Category Archives: Sherry Blurbs

Donuts — “oh-my-nutty-goodness”

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image credit: gotsmile.net

image credit: gotsmile.net

Combine flour, egg, sugar and you get donuts (or doughnuts). Brought over by the Dutch in the 19th century, donuts were fried balls of cake in pork fat.

Despite donuts’ humble origin, mere “olykoeks” or “oil cakes,” there’s much to be loved. I have nothing against anything fried or sweet. Americans love their donuts. Annually, roughly 10 billion donuts are made in the US alone, raising the per capita consumption for donuts to 63 donuts per person. That is, a lot of donuts.

From plain just-glazed-donuts to crazy you-say-what-donuts, donuts have never been so full (wonderful) guilty pleasure. Check out these great Bay Area picks!

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New England Road Trip #1: Boston, History and Best-Value Italian

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Boston, New England’s largest cosmopolitan city, has much to offer. First, it is rich in history. The 2.5-mile Freedom Trail that snakes through town ensures, most definitely, that you will not leave this city without getting a lesson on the American Revolution. Second, it is exciting. Home to the Boston Red Sox, you, if you are a Red Sox fan, will die for a chance to pay homage to Fenway Park. Supposedly the Red Sox got “cursed” after they traded pitcher Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1920s. Nonetheless, the Red Sox exorcised “The Curse” by winning the World Series in 2004, and again in 2007. Third, it is refined. The city’s renowned universities and cultural institutions gain Boston the title of “the Athens of America.”

Gov Center, markets

With so much to do, what should I do? If you, like me, have only one day in Boston, consider devoting the day to Freedom Trail. Start from Boston Common, the oldest public park in the United States. Then walk to City Hall and grab lunch at adjoining Faneuil Market, which is the name given to all five buildings in this shopping complex (images, below). Lastly, finish your walk in the North End (aka Little Italy). Here, you can visit the Old North Church of “One if by land, two if by sea” as well as grab great Italian foods.

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New England Road Trip and Discovering the Much Romanticized Notion of Being “On the Road”

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Viva la road trip! The advent of automobile paired with highway building and cheap gas prices ($0.60 per gallon!) in the 50s meant greater mobility. One could travel great distance in a car compared to horse-drawn carriages.

The drive to go places, to search for something else is best exemplified by Jack Kerouac’s autobiographical On the Road, which captures the essence of the “Beat” sensibility. Despite the fact that Kerouac depicts the Beat generation as “so lonely, so sad, so tired, so quivering, so broken, so beat,” to be “on the road” is largely romanticized and the book portrays the American landscape as expansive and beautiful.

Credit: online image, busbank.com

Credit: online image, busbank.com

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Skydiving (taking a leap of faaaaaiiiiiith)

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WHOOOOOOOOO!!!! Let’s go SKYDIVING!

“Why,” you asked? Well,  “Why not?”

Skydiving seems like something that you must do at least once in your lifetime. Not only does it promise through-the-roof adrenaline, it also gives you a certain degree of boasting right. In fact, afterward, when my sister and I told a bartender what we accomplished, he gave us each a free shot.

19_YEAH

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Like sweet things? You might just be sweet!

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If you love sweets like cookies and cakes, you might just be a sweet person! According to a series of studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, people who prefer sweet foods to other foods (say sour, bitter, salty) are nicer, more agreeable and more likely to help others.

Photo Credit: Web Image, HD Love Wallpaper

Photo Credit: Web Image, HD Love Wallpaper

Makes total sense. What, you ask for proof? Well, what about… moi?

Just kidding. But I do think the theory makes sense. Think about it, are you more likely to be happy after eating something tasty or something mediocre? I would guess the former. The paper’s lead author, Brian Meier, explains that taste affects our mood. Sweet foods give us a sense of “happy or rewarding feeling” (hint: positive mood). Therefore, because you feel happy after eating sweet foods, you are more likely to think positively of other people, as well as more likely to help them out.

What do you think?

Reference: Meier, B. P., Moeller, S. K., Riemer-Peltz, M., & Robinson, M. D. (2011). Sweet taste preferences and experiences predict prosocial inferences, personalities, and behaviors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, DOI: 10.1037/a0025253

 

Spice up your life! (literally, with spices)

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Spice Girls are probably not singing about spices in “Spice Up Your Life,” but you can bet that spices—red chili, nutmeg, oregano, thyme—do spice up your meals!

Spices make a big difference in enhancing the flavors of life. And they do more than just add flavor to foods, they can also stimulate the senses (smell, taste) and even serve as aphrodisiacs, according to an article in Psychology Today.

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Men say ‘I love you’ first, but women love longer

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I recently came across a study that says men start thinking about professing their love about three months into the relationship whereas women start thinking about it around five months into the relationship. [Source: “The Love Code.” Psychology Today Sept. 2011: 16. Print.] 

My initial reaction was that it made sense from an evolutionary standpoint. After all, women have a lot more to lose by committing to a potential unworthy mate. But the more I thought about love and the difference between men and women when it comes to falling in love, the more intangible the word “love” means to me. Not only do we use the word “love” rather carelessly—from “I love ice cream” to “I love my new boots” to “I love my boyfriend/girlfriend”— we also lack synonyms to categorize increments of love. There is no single adjective to describe loving someone a little bit, somewhat or a lot.

(image credit: fanpop.com)

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“Thank you!” for this 19th Century Invention: Vibrator

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Hysteria is a psychological condition that displays uncontrolled outbursts of emotion and behaviors. The term, for the majority of history, more than 4,000 years, was regarded as a sex-selective disorder, affecting only women.

What were some of the outdated theories behind “female” hysteria? There was the uterus theory, which claimed the female sex organ was to be blamed for female problems like anxiety, insomnia, depression, irritability and fainting.  There was also Sigmund Freud’s famous ‘Oedipal moment of recognition’ theory, which stated that women experienced hysteria because they were unable to reconcile the loss of their (metaphoric) penis.

With that introduction in mind, I’d like to share with you Hysteria (2011). The film, Official Selection for both Toronto and Tribeca Film Festival, looked at a time in history when female hysteria was a common medical diagnosis, and the prevalence of the condition also led to the creation of vibrators.

Women suffering from hysteria (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

Women suffering from hysteria (Photo Credit: Wikipedia)

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