appointment with the cardiologist to have an echocardiogram. I had one of those before I started chemo and it is just about time to check and make sure everything is still looking good.

In other news, my liver enzymes are looking much better this week. This is especially surprising since I'm just a week out from chemo. I figure it is a good sign.

Next week will be a big week. I'm going in for a CT Scan of my liver to see how it is responding to the chemo. Fingers crossed that things look as good there as they do in my breast!

All my stress over this stuff has made me realize how important it is for me to find ways to relax. Walking the dog, meditating and taking a bath before bed have all gone a long way to keeping me sane! I need to keep making time for all that stuff (and more).

After being sick for more than 2 weeks, off and on, Keith finally went to the doctor today. Turns out he's not contagious anymore, he might have had more than one cold, but he's gonna be ok. I just feel better knowing he's gotten checked out. His doc said it could be another week or so but he should start clearing up. He needs to rest up so he can be a good host to his folks, who are coming out for a visit in less than 2 weeks!

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Hidden Wonders of the Depths 3 - Atlantis Adventures

Travel to the legendary world of Atlantis for Match 3 fun, and discover the Hidden Wonders of the Depths! Go on an Atlantis Adventure in this hit sequel! Use powerful tiles to clear the path as quickly as you can, and chain together crazy combos to rack up the points. Experience a magical under the sea world as you help bring the once powerful empire back to life in Hidden Wonders of the Depths 3 – Atlantis Adventure!

Game Size 72  MB

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Screenshots:

Have fun and feel free to leave your comments!

Recommended for free users: Use Jdownloader to increase download speed!

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Mystery Cruise

Adventure on the high seas takes on a whole new meaning when Amelie wins a free ticket for the maiden voyage of the Seawind, the finest cruise ship ever built. As she settles in for a week of sunshine and tropical drinks, everyone else on board disappears, leaving her alone to figure out what happened. Before long, however, Amelie discovers she has company of the supernatural sort. Use your hidden object and puzzle solving skills to cr*ck the mystery before time runs out!

Game Size 127MB

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Crime and Punishment - Who Framed Raskolnikov

Travel back in time with Special Agents Alex and Kat to solve one of the most famous, and heinous, crimes in literary history! Get sent back to St. Petersburg in 1866 and discover the motives behind the murder of an old woman. Dive into the world of Crime and Punishment: Who Framed Raskolnikov?? and solve the case using your amazing Hidden Object skills. Can you discover the truth and save an old woman’s life?

Game Size 116MB

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Farm Frenzy 3 Russian Roulette

Scarlett is back in an all-new Farm Frenzy adventure that's out of this world! Having restored farms and fed people all over the world, the plucky heroine of Farm Frenzy 3 thinks she's done it all. But when she learns astronauts are starving because their corrupt boss made a crooked deal with a no-good contractor, she sets her sights higher than ever, vowing to prove herself worthy of taking over the account and feeding the hard-working space walkers three squares a day. To succeed, she'll need to use new buildings, products and friends as she grows crops, feeds animals, collects produce and manufactures goods. Don't miss this exciting new chapter in the award-winning and astronomically fun Farm Frenzy series!

 Updated July 29, 2012

Game Size 64  MB

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Screenshots:

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Little Noir Stories - The Case of the Missing Girl

Lured to an old building by a puzzling picture, Private Investigators Anton Muller and Amelia Chandler step in to solve the mystery and find a missing girl! Track down clues as you follow Mulder and Chandler through a multi-layered investigation where nothing is quite black or white. Everything is connected, and everyone has a story in Little Noir Stories: The Case of the Missing Girl, a fun and exciting Hidden Object game.

Game Size 136MB

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WildHollow

Your parents have gone missing and only you can find them. A whole world filled with dragons, wizards, adventurers and near-sighted barbers awaits you in this exciting adventure!

Game Size 30MB

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BugBits

The sun shines on the Flowery Meadow. The ants are preparing for their daily food gathering as usual. But this day is different! A few bugs turned against these peaceful creatures! Now they have to fight for their home! Immerse yourself in this wonderful microcosm and help the little bugs in their epic battle for freedom and peace in BugBits! Protect your hive against intruders with your army of various beetles in this fun Strategy game!

Game Size 52MB

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Last Heroes 2

Amelia and Roland are headed to Odaro continent, where Amelia thinks she will find her parents and discover the truth about her past... However, reaching Odaro they realize that it won't be an easy task. They join forces with Lutania Army, a group of soldiers that are fighting against Illion.
 Updated!

Game Size 56 MB

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Arvale - Treasure of Memories - Episode II

Dark forces are rising, and the key to defeating them lies in Duncan’s memory – the memory that is now scattered throughout the world of Arvale. Take him on an epic quest to retrieve those memories and thwart certain doom for the entire world, all the while battling monsters, exploring dungeons, challenging dragons, rescuing fair maidens, gathering friends and foes, and – it wouldn’t be an Arvale adventure without this – talking with wheelbarrows.

Game Size 98MB

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Paranormal cinematic activity: ghost film studies

Latest update: April 27, 2010

 Publicity still for The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961). See an excerpt from this film in Nicolas Rapold and Matt Zoller Seitz's L Magazine video essay 'Bad Seeds: Creepy Kids on Film', embedded towards the foot of this entry

Film Studies For Free has gone and spooked itself, today, with its own scary persistence in compiling a list of links to openly accessible, online, scholarly articles, chapters and theses on international ghost film studies. Oh, and there are two related video essays lurking at the bottom to scare the scholarly bejesus out of you for good measure, too (added April 27) .

Like all the best posts at this blog (IOHO), the list below owes its hefty materiality to its connections with FSFF's author's own (hauntological) research, some of which, hopefully, will be directly shared with her fearless readers very shortly. So do please be a revenant, won't you?

• Michael J. Anderson, 'Histoire de Marie et Julien: Jacques Rivette's Material Ghost Story', Senses of Cinema, Issue 32, 2004

• Guy Austin, '"In Fear and Pain": Stardom and the Body in Two French Ghost Films', Scope, Issue 7, February 2007

• Sarah M. Ball, The Uncanny in Japanese and American Horror Film: Hideo Nakata’s Ringu and Gore Verbinski’s Ring, MA thesis, North Carolina State University, 2006  

• Colette Balmain, '“Vengeful Virgins in White”: Female Monstrosity in Asian Cinema', in Niall Scott (ed), Monsters and the Monstrous: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil (Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2004) [scroll down through pdf to p. 123]

• Colette Balmain, 'Inside the Well of Loneliness: Towards a Definition of the Japanese Horror Film', Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies, Discussion Papers, 2006

• Caetlin Benson-Allott , '“Before you die, you see The Ring”: notes on the immanent obsolescence of VHS, from Jump Cut, No. 49, spring 2007

• Lesley Brill, 'M. Night Shyamalan: A Preliminary Report', Senses of Cinema, Issue 46, 2008

• Ture Bural, 'Endland Umpire: A placement of David Lynch's Inland Empire', Perforations, 29, 2007

• Jodey Castricano, 'Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and the Strange Question of Trans-Subjectivity', Jung: the e-Journal of the Jungian Society for Scholarly Studies Volume 2, Number 3, April, 2006

• Brigid Cherry, 'Gothics and Grand Guignols: Violence and the gendered Aesthetics of Cinematic Horror', Particip@tions, Vol. 5, Issue 1, 2008

• Leah A.Cheyne, 'The Sixth Sense: Humanizing Horror', Offscreen Journal, November 30, 2003

• David Church, 'Return of the Return of the Repressed: Notes on the American Horror Film (1991-2006)', Offscreen Journal, Volume 10, Issue 10 (November 25, 2006)

• Michel Ciment, 'Kubrick and the Fantastic', (1982) The Kubrick Site, (date unknown)

• Robyn Citizen, 'Review of The Wounds of Nations: Horror Cinema, Historical Trauma and National Identity by Linnie Blake', Senses of Cinema,Issue 51, 2009

• Ryan Cooke, 'Review of Jay McRoy, Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema. Amsterdam and New York: Editions Rodopi B.V., 2008', Screening the Past,Issue 23, 2008

• Lisa Coulthard, 'Uncanny Memories: Stan Douglas, Subjectivity and Cinema, Scope, 2000

• John Culbert, 'The Well and the Web: Phantoms of Community and the Mediatic Public Sphere', Postmodern Culture, 19.2, January 2009

• Jonathan Eig, 'A beautiful mind(fuck): Hollywood structures of identity', from Jump Cut, Issue 46, 2003

• Thomas Elsaesser, 'The Mind-Game Film' in Warren Buckland (ed), Puzzle Films (Blackwell 2009)

• Carolyn Erler, 'The Obama Code: Ghosts and Monsters in the Visual Datasphere', CTheory.net, Resetting Theory Issue, December 2009
  

• Mark Fisher, 'Home is where the haunt is: The Shining's hauntology', k-punk, January 23, 2006

• Mark Fisher, 'You have always been the caretaker': the spectral spaces of the Overlook Hotel', Perforations, 29, 2007

• Brian Grady, '"We're Engaged to Be Engaged": The Paranormal Activity of Trauma and Relationship', Bright Lights Film Journal, Issue 67, February 2010

• Catherine Grant, 'Giving up Ghosts: Eliseo Subiela's Hombre mirando al sudeste and No te mueras sin decirme a dónde vas', Changing Reels: Latin American Cinema against the Odds, ed. Rob Rix and Roberto Rodríguez-Saona (Leeds: Leeds Iberian Papers - Trinity and All Saints/University of Leeds, 1997), pp. 89-120  

• Coral Houtman, 'Questions of Unreliable Narration in The Sixth Sense', Scope, November 2004

• Wendy F. Hsu , 'Between Narrative and Expressive, Fantasy and Melodrama in Bombay (Bollywood) Film', Virginia Review of Asian Studies, vol. 5 (2003)

• Annamarie Jagose, 'Hollywood Lesbians [Interview with Patricia White about Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability', Genders, 32, 2000

• Fredric Jameson, 'Historicism in The Shining', (1981) The Kubrick Site, (date unknown)

• Brian Jarvis, 'Anamorphic allegory in The Ring, or, seven ways of looking at a horror video', The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies, 3, 2007

• Bruce Kawin, 'Carnival of Souls', The Criterion Collection, Film Essays, 76

• Antonio Lázaro-Reboll , 'The Transnational Reception of El espinazo del diablo (Guillermo del Toro 2001)', Hispanic Research Journal, Vol. 8, No. 1, February 2007, 39–51

• John Lewis, '"Mother Oh God Mother …": Analysing the 'Horror' of Single Mothers in Contemporary Hollywood Horror', Scope, Issue 2, 2005

• Owen Livermore, 'Gun and Other Play: Takashi Miike and Fantasia Festival 2004', Synoptique, December 2004

• Li Zeng, Horror returns to Chinese cinema: an aesthetic of restraint and the space of horror ', from Jump Cut, No. 51, spring 2009

• Luo Hui, 'Chapter Four: Minor Discourses in New Peripheries', The Ghost of Liaozhai: Pu Songling's Ghostlore and its History of Reception, PhD Thesis,University of Toronto, 2009

• Nina K. Martin, 'Dread of mothering: plumbing the depths of Dark Water', from Jump Cut, No. 50, spring 2008

• Ewa Mazierska, 'Between the Sacred and the Profane, the Sublime and the Trivial: The Magic Realism of Jan Jakub Kolski ', Scope, 2000

• Donna McRae, 'Family Demons: The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance', B for Bad Cinema, Colloquy, Issue 18, December 2009

• Thomas Mical, 'Introduction: Hauntology, or Spectral Space', Perforations, 29, 2007  

• Elizabeth Mullen, 'Synæsthetic Specters: Haunting Hill House on the Silver Screen', Image and Narrative, Vol. 10, Issue 1, 2009

• Lindsay Nelson, 'Ghosts of the Past, Ghosts of the Future: Monsters, Children, and Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema', Cinemascope, Issue 13, July-December 2009

• John Orr, 'The Trauma Film and British Romantic Cinema 1940-1960', Senses of Cinema, Issue 51, 2009

• Eimi Ozawa , 'Remaking Corporeality and Spatiality: U.S. Adaptations of Japanese Horror Films, 49th Parallel, Conference Special Edition, Autumn 2006

• N. Payasopon, 'The Cultural and Filmic Elements that contribute to the popularity of the Thai film Nang Nak', BU Review, Volume 2, No. 1, January-June 2003

• Jennifer Proctor, 'Différance, the Spectral, and the Work of Mourning in Aaron Valdez’s dissolve', 2004

• Laurence A. Rickels, 'Recognition Values: Seeing The Sixth Sense Again for the First Time', Other Voices, v.2, n.2 (March 2002)

• Juneko J. Robinson , 'Review: Jay McRoy (2007) Nightmare Japan: Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema. Amsterdam: Rodopi', Film-Philosophy, 14.1, 2010

• Caroline Ruddell, 'Breaking Boundaries The Representation of Split Identity in Anime', Animation Studies – Vol.2, 2007

• Steven Schneider, 'World Horror Cinema and the US: Bringing it all back home', Media in Transition 2: globalization and convergence, May 10-12, 2002, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

• Aaron Smuts, 'Haunting the House from Within: Disbelief Mitigation and Spatial Experience', Film-Philosophy, Vol. 6 No. 7, April 2002

• Donato Totaro, 'Visual Style in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Fantastic” Trilogy, Part 1: The Long Take., Offscreen Journal, November 30, 2003

• Donato Totaro, Visual Style in M. Night Shyamalan’s “Fantastic” Trilogy, Part 2: Mise en Scène', Offscreen Journal, November 30, 2003

• Donato Totaro, 'Tokyo Sonata: Flirting with the Fantastic: Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2008', Offscreen Journal,Vol . 13, Issue 5, 2009

• Dennis Tredy, 'Shadows of Shadows - Techniques of Ambiguity in Three Film Adaptations of “The Turn of the Screw”: J. Clayton’s The Innocents (1961), D. Curtis’s The Turn of the Screw (1974), and A. Aloy’s Presence of Mind (1999)', E-rea, 2.1, 2004

• Nicholas de Villiers, 'Leaving the cinema: metacinematic cruising in Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn', from Jump Cut, No. 50, spring 2008

• Gang Gary Xu, 'Remaking East Asia, Outsourcing Hollywood', Senses of Cinema, Issue 34, 2005

• Young-joon Cho, 'Four Cinema Versions of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde', Thannhouser Company Film Preservation, 2006

• Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh and Neda Hei-tung Ng, 'Magic, Medicine, Cannibalism: the China Demon in Hong Kong Horror', David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, Working Paper Series, Paper Number: 74, April 2008 

Nicolas Rapold and Matt Zoller Seitz's L Magazine video essay
'Bad Seeds: Creepy Kids on Film',

Matt Zoller Seitz's L Magazine video essay
'Unreal Estate: The Scariest Movie Locations of All Time'

More about → Paranormal cinematic activity: ghost film studies

Tasty Cake Experiment

Ever since I started baking, I have been making birthday cakes for my family, no more store bought ones ;) I used to get a little nervous at the thought of making a cake for a special occasion, but I am now so used to the task that I am using it as an opportunity to hone my baking and cake decorating skills.

This is one good example of my recent cake-making experiment. This 'made-to-order' birthday cake was created based on just one piece of information I gathered, "lots of fruits, no cheese please".

I was in no mood to baked a sponge layered cake so I settled for a no-bake chilled cake. Instead of digestive biscuits, the cake base is made with crushed oreo cookies, to make the oreo-cookie monsters in my house happy. I removed the cream in the oreos...and it became an instant treat for my child...he gathered the cream and rolled it between his hands to form 'candy balls'! It was really an unpleasant sight!!

I have decided on a mango mousse filling since I have been buying mangoes in 'bulk'. However, I wanted to do away with the whipping cream or heavy cream that is called for in every single recipe that I looked up in the internet. I had no luck with whatever cookbooks I have on hand too. Since I was quite determined to make the mousse filling without any heavy cream or whipped cream, I went ahead to create my own recipe.

I blended fresh mangoes, passion fruits and some non-fat yogurt, the blender I borrowed from one of my siblings came in handy :) To help the mixture set, I added some gelatin powder (melted in water). Even though I used a 7" pan, the mousse, or rather pudding-like filling was too little. The filling layer  came up to only 1.5", as a result, I had a very short cake :(

Decorating the cake was easy, I simply loaded it with chunks of fresh fruits...mangoes, strawberries and blueberries. Little did I know the mousse layer was not really firm enough to take the weight of the fruits, and the cake started to 'sink'! I guess if I were to add the whipping cream, the texture would be firmer? So after I was done with the decoration, I had to wrap the sides of the finished cake with a plastic strip (cut out from a cookie bag) in order to hold the mousse layer together. I left it to chill in the fridge again hoping it would firm up.

Despite the flaws and a rather odd combination of flavours (oreo with fruits?!), the cake tasted very refreshing, full of fruity flavours...sweet, juicy, and a slight tang from the passion fruit. The filling tasted just like pudding. With everyone asking for second helpings, our family of four wolfed down the entire cake in one setting. It was the first time we didn't have to have leftover birthday cakes for breakfast the next day ;)

Note*: I have posted the recipe here for my own reference. In case you are interested to try this, do note that the ingredient amount for the filling needs further fine-tuning, unless you don't mind a short cake.

Mango Yogurt Pudding Cake

Ingredients:
(makes one 7" cake)

for the biscuit base:
110g oreo cookies (remove cream and finely crumbled)
40g butter, melted and cool

for the filling*:
300g fresh mangoes (use sweet, ripped fruits)
juice from 1 passion fruit (remove seeds)
2 tablespoons caster sugar
200g mango flavoured yogurt (I used peach-mango flavour)
1 tablespoon gelatin powder#
3 tablespoons (45ml) water#

some fruits for decoration

(# I would use 1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons of gelatin, and 60ml water the next time I were to make this again.)

Method:

to make the biscuit base:

Place oreo crumbs and melted butter in a bowl. Mix thoroughly with a spoon until the crumbs are moistened. Press the crumbs evenly into the base of a 7" round pan (with removable base). Use the back of the spoon, smooth out the crumbs and press firmly. You can also use a glass (with a flat base) to press down firmly. Freeze the base for at least 1 hour.

to make the filling:

Measure water into a bowl and sprinkle in the gelatin (without stirring). Set aside to allow the gelatin grains to swell (10 mins) before setting the bowl over a pot of simmering hot water. Stir with a spoon and once the gelatin melts, remove the bowl from the pot and set aside to cool to room temperature.

Blend mangoes, passion fruit juice, sugar, yogurt until the mixture becomes smooth. Add in the gelatin solution to the mixture, mix well. Pour mixture onto the biscuit base. Cover with cling wrap and leave to chill in the fridge over night or for at least 4-6 hours. Remove cake from fridge, unmold and decorate with fruits as desired. Keep the cake in the fridge before serving.

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