Gowanus- A Photo Tour

Today was not a good day to take pictures. There was bad light, it was cold, and I managed to get a lens stuck on the D200. We also had a lunch date with some friends but I was determined to take some pictures.

I've been shooting a lot of nice, happy Park Slopey scenes lately but my favorite thing to shoot is run down industrial areas and we happen to have one right down the block from us. The Gowanus canal is a rather infamous waterway. It was created as a commercial waterway and general open sewer and has a long and sordid history. It is surrounded by old, well established Brooklyn neighborhoods but manages, through a combination of sewage, industrial waste, and the m..o..b.. to remain an industrial wasteland.

Below are some highlights of the canal. I should also mention that it was a day of photo first: first time trespassing to get a shot, getting chased by dogs, mobbed by pigeons, climbing a fence, and almost passing out from the smell.

Turkey Chili

Nothing says "Bring it on winter" like chili. But nothing say gastrointestinal inflation like chili. So a year ago when I first attempted to make chili, I needed to adapt it to be both hearty and not require a night on the couch. This recipe is originally adapted from a Rachel Ray chili but it is one of those things that is easily adapted to suit your taste, ingredients, and requirements. I also chose to make it with ground turkey because its healthier than beef and you don't get that gross ring of grease on the top. Ground turkey can be tough so I included some tips to keep it from turning to rubber. I usually make a pot of this every other week and I always bring it for lunch and Peter enjoys it for dinner.

A word on beans. I use kidney beans because they don't upset my stomach. If I use black beans they make me really sick. Use what type work for you.

Turkey Chili
Served 8-10
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Active Cook Time: 15 minutes
Simmer Time: 30-45 minutes

30 oz frozen veggies (I like peas, carrots, and corn but what ever you like)
2 lbs Ground Turkey
1 tbs tomato paste
1 small onion, roughly chopped
4 cloves of garlic, through a garlic press or finely diced
2 tbs olive oil
43 oz crushed tomatoes (1 large can, 1 small)
15 oz diced tomatoes
47 oz kidney beans (3 small cans)
1/4 cup chili powder
1 tbs onion powder
1 tbs granulated garlic powder
1 tbs ground cumin
1/4 tbs Cayenne pepper
1/4 tbs red pepper flakes
1 tbs salt
1 tbs pepper

In a large dutch over or stew pot, heat the olive oil and brown the onion. We like to use our 8 oz oval Emile Henry ceramic dutch over because it can go right in the fridge. When soft, add the garlic and the tomato paste. Add the ground and diligently break up the meat until it is light grey in color and looks like ground beef. It will have a tendency to clump so you need to work it to keep it the right texture.

Once it is browned, added the diced and crushed tomatoes, kidney beans, and chili powder. Simmer for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for 30-45 minutes. Add spices to taste, it will take some playing around to get it how you like it.

If you want non-spicy chili, eliminate the cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes. If you want a smokier flavor, add some bacon or chilpotle peppers. You can also add a cup or two of beer for flavor.

This is a very easy, pantry recipe that can stretch all week. Once you make it using this ingredient list, you'll see how easy it is to improvise!

Nice Doggie

I'm someone who is scared of my own shadow. I am also someone who is pretty observant. In my daily existence on the F train I have noticed a pair of dogs that appears to roam the Gowanus rooftops. On a photo jaunt this morning, I noticed the dogs and remarked to a pair of romantically involved hipsters that they were guard dogs (What they asked!). I got a few shots of the dogs with the 200mm lens and didn't think much else about them.

As I was walking down 3rd street I heard barking, looked up, and saw the dogs trying their best to scare the pants off of me. Look at the picture, even I wasn't scared by their fierce barks. I was terrified by another guard dog that surprised me as I was trespassing and I respected it by running the hell away from it. I've only seen it in the movies but in Brooklyn, they really do keep junkyard dogs on chains!

The Uglies

A friend of mine has a couple of puppies. She's been warning me for weeks that they are going to go through their uglies and that time has come to pass. They have dropped all of their hair and look unlike adorable puppies and like ugly rats.

I went through that period. Luckily, it wasn't when I was a teenager it was when I was born. My mom likes to say, affectionately of course, that I looked like Charles Bronson until I was two. Going through my dad's pictures last night, I found some photographic evidence of this. Trust me, these are the good pictures. In almost every one I look like I'm going to eat someone's face off.


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My sister on the other hand, always looks adorable, even when she's covered in food or has just fallen down. These are the ugliest pictures I could find of her and she still looks better dressed with great hair.




I found a ton of pictures of us when we're 1,2,3 years old and I have to say, we're totally and completely adorable. My dad took so many pictures of us it feels like we must have had a camera trained on us all the time. Even though we're so close in age, you can see that my sister is almost always acting like the big sister, keeping me safe, and trying to stop me from eating her arm.

Fall

It's very officially fall in Brooklyn. It's been an exciting few weeks with the election, economic collapse, pregnant friends, etc and I haven't done too much aside from worry, work, socialize, curl up with a good book, and take an afro-Caribbean dance class. I haven't had too much time to take pictures.

This weekend we had a surprise visitor. A close friend of my husband who got bumped from his flight. He called us and headed in and we got to have a lovely lunch with him. I wanted to take him to one of Park Slope's famous brunch places but all of those had really long waits and we were hungry. We ended up at the diner but it was great just to hang out, talk about Aikido, and revel in the election.

I took a bunch of shots and these are just a sample. I took these all within a 2 block radius of our house and a bunch from our roof. We also drove our friend out to NJ and the leaves and sunset put on quite a show for him.

Just a weather note: It was beautiful yesterday but today it's freezing and the temperature is heading even farther south. I fear we may take a direct route to winter. I really miss our old fireplace but will just have to take comfort in a big bowl of homemade chicken soup. Try roasting some garlic and adding it to your chicken soup, it adds a really extra layer of favor.

I Used To Be An Academic

I used to be an academic and I have a few extra initials, publications, and presentations under my belt to prove it. I soundly rejected academia after I graduated because I found that I don't have the temperment for it. I'm a bit too big picture focused to hunker down and circle around one main idea until I get tenure and turn into a vulture circling around the endless grantmanship corpse.

What I do have is a real love of the research and the play of ideas. I'm never as happy as when I'm applying my framework to a situation and thinking about how the small details fit into the larger sceme of the system. I'm never as unhappy as when I'm forced to write it up. See, I'm not an academic and I'm not a writer. I'm a talker and a "thinker out loud"er and often joked with the researchers that I worked with that I should just get a tape recorder and transcribe what I had just said.

I just had a paper accepted at a conference. Well, actually, I just had an abstract accepted at a conference, the paper needs to come next and that's its own mess.

What the acceptance inspired in me was what I wanted to research next. I have an opportunity to do some research on a new program where kids take some very specialized science classes that lead to internship the following year. One interesting aspect is that the research scientists teach the kids and then the kids work in their labs. This is actually a pretty new idea at this grade level but not one that particularily interests me.

The interesting aspect of this research project is the way the students process their experiences. Recent research demonstrated that it is important to give kids and opportunity to share their experiences with their peers, compare notes in a way, and to discuss what their learning and adjusting in a professional scientific research lab. What we have set up is a duel system for that: an in person moderated discussion group and an online version. Why is this interesting to me?

Well, I'll have to take you back a step. The most interesting piece of research that I did was about how kids participate in the classroom. There is an idea called "gatekeeping" in which someone or something controls the flow of participation, favoring or blocking participation based on their own sense of how participation should happen. A classic example of this is how teachers will only call the kid with her hand raised and scold the kid who just shouts out. The teacher is priviledging on form of participation over another. In terms of classroom management this is a totally legit thing to do but research has shown that this is also about the teacher's notions of student's abilities and a whole slew of other thing.

I took this idea and applied it to how students gatekeep one another. Classic example, a girl is called on by the teacher, gives her answer and is then mocked or shot down by another classmate. If the teacher then shuts down the other student she is the gatekeeper, if not, the student is the gatekeeper. In the world of middle school, that dominant and aggressive student is sending all sorts of signals that shape participation regardless of the teachers response. There is a wide variety of ways to apply this framework.

For this current project I would like to apply this framework by comparing gatekeeping in the in person class and the online environment. Once you change the participation methods, raising ones hand vs an asyncronous reply online, you may change the way that students gatekeep. Give that we can observe this type of stuff in both settings it strikes me as a good opportunity.

The first thing I have to do is publish the initial paper and the second is to do some research into online participation. After months of essential brain death, it is nice to finally get the juices flowing again.

A Historic Day

I'm writing this post right before the election results start to come in. I'm nervous as hell. We voted this morning at our new precinct in Brooklyn and were surprised to find such a mess inside the polling place. The line, which stretched around the corner, down the block, and down the next street moved very quickly. Since we're new to the neighborhood it was great to meet some new people and to see the diversity of our district. Unlike my last lily white suburban district, ours is a relatively diverse in age and race. It was a beautiful day and we dutifully waited for our turn. When we got inside it was pretty chaotic.

We were done in about an hour and a half so I've had all day to sit around and freak out. I've been reading people's stories from the day and have choked up many times. I also really miss my dad. He was a political junkie and would have been very excited about this race. I talked with my sister this morning about his quirky sense of humor and predicted some of the jokes he would have told.

So I'm heading out to a party to watch the polls close. When I get back, we'll either have the first black president or the first female VP. Historic in deed.