Sheron Long's Blog, page 3
November 23, 2020
In the Kitchen with OIC: “Pan” Cultural Cuisine!
In lockdown? Don’t flip out—flip a pancake instead!
Gilaxia/ iStock
Easy Pancakes from Around the World
Rembrandt sketched them. Shakespeare wrote them into his plays. Sweden established an academy in their honor. They’ve starred in ancient tales and modern movies, inspired mad dashes and dashes of spice and color.
They are pancakes. For many of us, that means a common breakfast food that takes minutes to cook, seconds to eat, and hours to walk off. In fact, that little circle on your plate connects to a multitude of ingredients, shapes, languages, and traditions. Oh, I see: Known by hundreds of names and varieties around the world, this food encompasses a rich “pan” cultural cuisine.
Let’s explore this sisterhood of the traveling pancakes. Along the way, we’ll see how different kinds of pancakes stack up. On your return, peruse our menu of online classes to cook...
November 17, 2020
Gaining Perspective in a Chaotic World
Time to shake things up?
© Meredith Mullins
The Rewards of Seeing from Varied Angles
How often does your perspective change these days? Can you think of times when you expanded your view of a situation or of the world just by changing your point of reference?
Perhaps when you summited a mountain and the 360-degree vista expanded exponentially while distant objects became flattened miniatures that suddenly seemed small in the grander scheme of things?
Or, when you looked down and found a detail in the street that you’d never seen before even though you’d walked over it a thousand times?
Or, maybe when you crawled through that narrow opening between cave rocks and discovered a cathedral ceiling of stalactites in an underworld worthy of Raiders of the Lost Ark?
Hidden treasures through just a crack in the rocks
Photo courtesy of PxHere
Changing how you see the world is important...
November 9, 2020
You Can’t Just Make Up Words—Oh, Really?
Spoiler alert: This page turner’s ending is all about the . . . zyzzyva!
lilbellule789/ Pixabay
Language Lesson: How to Invent a Word
It’s become a sitcom trope: One character’s remark prompts another character to retort, “That’s not even a word!” or “You can’t just make up words!”
But according to the most widespread, time-honored language lore, people have been inventing words ever since the guttural grunts of one human first morphed into vocal patterns that made sense to other humans.
Let’s settle this with the world’s shortest language lesson, here.
Oh, I see: Making up words is precisely how language happens. When people invent a word, language grows and goes out into the world, keeping robust pace with ever-changing ideas and events until the time comes to pass the torch to other new language.
As the words turn: The word TV (first known use: 1945) spawned TV...
November 1, 2020
Ears Wide Open: Answers to the Soundscapes Challenge
Sometimes we make our own soundscape memories.
© Meredith Mullins
How Did You Do?
Did your listening skills rise to the test of The OIC Soundscapes Challenge? We hope so.
Here are the answers.
Soundscape #1
The Challenge:
https://www.oh-i-see.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Sound-1.m4a
The Answer:
If audio does not display, listen here.
The mesmerizing mountain gorillas can be found in Uganda, Rwanda, and The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
This recording was made in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda. Not only can you hear the gorillas having a lively conversation, but you can also hear the twigs and leaves being broken off for a delicious vegetarian dinner.
Soundscape #2
The Challenge:
https://www.oh-i-see.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Soundscape-2.mp3
The Answer:
The Duomo Bells of Florence
© iStock/ChiccoDodiFC
Church bells around the world each have...
October 27, 2020
Ears Wide Open: The OIC Soundscapes Challenge
What do you see, smell, taste, feel . . . and hear in this bustling street?
© Meredith Mullins
Turn Up the Sound on Your Travel Adventures
Take a moment. Close your eyes. What do you hear?
Silence? Auditory stimuli that provide clues to where you are? Sounds that might remain in your sense memory for some time to come?
Especially when we travel, all our senses are alive. We see. We smell. We touch. We taste. We hear.
Sights, smells, and a symphony of baa’s.
© Meredith Mullins
Travel adventures are enhanced when we are multisensory. Oh, I see. Soundscapes can expand our experience exponentially.
Often, one or more or our senses registers a memory. The vision of the Parthenon in the Athens moonlight or a camel fair in the dusty desert. The smell of French boulangeries as the early morning baguettes are baking. The warmth of the sand on a Thai beach or the humidity of an Amazon...
October 20, 2020
In the Kitchen with OIC: Peruvian Cuisine
Chef Rodrigo Fernandini grew up in Chiclayo, capital of Peruvian gastronomy.
© Rodrigo Fernandini
What’s on Chef Fernandini’s Menu? Peruvian Culture!
In California, the cooking class was starting on Zoom. In Oregon, I hesitated. On the one hand, I was eager to explore Peruvian cuisine for “In the Kitchen with OIC,” our newest recurring feature. On the other hand, I missed travel, open-air markets, rolling up my sleeves in foreign kitchens. I missed food tours, following local experts along unfamiliar streets.
I wanted real.
Peru was on my 2020 itinerary. Instead, I was exploring the culture of my studio apartment. OK, fine. I’d try Chef Fernandini’s online cooking class. As I logged on, I sighed. Would it be just another Zoom meeting?
It . . . was . . . exhilarating! A kinesthetic thrill that had us up and moving, prepping, stirring, tasting, listening,...
September 28, 2020
Voilà! The Poetry of Untranslatable Words
Linguistic trivia says that the Inuits have 50 words for snow. But how, in languages,
do you find the one perfect word to describe something—le mot juste?
© Meredith Mullins
Wordplay with Meaning
We live in challenging times. We have had to become super-adaptable beings, asking ourselves every day how to cope with the multitude of new normals.
What changes emerge?
Have you, like most of the world, savored hyggelig and gezelligheid?
Have you searched for moments of beauty in komorebi, mångata, and psithurism?
Have you had the urge to commit to jijivisha and to integrate firgun and merak into life rhythms?
Wait a minute, you’re saying to yourself. What language are we speaking here? We’re not that adaptable. What do these cryptic words mean?
Has OIC Moments lapsed into a world of jabberwocky—wordplay with nonsense words that have no meaning? No . . . we are just taking a...
September 21, 2020
WFH? Employ Proverbs from Around the World!
It’s “Take Your Kids to Work Day”! Every . . . single . . . day.
© doble-d/ iStock
Old Sayings for New Work Habits
Coined in 2000, it’s trending again—WFH, “working from home.” For years, Big Business has replaced leisurely language with speed-talking code. As in “FYI, the CEO wants the YTD P&L ASAP!” Now, as many offices remain closed, the busyness of business-speak has followed us home.
Soon we’ll be talking about doing WTMW (way too much work) from our HSHO (home, sweet home office). We’ll care for BFMs & APs (beloved family members and adorable pets) while managing the NEHC (never-ending household chores). But before we get to the PONR (point of no return), let’s consider a different kind of WFH—Wisdom From History.
Long ago, every culture “created shareable content” in the form of proverbs. Somehow...
September 14, 2020
The Paris Pigeon Man
The Paris Pigeon Man
© Meredith Mullins
Adding Layers to Traveling Stories
Every city has its celebrity characters, from the naked cowboy in New York’s Times Square to the ragged beggar in Bucharest, who spends his day asking for money and then gives it all to the local church.
Finding these characters, by chance or by design, adds adventure to one’s traveling stories.
Every city has their celebrity characters, making traveling stories much more interesting.
© iStock/Don Miller
Paris is no exception. You can meet an interesting personality on almost every street corner or in the winding metro tunnels—from mimes to musicians, immobile human statues to fire breathers, sidewalk artists to puppeteers.
A cast of characters for your traveling stories
© Meredith Mullins
They are a provocative part of a culture. And each has a story to tell, if you take time to travel to the next...
September 8, 2020
It’s a Math World After All
Schools & libraries minus students times pandemic = many variables in where we learn.
Andrew Tan/ Pixabay
Math Connections Across Cultures
Every September, billions of students around the world go back to school. But in 2020, “back to school” favors logging on from home. Fortunately, remote learners can still enjoy everybody’s favorite subject—math.
Oh, it’s not your favorite? Well, before you count math out, please join me on a virtual math field trip. No masks, no calculus required.
We’re off to discover how people have made math connections across cultures. We’ll count on traditional number systems and weigh in on the world’s most unusual units of measurement. We’ll even collect souvenirs—cross-cultural math tips that quickly translate equations into solutions.
Guess the missing numbers
High...
