Slow Fast Food

Image courtesy of lataco.com

Well, now that I've revived the blog, I have to decide what to do with it. There are so many directions to go that I just can't decide.

Maybe it could be a spot for restaurant reviews, in which case I should tell you about Naan of the Above in Arcata, where I had lunch today.

It's sort of a stationary mobile restaurant. I mean, it's on wheels like a taco truck but tidier and more colorful. One eats al fresco, perched uncomfortably on lightweight resin patio furniture, trucks blasting by drowning out conversation, wind whipping through blowing the paper napkins off the table.

It's like fast food, except, well, not fast.

And not cheap either, at 9 bucks and change for two samosas and a mango lassi. The samosas were delicious and so was the lassi, but I think the price is too steep. I would like to have tried more things on the menu (like the kheer or the naan), but I couldn't afford it.

The al fresco part sounds nice but the location isn't good. And on a cool day like today, I'd prefer comfortable indoor dining.

And my favorite Indian restaurant remains: Eureka's buffet at Pak Indian Cuisine. Especially the chai, the rice pudding, naan, the chicken tikka masala and the dahl. Sometimes, there's even okra. All you can eat and Bollywood on the big screen: works for me.

If only it was closer to my work.

Back

After a six-month silence, here I am, back again. With such little activity, it's likely there are no more readers of the Bitten Apple out there.

During this time, I have archived all the posts I ever wrote since the inception of this blog in 2008, saved them all as Word files, began the project of printing them out into book form, for no better reason than a person would have for saving an old journal. For posterity, or something like that. But what happened to the Bitten Apple?

2009 was clearly the its heyday, and 2010 was definitely its year of decline; 91 posts in 2008, 128 in 2009 and 20 in 2010.

You might wonder, did I lose interest in writing? In writing publicly? Did I run out of things to say? To ponder? Not exactly.

It was a combination of things, the completion of a project, life changes. In May 2010, grad school ended, ending also the long, arduous process of researching and writing my graduate thesis. That process was a dark time of enforced house arrest, stuck with an overactive mind and a computer that I dare not stray too far from. I had leftover musings, and they found their way to the blog.

When that ended, it was like the sun came out, like I was set free into the bright sunshine with no desire to devote hours to writing. I fell in love, flew kites, had picnics, partied.

I also job hunted and worked three jobs at once, university teacher on weekday mornings, marketing assistant weekday afternoons, assistant newspaper editor on Sundays. This didn't leave a lot of extra time.

The blog itself became less hospitable. Suffice it to say it became less enticing to share anything meaningful here.

In addition to that, 2010 was a tumultuous year, and my feelings weren't often fit for publication.

Finally, there is the fact (still remaining) that the things that interest me, amuse me and shock me hardly ever seem to coincide with what has similar effect on others. TV annoys me, journalism is in decline, I hate it that NPR reported on which Superbowl commercials were best. I was already a complete grammar nerd thanks to descriptive linguistics, and now that I work for a tech company, I am even nerdier than ever.

So, while there is plenty on my mind, I haven't been sure that sharing any of it here was such a great idea.

I've felt the lack, though, the absence of an outlet, a place to process impressions, a way to add dimension and meaning to the everyday incidents of life.

So I'm back.